Phase 2 · ExecutionModule 5 of 15
On-page optimization
On-page is the most written-about part of SEO and the part where the most effort goes into things Google discards. Worth knowing which is which before you rewrite four hundred title tags.
What this actually costs you
- Hours to learn
- 5
- Hours / month
- 4 to 6
- Tools
- $0 to $139/mo
- Difficulty
- Low per page, hard at volume
What this looks like when it is done badly. Someone rewrites four hundred title tags to front-load a keyword, changes nothing else, and watches rankings stay exactly where they were. The tags were never the constraint. The pages were about nothing in particular before, and they still are.
Hours and tool costs are RedSEO’s own estimates from client work and from teaching this material, not industry survey data. They assume a business owner doing the work themselves on a site under about 50 pages.
On-page is the most written-about part of SEO, which is odd, because a large share of what gets written about is either optional or actively discarded by Google. Worth knowing which parts those are before you commit a weekend.
Google may not use the title you wrote
This surprises people who have been rewriting title tags for years. Google’s documentation says generating the title link is “completely automated and takes into account both the content of a page and references to it that appear on the web.” Your <title> is one input among several, alongside the visible H1, other headings, og:title, prominent on-page text, and even the anchor text of links pointing at the page.
Google lists what makes it override you: half-empty title elements, obsolete dates, inaccurate descriptions of the page, repetitive boilerplate, and unclear main titles where several headings are equally prominent.
Which reframes the job. You are not writing a tag, you are removing Google’s reasons to ignore it. A page whose title, H1 and opening paragraph all say the same thing rarely gets rewritten. A page where they disagree is asking to be.
On length: there is no limit. Google says the title link “is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width.” So the 60-character rule everyone repeats is a rendering estimate, not a rule. Front-load the specific part and stop counting.
Meta descriptions do not rank, and are still worth writing
A meta description is not a ranking factor and Google frequently ignores it. Their snippet documentation says snippets are “automatically created from page content” and that Google “sometimes uses the meta description HTML element if it might give users a more accurate description of the page.” Sometimes.
Write them anyway, for two reasons. When Google does use it, it is the only sentence you control between your ranking and the click. And the exercise of describing the page in one specific sentence is the fastest way to find out whether the page is actually about anything. If you cannot write the description, the page has a bigger problem than its tags.
Google’s only real asks are that descriptions “accurately describe the specific page” and that you use “unique descriptions for each page.” The same truncation note applies: no limit, cut to device width.
Have us rewrite the pages that matter
Images: the one place effort still reliably pays
Alt text is the on-page element most often left empty and it is the one with the clearest guidance. Google asks for text that is “useful, information-rich” and “in context of the content of the page,” and warns to “avoid filling alt attributes with keywords (also known as keyword stuffing) as it results in a negative user experience.”
Filenames matter too, and the example Google gives is unambiguous: “my-new-black-kitten.jpg is better than IMG00023.JPG.” Place images “near relevant text and on pages that are relevant to the image subject matter.”
Two practical notes. A decorative image should have an empty alt attribute rather than a description, because describing a divider line to a screen reader user is worse than silence. And if you use srcset or <picture>, Google asks you to “always specify a fallback URL using the src attribute.”
What I would skip
Keyword density. There is no target number. The density checker is on this page as a sanity check that you have not written something unreadable, not as a target to hit.
The meta keywords tag. Dead for well over a decade.
Exact-match anything. Forcing the target phrase verbatim into the title, H1, first sentence, URL and alt text produces a page that reads like it was written for a machine, which is now the thing being penalised rather than rewarded.
What I would do in your position
Pick your five most commercially important pages. Not your newest posts, the pages that make money. For each one, do the full checklist below properly, then leave the rest of the site alone until those five are done and you have watched them for a month.
The reason is scale. At five pages this is careful writing. At four hundred it is a data project, and the qualifier below is about exactly that line.
Do it on one page now
Four free tools, one per job. Run them against your most important page rather than your newest one.
The tools for this module
Free, no signup. Start with the preview: seeing the cut land is faster than reading about it.
