As a business owner, you know your website is the front door to your business, so you’ve spent a lot of time making sure it is filled with good content and information. However, it’s not appearing as high in the search results as you’d hoped for. There’s often nothing wrong with your content, but your on-page SEO could improve. On-page SEO consists of a few key elements to help better match your content to the searcher’s intent. By making sure certain fields are filled out, formatting is correct, and linking is done properly, you can make your content more visible to search engines. NEXTFLY, an Indianapolis digital marketing and web design company, shares the ultimate guide to on-page SEO for business owners to help improve their rankings in search results.
What is On-Page SEO?
On-page SEO refers to the optimization techniques you apply directly to your website to help it rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). Unlike off-page SEO, which focuses on factors like backlinks from other websites, on-page SEO deals with everything within your website itself. It includes elements like content, structure, and other technical aspects that search engines use to understand and rank your site. You don’t need to know any coding to improve your on-page SEO.
Keyword Research Can Help Your On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is essential because it helps search engines understand what your page is about, making it more likely that they’ll display your site when users search for relevant keywords. Before you write a sentence on your website, it’s important to make a list of 3-5 keywords or key phrases about your business. You will use these keywords and phrases throughout your website to help search engines better understand your business. It’s also a smart idea to include your location so that you can also appear in the “near me” search results. Some examples might be:
- Indianapolis area car wash
- Heating and Cooling Services in Avon, IN
- Central Indiana’s Favorite Irish Pub
On-Page SEO Guide
Now, let’s break down the most important aspects of on-page SEO that you, as a business owner, should focus on to boost your website’s ranking.
Headings
Headings are an essential part of any webpage, as they organize content into digestible sections. Not only do they improve the user experience, but they also help search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your content. The most important headings are:
- H1: This is your main heading and should ideally include your primary keyword. This is typically the title of your page or article. Every page or blog on your website should have an H1 title displayed at the top of the page.
- H2, H3, and beyond: These are subheadings that break down your content into smaller sections, helping search engines and users navigate your page more easily.
By using the correct headings, you not only make your content easier to read but also signal to search engines what’s most important.
Let’s use an example. Let’s use our key phrase “heating and cooling services in Avon, IN.”
- “Heating and Cooling Services in Avon, IN” is the H1 or title on the page
- Our H2s might include “furnace services,” “heat pump services,” “air conditioning services” etc.
- Our H3s would include “furnace repair,” “air conditioning installation,” “heat pump maintenance”
Links
Links are vital for both user navigation and SEO. There are two types of links to focus on:
- Internal links: These are links that point to other pages or blog posts within your website. They help search engines crawl your site and understand its structure. They also improve the user experience by guiding visitors to other relevant content.
- External links: These are links that point to other websites. Linking to authoritative sources can enhance your credibility and help search engines understand the context of your content.
Make sure your links are relevant and functional—broken links can hurt your rankings and frustrate your visitors.
For example, your car wash website might have an external link to a website about how car washes can help your vehicle’s performance. An internal link would be linking to packages or booking a car wash appointment. Make sure all pages are linked to another page of your website. Orphan pages can hurt your SEO.
Images with Alt Text
Images can make your content more engaging, but they also play a significant role in SEO. Search engines can’t “see” images like humans can, so they rely on alternative text (alt text) to understand what the image is about.
When you upload an image, always include descriptive alt text that accurately represents the image and includes relevant keywords where appropriate. This not only helps with SEO but also makes your site more accessible to users with visual impairments.
Meta Descriptions
A meta description is a brief summary of your page’s content that appears in search engine results under the page title. Although meta descriptions don’t directly influence your rankings, they are crucial for click-through rates (CTR). A compelling meta description can entice users to click on your link instead of others.
Meta descriptions are often a field that needs to be filled out in a separate area. If you are using WordPress, having the Yoast plugin installed on your site, will add a box to every page or blog on the back end of your site. In this box is where you can edit your page’s URL and add your page’s meta description. On Wix and Shopify sites, there is often an SEO setting in your content editor where your meta description can be edited.
Keep your meta descriptions under 160 characters and make them engaging. Include important keywords to give users a snapshot of what your page offers. For example, on our Irish Pub website, a meta description for our menu page might be: “Check out the Menu for Paddy O’Toole’s, Central Indiana’s Favorite Irish Pub.”
URLs
Your website’s URLs should be clean, descriptive, and easy to read. A good URL structure not only makes it easier for search engines to crawl your site but also improves the user experience. Keep the following tips in mind:
- Use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) to separate words.
- Include relevant keywords in your URL, especially for blog posts and product pages.
- Avoid long, confusing strings of numbers or characters.
A clean URL tells both users and search engines what the page is about, which can positively impact rankings.
Some website builders will populate blog URLs automatically with the title or date. While this is sometimes fine, it’s important to make sure your keyword is in the URL and that it is formatted correctly. Some automated URL formatting can be found in the website settings.
- Example of a bad URL: /blog/posts/10-03-2025/this-months-specials
- Example of a better URL: /blog/october-specials
What is SEO Optimization?
SEO optimization is the process of adjusting various elements of your website to improve its ranking in search engine results. This process involves both on-page and off-page SEO techniques. While on-page SEO focuses on content and structure within your site, off-page SEO involves factors like backlinks, social media engagement, and brand authority.
SEO optimization is a long-term strategy that requires ongoing effort, but NEXTFLY can help you take this heavy task off your shoulders. As an Indianapolis digital marketing and web design company, we can optimize your current website to improve search rankings without greatly changing its content or structure. The more you optimize your site, the more likely it will appear on the first page of search results, driving more organic traffic to your business.
Talk to NEXTFLY® to Improve Your On-Page SEO
NEXTFLY, an Indianapolis digital marketing and web design company, specializes in creating tailored SEO strategies that help businesses improve their online presence, drive organic traffic, and ultimately grow their customer base. Whether you need help with keyword research, on-page optimization, or technical SEO, NEXTFLY can help you get your website ranking where it deserves to be. Contact NEXTFLY today to see how we can improve your website’s on-page SEO.