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 webpages 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 three 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 search for the query, diet plan. You'll see that Healthline's article on how to lose weight ranks number one, 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 number one 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 three 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.