On-Page SEO: An in-Depth Guide for 2021

Organic reach is undeniably the biggest source of traffic for your website. Succeeding in optimizing your website to achieve better organic traffic is only possible when considering both on-page and off-page SEO. All these years, there has been an increased interest in the off-page technique. Off-page techniques usually focus on building backlinks and other technical elements. In contrast, on-page techniques are more inclined towards building your page in an enhanced way by optimizing the title tags, meta description, and keywords.

Off-page SEO won’t yield a better result if your on-page SEO isn’t set up properly. Though both of them are used to increase your ranking on the search engine results page, on-page SEO makes the search engine understand your website better and offer you a genuinely better ranking. If you're a smart SEO practitioner, you will constantly prioritize and upgrade the knowledge of these SEO skills. As search engines' landscape is always evolving, you must make sure to catch the trends quickly and adapt to them.

What techniques come under on-page and off-page SEO?

Off-page SEO is mostly concerned with building your brand reputation and creating trust in your users. The techniques of off-page SEO hence deal with link building , social media channels, and local SEO. All these techniques have little to do with your own website and usually happens off the site. For instance, reviews are one way of off-page optimization that brings in traffic and builds trust. A good off-page strategy will make your site appear like a quality destination to your users.

When it comes to on-page SEO, it's only concerning is improving your websites in the view of increasing rankings. You write quality and relevant content, build a concrete site structure, and make sure to include internal links and optimized title tags. The relevance of your content includes the HTML tags used, headlines, and images. Using the right ones will make it easier for the search engine to find you and take you to your potential customers. It also promotes a sense of authoritativeness, expertise, and trustworthiness, making a regular user turn into a potential customer. All this is happening through generic organic search.

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO convinces the search engine that your website is the most relevant to its identified user query. Relevance is a key part of on-page SEO. Without providing relevant content, it is unlikely for you to rank high on Google. As search engines' algorithm is becoming more complex by the day, the focus on relevance and semantics is increasing. Google is now much better at comprehending its users' needs and queries along with delivering the page that exactly suits the user's intention. An expert SEO professional will know that this is essential and ensures that the content that goes to a search engine (HTML tag, structured data) and the content that goes in front of the user (text, images, videos, etc.) are optimized according to the latest practices. Duplicate content is something you should strictly avoid.

Apart from this, you have better control over on-page SEO than off-page SEO as it has more to do with external signals. When you concentrate more on on-page SEO, you're more likely to go high in your search presence and boost your traffic. Going forward, we'll consider other important factors in on-page optimization.

Other optimizations that your page needs

Apart from relevant and quality content, several other factors are influential in improving your SERPs.

Sticking to Google’s algorithms

Google scrutinizes the overall user experience on a website. It reviews your content and initial impressions of the site, like loading time and page interaction. It also concentrates on user engagement on your site, and the time a typical user is spending on your website helps determine that. With a concrete On-page SEO strategy, you can meet Google's criteria and improve your rankings on the search engine. As Google is the most used search engine in the world, this will ensure a boost in website traffic.

Title and Header Tags

The title tag is what appears on the search engine results page. So, it is what initially drives the user to click on the link. It has so much potential to improve your organic rankings and is very often overlooked. Badly written and duplicated title tags can have a negative influence on improving your rankings.

The HTML elements that help in identifying the subheadings from within your content are called the header tags. They often affect your rankings by making the content more readable to your users and offering a content-rich context about your website's content.

Optimizing internal links and URLs

Concentrate on four aspects link accessibility, anchor text, link volume, and redirection. Internal linking can benefit by covering more deeply on the topic. It provides more information about the architecture of your site to Google.

The URL also has certain benefits from an SEO perspective. When the URL of your site includes certain keywords, it makes it more relevant. This makes the search engine encourage the user to click on your link.

Meta-description

Meta-description has played a major role in SEO from the initial days. They basically brief about what your website has to offer. With proper meta tags, you can also improve your click-through rate.

Image optimization

When you add more images to your webpages, they become instantly appealing. The advantages of image optimization include showing up on Google image search, which will boost your rankings. They offer a better user experience also. But you must ensure to incorporate images that are contextual with your content. Use titles that are brief and descriptive and include alt text.