On-page Search engine optimization boosts your content material’s relevance and improves the person expertise (UX) to assist your webpages achieve visibility in each conventional search outcomes and AI-generated solutions.
The excellent news? Most of the identical on-page optimization practices that make it easier to rank in conventional search additionally enhance your possibilities of being featured in AI solutions.
On this article, we’ll talk about 11 important on-page Search engine optimization duties and a few technical Search engine optimization actions which are simply as vital. This is a snapshot of this on-page Search engine optimization guidelines:
Obtain this on-page Search engine optimization guidelines and examine the containers as you full every process.
1. Establish Goal Key phrases
Discover the goal key phrases to optimize your content material round, so it may well seem in each conventional search outcomes and AI-generated solutions.
Goal key phrases are the search phrases your potential guests use to search out content material like yours in search engines like google and yahoo. Figuring out related phrases issues as a result of these key phrases are what your on-page optimizations are centered on.
When selecting key phrases, take into account these three key elements:
- Search quantity: The common variety of month-to-month searches the time period will get
- Private Key phrase Issue: How arduous it is going to be so that you can rank in Google’s prime 10 outcomes for the key phrase
- Search intent: What the searcher desires to search out out or accomplish when looking out the key phrase
Search intent typically breaks down into 4 fundamental classes:
- Informational: Folks trying to study (e.g., “sorts of blue flowers”)
- Navigational: Folks trying to find a selected web site (e.g., “1800flowers”)
- Business: Folks researching merchandise (e.g., “greatest flower supply service”)
- Transactional: Folks prepared to purchase (e.g., “purchase blue hydrangeas on-line”)
For instance you personal a small flower store with only one location. The key phrase “blue flowers” would possibly seem to be an excellent key phrase to focus on. However is it proper on your objectives?
The key phrase “blue flowers” will get lots of search curiosity—74,000 searches per thirty days. Nevertheless it additionally has a reasonable stage of key phrase issue. Which suggests it could possibly be robust so that you can rank for.
Additionally, the search engine outcomes web page (SERP) is dominated by an AI Overview and informational articles. Which suggests most searchers need to study extra about flowers—not make a purchase order.
So in case your aim is to extend gross sales, “blue flowers” won’t be the key phrase for you.
To search out key phrases that are price focusing on, use Semrush’s Key phrase Magic Instrument.
Open the Key phrase Magic Instrument, enter your seed key phrase (a broad phrase associated to your product or enterprise), and click on “Search.” You possibly can add your area right here, too. This gives you some customized knowledge on the following display.
You’ll then see an inventory with a lot of key phrase concepts:
However you wish to slender this key phrase record right down to solely present key phrases that fit your particular enterprise objectives. To do that, filter the record by:
- Quantity: You desire a excessive search quantity to succeed in extra folks along with your content material
- Intent: Select key phrases matching your web page’s goal (e.g., transactional for product pages)
- Private KD%: Decrease private key phrase issue signifies your area is extra prone to rank within the prime 10
Pay attention to all of the key phrases that meet your perfect standards. We’ll be utilizing them within the subsequent steps to finish the on-page Search engine optimization guidelines.
2. Optimize the Title Tag
Optimize your title tag to obviously talk to search engines like google and yahoo and customers what your web page is about and entice clicks.
Title tags seem in browser tabs and may present as clickable headlines in search outcomes (Google will generally select its personal title). Right here’s what a title tag can appear to be if it’s displayed on the SERP:
And this within the HTML code for a similar title tag:
Your title tag ought to be clear, related, and compelling. This is the way to optimize it:
- Place your main key phrase close to the beginning
- Write clear, descriptive titles that precisely replicate your content material
- Add related secondary key phrases naturally (with out stuffing them in) if doable
- Maintain it to round 55 characters at most to keep away from it getting truncated like this:
Use Semrush’s On Web page Search engine optimization Checker to examine in case your title tags include goal key phrases and if there’s any key phrase stuffing.
