The Complete, Visual Guide to On-Page SEO in 2025

  • Published December 01, 2025
  • Last updated: January 10, 2026
  • 12 mins read
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Keyword research

Keywords are the terms and phrases that users enter into the search engines to find relevant information on the web. Before diving into seo, a deep keywords research is essential to help search engines figure out what the content is about. Google always mention helpful content in every core update, but what that does mean actually? Google is eagerly updating their core ranking system to present information in an organized and clear way.

A careful keyword analysis is essential to optimize your website content for users and search engines. There are three main categories of keywords, each varying with traffic and competitions. General keywords, mid-tail keywords, and long-tail keywords.

An effective keyword analysis involves balancing general keywords to reach large audience with long tail keywords to target more specific search. Short tail keywords are less competitive long-tail keywords. They target specific area of interest. For instance if you simply search for “SEO” on Google, it’s unlikely you would find this guide. However, a more targeted query like “On-page SEO optimization guide” or “SEO Guide 2024” increases your chances of discovery this resource.

  • Generic keyword
  • Mid-tail keyword
  • Long-tail keyword

Keyword competition

Keyword competition can be defined as the difficulty of keywords to rank web pages on search engines. In general, keywords with high search volume considered competitive. Everyone wants to drive traffic and that is good, but the flip side is ranking for those keywords is very difficult for new sites. Whereas long tail keywords target more specific search that in general is les competitive. Creating a brand new website it is recommended to go with long tail keywords.

Understand user search intent

The most important point of keyword analysis is search entent. Search engines aim to deliver quality content to users. It is therefore essential to understand their search intentions in order to be more precise and relevant in your approach.

Informational

Informational search intent is the most searched type of queries that users does. Search phrase with informational intent users explore the web to find resource about a topic, taste or tips for performing a tasks better. For instance, search queries like "how to", "tips for" on Google search servers informational content. Users is simply looking for a help in doing a tasks.

Navigational

Users searching for brand name, products name are falls in navigational search intent. In general, we don’t optimize content to rank for navigational keywords. These search phrases are associated with brand identity. Google search is smart enough to present the searched brand or products in just a fraction of seconds. For instance, “microsoft office” or “gemini”

Commercial

Commercial intent refers to the search queries that users exploring about a products. Users does enquiry on the web before buying products. The user could be be searching for reviews of a products before stepping for transactional search. For instance, "reviews of", "comparison" has commercial search intentions. Finally the user might be convinced about finding great reviews, has great feature compared to others.

Transactional

The entire seo is rely on this search intent. Transactional search queries referred to users search for query that clears users intentions he is confident to buy a products. For instance, "buy", "order", "download” are commercial search intent. Users already collected enough information about the products. If you are gonna buy a mobile phone. I am pretty much sure you would first know what the features of that device, technical specifications, and reviews from real users that gives you a clue to buy that device or perhaps go with other options.

Primary keyword in the <title> & <h1>

Include primary keywords in the main title of the page to capture search engines’ attention to the pages topic. Search engines analyse the page content reading the main title this helps search engines understand what the content is about. Searching “SEO Guide 2024: Complete Optimization” on Google it is likely that Google serves this ultimate on page seo guide. Google figure out overall content quality. It could be based on an organized set of information that Google consider like how well your content covers the searched query, who’s the author, the content overall follows Google Content Policy guidelines, and many other factors.

The most content web pages that does well on Google search actually are qualified by google’s quality raters something called “EEAT” experience, expertise, authority, and trust.

Secondary keyword in <h2>

Google love content that covers complete information about a topic. Google usually prefers those resources that are written to help users provide deep insights. In other words google dn’d prefers content that is only optimized for ranking purpose and does not serve value to its users. Secondary keywords is basically the variation of the primary keywords or sub topic of the title.

Use secondary keywords to enhance the relevance of related sub-topics.

Long-tail keywords

Use long tail keywords to target more specific searches with less competition.

Geo-targeted keywords

Use geo-targeted keywords to focus on local audiences.

Avoid keyword over optimization

Content is a key ranking factors it’s part of the core ranking systems. If your content is well written and organized in a clear way users will love to read, but does your content answers accurately users search query. Well how would you analyse that? That is where keywords optimization comes into picture.

Secondary keyword in <h2>

Over optimizing your content for repetitive keywords can flag your content for span. Google’s algorithm is smart enough to detect content that is primarily optimized for ranking purpose, not for the users. Avoid using keywords stuffic, the crawler actually reads the content, analyse the overall content quality and other factors Google adds into their indexing database. Google search console occasionally shows pages crawled but not indexed. It is not necessarily important that your pages is crawled would be indexed. Google also checks duplicate content, canonical page or external or internal linking signals when indexing web pages. Avoid keyword repetition, as it is perceived as spam by search engines.

Craft skyscraper content

Your content is the way search engines assess the relevance and authority of your site based on user queries. Well-written, informative, and engaging content not only attracts visitors but also converts them while boosting your search ranking.

If your content is not good enough and somehow you managed to get ranking on those web pages, it would benefits you perform poor on Google search. Users simply ignores resources that does jot add real value that could negatively impact your pages user experience. It can increase bounce rate, again website with high bounce rate signals Google that your content does not helpful to users. Creating well crafted content can significantly benefits in long tern traffic gain that could also improve your websites click-through-rate.

Relevant

The relevance should directly address the needs and questions of your target audience.

Originality

Your content must be unique and provide the real added value. Avoid copied and pasted text. Google hates duplicate content, however in fact having duplicate content on your site is not a violation of Google spam policies, but it can be bad user experience and search engines might waste crawling resources. Some guid claims that having duplicate content impose penalty that is actually not correct. Google never penalyse your website for duplicate content it just don’t give value to your website because it does not help users. Pages with duplicate content does not perform well on Google search.

Up-to-date

Regularly updated content is perceived as more relevant and trustworthy.

Structured

A clear well organized content improves readability and indexing. It also helps users and search engines understand the overall topic and search intent. Organized your content with clear headlines. Make sure your heading should be in sequential order incorporating the primary keyword in H1, don’t skip the tagging order.

Comprehensive

It should be thorough, incorporating various internal and external resources. The content should covers the topic in depth, covering all potential questions users might asks. While writing content ask yourself does this content answers users’ search query accurately.

Engaging

Engaging readers with CTAs or sharable links increases your visibility and credibility.

Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content

When you search for information on Google, the search engine surfaces most relevant information in search results. Thinks about that how Google populated those information what factors does search engines considers when serving results to a search query. Google uses automated ranking systems to ranks web pages. The content that performs well on search engines that incorporates EEAT. Google’s search raters guidelines assess the content based on many factors. Google uses search raters guidelines as a measure against dishonest and accurate information. Google’s wants to serve users trustworthy results from authoritative sources who are experts in their subject matters. But how google finds your content as most trusted and reliable authoritative source.