On-Page SEO: 5 Elements and Strategies You Should Know

Are you a business owner and owning a website? In fact, 85% of SMEs in Australia use websites to showcase their services. Yet, the most important thing about your website is how it can be effortlessly discovered by audiences. Regarding this, using SEO is the answer. 

Moreover, 36% of smaller companies in Australia utilise SEO effectively, a 3% rise from 2019. To sit in the prominent rank, you can use various SEO tactics, one of them is on-page SEO. 

This guide will lead you to employ it for your website so that you can turn online visitors into loyal customers.

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is the practice of optimising web pages to improve traffic and rank on search engines. As it is named, on-page means you are maximising the inside of your website. 

The activities involve optimising content based on search intent, metadata, URLs, internal links, and many more. 

Subsequently, search engines consider keywords and other SEO components that align with the user's search query. Search engines are attempting to determine whether or not the content is relevant to the user.

Why Is On-Page SEO Essential?

Just like other SEO components, on-page SEO is important for your website because Google prioritises content with a good user experience and puts audiences first. 

One tactic you can use to maximise your website’s user experience is by employing on-site SEO. You can offer relevant and valuable content matching search intent to give a great journey for users. 

Besides, on-site SEO also gives you these benefits:

• Getting relevant audiences: Producing user-first content will draw relevant or targeted audiences to your business. 
• Improving business growth: The expansion of online businesses is also impacted by on-page optimisation. Businesses benefit from increased audience reach and improved website rankings as a result.
• Increasing traffic: Websites that lack on-page SEO find it more difficult to attract visitors and receive little traffic. Adjusting it under the on-page elements raises the possibility of traffic leading to conversions.
• Cost-effective method: In contrast to SEM, which charges you each time a visitor clicks on an advertisement, SEO is a form of business publication that doesn't involve a lot of expenses.

The Components of On-Page SEO

There are some components of on-page SEO you should consider during the optimisation, such as:

1. E-E-A-T 

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, or E-E-A-T is a signal for Google to analyse the overall credibility and quality of web information. 

Google is indicating that it regards the content creator's credentials, reputation, and firsthand, practical knowledge of the subject by going to E-E-A-T.

Yet, please note that Google's search algorithm does not directly consider E-E-A-T when assigning rankings. Rather, human quality raters utilise it as a reference to assess the general quality of search results.

2. Internal Links

Internal links are links within an article that remain in the same domain as the article itself. Internal links are important for on-page SEO because they help users understand longer-form content, navigate websites more easily, and rank higher in related articles on the same website.

3. Schema Markup

Schema markup is a type of code that improves content presentation in search results by assisting search engines in comprehending the content. 

Because highly organised websites are more entertaining and capable of answering audience queries, they tend to have higher click-through rates.

If you find it challenging to create markup schemas, you can take advantage of supporting tools like these we have at cmlabs. These tools can simplify the process and help ensure that your schemas are accurate and effective. 

4. Alt Text

Alt text is a written description of an image explaining the picture's context when it fails to load. Not only can alt-text facilitate search engine understanding and ranking, but readers with visual impairments can also benefit from this feature.

5. Content Based on FAQ and PAA

Aside from search intent in general, you must create content based on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and People Also Ask (PAA) on search results. 

This is because FAQ and PAA consist of frequently asked queries that you must cover to be relevant to the users. 

On-Page SEO Best Practices

In carrying out on-page SEO, you must pay attention to the components above and implement them to these best practices:

1. Produce Helpful and Original Content

Content comprehensiveness becomes crucial when you employ on-page SEO. To do so, you should produce top-notch and pertinent content for your readers. 

Regarding this, you can begin by researching keywords for topics you want to write using tools like Google Keyword Planner or Sequence Stat. 

You can target high-volume keywords but have less difficulty. Ranking for more competitive keywords is far more challenging. 

You can also target long-tailed keywords which usually have lower keyword difficulty and search volume, meaning that you can easily rank for them. 

After getting the keywords, you must place them naturally and strategically across your content. Avoid doing keyword stuffing to prevent being penalised by Google, from affecting your rank and reputation. 

You can spread your keywords in heading 1, subheadings, and the first paragraph to help Google comprehend your content. 

In terms of content uniqueness, make sure you answer queries through your writing, include visual aids, and write for search intent. Do not forget to organise it with headings and subheadings to be more structured and readable. 

However, you do not need to make it too long because long content is not always good. If you are using wordy sentences to make your content long, you may confuse the readers, which leads to poor user experience. 

This is bad since it can trigger a higher bounce rate –the rate of people leaving your site before finishing the entire journey. 

2. Optimise Metadata

Along with the content, you should also optimise the metadata: title tag and meta descriptions. These components can attract users to visit your content or site. 

For the title tag, you must make it brief (50-60 characters) to prevent Google from cutting it off. Then, you can put a targeted keyword on it to tell Google and users that you have the relevant content. 

Meanwhile, to make a meta description, you can make it to 120 characters to be mobile friendly, incorporate the main keyword on it, and use active voice to deliver the message. 

3. Maximise URLs

Google advises utilising straightforward URLs that don't appear menacing or unclear. To help people understand the purpose of your page, utilise phrases that are pertinent to your content.

One approach to make sure your URL is relevant to the subject of your content is to include your main keyword in it. In contrast, avoid using unclear numbers, full sentences, and publish dates. 

4. Include Internal and External Links

Internal links are important to aid search engines in deciphering the organisation of your website and the relationships between its pages, facilitating the discovery and navigation of new pages by Google crawlers, letting Google know that the page they've linked to is worthwhile, and enhancing users' browsing of your website.

On the other hand, external links, or links on your website that lead to external websites, will help you gain trust and improve user experience. 

5. Optimise Visual

As explained before, alt text on visual images is beneficial for users and search engines to understand the context of it. You can put targeted keywords to your alt text and make sure to make it brief. In addition, keep the image size small to support the load times by compressing it. 

Those are the on-page strategies you can adhere to for better traffic and user experience. If you want a greater result, you can also do advanced strategies like adding schema markup and targeting featured snippets.

To make your on-page attempts effective, you can trust the process to SEO Services by cmlabs. Get connected with our marketing right now and let's work together to start achieving real results and expanding your business!