Search engines can’t understand content as easily as humans… yet.
On-page optimization is everything you do to help search engines understand that your content is a relevant answer to people’s queries.
Here’s how to do that.
Include Your Target Keyword in the URL
This is the first thing Google sees—even before the content of your page.
When you include your keyword in the URL, you’re sending Google a signal of what your page is about.
If you are creating a page about red running shoes, a good example would be to use:
www.yourwebsite.com/red-running-shoes.
A bad example would be something like www.yourwebsite.com/post/2981-1, which doesn’t give us (or search engines) any clue of what the page is about
Warning: There are very serious consequences to changing a URL that already has authority. Don’t do this if your page already has links!
Keep Your URLs Short
It can be tempting to stuff your URLs with as many keywords as possible—avoid this! Research has shown that shorter URLs tend to rank higher than long ones.
● Good example: www.yourwebsite.com/red-running-shoes
● Bad Example: www.yourwebsite.com/cheap-red-running-shoes-nike-shoes-discount
Add Your Keyword to Your Title Tag
Title tags are still one of the most powerful important elements of on-page SEO. The title tag is what people will see when they search on Google.
That’s why you should include your target keyword in the title tag.
If you use WordPress, you can edit your easily edit your page title with the Yoast SEO plugin.
In general, try to include your keyword closer to the beginning of the sentence and keep the entire title under 55 to 60 characters.
Optimize Your Title for Organic CTR
If more people click on your page vs other websites in the search engine results page, it gives Google an indication that your page might be a better answer to people’s questions than those other sites.
This is called organic clickthrough rate (CTR): the percentage of people who click on your page divided by everyone who sees it.
That’s why it’s not enough to just include the keyword in there.
Your title tag needs to be eye-catching and entice searchers to click on it.
A good idea when crafting your title is to look at what your competitors are doing and come up with something better.
Some best practices include:
● Use an active voice
● Write in the second person
● Use power words
● Use numbers, brackets, or parentheses
● Include the date (month or year)
Use Google Search Console to find and track the CTR of your pages for specific keywords.
Add Your Keyword to Your Meta Description and Make it Compelling
The content of the meta description is no longer used by search engines as a ranking signal.
However, writing a compelling meta description and including your keyword in it can help with your CTR.
Plus, Google highlights the keyword the user searched if it’s included in the meta description
Add Your Keyword to Your H1 Tag, and Make Sure to Only Use One
Even though the value of the H2, H3,…, H6 tags for SEO is debatable, it is still generally a good idea to include your primary keyword in your H1 tag.
Make sure there is only one H1 in the entire page and that it appears before any other heading tag.
Include Your Keyword in the Body of the Page
Use your keyword at least 3 times in the body of your page, and try to do it once close to the top of the page.
You can see how we did that for our on-page optimization tutorial, which we’re optimizing for the term “on-page SEO”.
Plus, make sure to have at least 100 words on each URL (minimum – the more the better).
You can still rank with fewer words, and you don’t ever want to put unnecessary text on your site, but I recommend not creating a new page unless you have roughly ~100 words worth of content (500+ is ideal).
Use synonyms in your copy
Search engines are becoming better at understanding human language.
Which means you can use more natural language and still stay relevant to the keywords you are trying to rank for.
Synonyms are great, and using natural language that’s influenced by keyword research (rather than just pure keywords) is highly encouraged.
Use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords in Your Copy
Latent semantic indexing, or LSI, is a method used to determine context. For example, some LSI keywords for the term “new york city” might be:
● Empire State Building
● Wall Street
● Statue of Liberty
● New Jersey
Including keywords that are thematically related to your primary keyword can help search engines understand what the content of your page is about.
LSI Graph is a great free tool to find these keywords.
Just input your target keyword and get a list of LSI keywords.
Include these keywords in your content whenever it makes sense.
Optimize the Readability of Your Content
A page bounce (i.e. people who land on your page from search engines and leave your site without engaging) can send a negative signal to search engine.
On the other hand, if you manage to keep visitors engaged (reading your content and clicking through more pages of your site), you’ll send a signal to Google that your content is relevant.
Some best practices to optimize the readability of your site include:
● Writing short sentences instead of long paragraphs
● Organizing your content with headings and subheadings
● Including rich media like images, gifs, audio, and video
● Linking to additional helpful resources
For example, we followed these guidelines for our email marketing strategy guide:
And received great feedback from our readers:
Optimize Your Images
Search engines “see” images by reading the ALT tag and looking at file names, among other factors.
Try to be descriptive when you name your images (but don’t overdo it!)
Build Internal Links
When page A on your site gets linked from another site (aka an external link, or backlink), its authority increases.
If you add a link from page A to another on your site, page B (aka an internal link), some of the authority from page A passes to page B.
That’s why it’s a good idea to add links to other pages of your site whenever it makes sense.
For example, notice how we link to our page about adding the Facebook Pixel to a WordPress Site inside our Digital Advertising Strategy Guide.
ProTip: the anchor text, or text you use to link, also matters, so try to include your keyword in there and avoid generic phrases like “click here” or “this post”.
Avoid using keywords in global navigation, though, as that can look like over-optimization. Stick to in-content links instead.
Link to Authoritative Sites
This is a controversial tactic, but it’s one of my favorite ones.
I’ve found that whenever I link to authoritative websites it helps my own rankings (even if I’m competing against them).
You can find this tactic in most of our content.
If you run your own website or can get buy-in from your boss to link to bigger competitors, I definitely recommend doing this.
