On page SEO: The Definitive Guide for 2021

What is On Page SEO?

On page SEO is the technique used to optimize web page content for users and search engines and earn organic traffic.

Best on page SEO practices include

• Optimizing Header tag, title tag and meta tag
• Improve the website loading speed
• Add some relevant internal links
• Image optimization
• Schema Markup
• Make SEO Friendly URL

What Exactly we do in on page SEO, we send the quality signals to search engines and rank accordingly on SERP.

Why Is On Page SEO important?

The search engine giant Google is constantly updating its algorithm, making it more important than ever to make important tweaks and adjustments to your website. 

You need to optimize your website for search engine bots and provide value to visitors. As Google algorithm updates, so should your on page SEO strategy.

Digital marketers invest their efforts and energy in off-page techniques, such as guest posting, influencer outreach, forum submission, social media engagement, and other SEO techniques. 

If truth be told, off-page SEO doesn’t work well if your on page SEO game is not strong.

Tech-savvy digital marketers and SEO specialists know the fact that on-page optimization should be continuously optimized and prioritized to stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving search landscape.  

On page SEO, also known as on-site SEO, is the process of optimizing your website pages (front-end and back-end components) to drive organic traffic to get higher rankings on search engine page results pages (SERPs).  

On-page SEO is more than posting engaging, high-quality content, optimizing your headlines, HTML tags, and images, and making sure your website includes keywords relevant to your business and target audience. 

It requires you to put some extra effort into making sure your business website has a high level of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

On page SEO, if done right, has the true potential to drive a lot of new visitors – potential leads – to your website. 

All you need to do is decide the goal of web pages, your target audience, target keywords, images, and headlines you want to focus on.

On page SEO Tips for 2021

1) Optimize Website Content  

To rank your website in SERPs, you need to optimize your content. Believe it or not, web page content is one of the most important factors of your on page SEO strategy. It informs both visitors and search engine bots about your website, products, or services.

2) Use Relevant Keywords

The very step of creating engaging and relevant content for your audience and Google is to choose relevant keywords and topics. 

Incorporating relevant keywords into your content helps visitors to find what they are looking for. Furthermore, Google prefers those websites that use targeted keywords in their content as it helps Google understand what your web page is all about.

So, make sure every page on your website is keyword optimized. Understand the search intent and then use a number of keyword variations and associated phrases to optimize your content for search.

You can conduct keyword research by using different tools such as

1. Google Search Console
2. Ahrefs
3. Semrush
4. Soovle
5. SECockpit
6. Google Keyword Planner
7. KeywordTool.io
8. Moz Keyword Explorer
9. AnswerthePublic

3) HTML Elements, Page Titles, and Headers

HTML tags are one of the most important on page SEO elements that help Google understand the structure of the webpage.

<title> On Page SEO: The Definitive Guide </title>

Make sure your HTML page titles and headers include focus keywords for each webpage to help users understand what your page is all about. 

It is featured prominently on the search engine result page in the form of clickable format. Poorly written and duplicate HTML tags can hurt your organic rankings. 

It is advised to optimize HTML tags to optimize your content and offer a great user experience to website visitors.

4) Optimize Metadata

The meta description is the page description that is shown in the SERPs. It gives you an opportunity to convince visitors to click the link and check your website.

SEO specialists are advised to optimize metadata by adding target keywords in the meta title and meta description to make the description more appealing to the visitor. Furthermore, if your company is offering location specific SEO services, make sure to include the location in the Meta title and description.  

Pro Tip: Avoid using auto-generated descriptions, have your metadata optimized with relevant keywords and useful content to help users and Google understand what your page has in store for them.

5) Write Original, High-Quality Content

Quality content with proper keyword placement that matches the needs of users is one of the best on page SEO techniques that will help you improve your website rankings in 2021 and beyond. 

Google prefers EAT friendly content – Expert, Authoritative and Trustworthy.

Make sure your website content is original (not published anywhere else) and solely focused on the search intent and target keywords. 

