A maximum of small businesses do not do SEO. This is … weird. There are so many opportunities for small businesses to rank on Google (free advertising!), It’s a shame to see so much valuable website traffic go to waste.
So, we have a simpler guide to SEO on the page that you can use to rank higher and get more visitors to your site. In it you will find:
– 11 actions to optimize your search engine content.
– Detailed customizable Google Sheet checklist.
– SEO blog post templates designed to drive traffic.
SEO is one of the best free ways to promote your business, and it’s not as difficult as you might think. Read on to see for yourself!
If you’ve ever considered a page ranking at the top of Google “lucky,” think again. For any such lucky duck, beautifully positioned at the top of the SERP, you can be assured that there is a lot of legwork going on beneath the surface to make this possible.
Said legwork is called SEO, but once you emerge, it becomes second nature. So in this guide, I’m going to turn the complicated process of on-page SEO into a visual step-by-step guide to make this possible for you.
Ready to start ranking higher and get more traffic to your site?
What is on-page SEO?
Just as the name sounds, on-page SEO refers to the optimizations you make to a specific page on your site to get it to a higher position on the SERP for queries related to the keyword it is targeting. Some of those optimizations can be found on the page itself while others are behind the scenes. This, of course, translates into more relevant traffic to that page, and the more optimized pages on your site, the stronger your SEO muscle becomes.
On-page vs off-page SEO
To understand the difference between on-page and off-page SEO, it’s best to go back to the basics of SEO. There are three core types of SEO:
On-page SEO refers to efforts made directly to the page you are trying to optimize, such as improving its content or adding keywords.
Off-page SEO refers to efforts made on other pages of your site, or with other websites, to help your page rank, such as with backlinks, listings, social promotion, guest posting, public relations, and more.
Technical SEO refers to efforts related to website source code, website map, speed, security, structured data, and more keywords that do not start with S.
Although the overlapping circles look nice, they are presented as such because these efforts are all interconnected. For example, you won’t get backlinks (off-page) if your page content is not quality (on-page), and image compression (on-page) helps with page speed (technical).
On-page SEO checklist
In the rest of this post, you’re going to learn how to do on-page SEO like never before.
1. Keyword research
First of all, do your keyword research. You cannot do any of the steps in this post if you do not know what keyword you are targeting. We show you how to do keyword research here, but here are a few tips:
Your blog posts are where you do most of your keyword targeting and SEO on the page.
Use keyword research tools to find keywords with decent volume and low competition.
Target one keyword or keyword theme per page. For example, this post targets the keyword “on-page SEO” as well as “checklist on this page” and “what’s on this page” because if I wrote separate posts on per keyword, they would compete against each other in the SERP.
Google your keywords. If you do all the steps below but the content of your page does not match the intent of the keyword you are targeting, you are not going to graduate!
2. Content quality
Google defines thin content as invalid and provides little value – such as automatically generated copy, thin link pages, scraped content, and door pages.
But just because your page does not fit the criteria above does not mean that your content is thin. The important word above is “value.” If you want your page to rank for the keyword it is targeting, it needs to be:
Reliable: the information is accurate and fulfills the promise of the headline.
Useful: provides the information that a user seeks when searching that keyword.
Executable: “how” should accompany every “thing”, even if that means a link to a separate resource.
Readable: organized information, scanning through headings, reads like a human being written, and the text is broken up by images, bullets, call-out quotes, and other visual elements.
Adequate length: if the page you are optimizing is a blog post, aim for at least 1,500 words. Hubspot recommends 2,100-2,400 words based on the average length of its top 50 blog posts, but also mentions that a third of those top posts are less than 1,500 words.
Fluff-free: ie, he doesn’t use many words to say a few.
3. Keyword placement
Now, if you’re writing quality content as a human being, the keyword and related LSI keywords will occur naturally in the body of the text. But there are some places where you need to deliberately set your target keyword. These include:
Page Title: This is the page title as it appears on the page.
Title tag: This is the page title as it appears on the SERP.
First 100 words of page: Make sure it’s naturally incorporated.
Headlines: ideally at least two H2s per page.
Meta Description: This is the summary of your page that appears on the SERP.
Image alt text: Alternative text from image.
Image file name: Don’t save an image like “Screenshot-1” or “chart.”
If you were confused by the list above, don’t worry – the rest of this guide will dive deeper into each one.
