On Page Search Engine Optimization

On-page SEO is the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn

more relevant traffic in search engines. On-page refers to both the content and HTML source code

of a page that can be optimized, as opposed to off-page SEO which refers to links and other

external signals.

1. Keyword Research and Analysis. Launch keyword research software tool. Generate keywords,

sort, and analyze keywords. Search for 10+ phrases that have good monthly USA search volume

with lower competition, that include variations of keyword order arrangement, versus depending

upon outdated On Page Optimization Steps such as exact keyword repetition and keyword density

analysis. Keyword research that returns valued long-tailed keywords is the best market intelligence

to give you a niche competitive advantage

2. Focus On High-Commerciality Keywords. Focus upon ranking for keyword phrases with high

commercial intent (i.e. sales transactions) versus generic information. You want keyword traffic

that increases sales from real buyers! The ultimate keyword portfolio possesses high monthly USA

search volume, low competition, and high cost per click dollar or pay-per-click dollar amounts in

Google Adwords, which means you have to focus upon a specific marketing niche. Work on

ranking high commercial intent keywords using publicly available historical data gathered from

others’ paid search campaigns using free online website analysis tools such as Semrush.com,

Keywordspy.com, and Seorch.eu.

3. Integrate Essential On-page SEO Mechanical Elements. Title tag and header tags for

paragraph subheadings (e.g. H1, H2, H3), increase user experience benefits by parsing page

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content into distinct sections, add structured markup, add image alt tags and image title tags, use

user-friendly URLs, integrate keywords and long-tail keywords, add internal linking.

4. Add Cornerstone Content. Beef-up your content writing and web page optimization by greatly

expanding in-depth on a specific topic on one or two pages on your website, through cornerstone

content. Make sure your web page is 1000-1500 words in length and include all on-page SEO

steps. You can also add in frequently asked questions (FAQs) which can generate huge amounts

of qualified traffic from people asking questions. Group content into related sections with themed

paragraphs.

5. Improve the Title Tag and Description Metatag. Title tag and Description Metatags are some

of the most critical On-page SEO elements. A well-written Title Tag or page title greatly increases

organic Google search results Click Through Rates (CTRs) delivering more website traffic as long

as the corresponding page conveys genuine value supporting the title tag which if done correctly

results in a lower bounce rate. Avoid duplicate title tags and stay within the recommended

character limits – title tags under 60 characters, Meta descriptions under 300 characters. Writing

title tags is a skill worth the effort and is a competitive advantage in online marketing.

6. Write Effective Headlines, Sub-headings, Headings Tags. Improve H1, H2, H3, H4 tags or

heading tags on all web pages including different-different variations of the head keyword topic

found in the web page title tag improves SERP click-throughs. Add useful heading tags above

paragraphs. In addition, for images on the page use descriptive Alt-image and Alt-tags accurately

describing visual content elements.

7. Keyword Choice and Keyword Selection Strategies – Pick Your Battles. Select individual

keyword phrases, supporting semantic keywords, long-tailed keyword phrases, and LSI keywords

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that will provide more depth of coverage towards the overall page topic or paragraph sub-topic

and are also achievable based upon your current domain authority. Goal is to target the sweet-spot

between too-competitive unachievable and no-traffic volume thus easy-to-rank-for.

8. Judiciously Integrate Different Keyword Types. Advance the subject by adding value in your

area of expertise. To get all the benefits of On Page SEO steps place head keywords early and

prominently in the body copy above-the-fold thoroughly covering keyword topics which can be a

crucial component in the On Page SEO process. Usually ten or more keyword phrase variations

supporting the head topic can be integrated into web page content with a total word count of 350

to 500+ words. Strive to make content more interesting web content by publishing more

sophisticated vocabulary topics, increase complex words usage and reading level, yet keep it

legible in a natural human conversation sounding way, plus include semantic keywords for

improved Google quality signals. Add-in Geo-targeted keywords for your city, keyword phrase

variants, and both branded keywords and transactional keywords. Avoid a lot of stop words like

“you” “I” and “our”. The idea is to communicate a useful and informative never-before-seen

message getting to the point. For added search engine rankings value organize your brand

messaging into hierarchical content silos which leads to the best website structure and logical

information architecture to enhance user experience (UX).