On-page optimization is everything you do to help search engines understand that your content is a relevant answer to people’s queries.
Here’s how to do that.
Include Your Target Keyword in the URL
This is the first thing Google sees—even before the content of your page.
When you include your keyword in the URL, you’re sending Google a signal of what your page is about.
If you are creating a page about red running shoes, a good example would be to use:
www.yourwebsite.com/red-running-shoes.
A bad example would be something like www.yourwebsite.com/post/2981-1, which doesn’t give us (or search engines) any clue of what the page is about
Warning: There are very serious consequences to changing a URL that already has authority. Don’t do this if your page already has links!
Keep Your URLs Short
It can be tempting to stuff your URLs with as many keywords as possible—avoid this! Research has shown that shorter URLs tend to rank higher than long ones.
● Good example: www.yourwebsite.com/red-running-shoes
● Bad Example: www.yourwebsite.com/cheap-red-running-shoes-nike-shoes-discount
Add Your Keyword to Your Title Tag
Title tags are still one of the most powerful important elements of on-page SEO. The title tag is what people will see when they search on Google.
That’s why you should include your target keyword in the title tag.
If you use WordPress, you can edit your easily edit your page title with the Yoast SEO plugin.
In general, try to include your keyword closer to the beginning of the sentence and keep the entire title under 55 to 60 characters.
Optimize Your Title for Organic CTR
If more people click on your page vs other websites in the search engine results page, it gives Google an indication that your page might be a better answer to people’s questions than those other sites.
This is called organic clickthrough rate (CTR): the percentage of people who click on your page divided by everyone who sees it.
That’s why it’s not enough to just include the keyword in there.
Your title tag needs to be eye-catching and entice searchers to click on it.
A good idea when crafting your title is to look at what your competitors are doing and come up with something better.
Some best practices include:
● Use an active voice
● Write in the second person
● Use power words
● Use numbers, brackets, or parentheses
● Include the date (month or year)
Use Google Search Console to find and track the CTR of your pages for specific keywords.
Add Your Keyword to Your Meta Description and Make it Compelling
The content of the meta description is no longer used by search engines as a ranking signal.
However, writing a compelling meta description and including your keyword in it can help with your CTR.
Plus, Google highlights the keyword the user searched if it’s included in the meta description
Add Your Keyword to Your H1 Tag, and Make Sure to Only Use One
Even though the value of the H2, H3,…, H6 tags for SEO is debatable, it is still generally a good idea to include your primary keyword in your H1 tag.
Make sure there is only one H1 in the entire page and that it appears before any other heading tag.
Include Your Keyword in the Body of the Page
Use your keyword at least 3 times in the body of your page, and try to do it once close to the top of the page.
You can see how we did that for our on-page optimization tutorial, which we’re optimizing for the term “on-page SEO”.
Plus, make sure to have at least 100 words on each URL (minimum – the more the better).
You can still rank with fewer words, and you don’t ever want to put unnecessary text on your site, but I recommend not creating a new page unless you have roughly ~100 words worth of content (500+ is ideal).
Use synonyms in your copy
Search engines are becoming better at understanding human language.
Which means you can use more natural language and still stay relevant to the keywords you are trying to rank for.
Synonyms are great, and using natural language that’s influenced by keyword research (rather than just pure keywords) is highly encouraged.
Use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords in Your Copy
Latent semantic indexing, or LSI, is a method used to determine context. For example, some LSI keywords for the term “new york city” might be:
● Empire State Building
● Wall Street
● Statue of Liberty
● New Jersey
Including keywords that are thematically related to your primary keyword can help search engines understand what the content of your page is about.
LSI Graph is a great free tool to find these keywords.
Just input your target keyword and get a list of LSI keywords.
Include these keywords in your content whenever it makes sense.
Optimize the Readability of Your Content
A page bounce (i.e. people who land on your page from search engines and leave your site without engaging) can send a negative signal to search engine.
On the other hand, if you manage to keep visitors engaged (reading your content and clicking through more pages of your site), you’ll send a signal to Google that your content is relevant.
Some best practices to optimize the readability of your site include:
● Writing short sentences instead of long paragraphs
● Organizing your content with headings and subheadings
● Including rich media like images, gifs, audio, and video
● Linking to additional helpful resources
For example, we followed these guidelines for our email marketing strategy guide:
And received great feedback from our readers:
Optimize Your Images
Search engines “see” images by reading the ALT tag and looking at file names, among other factors.
Try to be descriptive when you name your images (but don’t overdo it!)
Build Internal Links
When page A on your site gets linked from another site (aka an external link, or backlink), its authority increases.
If you add a link from page A to another on your site, page B (aka an internal link), some of the authority from page A passes to page B.
That’s why it’s a good idea to add links to other pages of your site whenever it makes sense.
For example, notice how we link to our page about adding the Facebook Pixel to a WordPress Site inside our Digital Advertising Strategy Guide.
ProTip: the anchor text, or text you use to link, also matters, so try to include your keyword in there and avoid generic phrases like “click here” or “this post”.
Avoid using keywords in global navigation, though, as that can look like over-optimization. Stick to in-content links instead.
Link to Authoritative Sites
This is a controversial tactic, but it’s one of my favorite ones.
I’ve found that whenever I link to authoritative websites it helps my own rankings (even if I’m competing against them).
You can find this tactic in most of our content.
If you run your own website or can get buy-in from your boss to link to bigger competitors, I definitely recommend doing this.
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