- 2 days ago
There are only a few things in SEO which are fully in your control - and on-page optimization is one of them.
In this video, you will learn the 7-step on-page SEO checklist we use at Ahrefs.
1. Learn what “search intent” is, and why it is an important factor to consider when optimizing your pages for a specific keyword.
2. Did you know that a #1 ranking page usually ranks for nearly a thousand other relevant keywords?
Taking that into account, you should look for relevant topics to cover in your content.
We’ll show you several ways to find such topics with.
3. URLs are also an important part of on-page optimization, so make sure you make them precise and descriptive. We’ll show you several examples of what URLs should look like.
4. Your target keyword should be included in three crucial places. We’ll show you where to add those keywords and back this with actual data.
5. In terms of on-page SEO, image optimization is one of the easiest things you can do. See how we got over 5,000 clicks from images alone!
6. Heard of structured data? We’ll show an easy way to add it to your pages.
7. Is your content easy to read? It should be!
Google looks at specific user signals which can affect your rankings, so make sure you check out our tips on improving the readability of your pages.
This checklist works really well, and our recommendations are backed with actual research and data.
In this video, you will learn the 7-step on-page SEO checklist we use at Ahrefs.
1. Learn what “search intent” is, and why it is an important factor to consider when optimizing your pages for a specific keyword.
2. Did you know that a #1 ranking page usually ranks for nearly a thousand other relevant keywords?
Taking that into account, you should look for relevant topics to cover in your content.
We’ll show you several ways to find such topics with.
3. URLs are also an important part of on-page optimization, so make sure you make them precise and descriptive. We’ll show you several examples of what URLs should look like.
4. Your target keyword should be included in three crucial places. We’ll show you where to add those keywords and back this with actual data.
5. In terms of on-page SEO, image optimization is one of the easiest things you can do. See how we got over 5,000 clicks from images alone!
6. Heard of structured data? We’ll show an easy way to add it to your pages.
7. Is your content easy to read? It should be!
Google looks at specific user signals which can affect your rankings, so make sure you check out our tips on improving the readability of your pages.
This checklist works really well, and our recommendations are backed with actual research and data.
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TechTranscript
00:00On-page SEO is one of the only things you have full control of in SEO.
00:04And today, I'm going to take you through an on-page SEO checklist that we use to grow
00:08our search traffic consistently.
00:10Stay tuned.
00:15What's up SEOs?
00:16Sam Oh here with Ahrefs, the SEO tool that helps you grow your search traffic, research
00:20your competitors, and dominate your niche.
00:22Now, if you're new to on-page SEO, it's basically the practice of optimizing webpages to help
00:27them rank higher in search engines.
00:29And while on-page work likely won't be enough to rank for competitive terms, it's a foundation
00:35to higher Google rankings and more traffic for your site.
00:38With that said, let's get to the checklist.
00:41The first step is to understand and match search intent.
00:44Search intent basically means the reason behind a searcher's query.
00:48For example, if someone searches for buy headphones, they likely want to see category pages from
00:53ecommerce stores.
00:54And you don't have to guess what search intent is.
00:57Since Google gives preference to pages that their users are happy with, just search for
01:01your target keyword and analyze the types of pages that show on the first page.
01:06After all, user happiness essentially means satisfied search intent.
01:10So let's say you had a website where you sell supplements and you want to create a page
01:14targeting the keyword, best protein powder.
01:17If you look at the search results, you can tell right away from the titles that they're
01:21all blog posts that follow a list-styled format.
01:25So for this scenario, I wouldn't advise creating a product or category page targeting this keyword
01:30because if you're not matching intent, you probably won't rank.
01:34Now, while it's easy to stop here and start writing, I highly recommend actually visiting
01:39these pages to get a better understanding of what they've included in their posts.
01:43For example, if you look at this post, you'll see that they're primarily focusing on categorizing
01:48protein powders by type.
01:50Best grass feed whey protein powder.
01:53Best tasting protein powder.
01:55They then go on to give you a description of that specific product and end it off by breaking
02:00down the pros and cons.
02:01And if you look at another one of the top 3 results, you'll also see that the focus
02:06is on types before brands.
02:09Analyzing the top results is like looking through the lens of Google.
02:12Their job is to return the most relevant results for any given query.
02:16Take note of search intent and make sure your page matches it.
02:19Step 2 is to increase topical relevance of your page.
