By OLIVER ANDREWS
The World’s Top SEO Experts Tell Us What They Think Is The Most Important On-page SEO Ranking Factor
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) turns your obscure website pages into traffic magnets that boost online authority, brand visibility, and site value. Are you struggling with making SEO work for you? Below are tips from the world’s leading SEO experts about the most important on-page SEO factors and how to use them to your benefit.
On-Page SEO Tips from Experts
Adam Smartschan
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The most important on-page SEO factor is relevance to your topic. In essence, you need to write “the best thing in the world” about whatever it is you’re writing about. Look at what’s currently ranking. Does it have step-by-step instructions? Charts? Graphics? You need to replicate existing factors, then somehow improve on them. This isn’t about keyword density or meta description length. It’s about delivering something of true, lasting value to readers. Google will recognize that.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
The Yoast Premium SEO plugin for WordPress is invaluable. That’s not because it “does SEO” for you. Instead, it’s because it removes you having to think about rote factors. It will take care of the basics – or at least inform you that there’s a little work to do. This frees you up to create something that’s actually valuable.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Don’t “do SEO.” “Doing SEO,” by definition, is trying to trick Google. Instead, focus on creating the absolute best content you can. Answer the question that’s in the query. If there’s buying intent (e.g., something Googling a product), help the user buy it. If there’s informational intent, give information. The best result wins, period.
Follow on Twitter: @altitudeadam
Katie Keith
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
I would say that the most important on-page SEO factor is providing in-depth, keyword rich content that adds genuine value to your readers. A detailed article, comparison or tutorial about your product or service can rank more effectively than product pages, and for a wider range of keywords. It’s also an opportunity to produce multiple pieces of content, each focused around a different group of keywords – in contrast to product pages, which can only focus on one main keyword. As a result, this is an essential part of on-page SEO and can make a huge difference.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
We use the Yoast Premium SEO plugin on our WordPress website. This is essential for improving our on-page SEO because it automatically grades the page using a traffic light system to indicate how effectively it is optimized for the main focus keyword. It also suggests internal links that are relevant to the page, and provides actionable tips on how to optimize the page more effectively. This includes a wide range of factors including length, internal and external links, number of times the main keyword is featured, and the length of each section.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Get feedback from your customers about how they are using their product, and use it to identify ideas for new content that you can publish on your site. For example, we send a brief and friendly email to our customers a week after they purchase, asking them how they found our software product and how they use it. Their responses often provide valuable insights and ideas that we hadn’t previously considered, such as a new keyword that we can optimize for.
Follow on Twitter: @barn2plugins
Louis Holzman
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Link-worthy content that builds your reputation and authority.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Lighthouse: Google’s UX tool
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
LONG-TAIL KEYWORDS ARE THE KEY TO SEO SUCCESS. If we answer enough questions and give enough valuable information to your audience, you’ll eventually build up the reputation (Google calls this E-A-T) to be treated as a trusted source for body and head keywords. Once you’re a trusted source, Google will send you traffic regularly.
Follow on Twitter: @teamaltitude
James Owen
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Engaging content that entices your user and answers their search query.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
SEMrush SEO Writing Assistant
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Google’s emphasis on E.A.T means that low-value content is no longer appreciated in the SERPs. Focus on fresh content based on the user’s intent coupled with technical SEO elements.
Follow on Twitter: @jamesoSEO
Kevin Yeaman
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Long-form content organized in outline form that’s optimized with great header tags (H1, H2 etc.) positioned on the page in hierarchical manner. It’s even better if you can add jump links and many different keyword versions and semantic keywords into the content. Rule of thumb is about 1,200 words.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Google “searches related” at bottom of SERP.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
More in-depth quality content beats more-volume content every time.
Follow on Twitter: @seoincolorado
John Doherty
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The <title> tag (coupled with the H1) is the most impactful as it’s the strongest signal to search engines what the page is about. It also can be a strong conversion factor.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
SEMrush.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Start with doing keyword research and discovering what other sites in your niche are ranking for, then create the best piece of content you can around that topic.
Follow on Twitter: @dohertyjf
Manju Rai
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
High-Quality Content
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Your content is the most significant on-page factor if you wish to rank high on search engine result pages. Search Engines want to provide premium content to their users. Hence, they always prefer a website with high-quality content. They ensure that websites delivering high-quality content are rewarded with greater search rankings and websites that produce low-quality content gain lesser visibility. So, in order to achieve top ranking and visibility, one needs to produce well-researched, in-depth, and valuable content for their readers. Fresh and valuable content enhances search visibility while providing you something worthy to share with your readers, so it’s a win-win strategy.
Follow on Twitter: @ManjuRa83047142
Nicolás Cerdeira
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
“Quality content that completely satisfies users’ needs. Google has become really intelligent over time and, nowadays, the algorithm can differentiate a good article from one that only aims to rank on search engines and contains hundreds of times the desired main keyword. Therefore, posting great content in a structured way and consistently over time is the best way to get organic traffic.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Google itself. It’s useful to identify what kind of content is it making rank for the desired keyword and which subtopics do the articles ranking in the top include.
Follow on Twitter: @nicocerdeira
Igor P
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Quality content is still one of the most important SEO factors. Also, it should satisfy user’s search intent and be mobile friendly/mobile first.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Screaming Frog
Follow on Twitter: @flothemes
Nathan Gotch
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The most important on-page SEO factor is making sure that the page satisfies the intent of the keyword. For example, if you’re targeting a transactional keyword like “buy black baseball cleats”, then the page should be focused on that objective (which is to drive sales). It should NOT be structured an informational asset. In short, the keyword intent should dictate how you build the page and the content. If you’re unsure, then analyse the SERPs and see what types of pages are ranking. Then just model the page types, but create a unique experience.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Surfer SEO is by far the best on-page SEO tool I’ve found.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Prioritize keywords that have a high probability of producing REVENUE. Traffic is not the goal. Revenue is the goal.
Follow on Twitter: @nathangotch
Glen Allsopp
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Creating a resource that not only solves the reader’s question, but goes above and beyond. So if someone is searching for “Will chewing gum daily improve your jawline”, would they rather see a theoretical reply or could you go into massive detail with guide titled: “I chewed gum for 30 days to improve my jawline — here’s what happened”.
With weekly progress photos, a clear before and after, and detailed information on how much gum you chewed each day, for how long, whether it was painful and so on.
Title tags, internal links and the right schema markup are the most obvious answers in some scenarios, but wowing users with link-worthy content will not steer you far wrong.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
detailed.com/extension – we have 20,000+ users and I use it dozens of times per day.
Follow on Twitter: @viperchill
Caitlin Johnson
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Image optimization is such an important piece of on-page SEO, and one that many creators neglect. There are so many benefits to optimizing your images to load faster and assigning them descriptive titles and alt-tags. First, you can rank in Google image search, you’ll also have faster page load times and an overall better user experience.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Ahrefs is my favourite software for On-Page SEO.