Open On Web page Search engine optimization Checker and create your challenge. After that, go to the “Optimization Concepts” tab to see your webpages and plenty of optimization concepts for them. And click on on “# concepts” subsequent to any web page to see its particular suggestions.
The “Content material” part in On Web page Search engine optimization Checker will let you know whether or not your title tag contains goal key phrases with out key phrase stuffing.
Undergo all of your pages to make sure you’ve optimized your title tags.
3. Use an H1 Tag for Your Headline
Each web page ought to have one H1 tag that clearly describes the content material to guests—it is one of many easiest but most vital on-page Search engine optimization duties.
Your H1 tag is completely different out of your title tag. It seems straight in your webpage. Right here’s an instance of what it appears like in HTML and on the web page:
Your H1 tag ought to be much like your title tag since they each inform search engines like google and yahoo and customers what the web page is about. However whereas Google can truncate your title tag in search outcomes if it’s too lengthy, your H1 tag could be extra descriptive.
So, when writing your H1:
- Embody your main key phrase near the beginning
- Clarify your content material in easy phrases and inform readers precisely what to anticipate
- Hook your readers with compelling phrases (e.g., “Be taught to Create …” is extra partaking than “How one can Make …”)
- Align it along with your web page’s content material (in different phrases, hold it related)
- Fulfill your headline’s promise and keep away from making claims your content material cannot help
Head again into Semrush’s On Web page Search engine optimization Checker to examine your H1 tag for goal key phrases and key phrase stuffing.
4. Write a Meta Description That Boosts Clicks
Your meta description is a quick web page description that may seem underneath your title in search outcomes, that means it may well affect whether or not customers click on by to your web page.
A meta description appears like this when it seems on the SERP (however Google may generate its personal description):
And that is what a meta description appears like in your HTML code:
The meta description is not a direct rating issue for Google. Nevertheless, a compelling meta description can considerably enhance your click-through fee (CTR) in search experiences.
Observe these tricks to optimize your meta descriptions:
- Embody your goal key phrase naturally. Serps usually daring these phrases once they match person searches.
- Clearly point out what customers will get out of your web page or what ache level the web page solves
- Share what makes you distinctive. Point out particular options, presents, or experience that set you aside.
- Add a transparent subsequent step. Invite readers to “uncover,” “study,” or “discover” (however keep away from pushy phrases like “click on right here”).
- Maintain it quick and full. Keep underneath ~105 characters to stop your meta description from getting truncated on desktop and cellular.
Writing clear, related descriptions that match search intent reduces the chance of search engines like google and yahoo producing their very own descriptions. And provides you extra management over how your web page seems in search outcomes.
Use Semrush’s On Web page Search engine optimization Checker to examine your meta description for goal key phrases and key phrase stuffing. It can additionally flag if Google is rewriting your description within the search outcomes.
5. Verify the URL Slug for Search engine optimization-Friendliness
Search engine optimization-friendly URL slugs assist search engines like google and yahoo and customers perceive your web page content material.
The URL slug is the distinctive a part of your webpage handle that describes a selected web page.
On this instance, the URL slug is “what-is-a-url-slug”:
This is the way to optimize URL slugs:
- Make them descriptive. One thing like “wedding-flowers” is best than “wf-arrangements-2025-page1.”
- Use your main key phrase. Use it naturally—don’t stuff it in.
- Separate phrases with hyphens. Use “fresh-flower-delivery” not “freshflowerdelivery” or “fresh_flower_delivery.”
- Maintain it quick and easy. One thing like “summer-flowers” works higher than “beautiful-fresh-summer-flowers-for-sale.”
- Keep away from particular characters. Follow letters, numbers, and hyphens.
- Skip pointless phrases. Take away phrases like “and,” “the,” and “a.”
- Take away dates which may change or develop into irrelevant. For instance, “flower-care-guide” is best than “flower-care-guide-2025.”
