SEO is a topic that covers a wide range of areas. On-page SEO is one of those areas. Others include off-site SEO (such as link building), local SEO, and international SEO. In this blog, we’re going to focus on on-page SEO and, specifically, on-page ranking factors.

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO is about optimising your website overall, as well as the individual pages on your site, to improve your rankings in Google search. It covers both the content of your website as well as the code.

What Are On-Page Ranking Factors?

Ranking factors are the things that Google’s search algorithm looks at and considers when it ranks a website page for a particular search term. Google gives us some information about the ranking factors it uses, but it doesn’t explicitly state them all.

There are extensive bodies of detailed research, however, that show that Google’s algorithm uses in excess of 200 ranking factors.

One category that these ranking factors fall into is on-page ranking factors. In other words, the specific things that Google’s search algorithm looks for in relation to the content and code on your website.

Why Are On-Page Ranking Factors Important for SEO?

Google’s search algorithm uses on-page ranking factors for a number of reasons. The most important include:

• Helps Google understand what your website and the individual pages are about. Remember, Google’s search algorithm is basically a computer programme. A very advanced computer programme, granted, but a computer programme nonetheless. Therefore, it can’t use nuance, intuition, and other characteristics unique to humans. Instead, it uses easily definable (comparatively speaking) on-page ranking factors.
• Helps Google match the pages on your website to the queries used by searchers. Following on from the above, Google uses its knowledge and understanding of the pages of your website and combines this with its increasing knowledge of search relevance and semantics. In other words, on-page ranking factors help Google match the right pages with the right queries.
• Determines the position of your pages in relation to other pages, including the pages of your competitors’ websites. After all, there are likely to be many pages in Google’s index that could potentially help a searcher with their query. Google wants to rank these pages with the best at the top. On-page ranking factors helps in this process.

Other Things to Consider

There are two other important things to consider when it comes to on-page ranking factors, SEO, and your website:

• Good practice anyway – many of the recommendations and guidelines that flow from the various on-page ranking factors that exist will be good for your website regardless of their influence on SEO. Ensuring the content on your website is high-quality is a good example. Google wants to see this as an on-page ranking factor, but it’s good for your website users too.
• Within your control – there are lots of aspects of SEO that are outside of your direct control. A good example is link building. This is an important part of SEO but if another website owner chooses not to like to your site, there isn’t anything you can do about it. All on-page ranking factors, however, are within your control.

What You Should Do Next

A good starting point is to analyse the on-page SEO of your current website to identify the improvements that are required. A specialist SEO company in Auckland is likely to be best placed to do this. You will probably also need their help with the next stage as well – implementing the recommendations from the analysis.

This will be a worthwhile investment, however, as it will result in improved rankings in Google search.