If you are on the expedition to learn On-Page SEO, you are definitely at the right place. This ultimate On-Page SEO guide for beginners by SEO experts at the Haryana School Of Digital Marketing includes everything you need to know about the concerned topic.
On-Page SEO is so powerful as it can bring countless new users and customers right to your website.
Additionally, on-page SEO is entirely in your hands. You are the one who will establish the topic/or goal of each page. Also, you get to decide on the target keywords, phrases you want to focus on, and the target audience for that page.
On-Page SEO might make you feel intimidated and empowered at the same time. And if you are feeling unsure about how to get started, we have created this ultimate On-Page SEO guide for beginners to help you out.
Before moving on with the guide, let us first understand what On-Page SEO is and why it is important.
What Is On-Page SEO?
On-Page SEO optimizes your website or web pages and makes them more search-engine friendly. On-Page SEO helps search engines understand your content better and rank them higher for more visibility in relevant searches. You can optimize the title, headline, meta tags, internal linking, URL structure, page content, etc. You have the most control over on-page SEO because everything is on your website.
Why Is On-Page SEO Important?
In this section of the complete On-Page SEO guide for beginners, we will understand why On-Page SEO is important.
On-Page SEO is important because it tells Google everything about your website and how you provide value to users and customers. This concept helps optimize your website for both human eyes and search engine crawlers.
It is not enough to only create and publish your website, and it is essential to optimize it for Google and other search engines in order to rank and bring new traffic.
On-Page SEO is known as on-page because all the charges you make to optimize your website are visible to the users on your page.
Each and every part of on-page SEO is entirely up to you, which is why it is essential to do it appropriately.
Now, let us move on to the elements of On-Page SEO that you must know about.
Must Know On-Page SEO Elements – On-Page SEO Guide For Beginners
All on-page SEO elements are differentiated into three main categories:
- Content Elements
- HTML Elements
- Site Architecture Elements
Let us now dig further into the sections these elements are divided into:
Content Elements
Content elements include such elements that fall within your website copy and content. This section focuses on crafting high-quality page content that is beneficial for users and tells Google that your website offers value.
High-Quality Page Content
The page content is considered the heart of On-Page SEO. It tells both readers and readers what your business and website are all about.
The first step to be followed in order to create high-quality content is choosing relevant topics and keywords. Conduct keyword research using Google to find out terms people are searching for and see what competitors are offering. You can also use some other tools to conduct keyword research, such as AnswerthePublic, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Ubersuggest.
Next, you should look into how your page content falls into visitors’ search intent and buyers’ journey. It will help you know how you will use the keywords and what kind of content you will create:
| STAGE IN THE BUYER’S JOURNEY | SUGGESTED CONTENT/WEBSITE PAGES |
| Awareness | Blog posts, videos homepage |
| Consideration | Buyer’s guide, case studies about page |
| Decision | Product demos, comparison tools, product or pricing pages, contact page |
Now, it is time to write content for your page or clean it up if you are presently conducting your on-page SEO.
Here are a few best practices that can help you write high-quality page content
- Include both short-tail and long-tail keywords naturally.
- Create engaging and relevant content.
- Write for your particular buyer personas.
- Solve your audience’s problems actively.
- Develop content that people will share and want to link to.
- Optimize your conversions with Call-to-Actions to offers and product pages.
You may treat page content as your opportunity to communicate value to your website users and Google because, as mentioned above, it is the heart of On-Page SEO. All other elements in On-Page SEO are somewhere stemming from high-quality page content, so invest enough resources to develop and optimize it.
HTML Elements
HTML elements are the elements in your source code.
Page Titles
Your website page titles, also known as title tags, are one of the most important SEO elements.
Titles are created to tell both users and search engines what the page is about and what they can find on the corresponding pages.
It is important to use your focus keyword in the title to ensure the website pages rank for the proper intent. You should include your keyword as naturally as possible.
Here are some of the best practices you can use while developing a page title:
- Ensure your title is under 60 characters so it can be displayed correctly. Although there is no exact character limit by Google, it shows titles max out at 600 pixels. But by keeping your titles at 60 characters or less, you can ensure that they won’t be cut off in search results.