Follow on Twitter: @bigwrldsmallgrl
Gustavo Nunes
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
More than ever, people are being more careful with how they spend their money. They are consuming more information, asking for referrals, looking for testimonials, going through rates, and comments, and so on. With that in mind, invest time in drawing a strategic content strategy that answers all possible questions that a visitor might have, whether in the form of a blog post, an ebook, or a product page. And as important as automating your content production and optimizing it for SEO, is taking some time to analyse your efforts, experiment, and always improve your strategy.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Workflow by GrowthHackers
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Spend substantial time on Google Analytics and Google Search Console. These (free) tools are a gold mine for those doing SEO on their own site and don’t know how to start. They can help you to understand where you should focus your efforts, analyse your results, and leverage multiple keywords to rank on search engines.
Follow on Twitter: @gustavoonunes
Paul
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Content is the most important factor when it comes to SEO. It has been said many many times, but creating high quality, genuinely useful content that answers your potential customers questions – in full – is the key. Make sure it is genuinely useful, don’t hint at an answer, answer the problem in full. Links to other authoritative sites that could assist with further research. Make sure you include research or case studies and you will be onto a winner. Of course you need to make sure that this content is delivered well, look after your technical SEO too, but to us, the most important factor is the content itself. Great content will even do your link building for you.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Screaming Frog for website analysis.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Listen to what Google is telling you about your website / content. Stay on top of your Search Console data and analytics and act accordingly.
Follow on Twitter: @ImproveMarket
Edd Wilson
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Search intent was a hot topic in 2020 but for all the right reasons. We know SERPs look to adjust and aim to provide the right type content that they believe the user is looking for. Focusing on search intent will inform you of everything that your page templates requires in terms of keyword targeting, content structure and depth.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Google Search Console has come on leaps and bounds and I hope this continues. It’s not perfect yet, but the page level data provides great insights. The Search Console API has also allowed for some great tools & data studio dashboards that came out in 2020 as well.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Focus on your users’ requirements and test things out!
It’s no good trying to replicate successful websites that aren’t in your industry. Understand what your users are looking for and focus on your USPs. This will help inform your SEO strategy
Only through testing will you know what works and what doesn’t. It’s very rare for a SEO strategy to be 100% perfect. Successful SEO strategies are built on testing what works for your website.
Follow on Twitter: @EddJTW
Mike Tortorice
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
By far, if you are looking for a quick win, the thing that will impact your website the most is simply the content. Well formulated content that answers specific questions exactly will win at the end of the day.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
For content manipulation surferseo.com is my go-to.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Be patient and look at the website from your potential customer’s perspective. Does it answer their common questions and does it do it well? Start there and organize your thoughts to incorporate into the websites content.
Follow on Twitter: @TortoriceSEO
Squarespace
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
There are many variables that influence your site’s ranking in search engines, but there’s no formula that guarantees a high ranking. Adding an SEO description is a big factor.
Follow on Twitter: @squarespace
Ben Garry
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Keyword targeting is, for me, the most important factor. Without effective keyword targeting, you won’t rank for the right search terms. Nowadays, effective targeting involves good coverage of the wider topic throughout your page, but there is still value in including the most valuable phrases in important areas such as metadata, headings and early on in the text.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Ahrefs
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Have a plan for how you expect people to find you, and create content to meet their needs at every point of their journey. Start with the general questions your site is equipped to answer, then work down the funnel to product/service questions and, finally, the commercial needs that you can meet. Research the terminology that real searchers are using for each of these topic areas and ensure that the pages you create for the site make use of those terms and satisfy the underlying desire or question
Follow on Twitter: @BenJGarry
Gracie Joe Mas
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The most important factor for on-page SEO is keyword mapping. You must do this in order to ensure that Google has a clear understanding for which query/queries to display your page(s). Once these are mapped, you can then use them in the URL, h1, content and meta description, as well as internal and inbound link anchor text pointing to the page.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Screaming Frog is king. While it may seem daunting at first, once you learn how to filter your exports, you have the most clear picture of SEO opportunity. Add to this the ability to connect analytics, and you have the tools to compile the most educated and effective SEO roadmap possible!
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Never put all your services/categories on one page! This is the most common issue I find when doing SEO audits for new clients. Every service and product category MUST have it’s own, unique page. From there, create unique child pages to support their parent page. Google is the most likely to display you for your target keywords if it knows exactly which page to display for exactly which words. When you stuff them all into one, Google does not clearly understand, and is unlikely to display you for anything at all.
Follow on Facebook: @madisonmilesmedia
Kevin A Kennedy
Content Unleashed – The CMS Platform Blog
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
High quality, relevant content is still the #1 on-page SEO factor. Always start with content your target audience will value and care about, and then move on to other factors. Various tools for SEO keyword research – understanding how your target audience searches for your products and services should be your first step to creating engaging content.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
SEO Moz, Marketpath CMS
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Understand your audience, how they view your product/service, and how you can add value to their research or purchase process or product / service usage experience. Do keyword and market research. Then think about your site structure, site map, and ongoing website content marketing strategy. That should all come before onsite blocking and tackling, as well as off-site work.
Follow on Twitter: @Kevin_A_Kennedy
Callum Scott
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Providing a clear structure to your content can really help both users and Google to find the content that best answers a search query. Every piece of content is going to be unique, but one of the best ways you can improve your content structure (in my opinion) is through your use of h-tags.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Ahrefs
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Focus on figuring out the searcher intent for your target queries, and then create content that fulfils that intent better than your competitors.
Follow on Twitter: @mrcallumscott
Marshall Reyher
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The most important on-page SEO factor from a technical perspective is a quality page title. That being said, in order to truly optimise your on-page SEO, you must take many things into account. This includes page title, meta description (doesn’t directly affect SEO, but can help improve CTR), good use of tags (H1, H2, H3) and content on your site.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Yoast SEO is a must-have WordPress plugin to optimise your site for on-page SEO.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Create quality content for people, not search engines. Aim to make it as useful as possible, but make sure that it is done in a natural way (no keyword stuffing or spammy tactics).
Follow on Twitter: @mprstudio
Debra Murphy
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Well-written, quality content is the most important SEO factor. Without content, there is nothing to index. It’s what attracts the reader who is looking for something specific. Narrowly focus each piece of content on a topic that is in demand. Write your content to educate and help the reader some way.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
For WordPress, the Yoast SEO plugin is what I use. It guides you through the important technical aspects of SEO. Plus, the readability feature helps you structure your content so that it is easy to read and digest.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Be strategic with your content. Do your keyword research so you know what is in demand. Make sure what you write about is aligned with the needs of your target audience. Write your content to educate your reader and add value in some way. Then use the tools like WordPress SEO to add the on-page features like title tags, meta descriptions, proper URL and other factors that help the search engines properly index your content.
