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Years ago, I worked at an office where the only time I ever heard from my manager was if I fell short of expectations. Without positive feedback, I felt like all of my wins went unnoticed and that they didn’t matter nearly as much as my losses. This caused me to lose motivation and my productivity began to suffer. It also pushed me to leave the company and seek better opportunities elsewhere.

While it’s important to let employees know where there are areas that need improvement, it’s equally important to give positive feedback so they know where they shine. Giving positive feedback boosts morale, instills confidence, and motivates employees to do their best. It also helps you retain great people who will move your business forward.

A survey by the Society of Human Resource Management found that 80% of HR leaders work at organizations that have an employee recognition program.

Of those leaders, 89% reported their recognition program helped improve the overall employee experience. 86% said it improved employee relationships and 84% said it improved employee engagement.

There are many ways to give positive feedback, but first you must understand what it is.

What is positive feedback?

Positive feedback is the act of recognizing and praising someone for their accomplishments, strengths, and talents. Positive feedback tells an employee what they’re doing right and what they should continue to do.

“If you focus on what someone shouldn’t do without also touching on the things they should do or keep doing, you’re only providing half of an instruction,” says HubSpot’s Historical Optimization Team Manager Amanda Sellers. “Good constructive feedback paired with positive feedback, on the other hand, is a balanced way to paint a whole picture, resulting in more effective outcomes.”

In the workplace, positive feedback from leadership can come in many forms, such as congratulating someone on hitting an important milestone. It can also be in the form of highlighting an employee’s important contribution in a team assignment.

“My approach is that any time I get or have positive feedback about someone I work with, whether I’m their manager or peer, I pass it on,” says our Director of English Growth Aja Frost. “This is such a great way to help others understand how they’re perceived and recognize them for their work. I aim to be as specific as possible.”

How to Give Positive Feedback

Though every employee is different, it generally helps to do the following when giving positive feedback:

• Link the positive behavior to business results. For example, explaining that an employee’s understanding of social media algorithms has increased the company’s engagement across platforms.
• Reward them for their hard work with something you know they’d appreciate, such as a digital e-gift card from Rybbon or a gift from Reachdesk.
• Deliver the feedback as soon as possible after noticing the employee’s achievements or strength.
• Whenever possible or appropriate, deliver positive feedback in front of others.
• Be specific and detailed in your feedback. Include the who, what, where, and why of the matter, so the recipient can apply the feedback to future projects.

It’s also important to check in and ask about their preferences. In one of the earliest conversations I had with my manager at HubSpot, I was asked how I prefer to communicate and receive feedback. Did I prefer email, video call, virtual chat, or some other way? This has helped us communicate effectively and I definitely suggest asking your employees the same question early on.

Positive Feedback Examples

Of course not everyone knows the right thing to say in every situation, but don’t worry! Here are some examples of positive feedback that you can give in different scenarios to encourage your employees’ success.

1. When an Employee is Being a Team Player:

“I appreciate your commitment to keeping everyone on your team focused and up-to-date with their tasks. Thanks to your efforts, the project was completed on time and impressed our clients. Thank you so much for your hard work. That kind of team player mentality is an asset our company values highly.”

2. When an Employee Needs a Boost in Confidence:

“Hey John! You’ve been doing an excellent job lately. Since starting here, you have shown so much growth. The quality of your work improved and your ability to multitask has helped our projects run smoothly. Thank you for your hard work, and don’t hesitate to reach out if there’s anything I can help you with.”

3. When an Employee Hits a New Milestone:

“Congratulations to Sarah on leading her first social media campaign. To watch her grow from an assistant to the bold leader she is now has been an honor. I can’t wait to see more of her amazing ideas going forward.”

4. When an Employee Completes a Difficult Assignment:

“Thank you so much for completing this task. I understand it was more complicated than we initially thought and required more time. Your positive attitude through it all and your attention to detail is much appreciated. While this was your first time completing such a task, we knew you were the right person to take it on.”

5. When an Employee Handles Conflict in a Professional Manner:

“Thank you for resolving the issue with a disgruntled client today. It’s not easy to navigate conflict with an unhappy client, but you handled it with such grace. Conflict resolution is an important part of the job and you clearly demonstrated your skills in that area.”

6. When an Employee Helps a Coworker:

“I just want to thank Jeffery for training our new hire, Jessica, and helping her acclimate to both her new role and the company. Jeffery has made himself available for all of her questions and has provided excellent guidance. All this has made Jessica’s transition into the company seamless.”