4. Images
Unique images optimize a page as they keep readers engaged with a page, and time factors on a page into the site. But images on a page are more than meets the eye. Here is your image optimization checklist:
Optimize for speed: Resize your images so their width does not exceed the maximum page width (your site will resize them automatically, but this still requires server requests), and compress to reduce file size without sacrificing quality (To use tinypng.com because it’s fast, free, and cute panda.) If you have a particularly large website with lots of images, you might like look into a content distribution network (CDN).
Add other text: This is the alternative of text from an image. This is how you tell Google (and how screen readers can tell the visually impaired) what your image is for, and should include the keyword you are targeting.
Delivering value: Use images to illustrate the concepts on your page, such as with graphs, screenshots, and even your own photos (how to use Canva here!) Not blank graphics.
Don’t replace text with images: Alt text is only a few words, so when you use an image to convey information relevant to the keyword you are targeting, make sure that information is also written in the body of the page text.
Filename optimization: The name of the image file you upload to your page should include the keyword you are targeting. Also make sure to replace spaces in the file name with spaces or underscores. Otherwise, they will be replaced with “% 20” or some other jibberish that doesn’t look reliable and may affect the position of your image in image results.
In the image at the top of this post, I optimized for the keyword “SEO on page versus off page.” My alt text reads “comparison of on-page and off-page SEO versus technical,” my file is called “technical-vs-on-page-vs-off-page-seo.png, and I’ve compress and resize the image.
5. Title
There are two different titles for any given web page on a website:
Title tag: Also known as meta title or SEO title, this is the page title as it appears in the search results. The optimal title tag is 60 characters or less and includes the keyword you are targeting. Make sure you preload the header with the keyword to make sure it doesn’t get cut off on smaller screens.
H1 tag: This is the page title that readers see when on the page. You have more room here to get creative and convey value here, but it should still include the keyword.
Your title tag and H1 tag don’t have to be different, but it’s good to know that you have this option. Nevertheless, a strong headline is essential for on-page SEO as it affects whether or not users click through to your page. Strong caption:
Communicates value. What’s in it for the reader? “7 Yoga Poses to Try Today” doesn’t give me a reason to click. On the other hand, “7 Sleep Improving Puzzle Yoga” does just that.
He does not over-promise. Don’t call it a pretty guide if it’s not one, or change it to fit other top-quality pages for that query if it doesn’t contain that content.
Descriptive. “Services” may work as the title of a page on your website, but on the SERP, this could mean anything. Instead, go with “Norfolk Affordable Landscaping Service Packs”
Interesting. This does not mean using caps, hyperbolic words, or exclamation marks! Use power words, such as “supercharge” instead of “cure.” You can refer to these 88 headline examples for ideas and guidance.
6. Headings
Headings are used to organize the information on your page into clear sections and subsections. These convey the page hierarchy to readers, but Google also needs to know that to understand its relevance to the keyword you are targeting. But it can’t specify headers based on font size and font weight as we can. Instead, Google sees in HTML.
There are six types of header tags. If you use CMS like WordPress, SquareSpace, etc., you’ll see a menu of header tags in your editor (you can customize the sizes of these headers as well), but you can also apply them manually in HTML code.
& lt; H1 & gt; is the title of the page; you should only have one H1 per page.
& lt; H2 & gt; labels the main sections of your content. A well-optimized page could have anywhere between two and 22 H2 (that’s a lotta twos there), depending on how much content there is, but you should always have at least two that contain the keywords you are targeting – which should be easy to do with one section of your post and the collection.
& lt; H3 & gt; these are used to further label the different points made in each section H2. Use these as needed, but don’t force it and don’t worry about having keywords here.
& lt; H4 & gt; i & lt; H6 & gt; These headlines don’t really have SEO value, and if you cut your content that much, it probably won’t be very readable. I use H4s sometimes but only once in a blue moon.
Header tags also allow Google to surface your page in results for more specific page-related queries, giving you more opportunities to appear on Google’s first page. The most important thing to remember with headings is to make sure they are descriptive. A reader should be able to get the essence of the page just by reading the headlines.
7. Meta description
The meta description is the description of your page that appears under the title on the SERP. Consider the ad for your page, as a well-written meta-description tells searchers that your post will answer their query and get them to click. Here is your meta description checklist:
“This post provides a list of power words and alternative versions of common words to use in your marketing materials.”