Follow on Twitter: @masterfulmktg
Joe Johnson
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
It’s impossible to tell which factor is THE most important, but something that’s often overlooked is the anchor text of the internal links pointing to the page in question. Try to use the target keyword (or a variation of it) for the page in question the internal links that point at that page. You can easily find all of the internal links pointing to a page by referring to ‘inlinks’ tab in Screaming Frog.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
SEM Rush
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Once content is live, don’t just leave it alone. Check back on its performance in Search Console regularly to see which keywords it performs well for, and edit or add to the content accordingly. Google decide what your content ranks for – not you!
Follow on Twitter: @joe__johnson__
Sam Gooch
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
In my opinion, the most important on-page SEO factor is content. Search engines need content to grasp what a page is about, making it absolutely key when it comes to ranking pages in search.
Make sure your content:
– Is relevant: keep it on topic and closely related to the overall theme of your website.
– Includes your target keywords: While search engines are getting better at understanding how user search queries relate to content, they still rely on websites to include related keywords within the content.
– Links to other resources: linking to other related content helps to provide readers with extra context. This gives you the opportunity to surface more of your content though internal links, which also passes link value to other pages to help give them more ranking power. Don’t be afraid to link out to other relevant websites – the more helpful your content is to your readers, the more likely it is to rank well in search. Great content can also earn backlinks when other websites reference and link to it, which is an important off-page ranking factor.
– Is comprehensive and useful to your readers: Long-form content tends to rank better than thin content, so make sure you go into enough detail and provide all of the answers to the questions your readers may have. The goal here is to ensure your visitors don’t need to go back to the search engines to find a better answer.
– Is accessible to search engines: Crawlers must be able to access your content in order for it to show up in the search results, so it’s crucial that it’s available for public viewing (not placed behind a login), with no instructions blocking crawlers (e.g. via the robots.txt file or meta tags).”
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
SEMrush
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
The path to SEO success is to form your SEO strategy with your users at the very centre. Question everything you do to make sure that each activity has your users best interests in mind, whether you’re making improvements to your internal linking to provide further context for your readers, while passing value between pages, or analysing user journeys to highlight pain-points that could be frustrating your visitors and causing them to bounce back to the search results.
Follow on Twitter: @SamGooch
Preston Lee
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The most important on-page SEO factor has been and always will be the quality of the content. As Google gets better and better at their job of identifying which content truly delivers the most value on a searcher’s intent, the technicalities of on-page or off-page SEO will grow less and less important and the sheer quality of the content will rule all. This means, of course, it should read well, get to the point, address the need early in the content, be structurally sound, etc. But it’s all about delivering the best answer or solution for the searcher—nothing else is more important.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Clearscope
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Focus on quality. It can be easy to get caught up in writing for robots. But if you write for humans, Google is smart enough to figure it out. Just make sure your content is better than anyone else’s on the subject and you’ll do just fine. Of course, that’s much easier said than done.
Follow on Twitter: @milloteam
Chamal Rathnayaka
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Although SEO has become harder every year passed by, still keyword research is relevant in many aspects. In fact, the best way to get around tough competition in SERPs is using low competition keywords with high traffic volume. In my opinion, the ones who use keywords intelligently and have a better strategy will win over others.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Google Search Console
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Focus in giving what the searcher is looking for. Do not overcomplicate things by looking at your competition. Determine serving your readers and you will always find a way in getting the attention of both people and search engines. SEO takes time. So, patience is also a key here.
Follow on Twitter: @gmchamal
François Mommens
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Crafting the right page title is essential and definitely not the most trivial part. Keywords in the title are still an important ranking factor. And the title is the most visible element on the SERPS. So a good title combines including the money keywords, answering the user intent, being distinct from the competition, and minimising the bounce rate. All of that under the length limit.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
I use Google Search Console to look at the keywords that are ranking and improve my copies based on that. I also used it to kill pages that don’t rank at all. I’ve just started using also SEOSurfer and so far I like it.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
It is an inexact science and has a long learning curve. There is a lot of contradictory advice so try to read a lot but forge your own opinion depending on what works for you and your own site.
Follow on Twitter: @mommens
Paul Clapp
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Content, content, content. Let’s remember why the Internet was created, for people to find things. If you create really good content, they will come.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Ahrefs
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Write really useful, informative copy. Don’t write content for the sake of writing content. No one wants to read waffle. Write something you’d be interested in reading yourself and you can’t go wrong.
Follow on Twitter: @prioritypixels
Andrew Buck
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The most important factor is a clean heading structure. Make your page easy to crawl, and make it easy for a bot to tell what your post is about. You do this by using heading tags (H2, H3 etc), and by directly answering the topic of each heading in a clear and straightforward way. As an added bonus, a well-structured page makes it easier for humans to read, and you end up with a higher time on site as well.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
SurferSEO
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Take cues from the top-ranking sites for the keywords you’re trying to target, regarding headings, content length, search intent, etc. However, try to do something that makes your content stand out, instead of simply replicating what they’re doing 100%. A unique angle gives people a reason to click through to your post, and a reason for people to naturally link to you (which has huge benefits for your overall SEO).
Follow on Twitter: @buckandrewbuck
Sam Carr
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
For me, page headings such as H1s to H3s are the most important on-page SEO factor. Not only are they important areas that Google looks for keywords and entities, but they also help split up the content into different sections for the reader.
These headings will also become more important with the upcoming passage indexing update, which will allow Google to read and rank individual text passages. The headings will give Google context as to what the text paragraphs below them are referring to, so ensuring they are keyword rich and include questions will be crucial.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
I’ve used many on-page tools in the past, but at the moment my favourite has to be Market Muse. Not only does it help with optimizing existing content to ensure it includes all the right topics and answers, but it also produces incredible content briefs. If you’re looking to produce amazing content that is both informative for users and optimized for search engines, then give Market Muse a try.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
For anyone doing SEO on their own website, I would tell them to focus on nailing search intent and relevancy. If you’re an e-commerce website trying to rank for “best shoe brands” and all the search results are blog posts, then you’ll need to make a blog post to compete. Even if you already have a shopping category page dedicated to best shoe brands, it’s clear than Google (and users) want an informative article instead of a commercial result. Trying to “force” your commercial shopping page to rank will just be a waste of both time and money.
