How to do On-Page SEO: Ultimate guide for beginners in 2022

What is on-page SEO and why it’s so important?

On-page SEO is also known as On-Site SEO. It is one of the practices that every search engine optimizer would basically do when they started working on their fresh projects in order to increase SERP(Search Engine Ranking Position).

So, there are some common practices in on-page optimization that includes title tag, meta description, content optimization, and permalinks, etc., and this makes more sense when compared to other tasks that we usually perform in terms of SEO.

Even though the Google algorithm is getting updated every certain period of time there are some traditional tactics that actually work even in 2020 too but still, it makes differences.

The most important signal that every search engine considers as the relevancy of the webpage content. A search query entered in the search box is nothing but keywords. If these keywords appear on the page, title, or any other place where users can easily find on the website then the information is considered as more likely to be relevant from the perspective of search engine and the users as well.

For instance:

If you search for any competitive keywords like “pizza near me” you can see the exact keywords on the top-ranking pages with the same in the title tag. And this is how it works for all.

Here are some of the best practices that work dominantly.

1. Page load time
2. User Experience
3. Usage of keywords
4. Original images
5. Internal linking 
6. Voice search optimization
7. URL Resolve
8. Alt Attribute
9. XML sitemap
10. Robots.txt file 
11. Href lang tag
12. Mobile-friendliness
13. Accelerated Mobile Pages(AMP)
14. Schema.org
15. Open Graph protocol
16. SSL secure
17. Google Analytics Implementation
18. Custom 404 page
19. Favicon
20. Fix Broken Links
21. Friendly URLs

1. Page Load Time

It is the amount of time taken to load or to display all the elements in the particular page which is requested.

The ideal load time for the website is around 3 secs. 

Best practices for fastest page speed

•     Compress all images 

•     Minimize the source code(HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc.)

•     Use better hosting

•     Use Gzip compression

•     Activate browser caching 

• And finally, test the page speed with multiple tools.

2. User Experience

This is the most common thing which targets users who visit the website. It is more important how well the user interacts with a website which may even work better to reduce the bounce rate.

So, what is the bounce rate? It is the dirtiest word to be considered in the world of SEO and web design as well. Bounce rate is a metric used to measure the number of users who visit the website and leaves without visiting any other page of the website. web design is considered a common cause of a high bounce rate.

3. Usage of keywords

The main purpose of using keywords on the website is to make visible on search engines for targeted keywords or phrase. The website can be a little difficult in digital marketing if the keywords have a higher search volume. There are certain places on the website where we should put them once the keywords research has done.

• Meta Title tags
• Meta Description tags
• Meta Keywords tags
• Heading tags
• Page content
• Anchor text/Link text
• Navigation list
• Navigation menu 
• Alt and title attributes

4. Original images

Though Google doesn’t penalize a website for duplicate images it helps a lot when it comes to the image search and favors the sites with original content and images as well.

5. Internal linking

    Internal linking is the process of adding links in one page to the other within the website it is also known as inbound links. An aggressive link building can reduce the bounce rate by increasing user engagement with a particular page.

5. Voice search optimization

    According to one-fifth of search queries are voice searches, In our digital world  only a few like to type for search questions.

Factors that affect voice search results, Here are some key takeaways,

• Page speed less than 4 seconds
• A website with SSL(HTTPS)
• Pages that use schema
• Domain with high authority
• Simple and easy to read the content written in Grade 9 level
• Featured snippet also help to rank better for voice search

7. URL Resolve

    If the preferred domain was not specified, i.e. with or without www prefix and also not with the redirection then it is considered as two different sites by search engines. Finally penalized by Google for duplicate content which is the most common mistake that should be avoided.

Things to do,

• Apply 301 permanent redirection.
• Add a canonical tag to each preferred page on the website.

8. Alt attribute

    It is more important to make sure that all images on the web page/website have their targeted keywords with complete descriptions of what they’re in the images.

9. XML Sitemap

    Xml sitemap is a file that has a list of URLs for a site. This file helps to identify and crawl every page even when it’s isolated from other pages content by search engines. 

10. Robots.txt

    Robots.txt file is a simple text file also known as robots exclusion protocol that instructs the search engine bots to which pages to crawl and not to.

11. Href lang

    Href lang tag defines which languages and countries the page content is for. If the website targets all around the world then the search engine targets the right user with the help of this tag.

12. Mobile-friendliness

    It’s highly important to make sure that the webpage is configured well with mobile users. Use the design or template which is completely responsive across all the devices.

13. Accelerated mobile pages(AMP)

    As the title itself quite descriptive about the process, theses are the pages that load faster on mobile devices rather than the desktop versions of webpages. This technique is considered as the most prioritized process in On-page SEO when it comes to higher SERP factor.

14. Schema.org

    Schema markup is basically a piece of code that needs to be added to the website which helps the user to understand more from the search engine result itself.

15. Open Graph protocol

    Open Graph is a protocol that influences the users to engage on the website by providing an image, title, and short description about the page when it was shared on Facebook and other social media platforms.

16. SSL Secure

    The secure socket layer is a technology used to ensure security over internet communication with the help of cryptographic protocol. In general, it helps the data to be safer when it was sent from the browser to the website server by encrypting them.

17. Google Analytics Implementation

    Google Analytics is a completely free tool used to track the visitor of the website and their behavior towards them. The main benefit of implementing this track helps to fine-tune the website to gain more interaction and conversions as well in the marketing field.site server by encrypting them.

18. Custom 404 page

    404 error page also known as Not found error message when the page is unavailable from the server. It arises when the page is removed directly from the server. It’s recommended using a custom 404 page to make the user engage with other pages with some suggestions.

19. Favicon

    Favicon is nothing but a logo appears along with the meta title in the browser tab. This image simply creates a site identity among others. We can use the favicon generator to make it simple.uggestions.

20. Fix broken links

    It’s recommended fixing all the broken links on the website, they literally devalue your website if it was indexed in google so the solution is to redirect(301) it with the new URL.

21. Friendly URLs

    Every URL in the website should be short and clean. It should be filled with a core keyword and readable by both user and search engines.