On-page SEO Strategies for Better Search Engine Optimization

SEO is a commonly used term among online marketing managers and often comes in conjunction with off-page optimization. Both terms describe the search engine optimization of your own website. The aim of targeted SEO optimization is to improve the ranking of your own website in search engines, generate more traffic, and ultimately lead to more conversions or leads. However, marketing managers usually only know a portion of the actions that can be performed.

In this article, we explain what on-page SEO is all about and offer initial tips for practical implementation. On the internet, you will come across various spellings, but it always means the same thing. Possible terms are: Onpage SEO, Onpage optimization, On-page optimization, On Page optimization, SEO on-page, SEO optimization, or even on-site optimization.

On-page Analysis – The first step in On-page SEO

At the beginning of your work, you should perform an onsite analysis of the entire website. First, you analyze the technical SEO to identify possible technical pitfalls that could affect the crawling of the website. In the next step, you examine the contents of the website in order to carry out content optimization.

After investigating both areas, you can derive a prioritized action plan that you implement step by step.

To track the development of your website in SEO, you can use Google's Google Search Console. This serves as an interface between website operators and Google, showing which URLs rank well, for which keywords the domain can be found, and where there are problems on the website. It also visually represents how often individual pages are displayed on Google's search result pages.

Technical SEO – The Foundation of On-page Optimization

Before you can start optimizing your content, your technical SEO must be implemented flawlessly. This ensures that the website can be crawled easily by search engines and that all content is read and processed accurately. If technical SEO is not implemented correctly, it may happen that content optimizations, the so-called content optimization, do not take effect properly because the search engines do not have access to the content. Therefore, technical SEO is the foundation of every SEO on-page optimization.

Crawling – Can the search engine reach your website?

Crawling solely refers to accessing content and has nothing to do with indexing. Search engines like Google certainly crawl pages, but they do not index all of them. This can occur for various reasons, including poor search engine optimization.

To improve the relevance of content, only the content that needs to be processed by search engines should be made crawlable. Pages that are not important, such as search results pages or the imprint, should be excluded from crawling. This is referred to as optimizing the so-called crawl budget. It determines how many pages of a website can be crawled and is set individually by search engines for each domain.

In this context, there is an important distinction:

Crawling is not equivalent to indexing!

To control crawling, use the meta tag "robots" and the "robots.txt" file. However, it should be noted that the instructions contained in the "robots.txt" are merely a suggestion to search engines and can be ignored entirely. Furthermore, search engines can also reach excluded pages through other ways, such as backlinks. Therefore, using the "Disallow" function is not a reliable method to exclude pages from crawling. On the contrary, incorrect use of the robots.txt can lead to major problems on search results pages, as Figure 1 illustrates.

Figure 1: Websites indexed by Google for which no descriptions can be displayed because they are excluded from crawling in the robots.txt.

In May 2019, Google updated its in-house Google Crawler to the current Chromium version 74. This is an important note because its predecessor was outdated and supported only few modern web technologies. The new crawler can now recognize modern SEO optimization and perform better on-page analyses.

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URL Structure, Internal Linking, and sitemap.xml are important SEO On-page Factors

Next, you need to review the URL structure of your website. Key questions are:

• Is it readable and clearly understandable for humans?

• Can users tell where they are on the website?

• Is it not too long?

The URL structure should not exceed 5 hierarchy levels. This ties in with the structure of the website. Today's on-page SEO is not about optimization for search engines, but for users. This means that content must be easily and quickly accessible. Excessive cascading of individual webpages is therefore not advisable, as it only leads to more hierarchies.

John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, announced on 03/05/2019 via a Webmaster Hangout that the internal linking of pages should be weighted even more than the URL structure. Visible URLs are primarily relevant for user experience. Internal linking of pages should instead be done in a way that is relevant to the topic, to achieve good on-page optimization. In this context, it is also referred to as siloing. For good internal linking, you must ensure that links are made only within a topic (silo). For example, all articles on web analytics should link to each other, but not to articles on SEO. Therefore, you should always develop a linking concept and check, especially with links that have JavaScript functionality, whether crawlers can find and follow the links.

If you have similar content, you should use the canonical tag. Imagine you run an online shop and offer a t-shirt in five colors. You provide a separate page with a unique URL for each of these color variants. In this case, you would have duplicate content on the domain because all pages would be textually identical and would only differ through the color specification. With the canonical tag, you can indicate on all pages which of the five URLs is actually relevant to search engines and which serve solely as added value for the user.

Additionally, you should provide search engines with a sitemap.xml file, a file listing all the URLs that are to be indexed. Therefore, this file should not include URLs set to "noindex" or those excluded from crawling or indexing in any other way.

