What is on-page SEO? A guide for 2026

What is on page SEO?

On page SEO refers to the act of optimising elements on your web page to rank higher in the search results. Doing SEO - on your page. This includes changes like improving content, headings and images. Ideally to match what the searcher is looking for, and to directly answer questions they may have about your product or service. This is one of the three core pillars of search engine optimisation: on page SEO, off page SEO, and technical SEO. 

So why is on page SEO important? Well of course we want people to have a good experience on our websites. We want them to find all the information they need to remove any blockers and eventually convert. Search engines want this too. Google especially is very user-first, wanting people to find what they need as quickly and easily as possible. Because of that, many user-first on page elements are ranking factors that we can optimise for. 

6 Core on page SEO elements to optimise 

1. Start from the ground: what does your audience want?

To write good, helpful and unique content, it’s important to start from the mind of your reader. And of course there is a concrete way to do this: keyword research. 

Marketers often see keyword research as just a means to an end. Find the highest search volume terms and slap them in high value places. However good keyword research can tell us a lot more. It’s a great tool to understand:

• Questions people have around our goods or services

• The specific language people use to describe those goods and services 

• Related topics that we should understand and consider 

• What is most important to people

Talking in our audience’s language will lead to better understanding, and knowing questions they have will allow us to combat issues before the user even has to search for them. Knowing what is most important also gives us direction on what content should be higher on the page. All of this leads to a better experience, and content that search engines favour.  

BONUS TIP: When doing keyword research to understand your audience, it’s ideal to also look at discussion forums like Reddit. It’s very human, and there’s a lot of great information there!

2. Use your research as a base for great content  

On page content 

Now that we understand what readers are looking for, deciding what content to include should be clearer. In each content section, include a few core keywords to include. However make sure to write naturally, aiming not to stuff as many keywords into the content as possible. 

Consider including semantically related topics across the site to cover different levels of the customer journey. Topic clusters and semantic SEO are particularly important in the current age of AI and “zero click search”.

Title tags and meta descriptions

Title tags are a moderately significant ranking factor, and the first thing a user will see from the search results. They tell search engines what your page is about, and influence how AI search will reference your brand. Title tags are pretty important, so here are some pointers:

• Keep them to roughly 50-60 characters and concise or it might get rewritten 

• Include your primary keyword. Close to the beginning if possible

• Include the year for content that benefits from being recent. Technology tutorials for example

• Avoid duplicate titles, each page is unique!

• Try to stand out (while remaining easy to understand) - show a sense of humour, use the numerical 5 if everyone else is saying ‘five’

• Aim to write something engaging, why should someone choose this webpage?

• Study the search results to understand and match intent. Ahrefs has a great tool that helps tremendously with this - It sits in Keywords Explorer > SERP Overview

Unlike title tags, meta descriptions don’t influence your rankings for Google. Google will also populate the meta description if you haven’t written your own - or if they don’t like yours. For this reason, consider putting your efforts into pages with higher traffic and search volume potential.

After all, they do influence the person behind the screen that’s thinking about clicking on your website. 

Here are some SEO tips for meta descriptions:

• Descriptions get cut off after roughly 120 characters on mobile and 160 on most desktops, so be concise!

• We are writing for humans here, so give them a reason to click through. Aim for compelling content  

• Keep words and sentences simple, most people will be skimming

• A short snappy first sentence is ideal 

• Remember to match the intent of your audience. If they are looking for information, give them a simple run down of the answer in the meta description. If they want to buy a product, give them a reason why they should buy that product with you

• While not necessary, including your target keyword quickly allows people to see this page matches what they’re looking for. This is especially true as Google bolds the search term.

Headings

A good heading structure is great for readers. Intuitive structure allows people to easily skim and find the information they’re here for. On the flip side, Search engines and AI tools use header tags to better understand what the page is about, and how in-depth the information is.

A good structure seems intuitive, but you would be surprised how many pages have a mismatch of headings. A clean structure should have headings nested under each other like so:

• <H1> should be on your page’s main title, and there should ideally be one of them (heading)

  • “T-shirts”

• <H2> should be used for subtopics (subheading)

  • “blue t-shirts”

• <H3> will be a subheading under a H2 (sub-subheading)

  • “Blue t-shirts with collars”

Then a <H4> will be nested under a H3, and so on. 

Though still named as a ranking factor, headings aren’t as crucial as they used to be in the early 2000’s. But they remain a signal of good user experience, and in that sense will very likely improve page performance. 

1. Include elements of E-E-A-T to improve trustworthiness 

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) has continued to gain importance over the years. Search engines and AI tools want to show searchers correct information. As we mentioned in our SEO in 2025 rundown, this is especially true after some 2024 incidents with AI giving very dodgy advice. So Google is improving their understanding of what content is reliable to get this right. This is especially important for Your Money Your Life (YMYL) topics, so be especially careful with those. 

Here are some ways you could improve your trustworthiness in the eyes of Google:

• Publish your own research, like testing and case studies. Share your first hand experience

• Cite studies and content from reputable sources 

• Add About the Author sections to demonstrate expertise 

• Link to the authors profile, where credentials and qualifications are clearly laid out 

• Build brand authority by writing quality content and earning backlinks from other sites

• Work to have a positive reputation 

• Ensure contact information and customer services are very easy to find

2. Using links (internally and externally)

Where it will add valuable information, include links to related places on your website (internal linking). This helps readers, search engine crawlers and AI tools discover and understand your website. Internal linking can also show search engines what pages we think are most important by how many times we link to it, spreading authority throughout the site. 

However it’s not enough to link to our own content. Google suggests that linking out to other websites creates a valuable experience for users. Choose your links wisely though. Ideally we should be sending users to relevant authoritative sources.

When adding either type of link, aim to use descriptive anchor text, not “click here”.

3. Consider your URL structure, but site structure is more important

This is truly an old faithful. Creating a clean, user focused URL has never been out of style in SEO. Google uses URLs to discover content, and then as a supporting factor to understand content and where the page is on site. When writing a URL, make it descriptive and easy to read. Avoid unnecessary words, dates and numbers to keep it simple. If you ever change URLs, make sure to always set up a 301 redirect.

More important than this though, is your site hierarchy. The relationship between your pages. Often referred to as “click depth”, pages that don’t take many clicks to reach from the homepage carry more weight. This reflects how both users and crawlers will see your website, and means a more “shallow” site structure is often preferred in SEO. This is also where good navigation design comes in. Though what “good” means here entirely depends on what type of website you have. 

4. The cherry on top: Include optimised images to support content

Images add a lot of value to readers. They have the ability to compress a lot of information down and add context with very little cognitive load needed. They are also very sharable, and bring extra traffic to your site. When you do add an image, consider:

• Use descriptive file names to give Google context about the image 

  • blue-tshirt.jpg vs IMG_1532.jpg

• Write clear and descriptive alt text. This improves accessibility for people with screen readers, very important. It’s also another clue search engines and AI tools use to better understand the image. This helps when understanding where to rank and cite our content. 

• Compress images for faster page loading times

Putting this into practice 

Crafting a webpage that is user first, SEO friendly and actually converts is a lot to cover. If you ever have questions on how to do this or you need some help, contact our wise team of experts.