7. When an Employee Takes on Additional Tasks Outside Their Role:

“I just want to give a shout out to Michael for taking it upon himself to assume some of the responsibilities of the assistant manager while we look for someone to fill the role. His proactiveness has helped us immensely, and because of that we’ve been able to dedicate time to finding a successful candidate for the role without falling behind on our initiatives.”

8. When an Employee Exceeds Expectations:

“I just want to congratulate Laura for finishing strong this quarter soaring past her goal. We initially wanted to increase our following on social media by 15%, but thanks to her hard work we increased by 30%.”

9. When an Employee Takes on More Responsibilities:

“Promoting you to director of sales has proven to be a great decision given how well you adapted to your new responsibilities. Your flexibility as you take on new tasks has really pushed the department forward. We can’t wait to see how you continue to grow in this new position.”

10. When an Employee has Submitted Outstanding Work:

“Excellent job on this report, Adrian! It’s clear you’ve taken our notes into consideration and have paid close attention to detail. The way you’ve organized your finding makes this report easy to break down with the rest of our team. Thank you for your hard work!”

Everyone has their own preference when it comes to receiving feedback. However, always remember to be timely, detailed, and sincere when giving positive feedback to your employees. By doing so, you’ll foster a workplace culture that promotes growth, high morale, and employee retention.

Workplace culture and strong internal relationships are undeniably critical for your company’s long-term success. Focusing your efforts on employee relations, and cultivating good relationships between employers and employees can help your Human Resources department mitigate conflict, build trust between team members, and decrease turnover rates.

If the term ‘employee relations’ makes you furrow your brows in confusion, we’re here to help. We’ll explain what employee relations is and why it’s important below.

Jump to:

What Employee Relations Is

Employee Relations Examples

Employee Relations Best Practices

What is employee relations?

Employee relations is a branch of human resources that deals with policies regarding your employees’ relationships with their employers, and each other.

Essentially, employee relations is any effort or programming a company implements to ensure their employees are treated fairly, feel safe, and are happy in their work environment. Additionally, employee relations cannot be successful unless employees feel there is a level of transparency from management.

Employee Relations Examples

Employee relations programming will vary from one company to the next, however, the issues they tackle are very similar. That said, there are a few common categories most fall under:

1. Unsafe Work Environment

Employers are tasked with providing a safe work environment for employees. If an employee is injured on the job or has an accident, the employer may be liable. Having safety protocols in place and communicating them to the team is a must.

2. Employee Performance

It’s not a fun conversation to have, but there will come a time when an employee’s performance is not up to company standards. Employee relations teams and managers may be tasked with creating a program to address underperformance to get employees back on track.

3. Pay Raises and Promotions

Employee relations may also be involved with career growth and development programs. They are often tasked with making sure pay and promotion guidelines are transparent and communicated properly so employees know what to expect.

4. Sexual Harassment

Employee relations may also work with HR to develop and implement policies surrounding sexual harassment and other forms of abuse. If you’ve ever taken a harassment course at work, chances are it was made possible by the employee relations team.

5. Conflicts Between Workers

While co-workers don’t have to be best friends, it’s important everyone treats each other with respect. Employee relations teams can establish conflict resolution and mediation frameworks to help employees resolve issues in a respectful manner.

6. Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity and inclusion programs allow employees to bring their whole selves to work. Employee relations teams are responsible for coming up with D&I policies and providing employees with the tools they need to create an environment where everyone feels welcome.

Employee Relations Best Practices

Riley Stefano, a Culture Content Creator at HubSpot, explains employee relations like this:

“At its core, employee relations is about trust and transparency. But that doesn’t just happen overnight — you have to build it. And every department, team, manager, and leader is responsible for building and adding to that culture of trust and transparency. In People Operations, we strive to create remarkable experiences for employees throughout their time at HubSpot so that they can do their best work and help HubSpot grow better.”

How can you ensure your employees can do their best work? By providing them with a work environment where they can thrive. Here are a few best practices to keep employee relations positive.

1. Encourage open dialog.

Employees should feel safe giving feedback, asking questions, and fleshing out ideas. This requires establishing trust. Instead of just saying “we welcome dialogue,” practice it.

Host a Q&A with team leadership and key stakeholders. Using anonymous surveys is also a great tool for getting honest feedback. Empower employees to ask for clarification and share ideas during meetings.

2. Establish a career development program.

When people feel like they have agency in the workplace and control of their career path, companies are more likely to retain them. According to LinkedIn employees that get a new role internally are 3.5x more likely to be engaged and those who participate in Learning and Development programs stay nearly 2x longer than those who do not.

3. Encourage and facilitate a work-life balance.

Work-life balance is a popular corporate catch-phrase, but how many workplaces actually embrace it? This doesn’t mean you have to offer unlimited paid leave, although that is a generous perk.