Follow on Twitter: @PPCprotect
Neal Taparia
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Usability is a critical on-page SEO factor. Google wants to rank sites that people like. You might have great content, but if it’s not easy to read or designed well, users will bounce creating a negative SEO signals. You have to be thoughtful on how to present your information. You want to hook people and make your information easier to understand. The more you can reduce your bounce and drive people through your funnel, the better search engine placement will become.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
We regularly use HotJar to watch videos of how users interact with our site. We see what they engage with, and what might confuse them causing them to bounce. This gives us the insight we need to improve our user experience and keep our users on our site, ultimately improving our engagement rate and SEO.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Have patience. SEO improvements don’t lead to overnight results. It’s like chipping away at a rock. Continue to execute your strategy with good content that drives links. You might have some ups and downs, but over time you’ll see the fruits of your labour!
Follow on Twitter: @tapneal
Bhanu Ahluwalia
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
I’d say that the most important on-page SEO factor by far (and this only continues to become more true) is user experience. UX meaning the entire user/searcher’s experience with your website (content quality, relevance, design, speed, the whole experience).
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Obviously, if I can only choose one – it would be remiss not to mention our own software – Rank Math SEO (https://rankmath.com), the #1 WordPress SEO plugin available (recommended by the best SEOs on the planet).
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Start with the user. When you know who you’re creating content for what their goals are – you know who you’re tailoring the experience to. That’s where the real magic happens, because you can start working backwards, reverse-engineering your way to the top of SERPs for keywords that people in your industry (i.e. your potential customers) are searching for…
Follow on Twitter: @rankmathseo
Lindsay Halsey
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The structure of your pages and posts is the most important on-page SEO factor. The search engines find value in keyword optimized headers (H1 – H6) which break your content into sections with a clearly defined hierarchy. Reviewing existing content to make sure your headers organize your content into logical sections is a high-impact on-page SEO tactic.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Google Search Console is our go to resource for on-page SEO as it provides unparalleled insight into what keywords are driving clicks and impressions for each page on your website. It’s this keyword insight that informs your on-page SEO — page titles and meta descriptions, header structure, and more.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Take a step by step approach. SEO isn’t magic and doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Follow a steady process and take small, but impactful action on a consistent basis.
Follow on Twitter: @linds_halsey
Ziemek Bućko
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
I’d say the #1 thing to focus on is understanding your user’s needs. With rare exceptions, the content that people love the most is the one that Google loves as well. If you understand what your users need, you’ll be able to write content that gives them what they want and structure it in a way that’s convenient for them.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
I really like to use Surfer SEO before publishing new content. It allows me to check if I succeeded in fully covering the topic I’m targeting with a given piece of content. Surfer analyses the top pages for a given query and suggests which topics and keywords you should cover to rank high. Do your research, write great content, and check with Surfer to see how you’re doing.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Information architecture is paramount if you want to be successful in the long run. When preparing your SEO strategy, take the time to analyse your audience’s intent as well as you can, and design your website’s architecture to meet your ideal user’s needs.
Follow on Twitter: @ziemek_bucko
Pat Ahern
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The most important on-page SEO factor is matching search intent. Search intent, when done correctly, starts by identifying the contents of a given page, evaluating how those contents tie back to helping your target audience to achieve their goals, and then optimizing the content around keyword themes that have overlap in those two concepts.
Let’s say your business wants to rank for the theme “best coffee beans”. A searcher typing that phrase into Google is probably looking for educational content about which coffee they should be purchasing. The top 10 results for this query will probably show in-depth reviews about various coffee beans, a broad coffee beans page on a large retailer’s site that lists user reviews on those beans, and maybe a few educational articles about how to determine which coffee beans are best for different individuals.
However, you’re unlikely to find a coffee bean product page that highlights one singular coffee bean that is self-described by the owner as having the “best coffee beans”.
You could create the best product page in the world, but if it doesn’t match the search intent of a keyword theme, it won’t be able to rank for that keyword in the long term.
Instead, a coffee shop looking to rank for this theme might write an article about the best coffee beans to brew with a French press, pour-over, and aeropress and highlight 1-2 of their coffee beans in the article.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Clearscope – this tool does a phenomenal job of using statistical analysis to give SEO/content marketers a better grasp of the core concepts that they may have forgotten to discuss when creating an educational piece of content.
Follow on Twitter: @PatAhern1
Kosta Bankovski
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Correct crawling and indexing instructions. Canonicals, meta robots, robots.txt, etc. are the most common places for SEO mistakes. I’m working at a company that develops tools for SEOs, and number of times I’ve seen unexpected ‘noindex’ tags or wrong canonical URLs increases every day. I take it as the most important factor because these instructions directly affect indexing and your presence in search. You may have the best titles, descriptions, mobile optimization, but that canonical chain that leads to noindexed page won’t let you get traffic first.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Netpeak Spider
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Before thinking about links, make your website a good place to visit, then give content so people are interested to come back again and again. Make sure that your website is really interesting for the audience, only after that plan link budget.
Follow on Twitter: @netpeaksoftware
Erin Betzler
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Understanding the searcher’s intent and providing the content to answer their questions is the most important factor in our on-page strategy. Ultimately it’s most important to understand what information the searcher is looking for so that we can cover that information thoroughly in our content.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Surfer
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Focus on creating quality content and on providing the best, most helpful information for your readers. Use keywords to better understand search intent and then answer the questions they are asking.
Follow on Twitter: @seodigitalgroup
Brock Murray
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The most important on-page factor, in my opinion, is relevance to the search query. It should align with intent, and this is achieved through the content and overall user experience.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Screaming Frog
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
I would suggest anyone who is doing their own SEO to have a side hustle / test site so you can experiment! Be careful about experimenting with you main site, but it’s a good idea to test different ideas, strategies, and projects to be able to achieve SEO success.
Follow on Twitter: @SEOBroc
Joydeep Bhattacharya
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
In my opinion, EAT is the most important on-page SEO factor. EAT stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Have high-quality content, keep it fresh, and get mentions and links to keep your content at the top of the SERP.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Moz On-Page Grader
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Give 65% of your effort to acquire links and 35% on content. High-quality content won’t rank for long time unless it has lots of links.
Follow on Twitter: @seoforu
David Kaufmann
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
For us, the headers hierocracy together with the Title, are a crucial combination that really work.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
SEOcrawl.com for tracking results with real-data from Search Console.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Create an efficient methodology. Check, apply changes, test and iterate constantly.
Follow on Twitter: @seo_crawl
Jeff Lenny
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Follow on Twitter: @JeffBucket
Jeff Selig
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Title
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Screaming Frog
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Be the subject matter expert.
Follow on Twitter: @seosem
Tom Dupuis
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Speed is becoming significantly more important. Google has already made it a ranking factor in the past, and now Web Vitals will be a factor in May, 2021. Considering how important it is for user experience and conversions, more admins need to be focusing on it. My suggestion is to start with your infrastructure: hosting, theme, plugins, lightweight page builders, and fonts are good places to start. Join Facebook Groups and see how people are fixing recommendations from PageSpeed Insights.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Rank Math
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Align your content with what people are searching for in Google Autocomplete. Target specific, long-tail keywords until you build authority since they’re less competitive. Once you find a keyword, Google it, look at the top results, and write better content than the top results. In-depth content usually does a better job at ranking. Incorporate multimedia and rich snippets.