- SERP PreviewWhere your title actually gets cut, measured in pixels rather than characters.
- Meta Description GeneratorDrafts a description for a page and shows you where it truncates.
- Image Alt Text GeneratorDescribes an image in context, which is the part people get wrong.
- Keyword Density CheckerMostly useful as a check that you have not overdone it.
- OG Image GeneratorFor the share preview, which is not SEO but is the same ten minutes.
Work through one page properly
Do this on your single most important page before you do it on forty. The order matters: everything below the first two steps only pays off if those two are right.
Name the one query this page is for
From your keyword map in module 4. If you cannot name it in four words, the page has no target and no amount of tag writing will give it one.
Make the page obviously about that thing
The title element, the visible H1 and the opening paragraph should agree with each other. Google builds title links from all three plus other sources, so a page where they disagree gives it permission to write its own.
Write the title element for a human scanning a results page
Most specific thing first, brand last, no pipe-separated keyword lists. There is no character limit, only truncation at the device width, so front-load rather than count.
Write a meta description that earns the click
Unique to the page, describing what the page specifically does. Google may ignore it. It costs a minute and it is the only control you have over the snippet when it does not.
Use one H1 and let the H2s describe the actual sections
Headings are navigation for a reader and structure for a crawler. Two H1s is not a penalty, it is just a page that has not decided what it is about.
Give every meaningful image a real filename and real alt text
Describe the image in context. Google's own example prefers "my-new-black-kitten.jpg" to "IMG00023.JPG". Decorative images get an empty alt attribute, not a keyword.
Add internal links to and from the page
Descriptive anchor text, in the body, on the first natural mention. This is module 4 work and it does more for a single page than any tag rewrite.
Check what the page looks like as a search result
Search for it, or use a preview tool. If your own result does not look like something you would click, the ranking work is aimed at a click you will not get.
Can you do this yourself?
You can do this yourself if
- You have fewer than about fifty pages, so this is an afternoon per page for the ones that matter and never for the ones that do not.
- You can edit titles, descriptions and headings yourself without filing a ticket. This module is almost entirely access rather than skill.
- You are willing to write for the person reading the results page rather than for the string you are targeting.
You cannot do this yourself if
- You have more than about fifty pages. Past that this stops being writing and becomes data management: exports, templates, bulk edits and QA, which is a different job with different tools.
- Your CMS generates titles and descriptions from a template you cannot override. You cannot optimise what you cannot edit, and the fix is a development change rather than an SEO one.
- You need this done across a catalogue where the product data itself is the problem. Thin, duplicated manufacturer descriptions are not fixed by better tags.
Questions people ask about this
- How long should a title tag be?
- There is no limit. Google says the title link "is truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width", so the familiar 60-character rule is a rendering estimate rather than a rule. Front-load the specific part and stop counting characters.
- Why is Google not using my title tag?
- Because your title element is one input among several. Google generates title links from the title, the visible H1, other headings, og:title, prominent page text and even inbound anchor text. It overrides you when it detects half-empty titles, obsolete dates, boilerplate, or several equally prominent headings. Making the title, H1 and opening paragraph agree removes most of those reasons.
- Do meta descriptions affect rankings?
- No. They are not a ranking factor and Google only "sometimes uses the meta description HTML element if it might give users a more accurate description of the page". Write them anyway: when Google does use one it is the only sentence you control between the ranking and the click.
- What should alt text say?
- Describe the image in the context of the page. Google asks for text that is "useful, information-rich" and warns against "filling alt attributes with keywords". Decorative images should get an empty alt attribute rather than a description, because describing a divider to a screen reader user is worse than silence.
- Is keyword density a real thing?
- Not as a target. There is no number to hit and chasing one produces pages that read as though written for a machine. A density check is useful as a sanity test that you have not overdone a phrase, and that is all it is for.
- Can I do on-page SEO across hundreds of pages myself?
- Past about fifty pages this stops being writing and becomes data management: exports, templates, bulk edits and QA. The skill required changes, and so do the tools. That threshold is the honest dividing line in the qualifier above.