If you haven’t already read Technical SEO Essentials or have a strong background in SEO I recommend doing that first then coming back to this article. This article expands upon it and is concerned with everything to do on the web page. As always head over to Google Search Central for more detailed information.
Core On-Page Concepts
PageRank
The idea of PageRank is every link pointing to your website is essentially a vote, and the more votes you have, the higher search engines rank you. Much like a popularity contest. Of course, it didn't take long for people to game the system by spamming links, so search engines got smarter. They introduced the concept of domain authority, meaning not all votes are created equal. A link from a well-established, trusted site carries far more weight than one from a low-quality site. The more authoritative and relevant, the stronger the link. All this to say, we need to make it clear to the search engine that our website is more popular than the competing site in our niche.
High Quality Content Myth
Contrary to what most SEO “professionals” and Google say, high quality content is not a ranking factor. SEO boils down to relevance and authority. Search companies don’t have enough resources to sift through piles of pages so they rely on keywords and other websites linking to that content. A good example of this in action is Rhinoplasty Plano by Kyle Roof. The TLDR is he used lorem ipsum which is basically dummy text with his keywords. Ask yourself, is that high quality content? Hell no, meaning search algorithms are math based and not content based. If someone is selling their SEO services on the basis of high-quality content, please run away. They will light your money on fire.
Manual Content Penalties
If the search engine companies' quality raters find that your website is violating their quality guidelines, they may issue a manual content penalty or even deindex your website. This can be for a number of reasons such as keyword spamming, unnatural backlink profile, and etc. Basically, black hat SEO. Once a penalty is put on your site you’ll stop ranking until they deem the issue to be “fixed”. Once you are in search engine “jail” it is very difficult to escape.
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EEAT)
EEAT is a concept used in Google Search Quality Rater Guidelines to evaluate the quality of web content. EEAT is important in YMYL (your money your life) queries, the more relevant and authoritative your site is, the more you are deemed as a reliable source, meaning your site now becomes an authority.
Topical Authority
Topical authority refers to what search engines think your website has expertise and credibility in. It's built by publishing content on related topics within your niche and getting backlinks with your keyword anchor text in them. This authority doesn't transfer easily across unrelated topics — a site known for fitness content won't automatically rank well for financial advice. Instead, topical authority works best when you focus on a core subject and its naturally related subtopics, creating a cohesive topical map. The stronger your topical authority, the better your chances of ranking for competitive keywords within that niche.
Writing the Content
Keyword Research
Before we do anything on-page we first have to know what people are searching for. If you are selling purple widgets and no one is searching purple widgets well you're not going to make any sales. So, we first need to test what keyword people are using when searching for a service.
You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends and other paid tools to find the specific search volume and phrases people use. Competitiveness depends on the phrase or keyword used. Come up with a list of keywords and adjacent keywords for your topic. This helps search engines understand the content and “figure out” what the page should be indexed for. The less competitive the keyword or phrase, the easier it is to rank so often niching down to specific qualifying keywords helps avoid competing with sites that have more authority.
For example, if we sell web development services it's better to say “web development services (my town)” than compete on the national term “web development services” as there will always be more authoritative websites ranking for that term. Niching down ensures we get the right search intent and capture the people who are actually looking for a service in that area.
Linking & Anchor Text
Using the keywords you came up with, think of where you are going to place internal links for your content, and from what pages. The more authority and better you are at internally linking, the more link equity can spread across the site, meaning more of your pages will begin to rank.
Keyword Cannibalization
When writing your content it’s important to keep pages to one specific topic. Targeting the same topics and keywords on multiple pages lowers your relevance, meaning you're competing with yourself for the same ranking spots. This practice is known as keyword cannibalization, lowering your overall link equity. Remember, search engines rank pages not websites. By consolidating the link equity using canonicals into one really strong page, we increase our individual page rank. Having one really strong page at number 1 is way more valuable than being 8, 9 and 10.
Keyword Spamming
Keyword spamming is the practice of using keywords in an unnatural form. For example, You would say “Locks Web Solutions is the best at SEO. I really like Locks Web Solutions because they are great at SEO. They do SEO. SEO is their bread and butter. SEO, SEO, SEO”. You get the point. It's annoying and unhelpful to both search engines and humans. Having more of the same keyword doesn't improve relevance or authority. This can also lead to manual content penalties as well in some cases.
Recommended Keyword Placement
Use the keywords you want to rank for in URL slugs, meta titles, meta descriptions, image slugs, H1, H2, H3 headings, image alt text, and anchor text. You can use your keywords anywhere on the page, but keep it focused on a core idea. It's recommended to include your key phrase in the title, meta description, and H1 heading for relevance. If you want an image to be more likely to display in the SERP for a specific keyword, include it in the alt text.
Conclusion
We have talked about the technical and on-page aspects of SEO. The final chapter will conclude with off-page SEO, where we will finish covering the basics. If you have any questions regarding on-page SEO, feel free to contact us. We are not On-Page or Off-Page SEO experts, so we don't directly offer those services, but if you need help, we'll point you in the right direction. I have included an on-page SEO checklist for you below. Have a great day!