Follow on Twitter: @thedupman
Benjamin DENIS
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Even so some may say it has lost importance with the introduction of passage indexing, the TITLE tag remains the most important element to get right for SEO.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Our WordPress SEO plugin “SEOPress” of course 🙂
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Focus on your users: write great content, sell good products and stop trying to hack Google!
Follow on Twitter: @wp_seopress
Chris Tzitzis
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
My answer will probably be a little “old school” compared to others, but just getting your keywords and keyword variations in the most important spots: URL, title, h1, meta, and content without over-optimizing has to be the single strongest on-page factor and will even be enough to rank you for low competition keywords. Right behind that would probably be aligning your content/on-page with the user-intent of the SERP.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Number one is free and would just be a functional brain capable of using Google search and analysing a SERP/page. Next up would probably be Surfer SEO – cool tool for deeper on-page/content analysis, writing optimized content, etc.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
When in doubt, always look at what’s currently working. What’s currently working are the sites that are ranking in the top positions for your keyword. You can apply this to almost every other aspect of SEO from keyword research to backlinks to whatever else – look at what’s currently working, emulate what they are doing, and then tweak around the edges or outperform them in some way. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, just look at what Google is rewarding.
Follow on Twitter: @thesirlinksalot
Aleksandr Botvynko
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
On page-SEO is all about keywords and for me, placing the keyword in the title tag is just as important as having it in the URL. More specifically, placing it at the very beginning of your title tag is going to give that extra edge that will help you rank higher in the search rankings.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
There are many really handy SEO tools out there, but in the reality where I could only use one, I would definitely go for Ahrefs. Ahrefs’ keyword explorer is a feature I use every day and for on-page SEO this tool is a must as it helps to discover new keywords and LSI keywords.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Take hints from your competitors’ websites, see what they are doing well and make an extra effort to do it better. At the end of the day, there is no limit to perfection, all you can do is give it your best shot.
Follow on Twitter: @ABotvynko
Yevheniy Kralych
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Exhaustive topic coverage, well-structured content and different media formats present on the page (videos, audios and infographics).
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Ahrefs
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Determine competitors who have great knowledge of SEO and follow in their footsteps. After a while you will be able to find out what drives their decisions and what’s behind their approach. That’s a great way to dive into SEO.
Follow on Twitter: @KrallEugene
Matthias Lugert
Seobility | All-in-One SEO Tool
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Taking you by the word with “most important”, then it boils down to accessibility being the most important on-page SEO factor. Let’s put it this way: if your website is full of bad status codes, redirect loops etc., then search engine crawlers as well as users don’t even get the chance to properly assess your content or get very frustrated while trying.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
I’m certainly biased, but if you don’t use the site audit of www.seobility.net for your on-page SEO, you’re missing out!
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Start with a clean technical setup! Perform a thorough on-page audit of your website and make sure that you website is error-free, fast and well optimized. If you don’t, then ALL of your other efforts will stay behind their potential. As you continue to build content, make audits a regular habit. Think of it as a quality assurance to your website.
Follow on Twitter: @seobility_net
Kaylin Gilkey
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The best way to win over Googlebot and users’ hearts in the on-page SEO game is to keep the quality of your content of utmost importance. Making sure you are answering the users’ queries better than anyone else is how you will beat the competition.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Google Search Console
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Going back to the SEO basics is essential for any business, no matter the size and no matter the industry. When I say SEO basics I mean creating the best content to answer user queries and then giving them the best experience when they land on your site. Maintain a balance of working on high quality content, curating high quality backlinks, and cleaning up your site’s technical SEO and you will set yourself up for success.
Follow on Twitter: @trustradius
Giancarlo Sciuto
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
I think the most important on-page SEO factor is architecture and internal linking. If you have a website you need to create a clear path to navigate your website’s contents both for your users and for the search engines crawlers. In this way, you’ll have for sure better results on the SERPs because will be easier to scan your pages and give them a ranking, and a better user experience for your leads while they navigate your pages because you will be able to guide them right to your business goal.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
SEO Tester Online
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
As on the majority of the things on business, also in SEO, you need consistency and the right approach. Be focused on your business goals and create an SEO strategy in accordance with them, then execute and try to understand how search engines respond to your strategies. If the response is good iterate, if not, change your strategy and start again. But remember not to be too much impatient: SEO needs time to flourish and give back results, but when that happens the results are incredible.
Follow on Twitter: @SciutoGiancarlo
Suha E.
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Above all, you’ll definitely want to get people interested in your content and coming back for more. A strong focus on delivering value and great writing to your audience is key.
Be sure to keep in mind both the audience and search engines when writing. Do your best to pick keywords which allow user intent and search engine results to coincide, and engage with the right people.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
The WhatsMySerp Rank Tracker
Follow on Twitter: @whatsmyserp
Daniel Jędrysik
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
In my opinion technical preparation of the website is very important, if not the most important. Crawlability and indexability are the first aspects you should take care of. Even if you have great content, amazing photos, and you get powerful backlinks without a proper interpretation of the website by search engine robots, you will not have a chance to appear in the search results. Of course, you should not forget about building mobile-friendly websites, creating good engaging content and providing great user experience. Only comprehensive actions will bring long term results.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
I use Surfer a lot – a great tool for on-page and content analysis. Thanks to it, I am able to match my site to pages currently occupying TOP10 positions. The principle of the tool is simple – use reverse engineering to determine which of the examined factors affect the position of competitors’ websites. Then harness this knowledge to build your own website. The tool has one more useful feature. Based on the pages in TOP10, Surfer prepares a draft that contains important words and phrases that should be used for the best thematic coverage. It also suggests content length and structure.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Build pages useful for users, not only for robots. High positions are not everything. Even if you gain first place in SERP but your page will not satisfy the user, sooner or later you will fall off the podium. Search engines pay more and more attention to user experience. A good example of such actions would be the introduction of Google Core Web Vitals – metrics representing three (at least for now) aspects of the user experience. That’s why providing satisfactory content on a user-friendly website should be your priority.
Follow on Twitter: @DanielJedrysik
Aaron Wall
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The usability and uniqueness of the offering.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
If you did not own your website, why would you want to regularly use it and/or share it with others? What differentiates your site from the millions of other websites?
Follow on Twitter: @aaronwall
Michał Suski
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Topical coverage is the most meaningful thing these days. You have to provide comprehensive information that will allow Google categorize you properly based on entities and other relevant terms. Having all these words and phrases used by your competitors makes your page a complete answer that satisfies both the user and the algorithm. Create content that answers all the questions found among the top 10 ranking pages.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Surfer
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Get familiar with the definition of topical clusters. Become an expert in your niche by covering all of the important topics among your industry. Don’t go for another promising blogging idea until the one you are working on is not completed. Relevant articles grouped into a silo will give you an extra boost in credibility and page rank flow. You can easily map your content strategy in Surfer’s Content Planner.
