10 On-Page SEO Tips (Updated for 2021)

1. Try to use your focus keyword in your Title, Meta Description, Headers, Content.

Now you already know this. But this is where interesting things happen. Recently Google has been modifying the SERP title with header tags (H1s, H2s) or sometimes directly from the content itself.

So adding your focus keyword inside your H1 and H2 tag has become more relevant than ever.

Obviously, we all SEO's use to do this thinking of as a best practice, but lately Google has been pulling the header tags and showing them as SERP Title.

2. Think about related topics

When writing a blog post, think about all the semantically related topics that can make it complete.

Remember, the more in-depth your content, the better it is. Why this has become significantly important is because of mixed search intent queries.

Google gets all sorts of queries with mixed intent.

If your content is covering all the related topics, this is usually better for Google. Moreover, you can also rank for multiple semantically related keywords.

The best way to use related topics inside your content is via Google's Autosuggestion and People Also Ask Feature.

3. Internally link your content to previously written blog posts.

Obviously, Internal linking has been one of the most important practices in SEO. Not only this will help you rank better but also improve your site's crawl rate.

4. Use descriptive anchor text.

Using a descriptive anchor text gives more information to Google as to what the link is all about. This was said by John Mueller during SEO office hours in Nov 2020.

Although not a ranking factor in itself but nevertheless good practice.

5. Don't use stock images.

Try to use unique creatives/images wherever possible.

Don't forget to add alt text. A bit of Image SEO right there. Moreover, John Mueller also pointed out that using stock images that are used by many people could make it challenging to rank in Google Image Search.

Here’s what he said:

“For image search, if it’s the same image as used in many places, it’ll be harder. (There’s also the potential impact on users, after search happens, eg: does it affect conversions if your team photo is obvious stock photography?)”

6. Use FAQ or How-To Schema

To capture SERP's real estate and get more CTR, try to use FAQ or How-To schema in your blog posts.

In Google's recent FAQ Schema update, Google now shows only 2 FAQs per page. So that's there.

Alternatively, to capitalize properly and capture the SERP real estate, I would recommend adding a How-to Schema wherever relevant.

I have got really good results in terms of CTR, Clicks being shot up within 48 hours.

Pro Tip: Try to use images as well in How-To Schema. This will improve your CTR for mobile searches.

7. Optimize your content for featured snippets.

The more structured your content is, the better it is for Google to trigger your blog for featured snippets.

It can be either for:

Paragraph Snippets
Numbered List Snippets
Bullet List Snippets
Table Snippets

With the SEO experiments I did, paragraph snippets are usually very easy to trigger.

What you need is a page ranking in the top 5 usually and a crisp, clear paragraph explaining the term.

8. Embed a YouTube Video

To improve your page's dwell time (time spent by visitors), try to embed a related YT video within your blog post.

This will improve your dwell time and perhaps be a good value addition to your visitors.

9. Satisfy User's Search Intent

Before even writing a single word, analyze Google's Search results.

Which are the pages that are already ranking on Google?
What is the user's intent behind the query?
How can I make my content aligned to the intent?

Focus on these!

Usually, you can analyze the results in the top 10 & get an idea about this & revolve your content around it.

10. User Experience & Page-Speed

Be sure to provide your visitors a good user experience.

Use optimized quality screenshots, unique images, no interstitial ads or spam.

Page-speed is an official ranking factor. So don't compromise at all on that.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you have any more On-Page SEO Tips that you want to share.

P.S:- Yesterday, I pre-launched my SaaS SEO guide on Gumroad. If you are interested in SaaS SEO, that's a guide you can rely on.