On-site SEO overview

On-site SEO is the most important component of SEO. 

To have good on-site SEO, the text on your site needs to match the phrase the user is searching for. Specifically, Google looks at your page title and the main headline (or H1 tag) first. Then, it looks at the URL of your page and then the number of times the phrase 'keyword' is used in the first 100 words of the text on the page.

The first challenge with on-site SEO is using the phrases a user would search for versus the phrasing your brand would use. For example, if you're trying to optimize for weight loss in Boston but you call your service Fatburn, Google will not know the synonyms to look for. And so your job will be to adjust your verbiage and phrasing to reflect what people are searching for.   

The second challenge is repetition. If you're optimizing for the keywords "Gym in Manchester" and repeat the word 'gym' all over your site, it would be very boring. But if you don't, how will Google know that you are in fact a gym? The way that we can accomplish this is by using the word 'gym' in sentences where it might not need to be. For example - "Granite State Fitness is a world-class gym serving the fitness community of Manchester. Our gym specializes in both competitive fitness as well as personal training."

Beyond content, Google looks at technical elements of your page to give you an on-page SEO score. Look at the diagram below for details, or jump to our article on technical SEO.