This article was published on 26 Dec 2017. Software and regulations change, so please check details before you decide.
Who is this on-page SEO anyway, and why does it only visit my competitors?
With this slightly tongue-in-cheek question we want to introduce you to on-page SEO: what to look out for and how far it can take you. This article is aimed mainly at beginners and more advanced website owners who would like to do some of the work themselves.
On-page SEO: what does it actually mean?
On-page SEO is exactly what we are doing with you in this article. You optimise the page in question for a keyword (in this blog article, deliberately the keyword: on-page SEO).
This means that the keyword you want to be found for in Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages) ideally runs through your page like a common thread. It starts with the meta title (the headline in the SERP) and the meta description (the text below the title). How you edit these fields depends on your CMS. In this case we use the Yoast “WordPress SEO” plugin for WordPress.
Try to put your keywords at the front. For this article, we therefore adjusted the meta data so that both the meta title and the meta description begin with the keyword “on-page SEO”.
The meta description alone is not enough for on-page SEO
Now that we have edited the meta description, the next step is to check the headings. In Firefox and Chrome you can do this with the keyboard shortcut (Windows) “Ctrl + Shift + C”. Pay close attention to the structure of your page. The heading defined as “h1” may only exist once and should be as close to the top as possible. In your CMS back end, this is usually called Heading 1.
This is followed by Heading 2 (h2), then headings 3, 4, 5 and 6. In our opinion, the “h2” can be used several times, but should be replaced by “h3 to h4” further down the text.
Whether h4 to h6 still carry any weight with Google, only Google knows. But hey, you have them, so use them.
Try to work the keyword into every heading!
On-page SEO in the body text too?
We now have our keyword in the meta description and in the headings. Great, that already helps a lot!
But Google also likes it when you take the trouble to work the desired on-page SEO keyword into the text. Google particularly likes it in the first paragraph (as in this blog article on on-page SEO).
What else can you do for a good on-page SEO result?
Break up the text with images. Rename the image files before uploading them. Photos are often called DC12937.jpg or similar. Take the trouble to rename them to keyword + 2nd-keyword.jpg. For this article, the images were therefore renamed beforehand to “onpage-seo-was-ist-das.jpg” and so on.
Most CMSs also let you add an alt tag or alternative text. Google reads this too and can use it to infer a connection between image and text.
In summary, this is what on-page SEO means
- Optimise the SERP snippet with the keyword (meta description and meta title)
- Adapt the URL with the keyword, as here: “www.web-labels.de/en/knowledge/what-is-on-page-seo”
- Add the keyword to the headings
- Write an introduction containing the keyword
- Vary the text with the keyword and synonyms
- Reach a keyword density of 2 to 5%
- Name images after keywords
- Give images alternative text or alt tags that also contain the keyword
Image material: jossdiim / 123RF stock image
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