On-page SEO, sometimes referred to as on-site SEO, refers to the practice of optimising your website in order for it to improve your user’s experience, rank higher in the SERPs and to gain more organic traffic. On-page SEO can include many different aspects including updating content, updating the structure of your page, using internal links and many more. When you are optimising your on-page SEO, you are aiming to improve the user experience by providing valuable and relevant content to your visitors, in addition to improving the page’s relevance and salience and showcasing your expertise on a given topic. By improving your on-page SEO, it will help to improve your visibility and traffic. In this blog, we will be discussing tips that you can use to improve your on-page SEO.
What Is On-Page SEO?
On-page SEO is an extremely important aspect of search engine optimisation and it involves optimising your web pages in order to rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs) so that you can attract more traffic to your website. Unlike off-page SEO, which involves external factors such as gaining backlinks into your website, on-page SEO is about making improvements directly on your website. There are many elements of on-page SEO that can help you to improve your rankings by creating a better user experience.
Why Is On-Page SEO So Important?
Improving your on-page SEO is incredibly important because it will help to improve search visibility and increase the amount of traffic to your website. According to a study by Backlinko who analysed the click through rate data across 1,312,881 pages and 12,166,560 search queries, it found that the website in position 1 in Google’s organic search results has an average click through rate of 27.6%, this was the highest click through rate by far, a sharp drop off then started on the 2nd page of the results.
Source: Backlinko
This shows that being on the first page of the SERPs will help you to gain more traffic. Another statistic that further implies this, is that only 0.63% of Google searchers clicked on a link from the second page of the SERPs.
Source: Backlinko
The figures and statistics above show the importance of improving your website’s rankings, and improving your on-page SEO will play a key role in helping Google to recognise what your website is about and the value of it, therefore putting you in a better position to rank. So, now that we know the importance of improving on-page SEO for your website, let’s dive into how you can do this.
- Review the salience and relevance of the content on your website
In the world of SEO, the content that is on your website is extremely important. The content is what drives traffic to your website, what engages your users and what can also convert users into customers. It is therefore essential to regularly review the salience and relevance of the content on your website.
Salience refers to how relevant the content on your website is, relating to your target audience. If the content on your website is not relevant to your users, they will be unlikely to engage with it or even visit your website in the first place. It is therefore important to regularly ensure that the salience of your content is to a high level to ensure you are providing users with the most relevant helpful content. It is also important to make sure that your content aligns with what users are searching for because, if your content is not relevant to keywords that users are searching for in Google, it is unlikely that your website will appear in the SERPs, therefore meaning that you could be missing out on a significant amount of organic traffic.
By regularly reviewing the salience and relevance of the content on your website, you will be able to identify gaps that you have within your content and then make any necessary changes and amendments. By updating your content, you will be able to improve the salience of your content and make it more useful to users, and more visible in the SERPs.
In order to review the salience of the content on your website, you can either do it manually or with a range of tools that are available on the web. These tools use machine learning powered Natural Language Understanding technology and they will measure the relevance of your content. They can also see how relevant your landing pages are for your target keywords and you can measure the impact of any content changes by using a text comparison tool to understand how any changes that you have made to your content have impacted its relevance.
Using salience tools will allow you to see how relevant your content is, and because they use machine learning, they will also be able to show the way that search engines are understanding your content. By seeing the relevance of your content, you are able to know, as a website owner, if the content on your website is relevant to your target audience, you will then be able to improve your content and see how the salience has improved. Once you have reviewed the content, you will be able to come up with a content strategy which will help to improve user experience, improve rankings and increase the traffic to your website.
- Optimise your on-site content for SEO
Once you have reviewed the salience and relevance of your content, it is now time to improve the content on your website. Updating the content on your website can have many benefits, it can improve the users overall experience, by creating high quality content, you will be providing users with the information that they want. Another benefit is that you will be able to target your specific keywords by including them in your content, meaning that you will increase your likelihood of being featured highly in the SERPs and therefore will likely increase your organic traffic, therefore also increasing your online visibility. If you are creating high quality content for your users, it is more likely that Google will place your website higher up on the SERP. So, how do you create this high quality content?
Firstly, you need to make sure that you are targeting your keywords, it is important to carry out keyword research so that you know what users are searching for, you then need to include these keywords naturally within your content so that Google knows what your web page is about. It is also important to include words that are semantically related to your targeted keywords to improve the salience of your page. You also need to ensure that the content is valuable and engaging for your users, this can be done by using subheadings, bullet points, short paragraphs and other formatting techniques to make sure that the content is easily readable for the users.
