On-page work: the parts that still matter and the parts that never did
Most on-page advice is a decade old and was half wrong when it was new. A short list of things that genuinely help is easier to follow.
Most of the advice is old
On-page optimisation is the part of search work with the longest folklore. Practices that made sense against a fifteen-year-old ranking system are repeated as if nothing had changed, and a few of them were never true in the first place.
What follows separates the things with a documented purpose from the things people do because someone once wrote them down.
The parts with a real function
- A descriptive title. It tells a reader in a result list whether the page answers their question. That is its job, and it is a real one.
- A single, honest main heading. The page should be about what the heading says it is about.
- A sensible heading structure. It helps readers scan and assistive technology navigate. Both matter independently of search.
- Meaningful alternative text on images that carry information.
- Descriptive link text. “Read the guidance” beats “click here” for every reader, human or otherwise.
- A URL that stays put. Changing URLs breaks links; a stable address is worth more than a pretty one.
The folklore
| Habit | Why it persists | What is true |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword density targets | It was measurable | Never a documented target |
| Meta keywords tag | It once existed | Long ignored by major engines |
| Exact-match repetition | It read like optimisation | Reads badly to people |
| One page per keyword variant | It felt thorough | Splits the same topic thinly |
| Hidden text for engines | Short-term gain | Against published guidelines |
| Word-count minimums | Easy to check | Length is not the point |
Descriptions
A meta description does not determine ranking, and search engines frequently rewrite it using text from the page. Writing one is still worth a minute, because when it is used it is the sentence that persuades someone to click. Writing four hundred characters of it is not.
Internal links
The most underused on-page tool. Linking from a well-visited page to a related one helps readers find it and helps crawlers discover it. Doing this deliberately — a few relevant links per page, with descriptive text — costs nothing and consistently helps.