On-Page Search Engine Optimization Guide¶

What is On-Page SEO?¶

On page SEO talks about actions website owners take on their website to get better ranking. Beside backlink, which is by far the most defining ranking factor, there are many actions a web site owner can take.

In this guide we discus some of those factors and then explain how you can use our on page audit tool to audit and verify your pages.

What are the On Page SEO Factors?¶

There are many different ranking factors Google uses to decide the ranking of a web page ¹. It is advised to only target one keyword and its synonyms per page.

Domain name¶

Probably one of the most important factors after backlink is the domain name. If you manage to get a domain name that has your keyword in it your website is going to rank better for that particular keyword and all the family of related keywords.

Page title¶

One of the most important on-page SEO factors is the page title. This is the title set inside the <title> html tag. Try to have the keyword as close to the start of the first sentence of the title.

Page URL¶

If your domain does not already have your target keyword, try to have it covered through the URL. One simple technique that you can use is to make sure that the page title contains the target keyword and then setup a permalink ² scheme in which the title of the page is slugified ³.

Meta description¶

Google will sometimes use the

<meta name="description" content="A description of the page" />

1. Make sure the keyword or at least a family keyword appears in the page description.
2. Include clearly tagged facts in the description.
3. Make sure that every page on your site has a meta description.
4. Include clearly tagged facts in the description. The meta description doesn't just have to be in sentence format; it's also a great place to include information about the page

You may want to check this page for more information.

Header tags (H1-H6)¶

1. Give each page a unique H1 reflecting the topic the page covers, using your primary keywords in it.
2. Use other header tags (h2 to h6) for the secondary keywords or synonyms.
3. Avoid keyword stuffing. ⁴

Web page keyword density¶

Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. It is advised to keep the keyword density lower than 3%. Anything more than that and there could be a risk of SPAM penalties.

Image ALT text¶

An alt tag, also known as "alt attribute" and "alt description," is an HTML attribute applied to image tags to provide a text alternative for search engines.

According to google:

By adding more context around images, results can become much more useful, which can lead to higher quality traffic to your site.

Image dimension¶

Having a large image with an ALT tag that includes the keyword could make search engine give more relevance to the page.

Image optimizations¶

1. Whenever possible, place images near relevant text.
2. Optimize images for mobile devices. Provide alternative resolutions based on device screen type and be worry of mobile devices bandwidth costs/speed.
3. Google uses the URL path as well as the file name to help it understand your images. Consider organizing your image content so that URLs are constructed logically.
4. Include descriptive titles, captions, filenames, and text for images.
5. Use responsive image tags such as <img srcset> or <picture>

Link backs¶

Link backs are the opposite of backlinks. A link back is where your page links to other high authority pages. The idea behind this technique is that your webpage going to get better ranking when it appears as the reference page for target keyword.

Nofollow links¶

Keywords position¶

The keyword position is the position of the keyword in relation to the whole content:

1. The first appearance of the keyword related to the first paragraph of the page.
2. The position in relation to the heading tags
3. The keyword position in relation to the main image.

Internal Linking¶

Internal Links are links that point to another webpage on the same website. Internal links have many purposes, including but not limited to:

1. Providing a mechanism for the search engine to discover other web pages
2. To tell the search engine about the hierarchy of the website.
3. To help redistribute SEO juice among web pages
4. To introduce new targeted keywords to different pages.

Use power words in the title¶

Power words are words that are used to trigger a response or action. Tested for “phraseology,” these select words have been proven to elicit an emotional response from readers.

Click-through rate is a defining SEO factor. If your search results get more clicks than what is expected for its search results position, the search engine assumes your link to be more relevant and of more interest and provides it with a boost.

Page content length¶

Website content size¶

Website keyword density¶

Page language¶

Website IP¶

Avoid duplication content¶

Canonical links¶

Above the fold optimization¶

SSL and HTTPs/2¶

What Tools does Smart SEO Hosting Offer for Onpage SEO?¶