Facilitating work-life balance can look like:

• Offering a more flexible schedule.
• Not sending urgent emails outside of established work hours.
• Discouraging working after business hours and unpaid overtime.
• Respecting employee vacation time.
• Monitor scheduling and workloads to help prevent overwork.

Implementing these small changes will help your employees prevent burnout and make them more productive.

4. Embrace core values and company culture.

Keeping the company mission and values at the forefront of all initiatives will help create cohesive messaging in addition to promoting a sense of belonging. Employees will feel a sense of camaraderie knowing that everyone is working toward the same goal.

5. Lead with empathy.

As a core component of HubSpot’s culture code, empathy is a strength. It’s not just an important attribute for external business needs, but internally with your coworkers as well. Approaching employee relations from the perspective of an employee will help you develop programs and policies that are more effective.

Stefano adds, “To cultivate strong employee relations, we have to have empathy. We have to listen, share information, take feedback seriously, and adapt with our employees to maintain long-lasting and trustworthy relationships with all of our employees globally.”

How to Implement Programming

At HubSpot, employee relations includes utilizing HR Business Partners and implementing culture programming and events to help build stronger relationships with HubSpot employees.

However, employee relations programming might look different at your company. Perhaps your employee relations efforts include ensuring a good work-life balance for employees, or giving each employee stock in the company, so they are treated as stakeholders in the business.

Alternatively, perhaps you hire an employee relations manager to provide guidance on new and existing contracts and policies so that you can ensure each employee is treated fairly and feels safe in the workplace. Perhaps your employee relations manager can also gather employee feedback, and use it to create new benefits packages that incentivize and properly reward employees for their hard work.

It’s critical you take the time and effort to ensure you’ve cultivated strong relationships between employers and employees. If your employees respect leadership, they’re more likely to work harder, communicate better, and feel more engaged at work. All of these things can motivate employees to go above and beyond in their roles.

Positive Employee Relations is Key to Success

Ultimately, a company can’t be successful unless there’s a universal alignment of vision, goals, and purpose between employers and employees — and that alignment doesn’t happen naturally. It must be cultivated, in large part through strategic employee relations efforts.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in January 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Giving your two weeks notice is never easy, particularly if you have a good relationship with your boss and colleagues, or you feel they’ve invested time and energy into your professional development.

If you’re wondering how to give two weeks notice without hurting your relationship with your employer, you’re in luck. There are particular actions you can take to ensure you leave a good final impression with your current employer.

Leaving your current company respectfully and thoughtfully can ensure better long-term connections and references — and, even if you’re switching industries, you never know who could help you down the road. Plus, it’s the courteous thing to do.

Here, we’ll explore the best way to give your two weeks’ notice to maintain a positive relationship with your old employer, while ensuring a seamless transition into your next role.

What is a two weeks notice?

A two weeks notice is when you let your current employer know that you will be resigning from the company in two weeks. It’s a standard method of resignation that can help you leave the company on good terms.

It’s important to remember, however, that if your employment contract or union agreement clearly states how much notice you need to give before resigning, abide by that agreement. If not, two weeks notice is generally accepted as the norm.

In the case of the latter, if your employee asks you to stay longer than the two weeks, you can do so but you are not obligated to unless your employment contract states otherwise.

How to Give Two Weeks Notice

While it can be nerve wracking to give your two weeks notice, it doesn’t have to be complicated. Remember to keep your resignation simple. You may feel like you need to reveal all the details behind your choice to resign, but you are not obligated to share additional information with your manager. All they need to know are the main paint points of interest that pertain to the company itself.

In addition to keeping the conversation simple, follow these six steps to make your resignation easy for both you and your employer.

Step One: Organize an in-person meeting with your boss.

Once you’ve officially signed a contract with your new employer and know your start date, you’re ready to give your two weeks’ notice. The first thing you’ll want to do is write a resignation letter (templates and samples can be found here).

Once you have the letter in-hand, email or slack your manager and set up a time to meet. Say something like, “Hi, I have something I’d like to discuss with you. Do you have thirty minutes over the next couple of days to meet?”

Avoid telling colleagues about your departure until you’ve spoken with your manager. Even if you have a best friend at work, it’s critical your manager hears the news from you. If they hear the news from other employees first, it signals a lack of trust and respect and could harm a relationship you put a lot of effort into building.

Step Two: During the meeting, offer a transition strategy.

When you sit down with your manager, be succinct and clear. Rambling or offering a long speech will only make the conversation more awkward.