Avoid Duplicate Content with SEO On-page

The topic of duplicate content or duplicate content is one of the main focuses of SEO on-page optimization. Often, the same pages are accessible under multiple URLs. Classic examples are:

• URL with http and https

• URL with www and without www

• URL with trailing slash and without

• URL with very similar content

For this reason, it is essential to set up redirects and communicate very precisely to search engines via canonical tags and sitemap.xml which websites should actually be indexed.

Imagine you run an online shop and offer a t-shirt in five colors. You create a separate page with a unique URL for each of these color variants. In this case, you have duplicate content on the domain because all pages are textually identical and differ only in color indication. With the canonical tag, you can indicate on all pages which of the five URLs is actually relevant for search engines and which pages serve solely as added value for the user.

During a redirect, users calling a URL with http are automatically redirected to the https variant. This happens so quickly that they often do not even notice it.

Pagespeed – How Fast Does Your Website Load?

For several years now, Google has recorded more accesses via mobile devices than via desktop devices. It is therefore important to offer a fast-loading website. This can be implemented in several ways:

1. Ensure small file sizes and short source codes. This optimizes the website as a whole and ensures a good user experience.

2. Optimize visible content through prioritized delivery of source code. With this measure, users see the first content in the visible area long before the entire website is loaded. This improves the perceived load time.

3. Switch the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http) to version 2 (http/2). This is optimized for mobile devices and allows parallel loading of various files, as well as preloading of content. We also recommend using https for good on-page SEO.

Figure 2 illustrates the Google Page Speed Test, which examines exactly these topics:

Figure 2: With the Google Page Speed Test, you can see which files are too large and which files delay optimized delivery of visible content.

Mobile Optimization is Becoming Increasingly Important

In addition to the load time, the display of the website on mobile devices must also be ensured. This is often achieved with responsive design, which ensures that the website adapts automatically to the screen size of mobile devices. If you are planning a relaunch soon, this issue must be addressed in your concept.

Structured Data for Good Onsite Marketing

With structured data, individual content is specifically tagged for search engines. This may include company information, product information, recipes, events, or, more recently, FAQs. There are many templates for using structured data on a website, although only relatively few are supported in Google optimization. The benefit is that Google can better understand the content and display it separately on the search results page.

Further SEO On-page Optimizations

The technical SEO area also includes further measures such as Progressive Web Apps, image tagging, or multilingualism. These are the "fine-tuning" aspects in the field of technical SEO optimization. Therefore, these detailed topics are not elaborated here.

Content Optimization – The Second Step in On-page SEO

Once the website has been improved with technical on-page SEO measures, you can now start optimizing your content. This is basically divided into two areas:

Meta Information: Optimizing Page Title and Meta Description

The optimization of the page title and meta description is referred to in on-page SEO as the optimization of meta information. The page title as an SEO criterion is particularly crucial as it should contain the keyword and the brand. At the same time, it should not be too long to remain readable. You always see the page title in the tab of your browser as well as on Google's search results page.

The meta description itself is not SEO relevant but still has a significant indirect impact on onsite marketing. The meta description is displayed on search results pages of search engines if relevant. By directly addressing users with a call to action, you can improve the click-through rate on your results and thus achieve a better ranking.

Figure 3: Google search results with the page title in blue and the meta description in black.

Content on the Page Itself – What Can the User Expect?

The actual content must meet user expectations, otherwise, it will lead to high bounce rates. Remember that content should be created for users in the context of on-page optimization, not for search engines. For this reason, Google places great emphasis on how readable the content is. Furthermore, the texts must be well-structured and organized with headings. Increasing user interaction with the website is also desirable. This can be achieved through videos, images, image galleries, comments, or similar features. It is proven that longer dwell times are associated with an increase in conversions.

If the content is well created, Google may use it as a Featured Snippet. This is the position 0 on the search results page, where Google directly answers the user's question on the search results page. Marketers have no influence over the use of a Featured Snippet and cannot predict when a snippet will be displayed and when not. Getting your own content into a Featured Snippet is therefore considered the pinnacle of Google optimization for content.

Figure 4: Representation of a Featured Snippet on Google's search results page.

Google Jobs – A Brand New Feature

With Google Jobs, the search engine giant introduced a brand new feature in Germany in June 2019, which will lead to many on-page SEO optimizations in 2019. When users search for a job title, they are shown a list of available job offers. After clicking, they are directly redirected to the company's page, where they can apply for the job in the next step. However, to do this, website operators must use structured data and provide very specific content on the website.

What We Can Do for You

If you want to improve your positions in search engine rankings and thereby increase your number of conversions, we offer comprehensive support in the area of on-page optimization. Our on-page SEO measures are coordinated with other online marketing measures. Feel free to contact us, we look forward to your inquiry.