ivangdavila_seo/on-page.md

On-Page SEO Traps

Title Tag

• 50-60 chars MAX — Google truncates at ~60, shows "..." which hurts CTR
• Primary keyword in first 30 chars — attention drops after that
• NEVER repeat same keyword twice in title — looks spammy
• Brand name at END, not start — unless brand is the search term
• Pipe | or dash - as separator — avoid colons, look like error messages

Meta Description

• 150-160 chars — longer gets truncated, shorter wastes space
• Google often rewrites it — but well-written ones used ~70% of time
• Include primary keyword — gets bolded in search results
• Call-to-action works: "Learn how...", "Discover...", "Get started..."
• NEVER duplicate across pages — Google may show "no description available"

Headers

• ONE H1 per page — multiple H1s confuse hierarchy
• H1 ≠ Title tag — related but different, doubles keyword opportunities
• H2s for main sections, H3s for subsections — hierarchy matters for featured snippets
• Keyword variations in H2s — don't repeat exact primary keyword
• NEVER use H1 for logo or nav — semantic misuse

Keywords

• Primary keyword in: title, H1, first 100 words, URL, meta description
• Density under 3% — modern Google detects stuffing patterns
• LSI keywords (related terms) — signals topic depth, not just single keyword
• Long-tail in H2/H3 — captures "how to..." and question queries

Images

• Alt text describes image — "Golden retriever playing fetch" not "dog"
• Keyword in alt only if natural — forced keywords get penalized
• File names with hyphens: email-marketing-tips.jpg not IMG_4532.jpg
• Compress under 100KB — larger images kill page speed
• WebP format: 25-35% smaller than JPEG at same quality
• Lazy loading for below-fold images — improves LCP

URLs

• Short, descriptive, lowercase: /seo-guide/ not /page?id=123
• Hyphens between words: /email-marketing/ not /emailmarketing/
• No dates unless content is time-sensitive — allows evergreen updates
• No stop words unless needed for clarity — "how-to-seo" not "how-to-do-seo"
• NEVER change URLs without 301 redirect — breaks links, loses authority