According to Google Webmaster Guidelines, you can rank your website higher if you pay close attention to these simple tips:

• Create an information-packed site that clearly describes your content
• Write content for real users, not for search engine bots.
• Make sure the content includes relevant keywords.
• Make sure the page title and alt attributes are relevant and descriptive.
• Allow search bots to crawl your website without URL parameters or session ID barriers.
• Make your site content visible by default
• Create unique, informative, and engaging content to increase the quality of your website

6) Internal Linking

Internal linking matters a lot; in fact, it is one of the most effective on page SEO tactics that can drive the desired result. It is the process of linking your web page to other useful pages of your website. 

Internal linking is essential because it sends readers to high-authority pages on your website, convince them to stick around your website, thus lowering bounce rate and showing Google that users find your website helpful. 

It will ultimately help Google crawl your web pages, absorb more information and rank it higher on the SERPs.

When a search engine spider crawls your website, it starts following the links available on the page.

 If your web page doesn’ include any link, it will read and go away. However, if your web page contains internal links, it will take those links into account as well.

7) Increase Your Page Speed

Your page speed matters a lot, when it comes to o page SEO optimization. Whether visitors are viewing your site on a mobile device or desktop, it should load within a few seconds. 

Keep in mind; Google really cares about user experience. If your website takes forever to load, chances are visitors won’t wait for your website to load; they will abandon it. This is why your site loading speed can have a great impact on your conversion rate and ROI.  

So, improve your website speed and move to a better hosting provider. According to a survey of 5.2 million websites, you can improve your site’s loading speed by simply choosing a reliable hosting service.

You can improve your website speed by following these important tips:

• Eliminate third-party scripts
• Compress and optimize your images
• Reduce your redirects
• Cache your web pages
• Asynchronous and defer loading for your CSS and JavaScript files.
• Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
• Leverage a content delivery network (CDN)
• Remove unnecessary plugins

8) Create SEO Friendly URLs

The URL structure is one the most important parts of on page SEO optimization that is overlooked by a majority of marketers. 

Creating SEO-friendly URLs has now become more important now than before. Try to make your URLs short and easy to read for searchers and search engines as it helps them understand what your page is all about.

Don’t forget to incorporate the primary keyword in the URL to make it clearer and more clickable. 

It is advised to use HTTPS, as Google is considering it as the main ranking factor. Keeping your URLs short is the key as Google shortens the lengthy ones in the SERPs, use only the main keyword

9) Image Optimization

There is no denying the fact that adding images to your web pages is one of the most effective and result-driven SEO techniques. 

Optimizing your site images and giving them a descriptive filename and alt text helps Google understand what the image is all about. 

For instance, when Google sees a page with pictures of healthy recipes and ingredients, it tells them: “This page is all about food”.

Make sure to add the target keyword in your images and use a filename that includes the target keyword, like on-page-SEO-guide-2021.png.It is recommended to use the same keyword for your image alt tags.

• Image optimization, if done right, offers a lot of benefits:
• Increase your chances of getting higher rankings
• Allowing you to rank in Google Image Search
• Offer a great user experience

Pro Tip: Don’t use stock images; they might affect your Google rankings. Create custom, original images; they will surely help you rank.  

10) Make Your Content Fresh

Adding the year to your Meta title and description is a great strategy that will give your content a fresh look.

For instance, someone searching for killer app ideas doesn’t need something that worked in the past; they want to read something fresh. 

Adding the year to the title and description will make people believe that the content is up to date.  

11) Optimize Your Content for Featured Snippets

According to the Feature Snippet industry study, you need to rank on the first page to get a Featured Snippet. But how is this possible?

If you want to optimize your content for feature snippets, include a short definition in your content. 

Whether they are articles, product descriptions, reviews, or recipes, add a short description and a schema markup code.

Schema markup can turn your regular snippers into rich snippets, which will eventually increase your chances of getting more clicks and receiving more website traffic. 

Furthermore, it will help search engines to better understand your content and provide the best possible search results.