Say something like, “I wanted to meet with you today to let you know I’ve been offered a position at another company, and it’s an opportunity I can’t pass up. I am giving my two weeks’ notice. I want you to know this wasn’t an easy decision to make, and I’m so grateful for the guidance and growth opportunities you’ve given me.”

It’s important you don’t focus on the exciting opportunities of your new role. During this meeting, your primary goal should be to express a level of appreciation and gratitude for everything your manager has done to help you grow.

Additionally, it will help alleviate your manager’s stress over losing you if you come prepared with tangible actions you plan to implement to help with the transition. For instance, you might say something like, “During my final two weeks, I plan to help you search for a replacement,” or “I will create a guidebook to help the next person take over my current projects.”

Finally, hand over your resignation letter. The letter will make your two weeks’ notice official.

Step Three: Be prepared for a counter-offer.

You don’t want to be caught off guard if your manager suddenly tells you they will boost your salary, or move you to another role on another team, if you agree to stay. Before you meet with your manager, consider how you’ll respond if they provide a counter-offer.

Take some time to consider why you’re leaving your current role, and what your next role is providing. If there are certain circumstances in which you’d stay at your current company, make them clear to your manager, and only stay if you can get those specific promises in writing.

Of course, this might be impossible if you’ve already signed a contract with the new employer. And, even if you’ve only verbally accepted the offer, changing your mind will likely burn bridges with your new company, so you’ll want to think carefully about your reputation before doing so.

Ideally, if there are certain circumstances that could greatly improve your satisfaction in your current role, it’s better if you approach your manager with those requirements before you sign another contract. You can make it clear that if those needs aren’t met, you’ll begin considering other opportunities.

Step Four: Know the details regarding benefits.

It’s critical you know your options regarding benefits, health insurance, pension, and 401(K). It can be confusing to transfer benefits or healthcare from one company to another. Additionally, your new company might not be ready to offer new coverage immediately.

If this is true, you have alternative options — for instance, if you’re facing a gap in health coverage, COBRA allows you to continue your current health insurance for 18 months, at your own expense.

Take a look at “What Happens to Your Benefits When You Leave Your Job” by Northwestern Mutual, to learn more information regarding your options.

Step Five: Don’t check out—work just as hard in your last two weeks.

It will be impossible to maintain a positive relationship with your employer after you leave, if you check out during your last two weeks and put in minimal effort. First, your employer is still paying you, so they deserve your utmost effort. Second, the effort you put into your role now will go a long way towards sustaining better connections down the road.

Coworkers will remember what you were like at the end. Give them something good to remember. You never know how your positive reputation can help you network in the long-run.

You’ll want to work hard to tie up loose ends and make it easy for the next person to take your place. For instance, perhaps you’ll create a document so your team members know where certain files are, or where you left off on a project.

Additionally, you’ll still want to arrive on time (if not early), leave at an appropriate time, and remain a team player. If the rest of your team is staying late to finish a project before a deadline, you should, too.

Step Six: Offer warm and heartfelt goodbyes.

In today’s business world, it’s all about who you know. You never know if a colleague on your team will end up helping your younger brother get a job or become a freelancer for your new company a few years later. Nurturing those relationships is critical to ensuring success throughout your entire career.

Two Week Notice Examples

It can be difficult to find the right words when you’re resigning, so if you need a little guidance, here are some two week notice examples to keep in mind:

1. Hardcopy

May 2, 2022

John Smith

Regional Manager

XYZ Company

456 Laura Street

Jacksonville, Florida

Dear Mr. Smith,

I, Jane Doe, would like to inform you that I am resigning from the position of Assistant Regional Manager at XYZ Company, effective two weeks from this date. My last day will be May 16, 2022.

The past ten years with this company have been incredibly rewarding. I’ve enjoyed working for you, and I’m grateful to have been a part of an outstanding team that has experienced so much growth and success over the years. Thank you for the amazing opportunities you have provided me.

I will continue to complete all of my tasks with the utmost care and detail until my last day. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to make the transition go as smoothly as possible.

I wish you and the company all the best.

Sincerely,

Signature (hard copy letter)

Jane Doe

jane.doe@gmail.com

2. Email

Subject: Resignation Letter – Jane Doe (Assistant Regional Manager)

Dear Mr. Smith,

Please accept this as my formal resignation from the position of Assistant Regional Manager at XYZ Company. My last day will be May 16, 2022, two weeks from today.

My time with the company has been very rewarding and I’m grateful to have been a part of such an outstanding team of marketers. Thank you for the amazing opportunities you have provided me.

In the meantime, I will continue to fulfill all my responsibilities as the assistant regional manager until my last day. Please let me know what I can do to make this transition go as smoothly as possible for you and the team.

I wish you and the company all the best.