- Don’t stuff the title with keywords. Keyword stuffing doesn’t only present a tacky or spammy reading experience, but modern search engines are smarter than ever; they have been designed in such a way that they can specifically monitor if your content is unnaturally stuffed with keywords.
- Don’t use all caps.
- Make it relevant to the page.
Headers
Headers, also called body tags, refer to the HTML element <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, and so on.
These heading tags help organize your content, provide an organized structure for readers, and help search engines differentiate what part of your content is most important and relevant based on search intent.
You may include your important related keywords in your headers. Put your focus keyword in your <h1> and <h2> tags.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions refer to the short descriptions that are displayed under the title in search results. Although it is not directly a ranking factor for your website, it can impact whether the user will click on your page or not. Therefore, it is considered while you do On-Page SEO.
Meta descriptions can also appear on social media when your content is shared over there so that it can encourage click-through from there also.
You may consider the following points to make a good meta description:
- Keep it short and under 160 characters.
- Include your focus keyword in the meta description.
- Use complete and compelling sentences.
- Avoid alphanumeric characters such as -, &, or +.
Image Alt-Text
You can consider image-alt-text as SEO for your images. It lets Google and other search engines know what your images are about. It is important because Google also delivers as many image-based results as it shows text-based results.
That means potential users may discover your website through your images. And if you want search engines to do this, you must add alt-text to your images.
Here is what you should consider while adding image-alt-text:
- Make it specific and descriptive
- Make it contextually relevant to the broader page content.
- Use keywords sparingly, and don’t stuff keywords.
- Keep the length shorter than 125 characters.
Schema Markup – Structured Data
Schema markup or structured data refers to the process of marking up the source code of your website to make it easier for search engine crawlers to find and understand different elements of your content.
Structured data is the key behind those knowledge panels, featured snippets, and other content features you see when you search a keyword on Google. It is also how specifically your page information shows up neatly when your content is shared on social media.
Note: Structured data is considered a part of technical SEO, but we have included it here because optimizing it creates a better on-page user experience.
Site Architecture Elements
The elements that make up your website and site pages are known as site architecture elements.
The way you structure your website can help search engines crawl the site pages and page content.
Page URLs
Make your page URLs simple so that both readers and search engines can understand them easily. They are also important to keep your site hierarchy consistent while creating blog posts, sub-pages, and other types of internal pages.
Consider the following tips while creating SEO-friendly URLs:
- Remove the unnecessary extra words.
- Use the focus keyword in the URL.
- Use HTTPS as Google now considers that as a positive ranking factor.
Internal Linking
Internal linking refers to the process of hyperlinking one page of your website to other helpful pages on your website. This concept is considered important because internal links send users to other pages on your website, keeping them around longer and thus showing Google your website is helpful and valuable.
Also, the more time users spend on your website, the more time Google has to crawl and index the pages on your website. Ultimately, it helps Google get more information about your website and potentially rank it higher on the SERP.
Mobile Responsiveness
Google now favors optimized and faster websites for mobile speeds – even for desktop searches.
In SEO, mobile responsiveness matters.
It is essential to choose a website hosting service, theme, design, and content layout that is easily readable and navigable on mobile devices. If you are unsure about your website’s mobile-friendliness, you can use Google’s Mobile-friendly test tool.
Site Speed
Whether the user is viewing your website on mobile or desktop, it must be able to load quickly. And when it comes to On-Page SEO, page speed is one of the essential factors.
Google keeps the user experience as its priority. If your site speed is slow and loads steadily, it’s like your users will not stick around, and Google knows that. Furthermore, your site speed can impact conversions and ROI.
You may check the speed of your website anytime using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.
Note: Site speed and mobile responsiveness are considered under technical SEO, but these are included here because optimizing them will enhance the on-page SEO experience for users.
This section of the On-Page SEO guide for beginners has covered the different On-Page SEO elements. Next, we will discuss the steps of auditing and improving your On-Page SEO.
On-Page SEO Checklist – On-Page SEO guide for beginners
Now in this ultimate On-Page SEO guide for beginners, you will learn how to perform On-Page SEO like never before. You may consider the following points while going through the On-Page SEO checklist.