Overall, your content should be helpful for your users, Google’s helpful content update states that if content doesn’t meet a visitor’s expectations, it will not perform as well. It is therefore extremely important that your content is predominantly made for your users, as this is the best way to improve your rankings and therefore increase your visibility. According to Google “People-first content creators focus on creating satisfying content, while also utilising SEO best practices to bring searchers additional value.”
- Review the structure of your webpage
Reviewing the structure and layout of your webpage is crucial for user experience, and therefore is crucial for SEO. The structure of your webpage refers to how your content is organised and presented on your page. Having a well structured web page can improve your user’s experience and can make it easier for those users to navigate through your website and find the information that they are looking for. This can also be beneficial for search engines, as having a well structured website will make it easier to crawl your web pages and find the important information. The layout of your website therefore matters if you want to ensure that you are gaining a high level of traffic from organic searches.
When you are reviewing the structure of your web pages there are certain things you can do to improve user experience and engagement:
- ➡️Use headings and subheadings
- ➡️Put the most important information at the top of the page
- ➡️Include features such as bullet points and infographics
- ➡️Include images throughout the page
- ➡️Include internal links and a call to action if relevant
- ➡️Include reviews to promote E-E-A-T signals
By ensuring that you are including these bullet points, it will make sure that your website is user friendly, by providing clear headings and subheadings, it will indicate to users what they are going to find on the page. By optimising your website so that it is user friendly, it is likely that your user engagement will increase, you can boost your traffic and potentially convert more leads. Additionally, by creating a better user experience on your website, you can create a positive brand image and create return users. Making sure that you are reviewing the structure of your webpage is therefore extremely important and should be an integral part of your SEO strategy.
- Create a strong internal linking profile
Another aspect of improving your on-page SEO is to create a strong internal linking profile. An internal link is any link that is pointing from one page on your website to another page on your website. Internal linking can help to improve the user experience as it can make it easier for users to navigate through your website and find the information that they are looking for. Additionally, it also helps to distribute link equity throughout your website and establish the importance of particular pages.
As well as improving the user experience, having a strong internal linking profile can help improve the crawlability and indexability of your website. By linking from one page to another page, you are creating a clear path for search engines to follow when they are crawling and navigating your website. This is extremely important as it will help to ensure that all of your pages are getting crawled, and they are easily discoverable. If search engines can not crawl your pages, they will not be indexed and will therefore not end up in the search results. By having a strong internal linking profile, your pages are more likely to be crawled and indexed so that they can then rank.
Another benefit of having a strong internal linking profile is that it can help to establish the importance of your web pages. By linking from lower level pages, such as blogs, to higher level pages, you can signal to search engines which pages are the most important and which pages you want to be returning in the SERPs. By sending internal links to the more important pages of your website, you can improve the ranking potential of these pages.
Overall, internal linking can be extremely impactful for SEO purposes, it can help search engines to crawl and index your pages, and it can help to improve the user experience by making it easier for users to navigate your website. Also, by linking to related pages and content, you are more likely to keep your users engaged and spend more time on your website.
- Undertake a competitor analysis
Undertaking a competitor analysis can be a valuable way to improve your on-page SEO, by researching your main competitors, you will be able to gain inspiration and leverage the competitive landscape to your advantage.
To conduct a competitor analysis, you should start by identifying your main competitors in the market (ideally ones that are ranking relatively well), you can then analyse their website structure, their content and the keywords that they are targeting. If they are incorporating things into their website that you do not have, this could be something that you can then improve. For example, if they are including related articles and reviews on their page and you are not, this could show that they are portraying better E-E-A-T signals than you and could be a reason as to why they are ranking higher. Or, if they have a lot more useful content and information for their users, it could mean that you need to include more helpful content relating to your topic on your website.
You can then use NLP tools to evaluate your content against your competitors to understand where they might be outperforming you and where you might need to improve the content on your website.
By undertaking a competitor analysis, you are able to continuously improve your on-page SEO and stay ahead of your competitors. But keep in mind that whilst it is important to learn from your competitors, it is just as important to keep your brand values and USPs at the forefront of your SEO strategy. You should use the insights that you have gained from the competitor analysis to improve your on-page SEO whilst ensuring that your website is remaining authentic to your brand.
Summary
When improving your on-page SEO, you will be optimising your web pages in order to improve user experience, and to increase your visibility and traffic. Improving your on-page SEO can involve various elements including optimising your page structure, internal linking profile and content, all of these improvements will help to make your website more user friendly and will therefore have an impact on the websites rankings and visibility.
To find out more about how you can improve your on-page SEO or for help with implementing these improvements, get in touch today!
