What Is On-Page SEO?: A Complete Beginner’s Guide

Digital Marketing and SEO

Are you trying to rank your website at the top of Google’s search results? Did you know you are competing with hundreds, if not thousands, of other websites, for the same keywords?

Everyone wants to win the top spot. It can be an incredible way to grow your business and reach more customers. In order to do that, you need to improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO), both on-page and off-page.

So what is on-page SEO? It’s the SEO you do on your actual web page, that you have complete control over. It’s a way of organizing information to get search engines to take your page seriously. 

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Yes, you’ll need to eventually focus on off-page SEO as well, but on-page SEO needs to be your starting point. 

Keep reading to learn how to optimize your pages today.

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page search engine optimization is telling Google that you’d like them to take your webpage seriously and show it at the top of search results.

To do this, you need to make it easy for the algorithm to understand your website, the content of your page, and how relevant it is to a user’s search query.

Here’s a quick on-page SEO checklist to get started. Look at each page on your website and perform an on-page SEO analysis of the following factors.

  • Title tag – the HTML title of your page, explaining the topic
  • Meta description – An extension of the title, helps users and search engines understand what the page is about
  • Header tags and headings – organize the content of your page into sections
  • Optimize your images – images can improve site quality, so long as the image is relevant, sized properly, and uses a descriptive title
  • Quality content and a trusted site – Make sure your entire website looks and functions well.

It can be overwhelming and time-consuming to take care of all of these details and continue publishing new content. Hiring an SEO consultant can make it easier for you to improve your search rankings and allow you to focus on running your business.

On-Page SEO vs Off-Page SEO

Now that you know what on-page SEO looks like, let’s contrast it with off-page SEO.

Off-page optimization is everything you do after you ensure your pages are optimized. You are essentially doing your best to get other websites to link back to your content.

Every time a website links back to your content, you are essentially getting a “vote” that tells search engines that your site is authoritative and trustworthy.

The more votes (links) you get compared to your competitors, the better your ranking will be in Google.

This is why on-page SEO is so important; your content has to be so good, so helpful, and high quality in order for other websites to link back to your site.

Get the Help You Need

If you are trying to grow your business by improving your search results

You are not alone if you’ve ever asked yourself, “What is on-page SEO? What the heck is a title tag?”

SEO is confusing and always changing. What worked last year, or last month, might not work tomorrow.

The best thing you can do is find a consultant whose passion is staying on top of the ever-changing algorithms to help you grow your business. Contact an SEO specialist today to start moving up in rankings.