What is On-Page SEO – 2.1. SEO Course by Ahrefs
Hey, it's Sam Oh and welcome to the second
module which is about on-page SEO. If you haven't seen the introduction to SEO
video and the module on keyword research, then I highly recommend watching
those first. They'll help you get the foundational knowledge
you'll need to get the most out of this module. I'll leave links in the description. Alright, so what is on-page SEO? It's simply the practice of optimizing web
pages to rank higher in search engines. And it revolves heavily around optimizing
pages for search intent. But on-page optimizations also involve creating
and optimizing HTML tags like titles and meta descriptions. Now, if you've been exposed to the practice
of on-page SEO, then it's quite likely that you've heard conflicting advice. And for that reason, we're going to discuss
both what on-page SEO is and what it is not. Let's talk about common advice you might see
on on-page SEO best practices which just aren't true today. And while there are many old-school tactics
that are still being recommended, I want to focus on just 3 points to help you
navigate the noise.
#1. On-page SEO is not about stuffing
exact match keywords. It used to be common practice to include the
exact keyword you wanted to rank for in your title, URL, and content. For example, if you wanted to rank for "Car
dealer San Diego" you would stuff that keyword throughout your page despite the fact it doesn't
make sense – grammatically speaking. Google is smart enough to understand things
like connecting words, synonyms, and closely related words and phrases.
In fact, for all of these queries, the top
10 pages are nearly identical. Unfortunately, stuffing exact match keywords
is still being practiced today which can lead to poor user experience and poor readability;
all things that on-page SEO should not do. The second thing is that on-page SEO is not
about using your keyword a specific number of times on the page. In our study of 3 million search queries,
we found that on average, the top-ranking page ranks for around 1,000 other relevant
keywords in the top 10. Now, can you imagine what it would be like
if a top-ranking page had to mention all 1,000 of those keywords at least three times? It makes no sense. The content would be unnecessarily lengthy
and create an awful user experience for visitors.
Here's an example. Look at the SERP for the query "diet plan." You'll see that Healthline's article on
"how to lose weight" ranks #1. And there's no mention of a "diet plan"
in their title or URL. In fact, there's only one fleeting mention
of it on the page. Not even a subheading. Here's another example: GQ ranks in the top spot for
"classiest watch." But if we look at the page, you'll see that
the word "classiest" isn't there. And neither is the word "classy." The third point is that on-page SEO isn't
about meeting a minimum word count. Some studies have shown that the average content
length of the top 10 results is over 2,000 words.
As a result, many SEOs have recommended that
you create pages that are at least that length. But that isn't exactly sound advice. For example, our backlink checker is 628 words,
yet we rank #1 for our target keyword and the page generates around 130,000 monthly
visits from Google search alone. Here's another example. This page only has 76 words on it. The majority of content are images. According to Ahrefs Site Explorer, the page
gets over 170,000 monthly search visits. Now, let's talk about what on-page SEO
is today in 2021 and beyond. Looking at the definition again, on-page SEO
is the practice of optimizing web pages to rank higher in search engines. And as I mentioned, this revolves heavily
around optimizing pages for search intent. The keyword here is "search intent." Translation: the goal of your pages should
be to satisfy the searcher's intent. How? Well, we talked about the 3 C's of search
intent which should help you get the basic stuff down like the content type, format,
and angle.
In addition to this, your content needs to
address the things people expect to see. You'll also want to nail the more "tangible"
items like titles, subheadings, internal linking, readability, and of course, the actual
content itself. These are the things we'll be answering in
part 2 of our on-page SEO module, where we'll get more tactical and talk about how you can
create content that's optimized for search. This video is set to release in a couple of
days, so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on that. Or if you're watching at a later time, check
the description in this video where we have links to all of the lessons in this SEO course. I'll see you in the next lesson..
