On-site SEO (also known as on-page SEO) is the practice of optimizing elements, like title tags, on a website (as opposed to links elsewhere on the Internet and other external signals collectively known as "off-site SEO") in order to improve search engine ranking and visibility. This can involve optimizing both the content and HTML source code of pages on a site.
This page is your home base for on-site SEO resources designed for learners of all skill levels. Discover our top SEO guides, blog posts, articles and more!
Internal Links
Internal Links are hyperlinks that point at (target) the same domain as the domain that the link exists on (source). Why do these links matter for SEO, and what are the best practices for internal link structure? Learn in this article.
The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet
Share with your dev team to make SEO changes easier to understand and implement.
With brand-new updates, the Web Dev's SEO Cheat Sheet is a core resource for SEOs, web devs, software engineers, and anyone else needing to understand technical SEO standards for a website. Download the free PDF and share with your team!
MozCon Video Bundle
Did you miss this year's MozCon? Now is your chance to experience what everyone has been talking about! We have over 19 hours of actionable inbound marketing knowledge.
How to Target Multiple Keywords with One Page - Next Level
In this edition of our educational Next Level series, you'll learn an easy workflow for researching and targeting multiple keywords on one page. Read on and level up!
Anchor Text
What is anchor text, how is it used, and how can it be optimized for SEO efforts? Learn more here.
How We Increased Revenue with Speed Optimization [Local SEO Case Study]
There are some key scenarios when local SEOs should seriously consider speed optimization, even for a small local client. Small local clients are still impacted by the issues that come along with having a slower website such as higher bounce rates, lower conversions, and worst of all, a poor user experience. Amanda shares her experience with speed optimization, and the positive results for her client.
Humans vs. Robots: Picking the Best Audience for Your SEO Content
When writing for search engines, should you create content for the algorithm or for your human readers? The answer is both. Here’s how you can do it.
How to Know When You Need a Dedicated Paid Landing Page
Creating custom, campaign-specific landing pages is resource-intensive, and not every team has the necessary tools, expertise, or personnel to build the content. So, how do you know if you need a custom page, or if you can safely send paid traffic to an organic page and still achieve your KPIs? This three-step, data-driven evaluation helps answer this question.
9 Ways to Design Inclusive Content
Inclusivity is about understanding diversity and ensuring everyone can be involved to the greatest extent possible. It's an important consideration for every business owner and content creator, and should be at the heart of your ongoing design efforts — not something you look at after a website or content goes live.
Case Study: The ROI of Re-optimizing Content (Plus Bonus How-To)
You know it’s important to keep your content up to date, but exactly how much does it matter? Lauren shows you the actual ROI she and her team at Brafton have seen from regularly re-optimizing blog posts over the last several years.
How to Prep Your SEO Strategy for a New Website
Your SEO strategy should be one of the primary considerations before you even start your website. Instead of fighting to make your website SEO-ready later on, start with this holistic SEO checklist for new websites and save yourself valuable time and resources
Commercial vs. Functional vs. Emotional: A Case Study on Page Title SEO Testing
In our fast-paced day-to-day lives, we can often underestimate the power of copy, even though it’s the only thing between our business and our customers. To that end, Marty used SEO Testing to trial different copy types in product page titles, and want shares the results of that test in this blog.
Shopify SEO: The Guide to Optimizing Shopify [Updated for 2022]
Shopify is an increasingly popular platform for e-commerce sites, but it's not fully SEO-friendly out of the box. What's the best way to optimize your Shopify experience for SEO?
Page Experience is Here to Stay: Moz Launches Performance Metrics Suite
Today, we’re announcing the full launch of Performance Metrics, including a host of new features and improvements based on the feedback we’ve received from early adopters, as well as our own experts and data.
How to Improve Organic Clickthrough for Your Content
SERPs are becoming more diverse and interactive, making any CTR study out there much less reliable, because no two sets of search results are ever the same. So, how much control do content creators have over how their work is represented in search? As it turns out, quite a bit!
22 Smart Google SEO Tips for 2022
We're back with a brand new season of Whiteboard Friday episodes for your viewing pleasure. First up: SEO expert Cyrus Shepard shares his top 22 tips for successful Google SEO in 2022. Watch to find out what to prioritize and what to look out for in the year ahead!
How We Increased a Law Firm’s Leads by 174% With Content Optimization [Case Study]
In this case study, walk through the steps the Tao Digital team took to achieve increased leads, impressions, and clicks for their client. By making strategic content optimizations at the right time, you can do the same.
How to Use Keyword Clustering to Seamlessly Optimize Your SEO Content
Keyword clustering is the SEO tactic to use if you want to seamlessly optimize your SEO content and streamline your workflow at the same time. The best part? It’s fairly simple, and SERPs give you all the information you need to make an informed decision on exactly how to do it.
