Your introduction to site content, infrastructure, and internal linking; otherwise known as the elements of on-page SEO. See why this should comprise the majority of your SEO strategy.

On-page SEO refers to anything you can edit directly on your webpage to improve its search rankings and generate more organic traffic.

Don’t let the industry terms confuse you: on-page SEO doesn’t just deal with content that’s visible on a page. It also covers things like meta data, URLs, and some hidden technical components; elements that are invisible to a website visitor but still a huge factor in Google’s ranking.

In comparison, off-page SEO basically just refers to anything that happens outside of your site that affects your search rankings — think external linking, PR, social media, or influencer marketing.

Examples of On-Page SEO

On-page elements include the majority of your SEO efforts. The most common examples of on-page SEO include:

Keyword Research
Written Content
Image Alt Text
Page Titles & Headers
Meta Data
Page URLs
Internal Linking
Site Structure and Layout

If you're unsure where to begin, we’ve put together the ultimate on-page SEO guide to help. Keep reading for an explanation of the best on-page SEO strategies and how to execute them.

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Keyword Research

How to find the right keywords for your website

Keyword research is the foundation of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) because it should inform all the content on your website. It involves identifying the words and phrases that your potential customers are using to search for products, services, or relevant information online. In other words, it’s figuring out what your target audience is asking Google — and how your website can provide all the answers. But how do you do this?

Start with primary keywords. These keywords are the most important and relevant terms related to your business, products, or services. It includes things like product categories and common short search terms e.g. “wedding guest dresses”.
Next, move onto secondary or long-tail keywords; longer and more specific phrases based on your primary list. Because these are niche, they’re less competitive but target more interested buyers. Something like "what to wear to a wedding when you’re pregnant" would be a long-tail keyword that complements the broader primary keyword "event dresses."
Use keyword research tools to analyse your domain and competitors, helping you build on your list of search terms. Our favourite is SEMrush, which compares your domain with others to provide keyword suggestions and live rankings.

SEO Blogs

The how and why of SEO content writing

So, what do you do once you have a list of target keywords? You need to incorporate them in new content, so Google knows to rank you for them. The best strategy for building out your website’s content is writing blogs.

Not only are they an opportunity to target keywords, but they can also boost engagement by encouraging readers to interact elsewhere within your site. Additionally, a good article will establish greater authority in your industry or niche — leading to more backlinks, social shares, and trust from both users and search engines.

To plan blog topics, start by grouping related keywords into clusters to create a structured content plan. Each cluster can inform a whole array of blog posts. This helps in building comprehensive and topic-focused content that can improve your SEO performance.

Three tips on writing blogs:

Make sure your blog is no less than 250 words. Note that long-form content tends to rank higher than a competitor blog post that’s much shorter.
Your number one priority is quality and value. A poorly written article generates a high bounce rate, which is where readers leave your site to go find something better. This will hurt your ranking, and why it might be wise to invest in a copywriter if you don’t have the time or resources to produce high-quality content in-house.
Avoid keyword stuffing. That is, don’t just fill your blog with keywords at random — Google punishes any unnatural or ‘spammy’ use of keywords, and your audience won’t be impressed if they feel misled or confused either.

Alt Text

How image captions can help Google rank your page

Alt text, or alternative text, is a brief description added to the images on web pages. If an image isn’t loading, Google will display the alt text in its place. It also reads these out as audio captions for vision-impaired users.

From an SEO perspective, alt text provides search engines with valuable context about the image. Google will factor in the alt text when cross-checking your page against relevant search terms. Effective alt text is short, descriptive, and incorporates relevant keywords naturally without keyword stuffing.

Optimising alt text is an easy way to both enhance your search engine visibility and also ensure your content is accessible to a wider audience. Note that the process for adding alt text to images is different for every website hosting platform (Squarespace, Wordpress, Shopify etc.) but should always be easy to do manually.

On the subject of images, Google loves a web page with a balanced text-to-image ratio. Any pages that feature images should also ideally include text too. It doesn’t have to be an even split, but at least one paragraph is considered best practice.

Page Titles and Headers

Organising your content for users and search engines

Page titles and headings are important for SEO for two key reasons:

They make your content easier for users to read
They tell Google which topics to rank that page for

The page title is usually designated as the H1 tag (this should be easy to find and edit within your website’s design template). The goal is to succinctly capture the main topic and include primary keywords, helping search engines and users understand the content's focus. A blog post will have the most impact on your ranking for keywords included in the H1 heading.

Sub-headers should break down the content into sections. They’re given tags from H2 onwards, signalling the order of importance to Google. For example, your ranking will change more for keywords in H2 than it will for keywords in H4 or 5. This is why you can’t hope to target too many ideas in one blog article, but rather should focus on one or two key topics.

Metadata

Providing context from Google’s SERPs

Metadata refers to the information visible from the search engines result page (SERP). This includes the page title and a short description. Here’s what it looks like:

The meta title is the clickable headline in search results, which should be concise and keyword-rich to accurately reflect the page's content. The meta description (the brief summary under the title) should be compelling and informative, encouraging users to click through to the site.

Note that the meta title and description don’t have to be excerpts from within the page — but if Google decides that they’re not actually relevant to the content, it could hurt your rankings.

Page URLs

Making your pages discoverable

Page URLs are often overlooked, but are a vital function of SEO. They’re the most clear indications of a page’s content for search engines and users. A ‘clean’ URL avoids unnecessary words or special characters (excluding hyphens). Think of what’s easier to read and share.

For SEO, your page URLs should:

Be concise and easy to comprehend
Include relevant keywords for search engine visibility
Be structurally consistent across a website
Use hyphens to separate words rather than underscores or other symbols

Internal Linking

Establishing page authority and themes

Links that direct readers from one page of your website to another are known as internal links. Consistent, logical linking structures are a key strategy for strengthening page authority and user experience.

Essentially, Google deems hyperlinked pages as important, increasing their likelihood of being ranked highly — and crawled in the first place.

Internal link building also enhances the ease of site navigation for users by connecting pages thematically. Think of internal links as pathways or a map; you’re guiding visitors through relevant content. This also allows you to nudge them towards a final conversion point.

When implementing internal links, it's essential to use descriptive anchor text that includes relevant keywords (anchor text being the part of the sentence that’s actually hyperlinked).

Site Architecture

Does your website actually work?

Perhaps the first thing you need to look at before beginning SEO is site architecture, or the way your website is actually organised and set up. Elements of your site architecture include:

Page layout
How your landing pages are organised in the header
Page designs that work on both desktops and mobile devices
Loading speed

The logic here is that when users find what they're looking for easily and quickly, they’re more likely to convert — whether that means making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or completing any other desired action on your site.

The thing is, it’s easy for website developers to overlook SEO. They might not factor search engine optimisation into your site build or page layouts if their main concern is graphic design or software development. This is why you should always work closely with an SEO expert when creating your website.

While a good-looking site is important, it won’t do you many favours if it’s not optimised for user experience and Google’s crawling bots.

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Ultimately, on-page SEO gives you the power to boost search engine visibility and performance directly via your website. These techniques are most of the battle when it comes to SEO.

By focusing on both content and structural elements, you can enhance both user experience and Google’s understanding of your site.

Remember, effective on-page SEO is not just about ticking off technical boxes; it's about creating valuable, user-friendly content that meets the needs of your audience while aligning with search engine guidelines. It also requires constant, ongoing work.

By continuously updating, monitoring, and refining on-page elements, you can stay ahead in the competitive digital landscape and drive sustainable organic traffic to your website.

What is On-Page SEO?