Keyword Research
The first and foremost step is to do your keyword research. You can’t follow any further steps if you don’t know your target keyword. You might go through the keyword research guide for beginners to learn how to do it, but here are a few tips:
- You will do most of your blog posts keyword targeting and On-Page SEO.
- Use keyword research tools to discover keywords with low competition and decent volume.
- Target one focus keyword for each page. For example, you can target more than one related keyword for a single post, but if you write separate posts for them, they might compete against each other on SERP.
- Google your keywords. If you follow all the steps but your page content doesn’t match the user intent of your target keyword, it will not rank.
Content Quality
Google defines thin content as inauthentic, low quality, and providing little value – such as thin affiliate pages, auto-generated copy, doorway pages, and scraped content.
But just because your page doesn’t fit under any of the above criteria doesn’t mean you are not using thin or low-quality content. The important thing here to consider is “value.” If you want to rank your page for the targeted keyword, it needs to be:
Trustworthy
The information you include should be accurate and relevant to the headline’s promise.
Useful
Content should provide the information or knowledge a user wants when searching for that specific keyword.
Actionable
All your “what” s in the content should be followed by “how” s, even if it requires linking to a different resource.
Readable
Make your content easy to read and understand. Write it so that the information is well-structured, organized, and scannable through headers. You can use short paragraphs, break text by images, call-out quotes, bulleted and numbered points, and other visual elements to do this.
Adequate Length
If you optimize your page for a blog post, make sure you use at least 2,000 words. It is recommended to use more than an average word length based on the top 50 blog posts.
Free of Fluff
You should not include many words for less information. It decreases the readability of your content and offers a bad user experience.
Keyword Placement
If you are writing and optimizing quality content like a human, the focus keyword and related LSI keywords will naturally occur in the text body. But, as per On-Page SEO, there are some places where you need to place your focus keyword intentionally. These include:
- SEO Title
- Blog Title
- First 100 words of the content
- Headings/Subheadings
- Throughout the content as per keyword density, i.e., 1%
- Meta description
- Image alt text
- Page URL
- Image file name
If any of the above points left you confused, don’t worry, as in the rest of the On-Page SEO guide for beginners, we will dive deeper into each one.
Images
Images on their own are a part of On-Page SEO optimization since they help keep readers engaged with a page. But images on a page are more than something that meets the eye. Check out the following points to consider for your image optimization:
Optimise for speed
Make sure to resize your images, so their width does not exceed the page’s maximum width limit, and compress them to reduce image file size without sacrificing quality.
Add Alt Text
Alt text refers to the text alternative to an image. This way, you tell Google what your image is about, and it would be better to include your focus keyword.
Convey Value
You can use images to explain the concepts you have included on your page, such as screenshots, graphs, and even your creative illustrations.
Don’t Replace Text With Images
Alt text is only meant to be a few words, so when you convey information relevant to the keyword using an image, ensure that you have also included information in the page’s body text.
Optimise File Name
The name of the image file that you are uploading to your page should contain the focus keyword. Also, make sure you replace the spaces in your file name with underscores or dashes because otherwise, they will be replaced with some gibberish that doesn’t look trustworthy and further impact your image rankings in image results.
Title
There are two types of titles for any web page or website:
SEO Title
The SEO title is also known as the Meta title or Title tag, which appears in the search results. An ideal SEO title or title tag should be up to 60 characters containing the focus keyword. The best practice would be to include your focus keyword at the beginning of the headline so that it doesn’t get cut off on smaller screens.
Page or Blog Title
The title with the H1 tag that appears on the page is known as a page or blog title. Here, you have more room to be creative and convey value, but it should obviously contain your focus keyword and be relevant. Your title should:
- Convey value
- Not be overpromising
- Be descriptive
- Be interesting
Headings
You can use headings to structure your content and organize the page information into clear sections and subsections. It will help you to convey the readers’ hierarchy of the page, but it is also important for Google to understand its relevance to the focus keyword.
But Google can’t identify headings based on font size or weight like we can. Instead, Google understands HTML.
Heading tags are divided into six types starting from <h1> to <h6>. If you are using CMS such as WordPress, you can find these tags in the drop-down menu; otherwise, you can also apply them in the HTML code.
- <H1> is for the title of the page. Each page should contain only one H1.
