On-page SEO basics every business should own
You're publishing pages, refreshing the site, even paying for an SEO tool — and Google still sends almost no one. Nine times out of ten the gap isn't a mysterious backlink; it's the on-page fundamentals no one taught you to ship.
Good news: every fix below is free, takes minutes per page, and works in any CMS. Do them in order across the pages that matter and you'll outrank most of your local competitors, who almost certainly aren't.
1. Write a unique 50–60 character title tag
Every page needs its own title, written for a human and a search engine. "Home" is not a title. "Emergency plumbing repair in Austin — Smith & Co." is. Include the term you'd want to be found for and keep it under 60 characters so it doesn't get truncated.
2. Write a 140–160 character meta description that earns the click
Google sometimes rewrites it, but a sharp description still lifts click-through. Treat it as a tiny ad: what's on the page, who it's for, and why click now. Generic descriptions get generic results.
3. Use exactly one H1 that matches the topic
One H1 per page, and it should describe what the page is actually about — not your tagline, not your logo wordmark. Multiple H1s confuse both screen readers and crawlers.
4. Structure the page with real H2s and H3s
Use H2s for major sections and H3s underneath them. Don't skip levels because you like a font size. Clean heading hierarchy is also what gets your page picked up by AI search overviews and answer boxes.
5. Add descriptive alt text to every meaningful image
"Smiling dentist explaining a treatment plan" beats "IMG_4521.jpg" every time. Alt text helps low-vision visitors, gives search engines context they can't extract from a photo, and earns you image-search traffic.
6. Add three to five internal links per page
When a blog post mentions a service, link to that service page. When a case study references your process, link to the About page. Internal links tell Google which of your pages matter most.
7. Clean up your URL slugs
Short, lowercase, hyphenated, and descriptive: /seo-audit, not /page?id=72. Once a URL is indexed, don't change it without a 301 redirect.
8. Add a sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console
Generate /sitemap.xml, list every public URL, and submit it in Search Console. While you're there, request indexing on the three pages you most want ranked. It's free and most of your competitors haven't done it.
9. Write for humans first, then check keywords
Write the page you'd want to read. Then go back and make sure the words a customer would actually search for appear on it naturally. Keyword stuffing has been penalized for over a decade.
Want help implementing this on your site? Book a free 20-minute audit call and we'll point at the three on-page fixes most likely to move your rankings this quarter. Contact us to grab a slot.