Follow on Twitter: @michal_suski
Robert Brandl
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Next to in-depth (written) content, what I found essential is to offer a variety of media: images, videos, animated GIFs and infographics can all set you apart.
If you want to play in the Champions League you can even develop interactive tools such as calculators, quizzes, polls or chatbots. This will engage your visitors and keep them on your site much longer, which sends a strong quality signal to Google.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Ahrefs
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
The most important thing is to check the Google ranking for your chosen keyword. Look at your competition to see what is working for them. Take all this and make something better by adding the media, which the others are missing.
Follow on Twitter: @robertbrandl
Steve Lazuka
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
Keyword in title tag and body within correct keyword density range.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Zerys of course! I’ve founded and managed 3 SEO/content companies over the past 21 years. We designed Zerys to incorporate all the SEO knowledge accumulated during that time. If you want to succeed at SEO you need great content first and foremost. That means more than just figuring out Google’s algorithm. It means finding a great writer that knows your industry and working with him/her to produce compelling content that is properly search optimized.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Create a free Zerys account and use the free planning tools… seriously
Follow on Twitter: @SteveLazuka
Julia Burova
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
I would like to highlight SEO writing. By this, I mean writing content, optimised for both search engines and users. It’s more than just doing keyword research and writing some copy then. Solid content is unique, valuable, optimised for search intent and relevant for users. And be sure, it will bring you not only more organic traffic but also attract target audience and increase conversion rate. Besides that, don’t forget about keyword-rich meta descriptions to solidify the result.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Surfer
Follow on Twitter: @JuliaAdler8
Kody Wirth
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The content and structure of your page. Google especially has been leaning further into search intent and providing users with specific information and results that fit or reach past the search query. Basic web vitals (such as page speed) are also important, but that is just the baseline necessity to compete. The actual information and how you present it is the crucial, competitive piece that can improve your ranking potential.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Google Search Console
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Focus on developing excellent content first and optimization second. You’ll find that by prioritizing the interests of your users/readers and creating useful material around high-intent topics that you’ll naturally see organic improvement. Additionally, consider the user journey onsite when developing material. Don’t develop copy, images, or features in a bubble and make sure that you think of what someone entering your site would want to see next.
Follow on Twitter: @kody_wirth
Wix
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
SEO doesn’t a singular factor that will raise your site’s rank. SEO is a combination of multiple factors and efforts on the site owners part to get their site found. Submitting your site on Google is easy with the smallest amount of metadata and tags but being on Google or any search engine doesn’t mean you will be on the first page. Typically time and marketing efforts are the best factor in ranking high.
Follow on Twitter: @Wix
Jamil Ali Ahmed
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
In order to optimize your page to rank higher in search engines, the most valuable on-page factors to consider is the content of the page. The content should be hyper-relevant to your niche topic. The subject of your content needs to be present in the title tag, description, URL, headers and image alt text. Your chosen niche subject holds key importance as you will be emphasizing it throughout your content, including a link back to its category page and the sub-category page. Google prefers high quality content. Make sure your content is up to the mark for Google E-A-T, which stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Ahrefs
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Write for humans first, Optimize for Search Engines second.
Follow on Twitter: @JamilAliAhmed
Andrea Volpini
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
If I had to choose one thing to please search engines, I’d bet on structured data — yes, this is what WordLift, our SEO automation tool, does best.
Although it’s not technically an SEO factor, structured data is the most reliable way to help Google understand your content. It’s like speaking Google’s native language.
The latest Common Crawl data shows that 44% of websites use some structured data. Is that enough? To push further, you have to improve data quality, making the leap to structured linked data.
The “linked” component allows search engines to identify what you’re talking about exactly.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Most on-page SEO tools allow you to create structured data nowadays. The most popular solutions like Yoast and RankMath do. We have created WordLift to go one step further: both by automating SEO markup and allowing you to create complex structured linked data graphs without any specific knowledge. I have proudly made WordLift for automating structured data markup, on-page SEO, and a lot more. Give it a try!
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Look at your content from three different angles. The first one is business. What are your business goals?
The second one is your audience. What are your buyer personas? How can you meet their needs? What content serves them at best?
The third one is the perspective of a robot (a search engine, a smart agent). How can you help machines understand your content and your audience’s needs? How is your data helping application developers connect your website with the right buyer personas?
Structured linked data helps you create this bridge.
Follow on Twitter: @cyberandy
Majestic
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
To answer your question, opinion varies, but there is a view that on-page and technical SEO are secondary to search engine discovery, of which links are seen to play a huge part. Obviously nuances here and there like ensuring a search engine can crawl and index, and to consider the message displayed in SERPS and the number of organic results shown in Search for your given search phrase.
Follow on Twitter: @Majestic
Kelsie Tune
Tillison Consulting – Digital Marketing Blog
QUESTION 1: What would you say is the most important on-page SEO factor?
The content on a web page is one of the main factors which can make any page worthy of a position in the SERPS. Ensuring your content is well optimised with the correct keywords and answering the questions which your audience is asking is key to feature high up within the search results.
QUESTION 2: What piece of software have you found the most useful for on-page SEO?
Our SEO team are always using Semrush and its on-page SEO Checker function. This tool provides actionable recommendations to bring your site to the top of the SERPs above your competition.
QUESTION 3: What’s one piece of advice you would give to anyone doing SEO on their own site?
Follow on Twitter: @TeamTillison
What is On-Page SEO in Digital Marketing?
On-page search engine optimisation (SEO) ensures that your website pages appear in relevant search engine results (SERPs). The more successful your on-page SEO strategy is, the higher your ranking in SERPs will be. Your website must appear among the top five in a SERP if you want optimal online visibility and more organic traffic.
Unlike off-page SEO, which focuses on tweaking page ranking elements that occur off your website, on-page SEO prioritises the on-site factors you can control. Some of these factors include your content, headlines, HTML tags, images, and more.
What are the Most Important On-Page SEO Factors?
Google demands on-page SEO because it makes it easier for search engines and people to access, navigate, and understand your site’s content. Without on-page SEO, even if your content is amazing, it might not rank well in relevant SERPs.
Let’s look at the most important on-page optimisation factors in SEO Google uses to determine SERP ranking.
E-A-T
Google measures your content’s value by looking at your site’s Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T). Prove your E-A-T by regularly posting original, highly informative, and well-written content, and Google will start prioritising your pages in search results.