02:23We ran a study and found that on average, the number 1 ranking page for a target keyword ranks
02:28for nearly a thousand other relevant keywords in the top 10.
02:31So what you'll want to do is find related subtopics to ensure your piece is thorough.
02:37And there are a few ways you can find these related subtopics.
02:40First, analyze the top ranking pages and look for relevant keywords.
02:44So this time, you'll see related keywords like whey, isolate, concentrate, grams, and calories.
02:52Second, use Google's auto-suggest.
02:55Just type in your target keyword and you'll see a few suggestions like for women, for men,
03:00weight loss, weight gain, smoothies, and bulking, which are all related to protein powder.
03:06Just make sure that these are in fact related subtopics and not standalone topics of their own.
03:12To do that, Google the suggested keyword and if the results are completely different to the
03:16results for your main target keyword, chances are you should target the keyword with its own page.
03:22Number 3.
03:23Use the People Also Ask box to find points worth covering.
03:27Here you'll see common questions people are asking like, what is the healthiest protein powder?
03:32And which whey protein is best for muscle building?
03:35Finally, you can scroll down to the bottom of the page to see additional keywords and
03:40potential subtopics for your posts.
03:42Now, the downside to these methods is that you're kind of guessing.
03:45So a better way to do this is to use Ahrefs' Content Gap tool, which is going to show us
03:50common keywords that the top pages rank for in Google.
03:54And to me, this is much more valuable since you're essentially looking at the exact keywords
03:59Google has ranked a single page for.
04:01So why wouldn't your page be able to rank for those same keywords?
04:05So I'm in the Content Gap tool and you'll see that I've pasted in a few of the top ranking
04:09pages for the query Best Protein Powder in the top section.
04:13And I've left the bottom section blank.
04:15What we're asking the tool to do here is show common keywords that any of these pages rank for,
04:20where at least one of them ranks in the top 10.
04:23And this is to ensure that our results are relevant since keywords in position 50 probably
04:29won't be very helpful.
04:30So let's run the search.
04:32And now you can see data that shows you which subtopics you should cover.
04:36To narrow our list down even further, let's change the number of intersections where all
04:41three pages need to rank in the top 100.
04:44And we're down to around 140 relevant keywords to skim through.
04:48So you should talk about whey protein.
04:50You'll also see that for women is a recurring theme here.
04:53And people are also specifically looking for vanilla protein powder.
04:57Now that you have a data-driven outline, you should be able to write your post and create
05:02content that perfectly matches the intent of your future visitors.
05:06Let's move on to step 3, which is to use short and descriptive URLs.
05:10In our study on various on-page ranking factors, we found a clear correlation between the number
05:16of characters in the URL and a page's ranking position in Google.
05:21Now, correlation doesn't mean causation, so I don't want you to take this advice as a be-all, end-all.
05:26So let's say that your page title was 11 Best Protein Powders in 2019.
05:31Now, if you're using a CMS like WordPress, it'll automatically change the URL slug to the title
05:37and replace spaces with dashes.
05:40This URL is longer than it needs to be.
05:42So as a general rule of thumb, use your target keyword as the URL slug.
05:46So in this case, I'd leave it as just Best Protein Powder because it's short and descriptive.
05:53Now, there are a couple other benefits worth noting.
05:55First, people are most likely to click the search results that best match their search query.
06:01And descriptive URLs can help cement your page as that result.
06:05Second, descriptive URLs tend to include your target keywords.
06:09And since people often use URLs as anchor text when linking to a page, it can be helpful.
06:15Now, if you already have URLs that are long and or not descriptive, I wouldn't worry too much
06:20about changing them if you're getting a good amount of search traffic.
06:23For example, Medical News Today gets around 53 million search visits per month.
06:29And if we go to the top pages report, which shows us their pages with the most organic traffic,
06:34you'll see that their pages still get a ton of search traffic despite having numeric URL slugs.
06:41Now, step 4 is to add your target keyword in your title, meta description, and H1 tag if and when
06:47it makes sense to.
06:49And there are two reasons why I highly recommend including your target keyword
06:52in your title tag, description, and H1 tag.
06:55Number 1.
06:57When we studied 2 million keywords, we found that there was a small correlation between rankings
07:02and the strategic placement of exact match keywords.
07:05And number 2.
07:07It can help searchers quickly understand that your page is the most relevant for their search query.
07:12For example, let's say you want to find an article with reviews on refrigerators.