Additionally, for those who ever change a URL slug, all the time arrange a redirect from the outdated URL to the brand new one. This helps keep your rating energy and prevents guests from clicking damaged hyperlinks.
Take a look at our devoted information for extra recommendation on creating Search engine optimization-friendly URLs.
6. Add Goal Key phrases to Your Physique Content material
Incorporate goal key phrases naturally all through your content material, so search engines like google and yahoo and AI instruments can confidently match and present your web page for related queries.
Your content material wants the suitable steadiness of main key phrases, associated phrases, and supporting subjects. This is what pure key phrase use appears like:
In distinction, you wish to keep away from key phrase stuffing—i.e., forcing key phrases the place they don’t sound pure. Like this:
When incorporating key phrases in your content material for on-page optimization:
- Place your fundamental key phrase naturally within the first paragraph
- Embody associated phrases that add context (like “reward playing cards” and “in-app purchases” when discussing app retailer credit score)
- Use variations of your key phrase in ways in which match naturally
To get some concepts on the way to use key phrases and associated phrases, have a look at the top-ranking pages (However don’t copy them!).
Alternatively, use Semrush’s Search engine optimization Content material Template to avoid wasting time. It offers key suggestions primarily based on the highest 10 outcomes on your goal key phrase(s).
Search engine optimization Content material Template makes it simple to research your rivals’ key phrase use.
Whilst you don’t wish to copy what your rivals are doing, finding out their content material does provide you with a good suggestion of the sorts of key phrases they’re utilizing and the place they’re utilizing them. To provide you concepts for the way to optimize your individual content material.
7. Assessment Your Content material High quality
Assessment the content material to verify it’s correct, satisfies search intent, and offers actual worth to customers as a result of high-quality content material is extra prone to carry out properly in conventional search outcomes and AI solutions.
Listed below are a few of the fundamental content material high quality indicators:
|
High quality indicators |
Greatest follow |
|
Search intent |
Perceive what customers need once they discover your web page. A consumer wants product particulars, whereas a researcher desires complete data. |
|
Accuracy |
Ensure your content material is factually appropriate and updated. Verify your information, repair spelling errors, and replace outdated data. |
|
Originality |
Create contemporary content material that provides distinctive worth. Keep away from copying content material from different websites or duplicating it throughout your individual pages. |
|
Reply readability |
Begin sections with direct solutions to person questions. If somebody asks “what’s [concept]” give the definition instantly. For “the way to” queries, begin with clear steps. |
|
Readability |
Write in a method your viewers understands. Break down complicated subjects, clarify technical phrases, and use examples when wanted. |
|
Construction |
Use headers, quick paragraphs, and bullet factors to make your content material simple to scan and perceive. |
|
Engagement |
Match your writing type to your viewers. A medical article wants skilled language, whereas a cooking weblog could be extra conversational. |
Search intent is among the most vital elements to contemplate when taking a look at your content material’s high quality. In the event you aren’t giving the person what they need, they’re prone to go away the web page. Or not less than they’re unlikely to transform.
So, assembly search intent isn’t simply good for the person—it’s good for what you are promoting, too.
Repeatedly assessment your content material towards search intent and different high quality indicators to establish gaps in data, alternatives for clearer explanations, and areas the place you may add extra worth on your readers. For assist with the assessment, run your content material by Semrush’s Search engine optimization Writing Assistant.
Search engine optimization Writing Assistant offers Search engine optimization, readability, and tone of voice ideas primarily based on the highest 10 rivals on your goal key phrase(s). And it checks for plagiarism, too.
In the event you get author’s block, you may even use the built-in AI options to compose or rephrase content material.
8. Set up Your Content material Utilizing Header Tags
Construction your content material with header tags to assist each readers and search programs rapidly perceive how your data is organized.
Header tags vary from H1 to H6 and create a structured define of your content material in a nested hierarchy system.
The H1 tag is your fundamental web page title, and it’s best to solely use one per web page. H2s mark your main sections, whereas H3s and past create subsections. Like this:
Header tags create clear visible breaks between subjects, which makes long-form content material digestible. Serps may use headers to establish and extract particular data when producing AI responses.