- <H2> categorizes the main sections of your content. A well-optimized content could contain from two to twenty H2s, depending on how much content is there. Throughout the content, you should have at least two H2s that contain the focus keyword.
- <H3> is used to categorize further the different points created in each H2 section.
- <H4> to <H6> helps you chop up your content and provide deeper knowledge. These headings indicate that your content is comprehensive and can help provide SEO value.
The main thing to consider with headings is to ensure they are descriptive. A user should be able to scan the content throughout by looking at headings only. Using heading tags also enables Google to rank your page in more specific queries related to the page, allowing you more chances to appear on the first page.
Meta Descriptions
The meta description refers to the page description under the SERP title. You may consider it as the ad of your webpage because a well-written meta description will tell users your post can answer their query and get the clicks. Consider the following points while writing a meta description:
- Keep it up to 160 characters.
- Must include your focus keyword and include related keywords if it makes sense.
- Make it actionable and communicate benefits.
Google doesn’t always use the same meta description as you have provided. It creates them dynamically based on the query, and here is another reason why it is important to have those heading tags in your content. You may also consider that the meta descriptions also appear in preview snippets such as the ones you see on social media.
URL
Most CMSs generate an automatic URL for your page – sometimes, it uses the title you have provided or sometimes a string of numbers. It would be better if you edit this URL, and it should:
- Contain the focus keyword
- Use dashes instead of spaces
- Keep it short
Links
There are two types of links in On-Page SEO:
Internal Links
These links on your page redirect users from one page to other pages on your website. Your page should include internal links, and other pages on your website should also link to the one you are optimizing.
External Links
These are links on your website that redirect users to other domains. The best practice in On-Page SEO is to link out to pages for relevant topics from websites with high domain authority. It will increase your trustworthiness on Google. It is considered valuable if you link to at least 3 high-quality domains.
Content Freshness
The importance of content freshness can be different based on the query, but it is considered important to regularly update any page you want to rank to preserve its value. These are the following points you can consider:
- Update or add new information
- Fix broken links and add links to new content
- Replace old images
- Check to ensure that the keyword intent hasn’t changed
Free On-Page SEO Checkers
With the information in the On-Page SEO guide for beginners, you might have understood that a page ranking at the top of SERP is not just effortlessly streaming along. A lot of work and effort goes into it, and it applies to every page on your website. Fortunately, there are the following On-Page SEO checkers to help you out:
SEO Tools
Free trials from SEO tools like Semrush and Ahref can help you run detailed audits on your website to check for on-page, off-page, and technical SEO factors. These are the best for SEO experts who know what to check and how to examine the results.
WordPress Plugins
WordPress plugins, such as Rank Math and Yoast SEO, will give you a score and suggestions on your content’s keyword targeting and readability. Consider these suggestions carefully as per the requirement of your content and website.
Best Place To Learn On-Page SEO
The last and most crucial section of this complete off-page SEO guide for beginners includes India’s most popular SEO course to help you start your career.
To start a career in SEO, you require some skills, and opting for the right SEO course can help you learn these skills. And with so many options available in the market, you might need clarification about making a choice. Well, we have made this easy for you because the SEO course mentioned below is the best SEO course in India to embark on your career in SEO.
SEO Course By Haryana School Of Digital Marketing
Course Name: SEO Course By HSDM
Duration: 1 Month
Mode: Online and Offline, both available
Fees: ₹ 10,000
Trainers: Mr. Dinesh Jangid and Ms. Amanpreet Kaur
Contact Details
Address: 1st Floor, Sco 36p, Sector 14 Pocket A, Hisar, Haryana 125001
Phone Number: 9509269864
Website: hsdm.in
Email: hsdm@gmail.com
Final Words
Hope this complete On-Page SEO guide for beginners in India has provided you with all the answers you were looking for. As mentioned in the guide, On-Page SEO is very effective in boosting the rankings of your website.
So, what are you waiting
for? If you want to start a full-fledged SEO career, you must learn On-Page SEO, and for this, you can opt for the best SEO course in India, provided by the Haryana School Of Digital Marketing.
We hope that you have found this article valuable. Please comment below if you have any doubts or reviews about the article. We will be more than happy to respond.
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