12 On-page SEO Factors to Improve for Better Search Ranking
Propelrr
September 6, 2023
On-page search engine optimization (SEO) is the all-encompassing key you need to drive maximum impact for your brand’s website today.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the constant and consistent practice of improving your business’ digital marketing executions in order to rank higher on results pages for top search engines like Google.
On-page SEO, on the other hand, is the practice of improving a web page’s essential elements and factors, in order to provide a user experience that drives the best ranking results possible for your overall website.
Utilizing on-page optimization can help you provide a richer brand experience for users online, while simultaneously increasing your business’ rank on a search engine results page (SERP). All these can be done when you know what essential factors you need, in order to drive maximum brand impact online.
Want to win big with your business on search today? Discover the essential elements and factors that you need to pay attention to throughout your optimization journey with this expert SEO guide by Propelrr right now.
Why is on-page SEO optimization significant?
Before you get into these crucial elements and factors, let’s get into the significance of on-page optimization first.
The digital landscape is constantly changing, and updates to search engine algorithms happen almost every single day. On-page optimization allows SEO practitioners to narrow down and improve all potential factors that can affect your website’s ranking, thus allowing for scalable and adaptable strategies to flourish – even in the most changeable of online environments.
If you make it a practice to constantly optimize your platform and improve your SEO, you’ll surface your content to customers more effectively, thus ensuring better results for your brand in the long run. With on-page optimization, you can create a better user experience for customers online while driving digital wins for your business at the same time. Now doesn’t that sound nice?
With these SEO benefits in mind, it’s time to learn about the website elements you need to improve in order to rank higher on SERPs today.
Elements to improve to rank higher on a search engine
Website optimization for search can encompass a wide range of factors, techniques, and varied SEO best practices. However, there are some website elements that you will always have to pay attention to, in order to rank higher on SERPs for your business. These ever-present elements include the following:
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Content elements
These include elements or formats like:
- Visuals
- Metadata
- Headings
- Blog posts
- Product pages
- Landing pages
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HTML elements
These include HTML tags and data like:
- Title tags
- Meta description tags
- Heading tags
- Image alt texts
- Link attributes
- Structured data
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Site architecture elements
These include structural elements like:
- Internal links
- URL structure
- Navigation menus
- XML sitemaps
- Breadcrumbs
- Keyword research data
This lengthy list of website elements can be daunting to go through at first glance. How might you improve every single one of these elements to drive overall ranking success?
You can do this by narrowing down the essential on-page SEO factors you want to improve to rank higher on SERPs. With these content, HTML, and site architecture factors, you can optimize your executions for maximum impact online today.
12 essential on-page SEO factors for maximum impact
The 12 most essential factors that you should consider when optimizing your brand’s own website for SERP success include:
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SEO content writing
The first essential factor that you need to consider when maximizing your platform is your SEO content writing.
Both search engine crawlers and human readers define your brand’s relevance online based on your website’s written content. What they read is what they get, so if you execute SEO-friendly content writing, your works will surface better in front of customers on search – thus giving your works a higher chance to reach audiences at crucial points in their online customer journey.
Keep your content relevant to your brand and audience. Focus on writing that remains useful for customers over long periods of time, so that you don’t become outdated as easily. You can also update your evergreen content, if needed, by regularly updating your works with new data and statistics, you can improve upon your own work and maintain relevance among users too.
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Keyword research and placement
The second factor you need to consider for maximum ranking impact is your keyword research and placement. These two practices refer to the process of gathering keywords in order to place them strategically throughout your digital platform’s text content.
One keyword research tip that you should adopt is the strategic placement of keywords across your content. The more relevant keywords you strategically place throughout your site, the easier it will be for users to find your brand’s information – thus leading to better engagement with audiences overall. You can place your keywords in your site’s title, meta descriptions, headings, URLs, and more, to make your site rank higher on SERPs.
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E-E-A-T check
The third factor on this list comes straight from the biggest search engine today: Google. In order to ensure your site is optimized for maximum impact, make sure to conduct an evaluation of your platform using Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines this year.
Also known as Double-E-A-T, this set of guidelines evaluates your site based on its degree of experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. These rigorous testing criteria are meant to guide optimization experts to understand how to assess their own work, create people-first content, and be successful on Google Search.
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Calls-to-action (CTAs)
A call-to-action (CTA) is a word, sentence, or phrase that calls users to complete an action for your brand. A well-written CTA should be clear, easy to read, and direct, guiding users through their next few steps. This conversion copywriting tip will help you drive even more conversions on your brand’s digital platform today.
Every web platform should have a CTA that is relevant to the intent of its content. For example, if your site contains information about your brand’s product, then your CTA might be for users to “Buy Now” or to “Learn More” about the benefits of your brand.
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Image and video optimization
Photos, videos, infographics, and other visuals are alternative forms of content that help human readers better understand your brand’s message online. Optimizing these forms of content will help you engage your audiences a lot better, therefore increasing their dwell time on your platform in the long run.
To improve photos, images, infographics, and other visual content for your optimization journey, place SEO-friendly alt tags on them to describe their information to all readers. Make sure you’re using the appropriate file sizes as well for high-quality and fast-loading visuals too.