When utilizing header tags, be sure to:
- Write clear, descriptive headers that preview the content material
- Keep a logical circulation between sections
- Embody related key phrases naturally
- Break up lengthy content material into manageable sections
- Maintain every part centered on one subject
9. Enhance Navigation with Inner Hyperlinks
Utilizing inside hyperlinks to attach pages in your web site helps customers uncover extra related content material, makes it simpler for search engines like google and yahoo to know your website construction, and distributes rating potential throughout your website.
For instance, Soak&Sleep has inside hyperlinks to related class pages and particular person product pages on its single bedding web page.
(There are additionally useful hyperlinks within the navigation menu, breadcrumb navigation, and different parts.)
When creating inside hyperlinks, your anchor textual content—the clickable phrases in your hyperlink—issues. So, use descriptive phrases to assist readers perceive what they’re going to discover on the linked web page. (It additionally offers extra useful context concerning the web page for Google.)
When creating inside hyperlinks, hold these greatest practices in thoughts:
- Place hyperlinks the place they naturally slot in your content material
- Guarantee linked pages are actually related and useful
- Keep away from linking to the identical web page a number of occasions on one web page (most often)
- Hyperlink to your most vital pages extra usually
- Maintain the variety of hyperlinks cheap—utilizing too many can overwhelm readers
Weblog posts provide wonderful alternatives for inside linking. As a result of you may hyperlink to your earlier articles when masking associated subjects. And you may hyperlink to related product pages when discussing what you provide in additional informational content material.
10. Add Participating Visible Content material
Visible content material (like pictures and movies) makes your pages extra partaking and simpler to know to spice up your person expertise—and your Search engine optimization.
Optimized visuals additionally give search engines like google and yahoo useful details about your web page by correctly applied alt textual content and descriptive file names.
When including pictures to your content material:
- Select visuals that improve your content material’s message
- Add alt textual content to every picture that conveys that means. It is a written description in your web page’s code that helps search engines like google and yahoo perceive your picture and assists visually impaired customers (as display readers could learn this textual content aloud).
- Place pictures subsequent to related textual content they help
- Compress your pictures utilizing instruments like TinyPNG to maintain your web page loading rapidly with out sacrificing high quality
When including movies to your content material:
- Create video content material that matches your web page’s goal (like tutorials for how-to guides)
- Host your movies on YouTube and embed them from there
- Add captions to make your movies extra accessible
Be taught extra about picture Search engine optimization and video Search engine optimization with our in-depth guides.
11. Apply Schema Markup
Add schema markup to assist search engines like google and yahoo higher perceive and show your content material in outcomes.
Schema markup (a kind of structured knowledge) is code you add to your web page’s HTML that provides search engines like google and yahoo extra details about the various kinds of knowledge in your web page. And the higher search engines like google and yahoo can perceive your web page, the extra doubtless they are going to be to point out your content material for related search phrases.
Google makes use of schema to create wealthy outcomes—enhanced search listings that show further particulars like rankings, costs, or occasion dates straight in search outcomes. Like this:
Google helps a number of sorts of schema markup, together with:
- Article: For weblog posts and information articles
- Product: For ecommerce pages with costs and availability
- Occasion: For dates, occasions, and places
- Native Enterprise: For handle, hours, and phone particulars
- Recipe: For components, cooking occasions, and rankings
For instance, Recipe schema helps King Arthur Baking earn a useful spot on the SERP. And provides customers extra details about the web page’s content material—rankings, time to make the recipe, and components used.
This is among the extra superior duties on this on-page Search engine optimization guidelines. However Google does have a Structured Information Markup Helper that helps you add schema to your pages.
Be taught extra in our information to schema and structured knowledge.
BONUS: Begin on Your Technical Search engine optimization
Whereas technical Search engine optimization is completely different from on-page Search engine optimization, you want each to carry out properly in Google.
