Complete Beginner's Guide to On-Page SEO

 

Most people think that on-page SEO means nothing more than sprinkling a few keywords here and there. This is a misconception. Although keyword placement is still important, it is much less important than it used to be.

On-page optimization may not be as easy as it used to be, but it is still arguably the easiest part of search engine optimization. It's one of the few things you have full control over, and it does not require a lot of technical skill. If you know how to do basic website editing, can write (or know someone who can), and are willing to do a little research, you can do it well.

What's is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO (also called on-site SEO) is the practice of optimizing websites to rank better in search engines. This includes optimizations of the visible content and the HTML source code.

Why is on-page SEO important?

Google examines the content of your page to determine if it's a relevant result for the search query. Part of this process involves keyword searches.

But there's more to on-page SEO than including keywords in your content - much more.

Google ultimately looks for the most relevant search result for a query, so its algorithms also look for other relevant content on the page. If your page is about dogs and you don't mention the different breeds, Google knows there are probably more relevant results out there.

How to create SEO content

Before you think about "technical" optimizations, like placing keywords here or there, you need to create content that Google will rank for. To do this, you need a specific keyword in mind. Read our guide on keyword research if this isn't the case.

Otherwise, here are the four things you need to master:

1. 1.Be relevant
2.  2.Be thorough
3.  3.Be unique 

1.Be relevant

Relevancy is arguably the most important part of on-page SEO, that's, aligning your content with search intent. If you don't give searchers what they want, your chances of ranking are slim to none.

Since no one understands search intent better than Google, the best place to start is to analyze your current top ranking results according to the three Cs of search intent:

Content type

Format of the content

Angle of the content

We've already covered this concept briefly in our guide to keyword research. But here we go a bit deeper, because aligning your content with intent is critical here as well.

1. content type

Content types generally fall into one of five categories: Blog Posts, Products, Categories, Landing Pages, or Videos. For example: all the pages with the best rankings for "black maxi dress" are e-commerce category pages from well-known stores.

2. content format

Content format mainly refers to blog posts, as they're usually either how-to articles, lists, news articles, opinion articles, or reviews.

For example, all the results for "forced restart iPad" are how-to articles, except those from apple.com.

US rankings for "marketing ideas" via Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer.

To have the best chance of ranking for any of these keywords, follow this example. Trying to rank for a list article when searchers are looking for guidance will be an uphill battle.

However, as with the content type, the SERP isn't always as clear-cut as in the examples above.

Just look at the top-ranked pages for "How to get more subscribers on YouTube." There's a pretty even mix of blog posts in the form of tutorials and articles.

3. content aspect

The content aspect refers to the main selling point of the content. For example, someone searching for "how to make a latte" wants to know how to make it at home - without any special equipment.

1. optimize for featured snippets

Featured Snippets are a type of SERP feature that often appear near the top of search results. They answer the searcher's question with a short excerpt from one of the top-ranked pages.

Since the snippet's answer comes from a page in the search results, it's possible to shorten the path to the top position by "winning" the snippet.

This is often easier said than done, but the basic process is as follows:

Be in the top 10; Google usually pulls the snippet from one of those pages.

Make sure Google is already displaying a featured snippet. This will help you understand how to "answer" the query.

Provide the answer on your page. Google can't retrieve it from your page if it's not there.

Use the right format. Paragraph, list, or table - what do Google and searchers expect to see?

For example, let's say we want to see if there are featured snippet opportunities for our post about evergreen content. If we enter the URL into Ahrefs' Site Explorer and filter the Top 10 Rankings for Organic Keywords report, we see that we're already in the top 10 rankings for "evergreen content."

2. embed link magnets

Links remain an important Google ranking factor. And while link building is off-page SEO, not on-page SEO, you can attract more links by including linkable snippets on your page.

How do you know what a linkable snippet is?

Look at why people link to similar, competing pages.

For example: the main target keyword for one of our posts is "long tail keywords". When we enter this keyword into Ahrefs' Keyword Explorer, we see a few similar posts with lots of backlinks.