On-page SEO factors are important elements that help web pages rank higher in search engine results. On-page SEO consists of various elements, which together make your website more attractive to users and search engines.
Only those websites listed on the first page of the search engine results get more user engagement compared to the other websites. To enhance your website’s search engine ranking and visibility, you can optimise the page using on-page SEO factors like meta tags, quality content, the site’s structure, images, titles, etc.
In this article, we will delve into the 12 most essential on-page SEO factors that you need to know.
What is the importance of on-page SEO?
When a user enters a search query, the search engine will display the most relevant websites at the top of the search results. Optimizing a website according to the on-page SEO factors helps the search engine understand your website and its contents. This is crucial in determining whether your website content is relevant to the search query or not.
Optimizing the webpage improves the chance of attracting more organic traffic to your website, which in turn results in increased conversion and sales.
According to the reports, 34% of the organic traffic goes to the number one result in Google and improving your ranking from the second position to the first position means double the organic traffic.
Most users do not go past the first-page result of Google. It is estimated that only 0.63% of users click on something from the second page on Google.
With paid Google Ads, you can easily rank in the number one position on the first page of Google results, but it doesn’t give a long-term benefit to your website. Most users prefer organic search results to paid ads. Paid ads will only get you instant gratification, whereas organic search position means organic traffic, organic clicks, and credibility to your website.
Gaining an organic search position and organic traffic is not always a piece of cake. You need to put a lot of effort into researching and finding the best ways to optimize your website. And keep in mind that this is not a one-time process but rather a long-term process. You will have to constantly update your website content just like Google frequently updates its algorithm. With time, your content gets outdated, and new websites with more relevant content can outgrow them. Hence, it is important to always stay relevant and updated with your content.
In addition to attracting organic traffic and search positions, on-page SEO also improves the user experience. Higher website engagement and lower bounce rates can be achieved as a result of enhanced user experience. Search engines also consider these factors when considering your webpage for ranking.
On-page SEO is about making your website accessible and appealing to the users as well as the search engines. Several on-page SEO factors are fundamental to the success of your online website or business. Let us examine each of them in detail.
12 Essential On-Page SEO Factors
Content
Creative and engaging content is the most significant part of on-page SEO. If the content of the page is of substandard quality, then nothing else can help the website with ranking. Content is the main factor that attracts the audience.
If the content is of high quality with keywords, and addresses the user queries, it attracts organic traffic to your website. High-quality content also reduces bounce rate which creates a positive impact on the website’s quality on the search engines.
There are a few things to keep in mind while writing quality content that could help your site rule the search results. First of all – Keywords! Keywords are the key content writing factors for on-page SEO. Keywords are specific words or phrases that are related to the search query that users enter into a search engine. Adding these keywords to the content helps search engines identify the best result that matches the search query. But as the saying goes, too much of anything can spoil the existing goodness, you should be careful not to stuff the content with too many keywords, but remember to keep it moderate.
Secondly, write content using the E-E-A-T principle. E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This is a guideline used by Google to evaluate the quality and authoritativeness of content. Writing content by including these factors reflects the quality of the content and makes it more appealing to users and search engines. This helps attract organic traffic to your website and improves the trustworthiness of the website. A well-researched content and adding professional and personal experience it can enhance the quality and authenticity of the content.
Title tags
Title tags are HTML elements that specify the web page title. Title tags are added in the head section of the HTML document. Title tags include the relevant keywords related to the content on the web page. Having an accurate title tag can improve the visibility of the website. The title included in the title tags within the HTML document is the title that is displayed in the search results and not on your webpage.
The purpose of title tags is to help search engines identify the content of the webpage. A compelling title with the right keywords attracts organic traffic and helps the user identify if the content matches their search intent. An ideal title tag length should be between 50 to 60 characters.