Write a more memorable marketing copy with this list of over 350 power words and phrases – for emails, blogs, socials, ads, and more!
Google will not always use the meta description you have provided. It dynamically creates them from your content based on the query – which is why it’s important to get those header tags in there. Also keep in mind that the meta description also appears in preview snippets, like the ones you see on social media.
8. URL
Most, if not all CMS, generate an automatic URL for your page – sometimes the title you’ve given it or sometimes a series of numbers. You will want to edit this URL to:
9. Links
There are two types of SEO related links on the page – internal links and external links (also known as backlinks). We do share great info about linking in this 10 step SEO audit, but here are the basics.
External links
Here are the links on your page that take users to other domains. On-page SEO best practice is to link to pages on the topic of websites with high domain authority. This helps Google to trust your page more. In his SEO techniques post, Brian Dean recommends connecting with at least 3 high quality domains
Internal links
These are the links on your page that take the reader to other pages on your site. Your page should not only contain internal links, but other pages on your site should link to the one you are optimizing.
In any case with linking, the anchor text should be specific to the page you are linking to and include the keyword it is targeting. Not only does this create a better user experience, but the more links to your page that use the keyword as anchor text, the better your chances of ranking.
10. A few technical optimizations
I know, I know, this is not a technical SEO checklist, but as I said earlier, the different types of SEO are interconnected. Below are some things that should already be in place, but sometimes they have flaws so that they are easy to fix if your page is not performing as expected.
Floating Friendliness: Your entire website should be built with a responsive design – which means it will adapt to any screen size – but sometimes, elements fall through the cracks. If you’ve inserted a video or added a table to your page, for example, double-check to make sure it appears properly on a mobile phone.
Crawlability: Your page cannot rank if it is not indexed. And it can’t be indexed if it can’t be crawled. If your site appears on the SERP, it is indexed. But sometimes blog posts or pages are accidentally de-indexed for one reason or another. If a page is experiencing unexpectedly low traffic, check the back end of the page in your CMS to make sure indexing is not turned off. If not, you can use Search Console to troubleshoot.
Social sharing buttons: This is done at the site level, usually via a plugin, and makes it easier for others to expand on your content. Make sure the plugin doesn’t slow down your site.
Page speed: Page speed is a scaling factor, and it’s not just large images that can drag a page down. Use PageSpeed Insights to check the speed of your individual page. Both tools will tell you what you need to do if you have a poor score.
11. Content freshness
The importance of freshness of content can vary depending on the query, but it’s important to periodically update any page you want to grade to keep its value. I have a complete content refresh checklist here, but for a glance, here are some updates you can do:
Free on-page SEO checkers
As you can see now, the ranking of a page at the top of Google doesn’t just stream effortlessly. There is a lot of work that goes into it, and this is for every page on your site. Fortunately, there are SEO checkers on the page to help you.
SEO tools: Free trials of websites like Ahrefs and Semrush can run comprehensive searches on your site to check for on-page, off-page and technical SEO factors. These are best for SEO experts who know what to look for and how to read the results.
WordPress Plugins: Yoast, which will give rating and tips on the readability and targeting of your content’s keywords. But take these tips with a pinch of salt.
Website graders: These tools are more beginner-friendly. LOCALiQ’s Free Website Grader provides a report like the one below, explaining what the results mean and prioritizing action items for you.
On-page SEO templates
To make your life easier, I’ve got a few templates for you.
On-page SEO checklist template
The first is the checklist template that you can customize to your liking. You can print it out or copy the Google Doc to use when publishing pages or running content audits.
SEO blog post templates
I have created a series of blog post templates that will help you create quality content optimized around the keyword you are targeting. Here’s just one example:
Get more website traffic with on-point on-page SEO
Now can you see why on-page SEO is that underrated buzz? A lot of legwork goes into it. But the more you do it, the easier it will get – and the more traffic you’ll get to your website. In summary, here’s how to do SEO on the page:
What is the best way to learn SEO?
So the best way to find keywords is with a keyword research tool like Keywords Explorer Ahrefs. To use it, identify one or a few broad topics related to your industry, hit the search, then go to one of the keyword ideas reports. You will find monthly keyword search volumes and a few other SEO metrics.
What is the best course to teach SEO? Best SEO Courses to Consider
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Training Course (Simplilearn) – Best for Most.
- Complete SEO Training (Udemy) – Best for WordPress Users.