SEO-Friendly Design and Links
Humans and search engines must be able to assess and navigate your website without getting lost. Improve site navigability by adding internal links, making your site responsive and fast, as well as boosting your site’s overall user experience (UX).
Using links to connect your pages makes your website easy to crawl and lets users browse all of your content with greater ease. An easy to understand and clutter-free design eliminates confusing elements that might interfere with your site’s navigability. Google considers all these factors when deciding a site’s SERP ranking.
Title Tag
Your title tag is the first thing users see when your page appears in search results. Google and users use a page’s title to guess what the page discusses. Forgetting to add a title tag or creating one that’s unclear or misleading can badly affect your search results. If you want your title in SERPs to be click-worthy, make it descriptive and accurate.
Meta Description
Your meta description provides a brief explanation of what your page discusses. Searchers will see it in search results under your page’s title. If you properly craft it, it can convince users to visit your site, boosting your click-through rate (CTR) and page relevance.
Header Tags
Header tags (H1, H2, H3, and so on) have several uses, but the most important include making your pages easy to scan/crawl and providing keyword insertion opportunities. Both are factors Google uses to determine a site’s SEO score and SERP ranking.
Recent news also indicates that Google intends on upgrading from ranking whole pages to ranking each passagewithin pages. You will not benefit from this update if you have poorly crafted headers.
Your Content
Experts agree that content is your most important on-page SEO factor. People want content that engages them and answers their questions. Search engines want content that satisfies the needs of their users. If you want a high SERP ranking, your content must satisfy both search engines and people.
Create long-form content that matches the intent of your target audience and answers all their search queries. Keyword research provides insights for creating content that resonates with your target audience and ranks well in search engines.
Keywords
Inserting the right keywords into your content is one of the most important on-page SEO factors. It helps search engines determine the relevance of your page. You must insert keywords in the right density and the proper places.
Otherwise, you might end up penalised for keyword stuffing, which negatively affects search engine ranking.
Keyword cannibalisation is something else to avoid. It occurs when you use the same primary keyword for multiple pages. It confuses Google, and the search engine won’t know which of your pages to provide in response to a search query for that keyword. Avoid cannibalisation by ensuring each page has a different primary keyword.
Images and Other Media
Images and other media make your pages more engaging, but oversized media files reduce your page’s loading speed and negatively affect SEO. Images also provide additional ranking opportunities when you add relevant keywords to the descriptive title and alt text.
User Engagement
If a user lands on your page and leaves within seconds, it will increase your bounce rate, which is bad for SEO. Keep your site engaging by making it fast and providing valuable content. If it has these features, your conversion rate will rise, leading to a better SEO score. An engaging site also leads to return visitors and people sharing your pages, which boosts your site authority and SEO rating.
On-Page SEO Techniques that Deliver Results
Now that we understand on-page SEO and its factors, let’s look at tactics that can improve your on-page SEO.
1. Write High-Quality ContentIn 2021 and beyond, your content isn’t going to rank just because you added high-value links or keywords. These factors help, but they will not be the primary reason you end up in the top-five on search engine results.
These factors will encourage Google to rank your page above your competitors in SERPs:
- Unique
- Packed full of information
- Easy to read
- Optimised for search intent
Creating unique content means you are providing information that no one else is offering. The most effective way to accomplish this is to add details searchers won’t find elsewhere, such as:
- A new solution
- Case studies or statistics
- A step-by-step process
- A new perspective
Take things a step further by adding infographics and other useful media that expand on the information you are providing.
Packed Full of Information
Remember that Google wants to provide its users with the best information possible. If your content delivers that information, chances are your page will sit at the top of relevant SERPs.
Start by gathering resources from the top ten pages that already discuss your targeted topic. Use that information to create a super page that offers every possible detail about the topic.
Go further by updating the content with new details no else has discussed. Add more value to your content by searching your target keyword. Provide answers to the relevant queries you find in Google’s “searches related” list at the bottom of the search page.
Keyword research can also reveal more questions users are asking about the topic you are discussing.
Easy to Read
Your content might provide the most valuable information, but if no one wants to read it, you’ve lost. Writing for humans is one of the most important on-page SEO factors.
Make your writing easy to scan and digest by using:
- Simple sentences
- Short paragraphs
- Subheadings
- Bullet points
- Engaging language
- Real-life illustrations or examples
If writing engaging content seems like too much work, don’t hesitate to hire a professional copywriter to do it for you.
Optimised for Search Intent
If you want your content to make it to the first page of SERPs and gradually rise to the top, it must satisfy search intent. Search intent is what a searcher hopes to gain by entering a query into a search engine.
If your content does not match your target audience’s intent, you might get organic traffic. However, you’ll also have a high bounce rate. That’s because visitors will find your content unsatisfactory. As your bounce rate rises, Google will demote your content in SERPs.
2. Search Engine Optimise Your Content
While writing beautiful and engaging content for readers, don’t forget to optimise it for search engines. Below are the most effective ways to accomplish this:
Use Relevant Keywords
Start by finding the right keywords through keyword research. Long-tail keywords and high volume keywords yield some of the best results. Be sure to use your primary keyword within the first 150 words of your article. Doing this ensures that Google can tell what your page is about from the first paragraph.
Use an Optimised H1 Tag
Your H1 tag helps Google understand your page. Optimise the tag by making it descriptive and inserting your primary keyword.
Break Up Your Content with Header Tags
Use H2, H3, and other header tags hierarchically to organise your content into subheadings. Insert relevant keywords into some of the header tags to search engine optimise your page. If a header tag contains a search query and the provided content is valuable, it is more likely to pop up in search results.
Keyword Frequency
Mentioning a keyword several times within a page helps Google identify the topic the content covers. However, if you use a keyword too many times, Google considers it keyword stuffing and penalises it.
What’s the right number of times to use a keyword on a page?
In a thousand word post, adding a keyword three to five times is sufficient. It helps if you also use different variations of the keyword within the post.
Don’t forget to insert your keywords naturally. Otherwise, it will affect the readability and SEO score of your content.
Use External (Outbound) Links
Adding external links to authoritative websites is an efficient SEO on-page optimisation tactic. The link must lead readers to an article that provides additional and useful information. Outbound links also lend credibility to your content, which has a positive impact on SEO.
For the best results, make sure your anchor text provides an idea about the information a link will provide.
3. Optimise Title and Description Tags
According to Benjamin Denis and Google, your title tags contribute a lot to on-page SEO when done properly. The same goes for your meta descriptions.
Optimise both by adding your primary keyword to the beginning.
Adding modifiers (such as superb, great, fast, and best) to your title tag makes it more click-worthy. It also helps you rank for long-tail variations of your primary keyword. For your meta descriptions, make them stand out with language that makes searchers enthusiastic about visiting your site.
4. Optimise for Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
Your site’s organic CTR is a Google ranking factor. Google will interpret a high CTR to mean your content satisfies the needs of users. That page will get a higher SEO score.