9. Additional SEO Copy Writing. Adding more SEO Copywriting content could be necessary in

order to increase the content topical coverage, or to support the integration of 10+ keyword

additions. Longer in-depth content with more words per page, say 500+ to 1500+ words (see

cornerstone content above) in content length develops the topic more thoroughly and increases the

probability of ranking on multiple keywords. Oftentimes you’ll get more benefit from improving

the quality and depth of topic coverage on existing website pages versus publishing new blog posts

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or web pages. Generally, web pages have more strength to rank compared with blog posts

depending upon how the article is distributed, promoted, and linked-to internally.

10. Understand Differences Between Organic SEO – Local SEO – and Technical SEO. In

Organic SEO your site is competing nationally against ALL websites on your business topic in

your country i.e. USA. In local SEO you’re competing in your chosen geographical area as

acknowledged in your Google My Business profile (without sound organic SEO you have no

chance at Local SEO Rankings), Technical SEO refers to technological issues present that are

holding you back from rankings e.g. broken links, duplicate content, inappropriate header response

codes, spam incoming links etc. For your local market add local search marketing content

including local business schema markup and NAP consistency.

11. Stylize The Content. Make web pages easier on the eye by integrating attractive design

elements and making content scannable and readable through bolding text for emphasis, adding

italics, adding visual space, complementary color schemes and color palettes, or adding different

colored text, weighted text, and relevant blue links to make the page more interesting looking

aesthetically, insert fast-loading images, use attractive font combinations and correct spacing

dimensions.

12. Add Visual Content. Visual content includes anything Multimedia, Infographics, Widgets,

Apps, Annotated Screen Shots for Proof, Statistics and Primary or Secondary Research, Social

Media Icons, Slide Shows, links to E-Books, Gifs, Images, Embed Videos. Videos are extremely

powerful to enhance user experience and improve website performance and website dwell time.

Add photos with captions, useful diagrams or charts or graphs, embed YouTube videos or

Vimeo.com videos to increase customer engagement for ways to reduce bounce rates. Take image

optimization steps to minimize file size and maintain quality image displaying.

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13. Responsive Web Design + Secure Web Sites, SSL Certificates. Beyond making sure you

have a responsive website design, convert or migrate your website to a Secure Website Design for

added encryption and security by adding SSL Certificate (Secure Socket Layer) credentials which

means converting to https:// versus http:// protocol because it’s reported that 70% of Google’s Page

#1 search results are https:// protocols. The https:// protocol does require a web hosting upgrade

and SSL certificate which are an increased cost, but worth it. Also make sure your web host keeps

server speed or web page load speed under 2 seconds for home page speed rendering.

14. Create Main Spreadsheet Document URL Map – Keep Good Records. In a spreadsheet

repository document collect the URLs of the pages to be optimized which establishes the URL

Map. At a minimum the URL Map includes the home page, main services hub page, and the

supporting services sub-pages to be optimized. The idea is to map keywords (keyword mapping)

to specific pages to keep things straight and organized, and provide a place to add-in

documentation regarding which web pages you want to rank for specific keywords to prevent

keyword cannibalization between website pages, and in addition to document On Page SEO

changes when implemented. On new web pages, have your keyword in linkable static URL

permalink structure which means use absolute links versus relative links (e.g. use the complete

exact URL not just the file name). Experiment, test, document, & then review Google Analytics

metrics after 1 week.

15. Conduct Internal Linking to Distribute Link Equity. Drive internal links to the most

important pages directing internal page rank flow from the home page into key internal pages. Add

deep linking or deep links between blog posts and related web pages. Interlink web content using

natural sounding link anchor text, avoiding link anchor text over optimization. Fix broken links.

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16. Submit XML Site Map – Submit to Fetch as Google. Refreshing XML sitemaps identifies

recently edited pages for Google to crawl. Submit recently edited pages to “Fetch as Google” in

Google Search Console. In addition, on your website use absolute URLs versus relative URLs.

Use breadcrumb navigation and a HTML site map.

17. Make Further Adjustments, Refinements and Tweaks for Readability. Circle back to

crawled pages in a week or two, after Google has crawled or spidered the page, cached the page,

and actually added the new page content into their index. Review and evaluate measuring Google

Analytics data for new page impressions attributed to edits and modifications. Watch for new

Google keyword ranking momentum. The indexing and ranking process could take 2-4 weeks

depending upon visibility and incoming links.

18. Install Outbound Links – External Linking. In the body of content, link to outside

authoritative citation sources or independent research, citing references for improving user

experience, adding authenticity, and as a relevancy signal for the page. Don’t hog link juice – be

a participant in the web community and link out!