07:17So you go to Google and search for refrigerator reviews.
07:20Now, if you were to see these two results, which one would you be more likely to click?
07:25Probably the first one since it uses the words you use in your search query.
07:30In other cases, exact match keywords can look quite spammy.
07:34For example, you wouldn't create a title like this simply because the keyword has a bit of search volume.
07:40So bottom line, you don't need to stuff exact match keywords into your titles or even content for the sake
07:46of it.
07:46You can use synonyms, stop words, and connecting words.
07:50Google is smart enough to figure things out.
07:52Just make sure your content is on point.
07:55Alright, step 5 is a super low-hanging way to improve your on-page SEO.
07:59And that's to optimize your images with alt tags.
08:02Image alt tags allow you to provide descriptive text for images on your page.
08:07Here's what the code for a typical image looks like.
08:10And when you add the alt attribute, you would basically describe the image by adding
08:14Alt equals your description.
08:16Now, there are a few reasons why this is important to do.
08:20First, when your image fails to load on your page, the alt text will appear as a replacement to the
08:25image.
08:26Second, 8.1 million Americans have a vision impairment and oftentimes, they may rely on a screen reader.
08:34Alt text can help provide a more rich experience for your users.
08:38And third, alt text can help you rank your images in Google images.
08:42John Mueller confirms this by saying,
08:44Alt text is extremely helpful for Google images if you want your images to rank there.
08:49Looking at our Google Search Console data, you'll see that in the past three months,
08:53we've had around 4 million impressions from our images alone, which led to over 5,000 clicks to our pages.
09:00Bottom line, it doesn't take much effort to add a few words and describe your images,
09:04which could lead to big returns.
09:06Alright, step 6 is to add structured data where it makes sense.
09:10And I'm sure you've seen search results with things like star ratings.
09:13This is the result of review structured data, which could have a positive impact on your click-through rates.
09:19But using this isn't just about increasing visibility in Google Search since not all schema
09:24types create additional details in the SERP.
09:27It's about making it easier for search engines to understand what your pages are about.
09:32So while it isn't a direct ranking factor, it may still help you rank higher in Google.
09:37Here's what John Mueller had to say.
09:39There's no generic ranking boost for structured data usage.
09:42However, structured data can make it easier to understand what the page is about, which can make
09:48it easier to show where it's relevant, improving targeting, and maybe ranking for the right terms.
09:54You can use Google Structured Data Markup Helper to quickly generate your own code.
09:58So for this article, I'll select the title of the article and set the property as the name.
10:04And then I'll do the same thing for the author property.
10:06Once you're all done, click the Create HTML button and a piece of JSON code will pop up,
10:11which you can then add to your page as instructed here.
10:15Or if you're a WordPress user, there are plugins out there that make adding markup super easy.
10:20Feel free to check out our video on our WordPress SEO plugin setup, which covers a codeless structured data plugin.
10:26Alright, step 7 is to make sure your content is simple and easy to read.
10:31Creating clear and concise content can help search engines piece together what your content is all about.
10:37But what's even more important, in my opinion, is making it simple and easy to read for real people.
10:43It's believed that Google looks at user signals like dwell time and time on page to influence rankings.
10:49So if your content is complicated and difficult to understand, your visitors will be heading
10:53straight for the back button, which is never a good thing.
10:56Here are a few tips to improve readability.
10:58Avoid big words if you don't have to use them.
11:01For example, don't say proximity when you can say near.
11:04Use short sentences and paragraphs.
11:07This can simplify the read for users as big walls of text can be intimidating.
11:12Finally, as a general rule of thumb, write as you speak.
11:15In fact, everything that you've watched in this video is scripted.
11:18And if you've made it this far, it's because it was easier to digest.
11:22Had I written the script in an academic tone, you would have probably been gone a while ago.
11:27To benchmark readability, you can use a free tool called Hemingway Editor.
11:32Just paste your content in there and you'll get a readability score.
11:35I suggest aiming for around a 5th to 6th greater level.
11:38For the most part, this is the on-page SEO checklist we use at Ahrefs and it works tremendously well.
11:45Now, if there's anything I've missed that you find to work particularly well, let me know in the comments.
11:50And if you enjoyed this video, make sure to like, share, and subscribe for more actionable SEO and marketing tutorials.
11:56So keep grinding away, put your best foot forward for each step, and I'll see you in the next tutorial.