You possibly can learn our in-depth information to technical Search engine optimization for more information. However listed below are three fast methods to get began:
12. Guarantee Robots.txt Permits Crawlers to Entry Your Pages
Ensure your robots.txt file is not by chance blocking crawlers from accessing your pages.
Your robots.txt file tells crawlers (laptop packages created by search engines like google and yahoo and AI platforms) which elements of your website they need to or shouldn’t entry.
If the robots.txt file is misconfigured, you possibly can be stopping key pages from being crawled and found. And if that occurs, your pages gained’t seem in search outcomes or be out there to AI-powered search experiences.
To examine your robots.txt file, go to “yourdomain.com/robots.txt” in your browser.
Search for guidelines that is perhaps blocking vital crawlers. For instance, take note of one thing like this:
Consumer-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /
The above entry is telling Googlebot to keep away from accessing your whole website. This implies your pages will not seem in Google’s search outcomes in any respect—even when all the pieces else on this guidelines is ideal.
AI crawlers like OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot are equally vital. Blocking them means your content material will not seem in ChatGPT search outcomes or Perplexity solutions when customers are utilizing the online search mode.
Assessment your robots.txt file rigorously and take away any disallow guidelines that is perhaps blocking crawlers you truly need visiting your website. This is among the commonest technical points that undermines on-page Search engine optimization work.
13. Improve Web page Pace
Web page pace straight impacts each search rankings and the person expertise.
Quick-loading pages can scale back bounce charges, hold potential prospects in your website, and enhance what you are promoting’s backside line.
Issues that might decelerate your web page pace embrace:
- Redirect chains
- Unoptimized pictures or media information
- Render-blocking JavaScript
In our examine of fifty,000 domains for our technical Search engine optimization guidelines, we discovered that round 35% of these domains had pace points. This was considered one of many technical Search engine optimization issues we discovered affecting a good portion of internet sites.
Verify your web page pace in Google’s PageSpeed Insights device. Simply enter your web page’s URL and click on “Analyze.”
Then have a look at your “Core Internet Vitals Evaluation” (on each “Cell” and “Desktop”) to see whether or not you handed. Core Internet Vitals are key person expertise metrics that may have an effect on Google rankings.
The three Core Internet Vitals are:
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): The time it takes for the primary content material of the web page to load
- Interplay to Subsequent Paint (INP): The time between a person’s interplay and the web page’s subsequent visible replace
- Cumulative Structure Shift (CLS): A measure of surprising structure actions that happen throughout loading
Semrush’s Website Audit device has a Core Internet Vitals report that analyzes as much as 10 pages per crawl. (Be aware that, as INP requires person interplay knowledge, Website Audit makes use of TBT as a substitute.)
14. Make Positive Your Pages Are Cell-Pleasant
Google predominantly evaluates and ranks your content material primarily based on the cellular model of the web page, which is called mobile-first indexing.
As of 2025, 62.73% of all internet site visitors comes from cellular gadgets. This implies cellular Search engine optimization is paramount.
Listed below are three fast ideas for making your web site mobile-friendly:
- Use a responsive design. This ensures your web site works simply as properly on cellular because it does on desktop.
- Create mobile-friendly content material. To cater to smaller display sizes, use quick sentences and paragraphs to make your content material simpler to learn
- Ensure all of your buttons and menus work correctly. Ensure your buttons are simply tappable, not simply clickable, and that your menus are simple to navigate (as they’ll doubtless be hidden behind icons on cellular).
Enhance Your On-Web page Search engine optimization
Streamline your on-page optimization course of by figuring out precisely what every web page wants to point out prominently in search outcomes.
Use Semrush’s On Web page Search engine optimization Checker to do that rapidly and simply. It analyzes your pages towards prime rivals and offers actionable on-page Search engine optimization concepts to avoid wasting you time whereas additionally serving to you prioritize the optimizations prone to have the most important affect.
Attempt the On Web page Search engine optimization Checker at this time.