19. Conduct Blogger or Influencer Outreach, Content Promotion, or Link Building.

Distribute and promote the finished product. Use social media sharing. Distribute the content to

your email subscription list. If your site has good web visibility and domain authority the page can

immediately begin attaining rankings from search queries. With good user experience and low

bounce rates Google will deliver even more future natural search engine traffic to the page.

20. SEO is an Ongoing SEO Process and Structured Markup Makes a Positive Difference.

Reviewing Google Analytics data provides valuable keyword ideas and data from SEO Queries

data from which to create new content that drills down to the granular content level. Keep making

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the web page or blog post better – measure and refine. More effort proofreading and expanding on

the theme in detail and in overview can increase web conversions.

An Ideally Optimized Web Page

An ideal web page should do all of the following:

• Be hyper-relevant to a specific topic (usually a product or single object)

o Include subject in title tag

o Include subject in URL

o Include subject in image alt text

o Specify subject several times throughout text content

• Provide unique content about a given subject

• Link back to its category page

• Link back to its subcategory page (If applicable)

• Link back to its homepage (normally accomplished with an image link showing the website

logo on the top left of a page)

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 Factors responsible for On-Page SEO

Title Tag: A title tag is an HTML element that specifies the title of a web page. Title tags are

displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs) as the clickable headline for a given result, and

are important for usability, SEO, and social sharing. The title tag of a web page is meant to be an

accurate and concise description of a page's content.

Meta Description: The Meta description is an HTML attribute that provides a brief summary of

a web page. Search engines such as Google often display the Meta description in search results,

which can influence click-through rates.

Alt Text: Alt text (alternative text), also known as "alt attributes", “alt descriptions", or technically

incorrectly as "alt tags,” are used within an HTML code to describe the appearance and function

of an image on a page.

Alt text uses:

• Adding alternative text to photos is first and foremost a principle of web accessibility.

Visually impaired users using screen readers will be read an alt attribute to better

understand an on-page image.

• Alt tags will be displayed in place of an image if an image file cannot be loaded.

• Alt tags provide better image context/descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping them

to index an image properly.

Duplicate Content: Duplicate content is content that appears on the Internet in more than one

place. That “one place” is defined as a location with a unique website address (URL) - so, if the

same content appears at more than one web address, you’ve got duplicate content. While not

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technically a penalty, duplicate content can still sometimes impact search engine rankings. When

there are multiple pieces of, as Google calls it, "appreciably similar" content in more than one

location on the Internet, it can be difficult for search engines to decide which version is more

relevant to a given search query.

Robots.txt: It is a text file webmasters create to instruct web robots (typically search engine

robots) how to crawl pages on their website. The robots.txt file is part of the robots exclusion

protocol (REP), a group of web standards that regulate how robots crawl the web, access and index

content, and serve that content up to users. The REP also includes directives like Meta robots, as

well as page-, subdirectory-, or site-wide instructions for how search engines should treat links

(such as “follow” or “nofollow”). In practice, robots.txt files indicate whether certain user agents

(web-crawling software) can or cannot crawl parts of a website. These crawl instructions are

specified by “disallowing” or “allowing” the behavior of certain (or all) user agents.

Robots Meta Directives: Robots Meta directives (sometimes called "meta tags") are pieces of

code that provide crawlers instructions for how to crawl or index web page content. Whereas

robots.txt file directives give bots suggestions for how to crawl a website's pages, robots Meta

directives provide more firm instructions on how to crawl and index a page's content. There are

two types of robots Meta directives: those that are part of the HTML page (like the Meta robotstag)

and those that the web server sends as HTTP headers (such as x-robots-tag). The same parameters

(i.e., the crawling or indexing instructions a meta tag provides, such as "noindex" and "nofollow"

in the example above) can be used with both meta robots and the x-robots-tag; what differs is how

those parameters are communicated to crawlers.

Schema.org Markup: Schema.org (often called Schema) is a semantic vocabulary of tags (or

microdata) that you can add to your HTML to improve the way search engines read and represent

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your page in SERPs. Schema.org is the result of collaboration between Google, Bing, Yandex, and

Yahoo! to help you provide the information their search engines need to understand your content

and provide the best search results possible at this time. Adding Schema markup to your HTML

improves the way your page displays in SERPs by enhancing the rich snippets that are displayed

beneath the page title.

HTTP Status Codes: An HTTP status code is a server response to a browser’s request. When you

visit a website, your browser sends a request to the site’s server, and the server then responds to

the browser’s request with a three-digit code: the HTTP status code. These status codes are the

Internet equivalent of a conversation between your browser and the server. They communicate

whether things between the two are A-okay, touch-and-go, or whether something is wrong.

