
The Ultimate Guide to On-Page SEO in 2022
How to do On-Page SEO – Checklist
Much has changed in the world of SEO since this post was first published. We’ve released new research, updated our guidelines and data, and added new advice for our users. If you’d like to see how we’ve updated this guide since publishing it on Medium, check out The Ultimate Guide to On-Page SEO in 2022.
Keyword research
Keyword research is the process of finding the right keywords for your website. Keywords are the words and phrases that people type into search engines to find information, products, services, and more.
For example, if you’re a plumber in New York City who specializes in leak detection and repair, you might want to optimize your site for the keyword “leak detection” or “leak repair”. By doing so, you’ll make it easier for potential customers searching online to find you. This will help increase traffic on your website and improve its performance in organic rankings like Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages).
Keyword research is an essential part of SEO because it enables content writers to create an optimized copy by targeting specific types of searches that are relevant to their business. A good keyword research tool can come in handy here too; some offer suggestions based on popular search terms related to certain topics/industries such as plumbing or home maintenance services like fixing leaks under sinks etc.
How to choose the best SEO keywords
- Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner to find keywords relevant to your audience
- Choose keywords that have a low competition level
- Some of these factors can be good indicators of how easy a keyword will be to rank for
The importance of domain authority (DA)
Domain authority is a score that is meant to measure a website’s trustworthiness. It is calculated by taking the average of several metrics and algorithms, including keyword difficulty, page authority, MozRank, and more.
The DA score ranges from 1-100 and it ranks websites based on their authority, trust, and popularity. The higher your domain’s DA score, the more likely it has earned its place in Google’s search results through quality content creation and good SEO practices (or at least an expert SEO strategy). Click here to read more about How to do SEO for a website
How to optimize your URL structure for SEO
When you’re optimizing your URL structure for SEO, here are some things to keep in mind:
- Choose a URL structure that is easy to read. This can mean using hyphens, dashes, or underscores (don’t use underscores) depending on how your page is set up. For example “this-is-a-great-blog” would be better than “thisisagreatblog”.
- Avoid special characters such as spaces and apostrophes at all costs! These can create problems with search engine bots crawling and indexing your site correctly. Use lowercase letters only when appropriate as well (i.e., don’t capitalize words unless they are proper nouns).
- Keep URLs short by breaking them into multiple pages if needed—but remember not to go overboard since Google penalizes sites that have too many internal links per page
Local Relevance
Local relevance is a term used to describe the extent to which a website relates to a particular location. This can be measured by analyzing the number of locations pages have been viewed from, as well as whether they contain information on topics specific to those locations. Local relevance is important for local businesses because it helps them rank higher in search results when people search for services or products in their area. It is also important for local SEO because it helps websites rank higher in general searches that include geographic keywords as part of them (e.g., “dog groomers near me”).
Use relevant keywords in your URLs
- To do this, you’ll want to use phrases that are specific and descriptive of what the page is about. For example, if your page is about how to make a homemade pie crust, you should use a URL like “How-To-Make-A-Homemade-Pie-Crust.html” instead of “Homepage.html” or “General Information About Pie Crusts And How To Make Them (Cool Article!).html”
- Use keywords in the page title.
- Use keywords in meta description:
- Use keywords in header tags:
- Use keywords in the body content: This sounds obvious but it’s important! If someone lands on one of your pages from Google or another search engine, they’ll have time to look at only the first few sentences before deciding whether or not they’re interested enough to stay around for more reading material.>Headlines & Headings>
Page Speed Optimization
The next step is to make sure your site is loading fast. Page speed is a ranking factor and it’s important for user experience. It doesn’t just matter to the user on their computer either, it also matters on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
So how do you improve page speed? Well, there are many ways but I have found that starting with these 5 steps works best:
- Optimize images – this can be done using ImageOptim (Mac only), WP Smush Pro, or TinyPNG (free services). You should also compress JPGs through your CMS before uploading them as they will be compressed automatically when uploaded anyway. The goal here is to get image sizes down without sacrificing quality too much.
- Minify HTML/CSS/JavaScript – this means removing unnecessary whitespaces such as carriage returns and line breaks, etc., combining files into one file if possible, and compressing code using something like YUI Compressor or Google Closure Compiler (both free).
Include the keyword in a subtitle
When creating page titles, you should do two things:
- Use the keyword as the first word in your title. This can be tricky to do if you’re trying to include punctuation or other modifiers (such as “best” or “free”), but keep it in mind.
- Include the keyword in a subtitle on top of your main title. If you don’t have room for it as part of your main title, use this as an opportunity to mention keywords that are related but maybe not as relevant for SEO purposes. For example, if I were writing a blog post on how to make money blogging full-time, I might write something like “How-To Make Money Blogging Full Time: The Ultimate Guide Compilation of Tips & Tricks From Real Bloggers Who Did It!”
Properly use internal links
Internal links, also known as inbound links, are the hyperlinks that connect one page on your website to another page. This is useful for visitors who want to navigate through the pages of your site, as well as for search engines that prioritize websites with a deeper level of content.
When using internal links, it’s important to make sure they’re properly built and used effectively so they can benefit your business in both organic and referral traffic. Click here to read more about What Is Link Building
Anchor text optimization insights
Anchor text is clickable text in a hyperlink. It’s important to use anchor text when linking out to other web pages because it helps search engines determine what the page is about. The best way to optimize your anchor text is by using your target keyword as much as possible, but also make sure that you include brand-related terms and secondary keywords throughout your site.
Here are some tips for making sure that you’re optimizing your anchor text:
- Use the keyword in the first 30 characters of the anchor text;
- Include keyword-rich and brand-related anchors;
- Use one or two variations of primary keywords within each link;
- Don’t repeat more than once per link
Optimize your images for SEO
Your images can be a powerful ally in your quest for better rankings, but it’s important to ensure that they’re optimized correctly. This includes: Using alt tags, which are used to describe the image in search results. If you don’t have an alt tag for an image, Google will display a broken link instead of displaying the picture itself.
Make sure your file is the right size and format for your website. For example, if you’re using high-resolution photos on your site and then uploading cropped versions as thumbnails or other low-resolution images in posts or pages (as some publishers do), this can hurt SEO because slower loading times hurt user experience and lower rankings as well as bounce rates due to poor usability issues caused by not aligning content with its appropriate media types.
It’s also important that when you have thumbnails on a page (like on an article listing), they are sized correctly so they aren’t too big or small relative to their container elements like headings or lists. You should never use “artistic” dimensions like 640x480px; instead stick with 100% width x height dimensions if possible so that everything scales properly when viewed on different browsers/devices Finally make sure all of these things match each other: alt text titles etc…
On-page SEO is critical for a high-ranking website
SEO is a long-term strategy that requires consistent effort and time. If you’re looking for an instant fix, SEO isn’t the right solution for you. SEO is not a quick fix to improve traffic, rankings, and conversions. It’s also not something that can be done once, then forgotten about until next year.
On-page SEO involves making changes to your website so that search engines understand what your page is about and how it should rank in the results pages when someone searches for relevant keywords related to your content.
Conclusion
Now that you’re equipped with the knowledge of how to optimize your website for SEO, it’s time to go out there and do it! It may seem like a daunting task at first, but if you stick to the tips outlined above we promise that it won’t be so bad.
Just remember: choose your keywords wisely, research them beforehand so that they make sense for your audience, use relevant keywords on every page of your site (don’t forget about those URLs), and keep everything as short as possible while still maintaining quality content – all these factors contribute towards better rankings in search results.