- Semrush Academy – The Best Cheap And Free Option.
- Yoast SEO Academy – The Best of Bloggers.
- Beginners Guide to SEO (Moz) – Best for Beginners.
How many months it will take to learn SEO?
If you can learn SEO for a few hours every day, then you can master the basics of SEO within 4-8 weeks and get your first SEO job in 3-6 months. If you can learn SEO full time, then you can master the basics even within 1-2 weeks.
Is SEO difficult to learn?
Simply put, SEO is not as hard as people take on it as it is; you can get 95% of the effort with 5% of the work, and you don’t need to hire a professional SEO to do it, and it won’t be hard to start scaling for well-selected key terms.
How long does it take to learn SEO?
It can take anywhere from 4-6 weeks to 5-8 years for you to learn SEO depending on factors, such as the level you want to achieve, how much time you are willing to spend learning SEO, your current experience , how persistent you are, what resources you use, and more.
Is SEO easy to learn?
Simply put, SEO is not as hard as people take on it as it is; you can get 95% of the effort with 5% of the work, and you don’t need to hire a professional SEO to do it, and it won’t be hard to start scaling for well-selected key terms.
Why is SEO so hard?
In summary, SEO is difficult because search engines are constantly changing and updating. It could be anything from Google changing the way it looks at a certain type of link, including a major new update to its algorithm, or even recognizing something new as a scaling factor.
Is SEO good for beginners?
We’ve tried to make it as concise and easy to understand as possible, and learning the basics of SEO is an essential first step to achieving your online business goals.
Is SEO a waste of money?
SEO is not dead. It is not a waste of money, if and when done correctly. The grass is not greener the other side; it is greener where it is watered. If you look after your website it will take care of you!
Is SEO worthwhile in 2020? While some traditional marketing methods may be becoming obsolete, SEO is here to stay in 2020. Whether you have invested in early SEO or are just getting started, it can still be a major traffic driver and lead to your website.
Is search engine optimization a waste of money?
So how do things really simmer and is SEO a waste of money? Basically, the answer is no, but that also depends very much on your budget and your goals as a company, which is a topic we will cover in a future post focused on finding ‘ the best SEO company versus the most affordable.
Does SEO matter anymore?
Short answer: YES! SEO is more important than ever! It is still one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies that drive long-term results. You need proper techniques.
Is it worth paying for search engine optimization?
SEO is worth it if you have the right strategy in place and work with a partner who knows how to get results. About 93% of online experiences start with a search engine, and the near rank of SEO leads far exceeds that of traditional marketing. Thus, SEO provides impressive returns on investment (ROI).
Is SEO worth the money?
The short answer is that SEO is very effective – not only for traffic generation but also guidance and sales. Do not worry. The long answer involves research and data, not just blank statements. Most SEOs are overly caught up in search-specific metrics like SERPs (search engine results page), rankings, and organic traffic.
Does SEO make you money?
Learning how to make money with an SEO business is not a fast track to online wealth, but it can be an amazing way to make money online. Also, there is no limit to how much money you can make if you use your SEO skills to build, rank, and finance websites.
Is SEO worth the money?
The short answer is that SEO is very effective – not only to generate traffic but also leads and sales. Do not worry. The long answer involves research and data, not just blank statements. Most SEOs are overly caught up in search-specific metrics like SERPs (search engine results page), rankings, and organic traffic.
Does SEO make you money? Learning how to make money with an SEO business is not a fast track to online wealth, but it can be an amazing way to make money online. Also, there is no limit to how much money you can make if you use your SEO skills to build, rank, and finance websites.
Is SEO even worth it?
The short answer is that SEO is very effective – not only for traffic generation but also guidance and sales. Do not worry. The long answer involves research and data, not just blank statements. Most SEOs are overly caught up in search-specific metrics like SERPs (search engine results page), rankings, and organic traffic.
Is SEO worth it in 2022?
Local SEO Will Thrive in Search Results: Local SEO will be effective in online marketing in 2022 and even if the pandemic disappears, studies and surveys say people prefer to work and study at home and They will probably do so even after the pandemic.
Does SEO even matter anymore?
Short answer: YES! SEO is more important than ever! It is still one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies that drive long-term results.
Is SEO still relevant in 2022?
