Lesson 1
What On-Page SEO Is (and What It Isn’t)
What you’ll learn
By the end of this lesson, you’ll understand:
What on-page SEO actually refers to
Where it fits within the wider SEO picture
What this course will (and won’t) help you improve
What on-page SEO is
On-page SEO refers to everything you can control directly on a web page to help search engines understand what that page is about.
This includes things like:
- The page title
- Headings
- Written content
- Images and their descriptions
- Internal links to other pages on your site
On-page SEO is about clarity, not tricks.
You’re helping search engines interpret the same page a human visitor sees.
What on-page SEO is not
On-page SEO does not include:
- Backlinks from other websites
- Google Ads or paid traffic
- Server configuration or hosting performance
- Keyword tools, rankings software, or dashboards
- “SEO hacks” or shortcuts
Those areas may matter in other contexts, but they are outside the scope of what a website admin can safely control — and outside the scope of this course.
Why on-page SEO matters
Search engines don’t “see” a page the way humans do.
They rely on structure, context, and signals to understand what a page is about and when to show it.
Good on-page SEO:
- Reduces ambiguity
- Helps pages match the right searches
- Makes content easier to read and maintain
- Prevents accidental SEO mistakes
Importantly, it also helps people — clearer pages perform better regardless of algorithms.
A simple way to think about it
If you remember one thing, remember this:
On-page SEO is about making your page unambiguous.
One page.
One topic.
Clearly expressed.
Everything else in this course builds on that idea.