Simple On-Page SEO Tips for New Bloggers

On-page SEO is all about making sure your website’s content is not only relevant but also engaging and easy to navigate for visitors. 

Whether you’re just starting with SEO or looking to refine your existing strategy, mastering on-page optimisation is crucial for improving your website’s visibility in search engines. In this guide, we'll walk you through essential on-page SEO tips that will help you create content that resonates with your audience and ranks well in search results.

In the past, a lot of businesses would use keyword stuffing. This is where businesses would mention their keywords as many times as possible within their content. As I'm sure you may have guessed, this led to users having a bad experience on the websites and Google punishing the sites in terms of ranking. 

These days on-page optimisation should include smart keyword targeting. This is where the keywords are mentioned in their key elements, while still providing a good user experience. Meaning the content reads well and meets what the user is looking for. 

Changes to content on your website are made through something called a Content Management System (CMS), meaning a non-technical person would be able to update the content without any hassle. 

If you have a modern CMS such as Webflow, it should be easy to target keywords in their key elements. This includes adding alt text for images, writing headings, editing the main body copy and writing meta description tags and title tags. 

Sites such as SEOptimer, SEO SiteCheckup and MozBar are free SEO tools that can be used to scan the HTML of a web page and identify important on-page elements, which allows you to check whether a page has been optimised or not. 

Why is on-page SEO so important?

Optimising your page for on-page SEO, lets Google and other search engines know what your page is about. It gives the search engines the insights to your page's value. One of Google’s heavier ranking factors is user satisfaction, if your page doesn’t give value to your readers, you won’t rank as highly as you would have hoped. 

Optimising your webpage for search engines, (by means of mobile optimisation, having well-written title tags and headers) as well as for human eyes (by means of writing relevant and up-to-date content) is a sure-fire way of meeting those standards to rank highly. 

On-page SEO is important as it tells Google and other search engines everything about your website, as well as how you provide value to visitors and customers. It helps optimise your site for both human eyes and search engine bots.

Merely creating and publishing your website isn't enough. You should optimise your content for Google and other search engines so that you can rank in those top spots and attract new traffic to your site. 

On-page SEO is called on-page because its tweaks and changes are visible to the people who visit your website. An example of this could be making sure the URLs on your website match the content on the webpage.

On-page SEO is mostly up to you, since it’s not the most technical part of SEO, let’s discuss the elements of on-page SEO and how you can improve it. 

On-page SEO elements

1. Keyword Research 
2. Visual Content 
3. Page Titles 
4. Headers 
5. Meta descriptions
6. Image Alt-Text
7. Page URLs
8. Internal Linking 
9. Mobile responsiveness 
10. Site Speed

On-page SEO falls into three main categories 

• Content Elements 
• HTML Elements 
• Site Architecture Elements 

Content Elements 

1. Keyword Research 

The first step to creating high-quality content is choosing relevant keywords and topics. If you're curious about how to conduct top-quality keyword research we have just the blog for you. (link)

When conducting your keyword research, think about how it aligns with the buyer's journey, at what stage are they coming to your site? Thinking about this will help you choose your keywords wisely and what content you create. 

2. Visual Content 

Visual content, such as images, graphics and charts play an important role in on-page SEO.

Images enhance the visual appeal of a website as well as the engagement of web pages. They help make content more scannable and easier to digest for your audience. Plus, optimising images with alt tags (more on that below) helps you rank higher!

HTML Elements 

3. Page Titles

Your website page titles, also known as title tags are one of the most important elements in SEO. 

Titles tell visitors and search engines what they can find on the pages. 

To ensure that your pages rank, be sure to include your most important keywords in your title tags. Be sure to incorporate them naturally, don’t just keyword stuff! Usually, it includes using your primary keywords along with your brand name. 

4. Headers 

Headers, also known as body tags, refer to the HTML elements <h1><h2><h3> and so on. 

These tags help organise your content for readers and help search engines distinguish what part of your content is most important and relevant, it shows the hierarchy of the content. 

5. Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are short page descriptions that appear under the title in search results. Although it’s not an official ranking factor for search engines, it can influence whether or not your page is clicked on. Users like to read the short snippets of content before they click on the webpage. If it doesn’t include the information the user is looking for, the user will most likely click on another webpage. 

6. Image Alt-Text

Alt-text is like SEO but for images, it tells Google and other search engines what your images are about. Since Google can’t see images the way a human can, having alt-text helps it understand the context of the image. 