Will SEO still apply in 2022? Yes of course. While some SEO tactics that were effective in the past stopped working, SEO continued to evolve. Constantly reinventing himself to try to better match consumer intent, breaking down the spam, ineffective tactics to become better.
How will SEO change in 2022? By 2022, expect that SEO rankings will become more competitive with providing high quality content that is useful to internet users. Content that is only trying to fish for their audience by linking unnecessary sourcing will not be effective as it is today.
How often does SEO need to be updated?
So, how often should you update old posts for SEO? Optimally, once in three months is a great frequency, but if your deadlines are too tight, revisiting your keyword usage once every 6 months is also a viable option.
Do you need to do SEO every month?
The truth is, you don’t have to pay an agency for a monthly SEO campaign. And as an agency director, I’m sure many of you were shocked to hear this. SEO is not rocket science.
Does SEO need to be maintained?
SEO is a Continuous Process Not only does SEO take several hours a week of dedicated time, but it also requires a commitment to continue doing SEO for as long as you want to maintain those results. At first, SEO can take months to start getting to a good site and being found on Google.
What will be the future of SEO?
The future of SEO will be brand integrity and using partnerships and relationships to build credibility and popularity. The importance of public relations and gaining traction online through websites and other media outlets will be invaluable for SEO success.
Will SEO exist in 5 years?
SEO will not be eliminated within the next five years because social media and search engines will probably merge. Facebook has already begun to do this: they average over 1.5 billion searches each day. Twitter has done the same thing; they teamed up in partnership with Google.
Is there a future for SEO?
The future of SEO in 2023 also includes creating evergreen content. Content is a critical component if you want to succeed with SEO in 2023. If you do not create content, you will have nothing to rank for in search results. If you want your content to rank in search results, you need to optimize it for search engines.
What is bee 5star rating?
Each appliance gets between one and five stars, with five stars making it extremely efficient and likely to control your electricity bills. These star labels are issued by the Office of Energy Efficiency (BEE), an Indian government agency that comes under the Ministry of Power.
What does a 5star fridge mean? Each fridge has an energy efficiency star rating awarded under the conditions set by the Office of Energy Efficiency. One star makes the refrigerator inefficient and energy efficient, while the most energy efficient appliance is given five stars.
Is a 5 Star refrigerator worth it?
But the old refrigerators were using 3 and 3.5 units a day. Which means replacing them with a new 5 star BEE fridge will save around 1.7-2.2 units per day, that’s about 620-803 units a year! Which saves around Rs 3000 – Rs 4000 a year if we take an average tariff of Rs 5 per unit.
How much electricity does a 5 star fridge use?
How much electricity does a 5-star fridge use? A 5-star fridge, which is 250 liters and is free of ice, generally uses about 199.22 kilowatt hours.
Which refrigerator is better 3 star or 5 star?
So, if you want to buy the fridge with maximum energy efficiency, you have to look for a refrigerator with higher stars. 5 star refrigerators are more expensive to buy. A 5 star fridge has a more efficient compressor and is better insulated to avoid heat loss. Because of this, they are very energy efficient.
What is 5star BEE rating?
These are called BEE star labels and show how much electricity the appliance uses in a year. Each appliance gets between one and five stars, with five stars making it extremely efficient and likely to control your electricity bills.
Which ENERGY STAR rating is best?
The star rating is about energy efficiency – that is how efficient a model is compared to other models of the same size. More stars means more efficiency – compared to other models of the same size. Most products are given between 1 and 6 stars.
What is BEE rating in fridge?
Under this program, for the benefit of the public, the equipment manufacturers could voluntarily install a BEE Star Label on their equipment showing the level of energy consumption of the equipment in absolute values as well as an equivalent number of stars ranging from one to five. , in accordance with …
What is BEE rating in AC?
The star rating of an air conditioner is an indicator of its energy efficiency. This rating is given by BEE or the Office of Energy Efficiency.
What does rating mean in AC?
The score is determined by the energy efficiency ratio. Each AM has a mentioned Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER). If an EER of 2.7 to 2.9 is mentioned on AC, then it is a one star rating, 2.9 to 3.09 is two stars, 3.1 to 3.29 is three stars, 3.3 to 3.49 is four stars, and a rating higher than 3.5 is 5- stars.
What is 3-star BEE rating for AC?
The electrical appliance star rating is measured in the Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER). A 3-star AC has an EER of between 2.9 and 3.09, and a 5-star AC has an EER of 3.3 or higher.