Performance as a Ranking Factor: The State of the Web and Core Web Vitals [Part 3]
Are Core Web Vitals correlated with rankings? If so, is that any more true than it was before the Page Experience Update? In the third and final post of this series, we’ll see what the data tells us about the relationship between CWV metrics and organic ranking performance.
Tackling 8,000 Title Tag Rewrites: A Case Study
Let's take an in-depth look at Moz.com title tags that were re-written by Google, including three case studies where we managed to fix bad rewrites.
Magento SEO: The Guide to Optimizing Magento Websites
If you’re an SEO in the e-commerce space, it’s important to learn how to work with Magento. Today, Chris walks you through seven areas for SEO adjustments that are unique to the Magento platform.
How to Choose Pillar Page Topics
With the growth of conversational search intent, pillar page strategies have entered the scene to fulfill those queries. Like anything in the SEO space, pillar page strategies take time and a great deal of planning to do correctly. Let’s break down this process.
How to Carry Out Content Audits — Yes, Plural
A content audit done once to highlight current website issues will have a short shelf-life of usefulness. However, a content audit that is continuously updated offers multiple uses for analyzing and reporting on strategies. Here’s how to conduct that ongoing audit.
3 Powerful On-Page Optimizations to Power Up Your Content
It’s not easy to write content that ranks in Google and drives conversions, but if you follow a few simple steps, you’ll be well on your way to ranking, and to engaging customers on all types of devices.
Fulfill Untapped Customer Demands Through Your Faceted Navigation
By centering your secondary navigation on long-tail keyword opportunities, you’ll be able to strategically utilize consumer intent, secure additional web conversions, and boost revenue levels.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: What They Are and Why SEOs Should Care
In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and outline the steps you can take to meet its standards. We’ll also touch on the reasons why accessible websites typically rank higher in search engines — making accessibility the right choice all around!
How to Calibrate Your Brand Voice to Your SEO Advantage
One of the best ways to stand out from the herd of businesses in your niche is to develop a unique brand voice for your company – one that will appeal to customers and get noticed via SEO. This article will show you a few tricks to help develop a unique voice, structure your content, and turn Google’s algorithms to your advantage at the same time.
6 Steps to Executing an Efficient SEO Clean-Up Strategy
In this article, learn how to successfully execute an SEO clean-up strategy to ensure your site aligns with your business goals, keeps you in Google’s good books, and yields an excellent user experience for visitors and customers.
Announcing the New Technical SEO Certification Series: What It Is & How to Get Certified
The Moz Learning Team has put in many, many hours of work to develop a technically focused, in-depth training series that hones in on the nuts and bolts of technical SEO. We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the Technical SEO Certification Series through Moz Academy.
Local SEO for Nonprofit Organizations: 5 Tactics to Try Today
Through the “search and deliver” dynamic of SEO, nonprofit marketers have the opportunity to reach local audiences that indicate their interest and engagement through their search behaviors. Nonprofit marketers can leverage this to engage supporters, drive donations, and share their nonprofit’s mission with the world. Read on for local SEO tactics you can try today.
New SEO Experiments: A/B Split Testing Google's UGC Attribute
We A/B tested adding rel="ugc" to our Moz Blog comment links using Distilled's optimization delivery network (ODN). Here's what we found — and what we're thinking about testing next.
I've Optimized My Site, But I'm Still Not Ranking—Help!
When all your hard work seems to be going nowhere, there might be a reason. Jo Cameron walks you through a list of things to check and accomplish to make sure your site can start ranking ASAP.
15 SEO Best Practices for Structuring URLs
URL BEST PRACTICES - It's been a long time since we covered one of the most fundamental building blocks of SEO--the structure of domain names and URLs--and I think it's high time to revisit.
A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page SEO
As the "O" in SEO has broadened in scope, the most effective elements of on-page optimization have changed. While there is arguably no "perfectly optimized page," this update to a 2009 post provides a comprehensive guide to steer you in the right direction.
Here’s How to Generate and Insert Rel Canonical with Google Tag Manager
In this article, we’re going to learn how to create the rel canonical URL tag using Google Tag Manager, and how to insert it in every page of our website so that the correct canonical is automatically generated in each URL.
Optimizing for Accessibility: Alt Text, Videos, Images & More
Alt Text For Video Accessibility: Have you been following along as we explore SEO + Accessibility? In this post, we shares resources and advice on SEO and Accessibility overlaps when optimizing alt text for images, video, and non-text elements.
Optimizing for Accessibility + SEO: Formatting & Link Overlaps
Do you know the overlaps between SEO and accessibility? If you’re optimizing for search engines, you’re also affecting how people using assistive technologies experience your site. Let's examine the effects and best practices for keyword usage, text formatting, and links.