Understanding status codes and how to use them will help you to diagnose site errors quickly to

minimize downtime on your site. You can even use some of these status codes to help search

engines and people access your site; a 301 redirect, for example, will tell bots and people that a

page that has moved somewhere else permanently.

Page Speed: Page speed is often confused with "site speed," which is actually the page speed for

a sample of page views on a site. Page speed can be described in either "page load time" (the time

it takes to fully display the content on a specific page) or "time to first byte" (how long it takes for

your browser to receive the first byte of information from the web server). Google has indicated

site speed (and as a result, page speed) is one of the signals used by its algorithm to rank pages.

And research has shown that Google might be specifically measuring time to first byte as when it

considers page speed. In addition, a slow page speed means that search engines can crawl fewer

pages using their allocated crawl budget, and this could negatively affect your indexation. Page

speed is also important to user experience. Pages with a longer load time tend to have higher

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bounce rates and lower average time on page. Longer load times have also been shown to

negatively affect conversions.

Conversion Rate Optimization: Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the systematic process

of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action — be that filling out a

form, becoming customers, or otherwise. The CRO process involves understanding how users

move through your site, what actions they take, and what's stopping them from completing your

goals.

Conversions Examples

1. Macro-conversions:

• Purchasing a product from the site

• Requesting a quote

• Subscribing to a service

2. Micro-conversions:

• Signing up for email lists

• Creating an account

• Adding a product to the cart

Domains: Domain names are the unique, human-readable Internet addresses of websites. They are

made up of three parts: a top-level domain (sometimes called an extension or domain suffix), a

domain name (or IP address), and an optional subdomain.

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The combination of only the domain name and top-level domain is known as a "root domain." The

"http://" is part of a page's URL but not its domain name and is known as the "protocol."

URLs: A URL (Uniform Resource Locator), more commonly known as a "web address", specifies

the location of a resource (such as a web page) on the internet. The URL also specifies how to

retrieve that resource, also known as the "protocol", such as HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, etc. To correctly

render in all browsers, URLs must be shorter than 2,083 characters.

Canonicalization: A canonical tag (aka "rel canonical") is a way of telling search engines that a

specific URL represents the master copy of a page. Using the canonical tag prevents problems

caused by identical or "duplicate" content appearing on multiple URLs. Practically speaking, the

canonical tag tells search engines which version of a URL you want to appear in search results.

Duplicate content is a complicated subject, but when search engines crawl many URLs with

identical (or very similar) content, it can cause a number of SEO problems. First, if search crawlers

have to wade through too much duplicate content, they may miss some of your unique content.

Second, large-scale duplication may dilute your ranking ability. Finally, even if your content does

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rank, search engines may pick the wrong URL as the "original." Using canonicalization helps you

control your duplicate content.

Redirects: A redirect is a way to send both users and search engines to a different URL from the

one they originally requested. The three most commonly used redirects are 301, 302, and Meta

Refresh.

Types of Redirects

1. 301, "Moved Permanently"—recommended for SEO

2. 302, "Found" or "Moved Temporarily"

3. Meta Refresh

1. 301 Moved Permanently

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-99% of link equity (ranking

power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In most

instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.

2. 302 Found (HTTP 1.1) / Moved Temporarily (HTTP 1.0)

Some of Google's employees have indicated that there are cases where 301s and 302s may be

treated similarly, but our evidence suggests that the safest way to ensure search engines and

browsers of all kinds give full credit is to use a 301 when permanently redirecting URLs. The

Internet runs on a protocol called HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) which dictates how URLs

work. It has two major versions, 1.0 and 1.1. In the first version, 302 referred to the status code

"Moved Temporarily." This was changed in version 1.1 to mean "Found."

3. 307 Moved Temporarily (HTTP 1.1 Only)

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A 307 redirect is the HTTP 1.1 successor of the 302 redirect. While the major crawlers will treat

it like a 302 in some cases, it is best to use a 301 for almost all cases. The exception to this is when

content is really moved only temporarily (such as during maintenance) AND the server has already

been identified by the search engines as 1.1 compatible. Since it's essentially impossible to

determine whether or not the search engines have identified a page as compatible, it is generally

best to use a 302 redirect for content that has been temporarily moved.

Compiled By

Dr. Vikas Gautam

Note: For Academic purpose only

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