Did you ever play Tetris? If so, you probably remember how there was no real way to “beat” the game. It basically just got faster and faster with every level.
In some ways, search engine optimization (SEO) is the same.
Not in that it has a catchy 8-bit soundtrack or that it rewrites your dreams, but in that, it never ends.
There’s no point at which you can sit back and relax, content that your site is at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) once and for all.
Sure, you might have reached the pinnacle today, but an SEO pro’s work is never done.
Every change to Google’s algorithm or competitor content could knock you off that top spot, which means you have to keep up with changes.
And that means your on-page SEO needs to be on point. But before we dive into that, it’s important to have a high-level overview of how Google and other search engines work.
Search Engine Basics
Search engines send out crawlers, or spiders, to explore the internet. They follow links from one site to another, building a map of the content called a search index.
In the process of exploring sites, these crawlers are also evaluating their content, determining what kind of information it contains.
This data is then used by the search engine’s algorithm to determine how well the content of that specific site answers queries from users.
The better it answers the query, the more highly it will be ranked on the SERP.
In Google’s never-ending quest to provide better results to users, its algorithm is updated frequently. This inevitably leads to changes in rankings, which then requires someone to optimize the website to improve or ensure rankings.
What Is On-Page SEO & Why Is It Important?
On-page SEO, which is sometimes called on-site SEO, is the process of tweaking a page’s content, tags, and internal links to improve search visibility and increase traffic.
In other words, it’s a means of optimizing your website to help search engines better understand your website.
And this, of course, comes with a whole host of benefits.
The first is in the amount of traffic.
The first five organic results on a search page get 67.60% of all clicks. The next five account for only 3.73%. And it drops from there. So, if you want to get traffic, you need to be near the top.
Secondly, high-ranking sites have much better click-through rates (CTR). The first Google mobile search result has an average organic CTR of 26.9%.
Now consider that 92.4% of internet users who search on their mobile phones for something nearby visit that business the same day and you can start to see the impact organic SEO can have on your bottom line. And on-page optimization is an important factor in your organic ranking.
Hopefully, by this point, you’ve grasped the importance of on-page SEO. Now it’s time to get started. Let’s dive