What is onPage SEO?

Onpage SEO is about all the measures that are implemented on your own website. The main issues here are technical, content-related and structural.

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An introduction to the topic of onPage SEO

The foundation for your website when it comes to positions in Google search. In this article I explain the most important components of onPage SEO.

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Marc Heiss

Author: Marc Heiss
Position: Management
Updated: 19.03.2023

What is OnPage SEO?

OnPage SEO refers to the factors you can influence to optimize your website for search engines. This includes, for example, the structure of your URLs, the use of headings, the optimization of images and the use of meta tags.

What are Meta Tags?

Meta tags are tags embedded in HTML code that help search engines better understand and index your content. Meta titles and meta descriptions help search engines describe your website in search results.

Fill your titles, descriptions and meta tags with the keywords that are relevant to you! In principle, META tags are not the most important SEO method, but it gives you a good overview of your keywords. It is also important that you do not use the same META tags for each page, but adjust them individually for each one.

High quality content on the website is extremely important for SEO. If the design of your website and the content is high quality, then all you have to do is share it through different channels and you will see that it will spread by itself and you will get high quality backlinks. In today’s SEO this is among the most important measures.

Write content that is unique

Content is the backbone of a thriving business and on-page SEO is the backbone of content marketing. You’ve probably heard the saying “content is king.” However, successful content marketing offers much more than just “content”. You need to publish the kind of content that interests users and interact with it accordingly.

Content should be practical, useful and valuable.

The following points should be met.

  • Is interesting to read
  • Is detailed and well written
  • Is written for the user
  • Solves a problem
  • Is easy to share
  • Is optimized for a keyword with high volume

Pagespeed & Core Web Vitals

The loading time of a web page and Core Web Vitals are important factors for on-page SEO, as they influence the user experience and therefore the ranking in search results.

Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure the performance of a website and are considered important by Google to evaluate user experience. These include load time, visual stability and interaction time.

A fast loading time is important because users get impatient if a page takes too long to load. According to studies, a loading time of more than 3 seconds is often perceived as unacceptable and can lead to users leaving the page. A fast load time can help more users stay on your site and thus reduce the bounce rate.

Another important factor of Core Web Vitals is visual stability, which measures the extent to which content moves during loading. High visual stability helps users better grasp and understand the content of a page.

Google has announced that Core Web Vitals will be a ranking factor in the future. Therefore, it is important that you look into these metrics and take action to optimize your website to provide a better user experience and improve your ranking in search results.

Headings

Why is the use of headings important for on-page SEO?

Headings help structure your content and help search engines better understand your content. Use headings with relevant keywords to help search engines index your content better.

  • Use headings to structure your content and help search engines better understand your content.
  • Use headings with relevant keywords to help search engines index your content better.

URL structure

Why is the URL structure important for on-page SEO?

Clear and readable URLs that reflect the theme of your site help search engines index your content better. Use keywords in your URLs to help search engines better understand your content.

  • Use clear and readable URLs that reflect the theme of your site.
  • Use keywords in your URLs to help search engines index your content better.
  • A silo structure e.g. everything about SEO goes into the directory /seo/onpage-seo etc.

Image optimization

What is image optimization and how does it help with on-page SEO?

Image optimization refers to the use of descriptive and relevant file names and ALT tags for images to help search engines better understand and index them. This can help your site be found better in image searches.

  • Use descriptive and relevant file names for your images.
  • Use ALT tags to help search engines better understand and index your images.
  • A simple tool for compressing images is tinypng.com

Helpful tools for onPage analysis

  1. Google Search Console: This tool from Google helps you check your website for SEO errors and provides valuable insights into how your website is performing in search results.

  2. SEMrush: A comprehensive tool that allows you to perform onPage SEO audits very easily.

  3. Ahrefs: A powerful backlink analysis tool that helps you identify your competitors’ backlinks and monitor your own backlinks.

  4. Google PageSpeed Insights: A tool from Google that measures the load time and performance of your website and provides recommendations for optimization.

  5. Yoast SEO: An important WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your website for search engines by helping you with headings, meta tags and other SEO factors. Here you can find an article about WordPress SEO.

  6. Screaming Frog: A tool that helps you identify the SEO errors on your website by scanning your entire website and identifying issues such as broken links, duplicate content and errors in meta tags.

Questions and answers

OnPage SEO refers to the optimization of website content and structure to achieve better visibility and ranking in search engines. It is important because it helps to improve user experience, increase click-through-rate (CTR) and make the website more relevant to the target keywords.

The most important OnPage SEO factors include: Keyword research, title tags, meta descriptions, headings (H1, H2, H3), image optimization (alt tags and file names), URL structure, internal linking, page load time and mobile optimization.

To find the right keyword, you should use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs or SEMrush to search for relevant terms with high search volume and as little competition as possible. Consider the user intent and the target audience of the website.

To optimize title tags and meta descriptions, they should contain the main keyword and accurately reflect the content of the page. Keep the title tag under 60 characters and the meta description under 160 characters. Write engaging and meaningful copy to increase click-through rates.

Headings are important for OnPage SEO because they indicate the structure and hierarchy of content on a web page. H1 tags should be used for main headings and contain the main keyword. H2 and H3 tags should be used for subheadings to further organize the content and include supporting keywords.

To optimize page load time, you should compress images, enable browser caching, minimize CSS and JavaScript, disable unnecessary plugins and use a fast web host. Fast load times improve the user experience and can lead to higher search engine rankings.

Mobile optimization is important because more and more users access websites via mobile devices. A mobile-optimized website is more user-friendly and increases dwell time and click-through rate. In addition, Google prefers mobile-optimized websites and ranks them higher in search results.

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