Optimizing for Accessibility + SEO: Site & Page Structure Overlaps
How well can ALL visitors navigate your site? In this first post of three, we'll try out simple screen readers & look at structural overlaps in SEO + accessibility like titles, headings, semantic markup, page structure & sitemaps.
What You Should Know About Accessibility + SEO, Part I: An Intro
If you optimize for SEO, does that mean you have accessibility covered? What about the other way around? This Part 1 of 2 post looks at high-level overlaps & recommends a11y blogs, resources, & fun tools to start you thinking about accessibility and SEO optimization.
9 Things You Need to Know About Google's Mobile-Friendly Update
My colleague Emily Grossman and I wanted to cut through the noise and bring online marketers a clearer picture of what's in store later this month. In this post, you'll find our answers to nine key questions about the update.
Rel=Confused? Answers to Your Rel=Canonical Questions
In light of Google's recent post on common rel=canonical mistakes, I explore the most commonly asked questions we get in Q&A regarding canonicalization.
12 Things That Will Kill Your Blog Post Every Time
When you look around at successful blogs -- whatever industry or topic -- there are several undeniable basics to success. And it starts with blog posts that kill it…rather than get killed. But what kills a blog post? Here’s a list of 12 things. Ignore them and you will have a tough time being successful.
Duplicate Content in a Post-Panda World
In a land ravaged by pandas, one man will teach you everything you need to know about duplicate content. Learn how to spot duplicates in the wild and stop them in their tracks.
The Mobile SEO Stack: Tools to Develop a Mobile-First SEO Process
With mobile usage on the rise, it's more important than ever to optimize for on-the-go users. But which tools support mobile SEO? Aleyda's compiled 28 tools that will help you answer all your mobile SEO questions, plus a handy graphic to download for at-a-glance reference.
Not Your Dad's Keyword Tool: Advanced Keyword Research Use Cases
This isn't your dad's keyword tool. Learn about novel ways to take advantage of powerful keyword tools like Moz Keyword Explorer to do far more than find related keywords.
XML Sitemaps: The Most Misunderstood Tool in the SEO's Toolbox
XML sitemaps are a powerful tool for SEOs, but are often misunderstood and misused. Michael Cottam explains how to leverage XML sitemaps to identify and resolve indexation problems.
A Guide to JSON-LD for Beginners
Structured data is a must-have for many sites, but it can be hard to get a handle on the technical considerations. Learn the important basics of JSON-LD and how to ramp up your education as you apply it.
SEO Split-Testing: How to A/B Test Changes for Google
Google is increasingly relying on machine learning and artificial intelligence, making ranking factors harder to understand, less predictable, and less uniform across keywords. It's becoming such a complex system, that we often can't really know how a change will affect our own site until we roll it out. In this environment, we'll need to use split-testing more and more.
How Google Pulls Structured Snippets from Websites' Tables
There are many pages on the Web that are filled with data in the form of tables, and Google is including some of that tablular data in search results in places that may surprise you. Here's how it works, and how you can take advantage.
Illustrated Guide to Advanced On-Page Topic Targeting for SEO
The concepts of advanced on-page SEO are dizzying: LDA, co-occurrence, and entity salience. The question is "How can I easily incorporate these techniques into my content for higher rankings?" The truth is, you can create optimized pages that rank well without understanding complex algorithms.
More than Keywords: 7 Concepts of Advanced On-Page SEO
As marketers, helping search engines understand what our content means is one of our most important tasks. Search engines can’t read pages like humans can, so we incorporate structure and clues as to what our content means. This post explores a series of on-page techniques that not only build upon one another, but can be combined in sophisticated ways.
The Hidden Power of Nofollow Links
For those of us who are trying to earn links for our clients, receiving a nofollow link can feel like a slap in the face. But these links have hidden powers that make them just as important as followed ones. Here's why nofollow links are more powerful than you might think.
The Most Entertaining Guide to Landing Page Optimization You'll Ever Read
If you've ever been bored while reading a blog post, your life just got better. If you've ever wanted to learn about conversion rate optimization, and how to design high-converting landing pages, without falling asleep, you're in the right place. Buckle up, and prepare to be entertained in your learning regions.
12 Ways to Increase Traffic From Google Without Building Links
The job of the Technical SEO becomes more complex each year, but we also have more opportunities now than ever. Here are 12 ways you can improve your rankings without relying on link building.
How to Completely Ruin (or Save) Your Website with Redirects
Have you ever redirected a page hoping to see a boost in rankings, but nothing happened? Or worse, traffic actually went down? When done right, 301 redirects have awesome power to clean up messy architecture, solve outdated content problems, and improve user experience — all while preserving link equity and your ranking power. When done wrong, the results are often disastrous.