Sam Sullivan
Chief SEO & Storytelling Specialist
SEO can be tricky. We’re the first to admit it. There are numerous things that can go wrong, and getting them right often takes a lot more time and work. While Search Engine Optimization may occasionally seem insurmountable if you’re new to it, no worries: everyone makes mistakes, and online, many of them are fixable.
Even better? The vast majority are preventable entirely.
No matter what you do, from on-page to off-page factors, you should never fly blind. Always monitor traffic, analytics, and competition. If all your content is working (or not working), there will be no way to tell without a good monitoring system in place. Most people hire out for this sort of thing. Professionals use programs like SEMrush, Moz, Majestic, and Ahrefs to ensure the targets are being met from SEO changes. Metrics and goals in place give a good baseline from which to track all other efforts and improvements.
That said, here are the most common on-page SEO issues:
- Title tag problems
- No ALT text or broken internal images/missing ALT attributes
- Duplicate content
- Useless, redundant H1 (titles) or H1s that don’t match on-page keyword content
- Not enough or too much text in titles
- Not using anchor text for internal and external links
- Poorly written or irrelevant content
- Too many bad links compared to good ones
- Broken links
- Too many links, or not enough links
There are other factors, most of them variations on the ones listed above. As you can see, the majority of problems boil down to one issue: haphazard content construction. Many of those factors can be easily fixed by doing on-page edits. If a URL is too short, use keyword analysis and keyword phrases to add in another relevant keyword or two. Maybe rework the title to better describe the page, if needed. Too long? Cut a frill word. For example, “just” won’t help you rank for anything and can be cut frequently, improving the sentence as well as the title. Make sure decent pagination also has a diversity of titles with good keywords. Don’t use the same title for every page. Vary it up. Show users specific, usable material.
You want the H1, or title tag, to match keywords on the page. The reason being, the Google or search engine crawler examining the page uses H1 titles to assess what the page is supposed to be about. The content, such as a blog, needs to match the title in keywords or phrases to ensure the content ranks better. It’s more useful to a searcher, in Google’s eyes, if relevancy carries over all the way through. You also want to avoid keyword stuffing, i.e. pummeling your audience with too many on-page keywords matching the title, or a title that’s nothing but buzzwords. A delicate balance, and some artistry, is needed to get it right. Aim for a lower (0.5-1.5%) keyword density, but make those keywords meaningful in their placement.
Anchor text, or the text that is clickable and hyperlinks to another page or site, should also be relevant and tailored. Google, using its PageRank system, analyzes link relevancy, both outbound and inbound, based on the text surrounding a link. This helps show where it’s pointing and why it might be useful. It’s the same reason SEOs seek quality backlinks with good anchor text. It’s far too common to see words like “click here” sprinkled in text to send users somewhere. Make the anchor text more organic. Use words and terms that one can rank for rather than bland or general terms that don’t give an indication where a link is pointing.
Similarly, too many links, both internal and external, present a readability and usability problem. You want a good ratio of anchor text to regular text so as to not clutter up the page. Some tools, like the link density chart on Majestic, actually show where backlinks are physically concentrated on pages. The design of the content and structure of the page determines the useful ratios and placements of internal and external links. By the same token, ensure your site isn’t festering with link rot. All your anchor text and hyperlinks should point to active pages. A content or SEO audit can help show where dead links are sending users to the dreaded 404 pages. Google doesn’t like 404s—they’re dead ends for clickers. If you have 404 pages, fix them immediately.
Make sure there’s plenty of original, useful, well-placed content. Duplicate content, while not enough to incur a penalty from Google anymore, is a sign of a wasted opportunity. If you have two blogs with titles that are very similar (or identical), and content that is reused verbatim just to fill a page, then that means one page is useful for SEO and the other is likely ignored by Google. Don’t let that happen. Take the time to create new material based on fresh keywords that help customers and users. Renovate the page and let it work for you instead of against.
For images, ensure ALT text, or the text associated with a picture describing what it’s about, is also optimized with keywords. Make sure images load on the page, and load in a timely, pleasing manner. Make sure they aren’t bombarding users or disrupting the flow of the other content. Don’t let images slow down the loading of a webpage, at least not longer than a few microseconds. Pay attention to your Core Web Vitals.
As you can see, care, attention, and a little bit of content analysis is really all it takes to fix up a website and its pages and begin turning them from duds into dynamite. Be aware that Google changes algorithms from time to time, and adjust your content accordingly. Always be willing to tweak your site for relevancy and use. SEO is a process, but well worth the mileage for the digital traveler.
