Just as the name sounds, on-page SEO refers to the optimizations you make to a specific page on your website to get it to rank higher on the SERP for queries related to the keyword it’s targeting. Some of those optimizations are visible on the page itself while others are behind the scenes. This, of course, translates to more relevant traffic to that page, and the more pages optimized on your website, the stronger your SEO muscles become.
Use the free LOCALiQ Website Grader to get a report like this for your website.
Google defines thin content as inauthentic and providing little value—like auto-generated copy, thin affiliate pages, scraped content, and doorway pages.
For any case with linking, the anchor text should be specific to the page you’re linking to and contain the keyword it’s targeting. Not only does this make for a better user experience, but the more links to your page that use the keyword as the anchor text, the better your chances of ranking.
Images on their own are an on-page optimization since they keep readers engaged with a page, and time on page factors into ranking. But there’s more to images on a page than meets the eye. Here is your image optimization checklist:
Table of contents
121 words of empty-calorie robotic fluff with no nutritional value
vs
44 words of protein-packed peanut butter
121 words of empty-calorie robotic fluff with no nutritional value
vs
44 words of protein-packed peanut butter
Most, if not all CMSs generate an automatic URL for your page—sometimes the title you’ve given it or sometimes a string of numbers. You’ll want to edit this URL to:
SEO blog post templates
But just because your page doesn’t fit the above criteria doesn’t mean your content isn’t thin. The important word above is “value.” If you want your page to rank for the keyword it’s targeting, it needs to be:
As you can now see, a page ranking at the top of Google isn’t just effortlessly streaming along. There’s a lot of work that goes into it, and this is for every page on your site. Luckily, there are on-page SEO checkers to help you out.
The first is the checklist template that you can customize to your liking. You can print it out or make a copy of the Google Doc to use when publishing pages or running content audits.
Get more website traffic with on-point on-page SEO
Click to enlarge | Make a copy of this Google Sheet template
- Do your keyword research and target only one keyword or keyword theme per page.
- Write accurate, organized, actionable, and in-depth content on the targeted keyword
- Place your keyword in the title, headings, images, meta description, URL, and first 100 words of the page.
- Compress and resize images, and include the keyword in the alt text and file name.
- Use a compelling title that conveys value, front-loaded with the keyword.
- Use headings to convey information hierarchy, with the keyword in at least two H2 headings.
- Write a benefit-focused meta description that contains the keyword.
- Include 1-3 external links to high-quality sites plus internal links.
- Keep the URL short, descriptive, with dashes between words and include the keyword.
- Check for mobile compatibility, page speed, and indexation.
- Periodically update and refresh the page elements to maintain content freshness.
