Important yet overlooked…

I’m always surprised how often I see badly done (or totally ignored!) on-page SEO on websites I visit. This is literally the first thing Google looks at when trying to figure out what your website or web page is about. “On-Page SEO” includes things like page title (i.e. the text between the “<title></title>” tags in the HTML code), meta description (“<meta name=”description” content=”description text” />”), and <H1> heading tags. Without these things optimized, Google will struggle to figure out what your site is about and, ultimately, not rank you high for your important keywords.

You page title should begin with your most important keywords (for example, “Roof Repair”) followed by your location. Your company name can be placed next. So a complete title tag, in HTML, might look like this:

<title>Roof Repair Boston | Super-terrific Roofing Company</title>

Next, you want to make sure your meta description includes your keywords. Something like this:

<meta name="description" content="We provide the best roof repair service in the Boston area." />

Finally, following SEO best practices, there should be a single <H1> heading tag on each page. The homepage <H1> should also include the important keywords. Like this:

<H1>Roof Repair Boston</H1>

There is a LOT more to on-page SEO, but doing these simple things will definitely help Google determine what your site is all about and, in turn, rank your site higher for your keywords.

A useful tool for checking your on-page SEO: SEOscan.org.

A deeper dive into on-page SEO: Semrush.