Increase your organic CTR with these strategies:
Use Question Title Tags
According to Google CTR figures gathered by Backlinko, question-based title tags attract more clicks than most other forms of title tags. It works because posing a question in your title tag implies that you have the answers your searchers want.
Have a Compelling Meta Description
If you don’t add a meta description, Google will automatically fill the space with a snippet from your site. The snippet may not be the most compelling, so take matters into your hands by crafting a meta description that drives searchers to choose you in a SERP.
Make Your Title Tags Emotional
Users are more likely to click on a link if it triggers an emotional reaction. In your title, make a bold but truthful statement that triggers curiosity, excitement, or even trepidation.
One way to accomplish this is with a surprising fact or statistic. Using power words like irresistible, spectacular, revolutionary, or impressive will also create curiosity.
However, when creating emotional title tags, avoid overpromising or sounding too salesy. Otherwise, your title tag will look like clickbait, which puts off most users.
Add the Year
When you add the year to your description and title, it makes the reader feel like they are getting the latest information. Adding the date is especially useful if your content is reviewing a product or recommending solutions.
5. Improve Your Site’s UX
Besides the quality of your content, another factor that determines how long visitors spend on your site is its user experience (UX). UX refers to how easy it is to assess and navigate your site.
User-friendly sites have a higher dwell time and lower bounce rate, both of which are important on-page SEO factors. If your dwell time is high, Google will assume your page is engaging and helpful and give a higher SEO score.
Here are some on-page SEO tips for boosting UX.
Add Internal and External Links
Links to other pages on your site and relevant external pages makes your site easier to navigate and crawl. Internal linking works best for SEO when you link your new pages to your high-authority pages that get lots of traffic. You can use a tool like Ahrefs to identify your best-performing pages for internal linking.
When linking to external sites, you get better SEO results if you point to high authority pages. Ensure that your link’s anchor text looks natural and avoid linking to pages that do not make sense as sources of extra information.
Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
Mobile devices account for over 50% of internet traffic. If your site isn’t mobile-responsive, you’ll be losing about half of your potential traffic. Also, Google uses mobile page load speed as a key metric to determine a site’s SERP ranking, so get your site mobile optimised ASAP.
Break Up Your Page
Use header tags and images to break up your page into easy to digest chunks. The easier it is to scan your content, the less tedious visitors will find it.
Offer a Variety of Media
Increase the dwell time of visitors by making your website more engaging and interactive. Improve engagement with animated gifs, infographics, or videos. You can go a step further by adding quizzes, games, chatbots, and more to your site.
If visitors leave your site within seconds of arriving, it increases your bounce rate and negatively affects SERP ranking.
6. Additional On-Page SEO Techniques
Make more on-page SEO improvements to your site by applying these tips:
Optimise URLs for SEO
Since your URL appears in SERPs above your title tag, it’s safe to say that your URL structure affects SEO. Search engine optimise your URL by keeping it short and inserting your keyword into it.
Make Your Site Faster
Most users don’t wait more than five seconds for pages to load, and Google has made it clear that it uses page loading speed as an SEO ranking signal.
If you are unsure about your page’s loading speed, audit your website with PageSpeed Insights. The tool will also provide suggestions regarding how to increase your site’s speed, as well as address other important on-page SEO factors.
Some of the proven ways to make you site load faster include:
- Using lightweight themes
- Reducing the size of your images and other media
- Getting betterquality web hosting
- Removing clutter from your pages
- Using plugins, such asWP Rocket’s Lazy Load
Optimise Your Images
Give all your images a descriptive filename and alt text, and make sure one or two images (not all) have your target keyword in the name and alt tag. Doing this provides search engines with more hints about what your page discusses. It also makes sure your page shows up in relevant Google Image searches.
Another on-page SEO optimisation tactic is reducing image sizes to under 500kb to ensure they load quickly. That said, if the size is too far under 500kb, the picture may lose its quality. You can use the Ahrefs site audit tool tooptimise images across your website.
Try to Get into Featured Snippets
Featured snippets are those excerpts at the very top of search results that provide direct answers to the search query. If your content appears in the featured snippet box, it will significantly improve your CTR and consequently your SEO.
Note that your content cannot appear as a featured snippet unless your site is already on the first page of relevant SERPs. Use Ahrefs or SEMrush to find which of your pages rank on the first page of Google. Optimise the content of those pages to appear in the featured snippet.
Some optimisation tips for appearing in featured snippets are:
- Do keyword research and target question-type search queries
- Write in theinverted pyramid style
- Use descriptive headers and header tags
- Provide direct answers in concise sentences
- Use bullet points
Optimise for Voice Search SEO
More people are using voice-activated tools like Alexa and Siri to search for content. Optimise your pages for relevant voice searches by:
- Using long-tail and conversational keywords
- Creating FAQ pages with detailed answers to common questions
- Use schema to mark up your content
The Best On-Page SEO Tools (Paid and Free)
Now that we know how to improve on-page SEO, here are some tools for easily and accurately optimising your content:
- Yoast SEO: Yoast is available as a free and paid plugin for WordPress sites. The free version offers features for writing search optimised content and automatically generating XML sitemaps. It also makes adding optimised titles, meta descriptions, and tags less tedious.
- SEMrush: SEMrush is among the best paid tools for performing site audits, traffic analysis for SEO and PPC campaigns, and keyword research. You can also use it to assess competitor websites for insights.
- Ahrefs: Ahrefs offers several features, including backlink checking and page analysis. It also has a rank tracker and SEO toolbar.
- Google Search Console: A free and useful tool for search analytics and keyword insights regarding what drives clicks and traffics to your pages.
- Surfer SEO: A paid tool that provides valuable topic and keyword suggestions. Use it to craft content that satisfies your target audience’s search intent and queries.
- Screaming Frog: A free tool that crawls your website to identify on-page SEO issues. After crawling and auditing your site, it provides page optimisation suggestions.
- Netpeak Spider: Use it to check your UX and ensure that your site has nothing impeding search engine bots from crawling it. If search bots can’t crawl your site, search engines can’t index you.
- MarketMuse: This is a free and paid tool. It helps with creating search optimised and valuable content that answer searcher queries. Besides content research, you can also use its AI to develop a content strategy that yields results.
- ShortPixel: Use it for free to optimise and compress your images.
- Rich Results Test: If you want to appear in featured snippets, this free tool can facilitate your journey.
Summing Up
From Nathan Gotch to Debra Murphy, you’ve heard some of the best on-page SEO tips from the industry’s leading gurus. If addressing these important on-page SEO factors seems like too much work, no worries. OA Design Services can help search engine optimise your site to achieve your short and long-term brand goals.
Contact us today to request a free consultation and find out how we can use on-page SEO to get your site ahead of the competition.
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