It’s also important for visually impaired users who have screen readers to read their screens. The alt-text will be read out to the user so that they have a rough idea of what’s going on. 

Having Alt-text helps you rank in image results too, meaning you could get traffic through image-based results. 

Site Architecture Elements 

7. Page URLs

Your page URLs should be easy to understand for both readers and search engines. Simple and consistent URLs are essential for maintaining a clear site hierarchy. As you create subpages, blog posts, and other internal pages, ensure that your URLs remain concise and organised

8. Internal Linking 

Internal linking is the process of hyperlinking to other helpful pages on your website. The same way we linked to the Keyword blog earlier in this article.

Internal linking is important for on-page SEO because internal links send readers to other parts of your website, keeping them around for longer and thus telling Google your site is trustworthy and ultimately has a great user experience. 

10. Mobile Responsiveness

Mobile responsiveness matters. 

It's critical to choose a website hosting service, site design, theme and content layout that's readable and navigable on mobile devices. If you're not sure about your site's mobile readiness, use Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool. If you can see your website isn’t mobile-optimised follow up on that quickly! Mobile use for websites is increasing and you don’t want to lose out on valuable traffic. 

11. Site Speed 

Whether viewed on a mobile device or desktop, your site must be able to load quickly. When it comes to on-page SEO speed matters. No one wants to use a website that takes forever to load. 

Google cares about user experience above all else, so having a slow-loading page is going to frustrate users; they'll leave your site quickly. Users quickly tabbing off your site tells Google that your page gives users a poor experience.

Note: Mobile responsiveness and the site loading speed are more a part of technical SEO. However, once you improve upon them it gives a much better user experience on the site!

Now that you know all the elements of on-page SEO, let's see how we can improve upon them, bettering your website!

On-page SEO Checklist

1. Make sure your keyword is in your URL. 

Add your target keywords to your URL so users and search engines know what kind of content they will find on the page. 

Take this as an example. Imagine you run a digital marketing agency called "BrightPath Marketing." You have a web service page dedicated to your email marketing services. The keyword for this page is "email marketing services." To optimise the page for on-page SEO, you'd want to include that keyword in your URL. The URL for this web page might look like this: 

www.BrightPathMarketing.com/email-marketing-services.

For URLs make sure to use between one and three keywords.

2. Optimise your Page Title. 

Create a descriptive title that includes your target keyword and accurately describes the page’s content. 

Here are some best practices for when developing a page title:

• Keep it under 60 characters to ensure your titles display correctly. 
• Don’t stuff the title with keywords
• Don’t use all caps 
• Include your brand in the title, i.e “On-Page SEO Tips for New Bloggers - Conquer the Internet Blog”

3. Use Headers 

Organise your content with header tags to make it more scannable and search-engine-friendly. Just as we spoke about earlier, be sure to use the <H1> <H2> <H3> tags. 

Be sure to naturally include keywords in your headers, but choose different keywords other than what's in your page title. Put your most important keywords in your <h1> and <h2> headers. 

4. Include keywords in your body copy.  

Incorporate your keywords naturally throughout your webpage, especially including them in the body copy. Avoid keyword stuffing, as this can lead to penalties from search engines by creating a poor reading experience, as users won’t make sense of what is happening. 

5. Incorporate images, graphics, and other visuals.  

Add relevant visuals to break up text and enhance the user experience. Optimise images by compressing them for faster loading, using descriptive filenames, and provide informative alt-tags. This can improve both SEO and visibility in image searches.

6. Add a meta description.  

Write a compelling meta description that summarises the page content and encourages clicks from search results. Keep it under 160 characters, include your keywords, and avoid using any special characters.

7. Optimise visuals with alt-text.  

Ensure your images have descriptive and contextually relevant alt text. Include your keyword sparingly to enhance both page SEO and the potential to rank in image searches.

8. Add internal links.  

Help search engines understand your site’s structure by including internal links. Choose relevant anchor text and link to pages that provide additional value. Avoid excessive linking to prevent a spammy appearance.

9. Add external links.  

External links to credible and trustworthy sites enhance your page’s credibility. Google values well-referenced sites, and so do your visitors.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this blog has taught you something new! If you’d like to read more about SEO and how you can help improve your rankings read up on our other SEO blogs. 

However, if you feel like you need help getting up those rankings, be sure to get in contact with us, our SEO experts will help give your business the boost you need!