On-page SEO - What is it?

Let me start by explaining what SEO stands for. The ‘S’ is for Search, the ‘E’ is for Engine, and the ‘O’ is for Optimisation - Search Engine Optimisation. Nowadays, the term is widely used to cover everything, be it on-page SEO or off-page SEO, that improves your search-engine rankings i.e. how high you appear on the first page of search results on search engines like Google, Bing and others. And although this is not the true meaning of the term SEO, it is the most common term synonymous with improving page rankings.

Your on-page SEO is the first impression to the search engines of your page of content.

I will cover the various ‘other’ factors that can, and do, influence your search engine rankings in a later article. For now, I am going to explain what on-page SEO means and why you should care about its importance.

On-page SEO is the technical optimisation of a page (or pages) of content, on your website, for a specific keyword (or term) that you would like to rank for in search engine results. It is the behind-the-scenes technical bit that sends the correct signals to the search engines about the intentions of your page of content. E.g. If I want to rank for the term ‘on-page SEO’ then I have to make sure the on-page SEO is the best it can be for the term ‘on-page SEO’.

Why Should I Care?

If you have a website from Blast47, it is our job to manage it, so you don’t have to care!

If, however, you manage your own website (congratulations for having so much free time!) then think of it this way… if the first impression of your page of content is that your on-page SEO is weak or, worse still, broken, then why should the search engines even consider ranking your content?

Did you know? If you pay for clicks from the search engines (PPC) then you could have to pay more per-click if your on-page SEO is poor.

On-Page SEO - Top Tips

This is not a complete list, as there are many more factors that influence search engine rankings. If you follow these tips then you will give a strong first impression to the search engines.

• Have a H1 (most important heading) on the page that includes the keyword or term you would like to rank for. E.g. On-page SEO
• Include and order your headings on the page. H1 > H2 > H3. Just like you do when reading a normal document, the search engines use the heading order to understand the importance of content on the page
• Have only one H1 per page
• Include the keyword or search term in the title of the page
• Include the keyword or search term in the filename of any images on the page
• Include the keyword or search term in the alt text of any images on the page
• Include the keyword or search term regularly in the page content. WARNING - don’t over do it. The search engines are wise to pages flooded with mentions of keywords and will now penalise you, rather than rewarding you
• Use emphasis on one of the keywords or terms using bold and / or italic - make sure the html markup is correct and it doesn’t just format that way on the page
• Make sure your page validates with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). W3C provide free tools to check your page here https://validator.w3.org/ make sure there are no errors. Warnings are OK, but do heed them
• Link to other pages on your site that are relevant and have related keywords or terms in their content
• Make sure all the other pages, content and links on the website are relevant to the keyword or term you are trying to rank for

Super On-Page SEO Tip

For extra marks from the search engines ensure the keyword or search term is at the start of any heading, title, filename etc. E.g. ‘On-page SEO tips’ is better than ‘Top tips for good on-page SEO’

On-Page SEO Tool

Like so many others, you could just use the FREE Blast47 on-page SEO tool to score your web page. The tool looks at your page as if the search engines themselves were scoring your content. You will get a result for FREE. Pay just 0.47p and you will get a detailed report telling what you should change to get a better score.