On the other hand, to optimize videos for SEO make sure to provide titles, descriptions, transcripts, and subtitles if possible, to ensure the video’s information is indexed properly. Make sure the video loads fast and is accessible on mobile too, so that all users can access it equally.
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Page titles
Page titles, also known as title links, appear at the top of a user search result or browser tab and serve to name a web page. It’s usually the first thing a reader reads from your site. Humans and crawlers alike use it to comprehend your site’s information and match it with their intent online.
A good page title should be descriptive and include your primary keyword. However, it should also fit within a 600 pixel width limit to ensure that it looks optimal on a SERP. If you don’t fit your title into this pixel width limit it might end up getting cut off on the results page, simultaneously interrupting your brand message and making your site less appealing to readers too.
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Meta descriptions
A meta description, also known as a snippet, is a short but sweet paragraph of text that describes your site’s content on a SERP. A well-written meta description should be able to quickly describe your platform’s information and intent to a reader, even before they click on your platform on a search engine.
To create an effective meta description, make sure to insert your primary keyword in the first part of your paragraph and to keep the overall snippet under 900 pixels wide. This is to ensure your brand message doesn’t get cut off on a SERP. Remember to include a strong CTA at the end of your snippet too, to encourage readers to click on your site and explore your business info as well.
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Headings
Want readers to understand your website? Then make sure to utilize headings and subheadings for maximum comprehension. Headings and subheadings help to divide your website’s content into digestible chunks, allowing readers to easily understand the logical flow of your information.
HTML codes for headings and subheadings also inform crawlers of the logical flow of your brand information, making it easier for them to index your work. By placing keywords in your headers, you also ensure your content ranks high for these bots too.
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URLs
Every page of any website will have its own unique URL. To optimize your URL and make it memorable, keep its text short, sweet, and concise. Include your chosen primary keyword in the URL, and make sure it follows the category hierarchy of the given website.
URLs have a minimal impact on search rankings. However, a URL that is easy to understand and remember can impact a user’s experience and online journey, thus making this an important factor to improve in your optimization journey.
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Internal linking structures
An internal linking structure, also known as link architecture, refers to links on your web page that connect to other pages within your web platform. Using internal linking allows you to make a trail for users to smoothly explore your platform, therefore improving their user experience and increasing dwell time.
A well-designed internal linking structure can also help crawlers travel from one page to the next, enabling them to index new site information and pass down link equity. To improve link architecture, use clear and relevant anchor texts to ensure users clearly understand where they’re going when they click on an internal link.
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Site loading speed
A slow-loading website doesn’t just frustrate users and drive them away. Site loading speed is one of the signals that engines like Google use to rank websites – so when it comes to ranking SERPs, bad site loading speed will negatively affect your search rankings as well.
Search engine crawlers will also have a hard time crawling your platform if it loads slowly, thus impacting your indexation. Make your human and bot visitors happy when they’re on your website by ensuring your page loading speed is fast this year.
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Mobile-first indexing
With over 61% of website visits now coming from mobile users, optimizing your site for mobile is definitely a necessity for today’s digital marketing experts.
To optimize your platform for mobile, improve your traffic, and rank high on SERPs, you can utilize mobile-first indexing and responsive design. Mobile-first indexing allows Google to prioritize the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking. Then, if your site has responsive design built into its system, it can easily adapt its layout based on a user’s device for browsing.
With this type of technique, alongside all the other factors listed in this guide, you can boost your brand’s success and bolster its capability to rank higher on SERPs. This will serve to return excellent results, like higher business conversion rates, increased user traffic, and better overall performance in the long run.
How long does it take to see the results of SEO on page?
To answer this question, you need to understand that your SEO needs will always vary from the needs of another company. Some studies state that it can take up to two years for an online business to reach the coveted first page spot on SERPs, while others suggest that it can take as little as six to twelve months.
In short, it really depends. What’s more important to note is this: on-page optimization is a long-term strategy that doesn’t provide overnight results. But with the right support from an expert digital marketing agency, you can track and improve your performance over time so that you can see excellent results quickly for your brand today.
The impact of focusing on on-page SEO
On-page SEO is the lighthouse that makes your brand visible among the ever-chaotic seas of search. With millions of websites available on search every day, your optimization efforts will help your brand surface more evidently online, letting users discover everything you have to offer this year.
By focusing on on-page optimization, you get to create a relevant and user-centric design for your brand’s online platform. All efforts will contribute to the ongoing process of success for your brand, and rich experiences for your customers. With a focused website, you build brand awareness, bring in user traffic, and drive better conversions for your business in the long run.
Key takeaways
With all these elements, factors, and facts in mind, you’re finally ready to launch your optimization journey for maximum brand impact. Take these final tips with you as you jumpstart this new journey for your digital marketing today:
- Stay up-to-date on search algorithm updates. By keeping up with the latest algorithm updates and changes for the top search engines like Google, you’ll know what website changes you need to make in accordance with the times.
- Keep what works, let go of what doesn’t. Digital marketing tools and techniques are bound to change in this fast-paced digital world. Always evaluate your processes and be open to letting old techniques go if they no longer benefit your business’ goals.
- Subscribe to expert sources of information. By following the expert resources at Propelrr, you’ll get all the information you need to devise a sound SEO strategy for your overall business success in the long run.
If you have any other questions, send us a message via our Facebook, X, and LinkedIn accounts. Let’s chat.
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