Any website relies heavily on the success of its Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. This strategy is influenced by two main forces: what happens on your site (on-page SEO) and what happens off your site (off-page SEO). On-page SEO is the optimization of elements on an individual web page—including the content, HTML source code, and images—to improve its visibility, increase its ranking potential, and better serve visitors. Every element of on-page SEO is something you or your content team can directly control, test, and perfect to signal search engine bots what the page is about, how relevant it is to specific user queries, and how high-quality the user experience is.
On-page and off-page SEO work together, but they address different aspects of a successful website. Here, we’ll put the primary focus on on-page SEO.
Content Optimization
Users and search engines visit your site because of your content. So, it’s no surprise that the best thing you can do is improve that content to rank better on search engines. There are a few key things to focus on.
Keyword Strategy and Intent
Optimization begins by understanding search intent—what the user is looking for when they type a search query. There are several types of intent, including:
Informational intent: Users seeking knowledge (“how does a vacuum work”). Your content should be a comprehensive guide or tutorial.
Commercial intent: Users researching a purchase (“best vacuum cleaners 2025”). Your content should be a comparison or review.
Transactional intent: Users ready to buy ( “buy Dyson V15”). Your content should be a product page or a shopping cart.
When you understand your visitors’ search intent, you can target specific keywords by strategically placing them naturally throughout your content. Google has moved beyond simple keyword matching and now looks for semantic relevance, meaning that you’ve used your primary keyword, secondary keywords, and related terms in natural ways to cover the topic thoroughly.
Quality and Depth
The modern search landscape demands that content align with Google’s E-E-A-T quality criteria. E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. The top-ranking content will showcase deep knowledge, cite sources, use statistics, and original research to demonstrate experience and expertise.
Of course, that’s not always possible for all kinds of content. In that case, depth and readability are especially important. Every kind of content is different and may require more or less comprehensiveness, but the average top 10 ranking page on the web is about 2,200 words, so it’s something to think about. Longer, more thorough, better researched content often ranks better.
The more you write, however, the more important it is to organize your content. Keep paragraphs short, use bulleted lists where possible, and clearly structure your content with headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.). A clean, readable page encourages users to stay longer, which sends strong engagement signals to search engines.
HTML Optimization
HTML tags act as signposts for search engine bots, helping them index your content efficiently and accurately. They include:
Title Tag
The Title Tag is the blue, clickable headline in the search results. Often called a meta title, it’s the single most important piece of code for relevance signaling. It should include the primary keyword, be unique for every page on your site, and be compelling enough to encourage clicks. Keep it under 60 characters to avoid truncation.
Meta Description
The Meta Description is the short summary snippet that appears below the Title Tag in the search results. It’s not a direct ranking factor, but it can help improve click-through rate (CTR), which in turn bolsters your rankings.
Use a Meta Description as a pitch for your content. It should have a benefit-driven statement and a clear call to action (CTA) to motivate the searcher to click.
Header Tag
We mentioned Header Tags a moment ago, but let’s go into a little more depth. Header Tags range from <h1> to <h6> and are used to structure and organize your content, making it easier for both users and crawlers to digest.
An <h1> is used for the main title of the page and creates the biggest text. Your <h2> will delineate the main sections of the article, and <h3> breaks down subsections without those sections. In most cases, you won’t go beyond <h3>.
A well-structured page hierarchy signals organization and logical flow to search engines, but it also just makes your page more aesthetically pleasing for readers.
Image Optimization
Images significantly impact page load speed and accessibility. Use modern formats like WebP and compress images to ensure they load instantly, supporting your site’s Core Web Vitals. Likewise, always use alt text on images to support accessibility and remain compliant with web requirements. Alt text is just a brief, descriptive sentence that explains the image to visually impaired users and search engine bots. It should be descriptive and, where relevant, include target keywords naturally.
Technical & User Experience (UX) Factors
Technical and UX elements determine the health of your site and how effectively Google can crawl and understand it.
URL Structure
A clean, logical URL is easier for users to remember and for search engines to process. Use short, human-readable URLs and separate words with hyphens to make the URLs easier for human readers to understand. For example, this page uses /what-is-on-page-seo since that’s the primary keyword we’re targeting.
Core Web Vitals
Google’s Core Web Vitals measure the real-world user experience of a page, including:
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): How fast the main content loads.
FID (First Input Delay): How quickly the page responds to user input, like a click.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): How visually stable the page is (does content jump around as it loads?).
Optimizing these metrics is critical for ranking and reducing bounce rate.
Mobile-First Indexing
Google now primarily uses the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking. Ensuring your page is fully responsive—meaning the layout and functionality adapt seamlessly to all devices—is essential.
Internal Linking
Internal links (links from one page on your domain to another page on your domain) serve two main purposes:
They help users discover more of your content.
They distribute the authority (PageRank) your homepage or high-ranking pages have earned to newer or deeper pages on your site, boosting their ranking potential.
For instance, you might like to read more of our marketing and sales content. (There’s a link for you right there!)
Schema Markup
Schema is code added to a page to help search engines better understand its content. While not a direct ranking factor, it can lead to Rich Results (like FAQ boxes, review stars, or recipe cards) in the SERPs, dramatically increasing visibility and CTR.
FAQs
There’s no limit, but it’s a good idea to keep your tag under 60 characters to ensure the title doesn’t get cut off in the search results.
It’s both! Page speed deals with the HTML, images, and code that you control on your server. But it’s often managed by a Technical SEO team, so it’s really part of both groups’ domains.
You should update content when it becomes outdated or when you see competitor content outranking yours due to superior quality. An annual review of your top content is a good best practice.
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