On-page optimisation
On-page optimisation refers to all the techniques and best practices applied directly on your website to help search engines understand your content and determine its relevance, quality, and value for users.
The main components of on-page optimisation.
Keyword optimisation- integrating your researched keywords (from your keyword strategy) naturally throughout your page. This can be done via: The page title and title tag (using fundamental and secondary keywords in these can hugely improve on-page optimisation), the URL of the website (keeping it short, descriptive, and keyword-focused), headings (H1, H2, H3) and body text (naturally including keywords, synonyms, and related terms- LSI keywords). Due to new advances in natural language processing this is particularly important to help search engines semantically understand the topic of your page.
Creating high-quality, relevant content- Google’s algorithms are designed to reward helpful, original, and comprehensive content. Demonstrations of satisfying user intent, demonstrating EEAT (expertises, experience, authoritativeness and trustworthiness), being well-structured and unique can significantly boost SEO prospects. This is because When content aligns with intent and offers genuine value, it increases dwell time, reduces bounce rate, and improves engagement metrics, all of which signal quality to Google.
Meta Tags Optimisation- Meta tags help search engine crawlers and users understand the pages content and purpose. This can be done through: the meta title (title tag) and meta description. The meta title is the title of the page that shows up in search results and browser tags, it should be under 60 characters and include a fundamental keyword near the front. The meta description is a short summary of your page (under 160 characters) that shows up on the SERP. Even though neither are a direct ranking factor it is like to improve the click through rate, which can create potential for higher rankings and is necessary for search engines to be able to understand your sites topical authority and may directly impact indexation.
Image optimisation, heading optimisation and URL structuring- Although these practices are smaller they are all important contributors to the total SEO efforts. Images can slow pages down and confuse crawlers if not optimised and so image optimisation is important- compressing images to reduce load times, using descriptive file names and using next generation formats for better performance is extremely important. Optimising headings by using proper heading structure and creating a hierarchy of importance for topics, as well as using a clean, keyword-rich URL can hugely contribute to an SEO campaign. By optimising these three parts of a website it allows for improved crawlability increasing indexation and likelihood of rankings improvements. It also can create improved user experience, which is a direct ranking factor.
Page speed and core web vitals- On-page optimisation largely focuses on fixing and optimising: largest contentful paint (page load time), first input delay (interactivity delay) and cumulative layout shift (Visual stability). Google’s ranking algorithm prioritises fast, responsive, and stable websites and so improving core web vitals is likely to boost rankings.
Structured data (schema markup)- Structured data (using Schema.org) helps search engines better interpret your content. For example: articles, products, FAQs, reviews and events. This can earn rich snippets (stars, images, price data) in Google results- improving click-through rate and visibility.
Why can on-page optimisation improve SEO prospects?
Altogether, on-page optimisation enhances three main algorithmic priorities: relevance, quality, and user experience. Relevance comes from clear keyword targeting and topic alignment; quality comes from well-written, trustworthy, and comprehensive content; and user experience comes from fast, accessible, mobile-friendly pages. When these elements work together, your website communicates authority and reliability both to users and search engines. This synergy helps your pages appear more often, rank higher, and attract more organic traffic. Overall, improving your site’s performance, brand credibility, and conversion potential.