Geotagging
Geotagging helps the search engine to identify the content’s geographical relevance by adding location metadata to the content. Location metadata identifies the geographical location of a website. This enhances the chances of visibility of websites for location-based searches. This can boost your search engine rankings for that particular location and is helpful when you are targeting local users or customers.
Site speed
Site speed is an important on-page SEO factor that refers to the load time of your website. A faster-loading website improves user experience and reduces bounce rate. Users tend to stay on websites that load faster. Site speed is a search engine ranking factor. To improve site speed you can do things like optimising images, browser caching, minify CSS and JavaScript, or use CDN.
Mobile Friendly design
When designing a website, make sure it is compatible to use with mobile devices. The accessibility of websites on various devices and screen size is considered while ranking them. Optimising the layout, and the functionality of the website to suit various screen sizes provides a seamless user experience.
If the website design is not mobile-friendly, then the mobile users can experience difficulty in viewing the website. This can result in an increased bounce rate and hence rank lower on search results. Mobile-friendly design is a key search engine ranking factor and a responsive design also improves user experience.
Headlines
Headlines are the titles of the web pages that help users identify the content of the web page. The headlines should include keywords relating to the content. This way, you can improve the visibility of the website, and improve the click-through rates. The headlines, unlike title tags, appear on the website. The headlines should be concise and include powerful words in order to attract users to click on the website.
Also Read: Add Me to Search: How to Create Your Google People Card?
Featured snippet
Features snippet is a short answer to the user’s query which is displayed on top of the Google search results. It is very brief information that aims to provide users with the exact answer for their query so the users will not have to go through the whole webpage to find the answer. Featuring a snippet from your webpage can improve the organic traffic of the website. When writing content, adding clear and concise answers to questions related to your topic can make it appear in featured snippets.
Schema markup
Schema markup, like title tags is added in the HTML code of the webpage but in the body section. These are codes added with the intent of making search engines understand the webpage content. By adding schema markup, rich snippets are created on the search results which helps users to view important information about a webpage and this helps with website visibility and improvement in click-through-rates.
External linking
Adding external website links in your website is known as external linking. This is also known as outbound linking and the purpose of adding these in the content is to provide the readers with some additional references. Linking to reputed and reliable websites helps increase the credibility of your website in the eyes of search engines. However, if you get involved with link farms, you will get a penalty from Google. Linking from irrelevant sites can affect your search engine rankings negatively.
Internal linking
Internal linking refers to the practice of linking to a webpage within the same website. This helps search engines to crawl, index and understand the relevance of each webpage. By internal linking, you can direct the audience to the relevant pages and help boost the ranking of the important pages on the website.
Images
Adding images to web pages enhances user experience by making the content more visually appealing. The images can be optimised with relevant file name, caption, and alternative text for the search engine to understand the page content. This can help with page ranking on search results and image search as well.
Security
Website security is a crucial factor in SEO ranking and also while providing user experience. Poor website security can cause data loss and downtime to the website. A website that is not secure can be a threat to the website and user data. This removes the credibility of the website and results in the poor website ranking. The search engines take into consideration the security of the website as a ranking factor. Hence to establish user and search engine trust, it is important to implement HTTPS, secure hosting, and software updates on a regular basis.
Also Read: Barnacle SEO: How To Leverage The Authority Of Top-Ranking Websites
Conclusion
The 12 on-page SEO elements such as Content, title tagging, geo-tagging, site speed, mobile friendly design, headlines, featured snippet, schema markup, external linking, internal linking, images, and security are some of the important factors contributing to the website ranking and performance in a search engine ranking. Optimising the website considering all these factors enhances the user experience and website performance.
Hello, I’m Farhan Srambiyam, I am a Microsoft and Google Certified Digital Marketing Strategist and an SEO Expert in Kerala. The extensive experience I possess with commitment and hard work has indeed made a mark on my career journey.
I greatly helped several companies and businesses get the most out of the digital space. Need to catch up on anything related to Marketing? All you have to do is schedule a call.