Kind regards,

Jane Doe

jane.doe@gmail.com

3. If You Want to Include Where You’re Headed Next

Dear Mr. Smith,

I would like to inform you that I am resigning from the position of Assistant Regional Manager at XYZ Company. My last day will be May 16, 2022, two weeks from today.

My time with the company has been very rewarding and I’m grateful to have been a part of such an outstanding team of marketers. Thank you for the amazing opportunities you have provided me.

I am leaving the company to pursue my masters degree at New York University and to be closer to my family.

In the meantime, I will continue to fulfill all my responsibilities as the assistant regional manager until my last day. Please let me know what I can do to make this transition go as smoothly as possible for you and the team.

I wish you and the company all the best.

Kind regards,

Jane Doe

jane.doe@gmail.com

When the day comes for you to say goodbye, you should take the time to send thoughtful goodbye messages to your colleagues. You might even send out a farewell email to the team.

Alternatively, you could consider writing a handwritten note or personalized email to members of your team to whom you feel particularly close. Warmly wish them well, and provide contact information like an email or LinkedIn account, so you can stay in touch.

On-page SEO has the power to bring countless new visitors — and customers — right to your website.

Additionally, on-page SEO is also completely up to you: You get to establish what the topic and/or goal of each page will be. You get to decide on the target audience for that page. And you get to choose the target keywords and phrases you want to focus on.

This can be intimidating and empowering at the same time. If you’re unsure how to get started, we’ve built this on-page SEO checklist to help guide you.

Jump To:

What is On-Page SEO?

Why On-Page SEO is Important

On-Page SEO Elements

On-Page SEO Checklist

Google’s algorithm ranks your website on three main factors: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO:

• We’ll cover on-page SEO elements below.
• Off-page SEO refers to social sharing, external linking, and more.
• Technical SEO refers to all the SEO elements not included in on-page and off-page practices, such as structured data, site speed, and mobile readiness — the more technical parts of SEO.

Note: This SEO “trilogy” isn’t always divided into three clean sections; some of these SEO elements will overlap. You’ll see how and why throughout this piece.

Why is on-page SEO important?

On-page SEO is important because it tells Google all about your website and how you provide value to visitors and customers. It helps your site be optimized for both human eyes and search engine bots.

Merely creating and publishing your website isn’t enough — you must optimize it for Google and other search engines in order to rank and attract new traffic.

On-page SEO is called “on-page” because the tweaks and changes you make to optimize your website can be seen by visitors on your page (whereas off-page and technical SEO elements aren’t always visible).

Every part of on-page SEO is completely up to you; that’s why it’s critical that you do it correctly. Now, let’s discuss the elements of on-page SEO.

All on-page SEO elements fall into three main categories:

• Content elements
• HTML elements
• Site architecture elements

You’ll see these elements divided into sections below.

Content Elements

Content elements refer to the elements within your site copy and content. In this section, we’ll focus mostly on crafting high-quality page content that benefits your visitors and tells Google that your website provides value.

1. High-Quality Page Content

Page content is the heart of on-page SEO. It tells both search engines and readers what your website and business are all about.

The first step to creating high-quality content is choosing relevant keywords and topics. Conduct keyword research by searching Google for terms and seeing what surfaces for competitors and other websites. You can also use tools like Ahrefs, AnswerthePublic, and UberSuggest.

Also, read our Beginner’s Guide on How to Do Keyword Research for SEO.

Next, consider how your page content falls into the buyer’s journey and visitors’ search intent. These will impact how you will use your keywords and what types of content you will create:

Stage in the Buyer’s Journey	Suggested Content/Website Pages
Awareness	Blog posts, videos homepage
Consideration	Buyer’s guides, case studies about page
Decision	Product demos, comparison tools product or pricing pages, contact page

Now, it’s time to write your page content or clean it up if you’re currently auditing your on-page SEO.

Here are a few best practices for writing high-quality page content (we’ll touch on some of these in more detail below, in our Checklist):

• Incorporate short and long-tail keywords naturally.
• Add engaging and relevant visual content.
• Write for your specific buyer persona(s).
• Actively solve your audience’s problem.
• Develop content people will share and want to link to.
• Optimize for conversions with CTAs to offers and product pages.

Page content is your opportunity to communicate value to Google and your site visitors; it’s the heart of the on-page SEO process. All other on-page SEO elements stem from high-quality page content, so invest ample resources to develop and optimize it.

HTML Elements

HTML elements refer to the elements in your source code.

Note: To see the source code for any page in your browser, click View > Developer > View Source in the top menu.

2. Page Titles

Your website page titles (also known as title tags) are one of the most important SEO elements.

Titles tell both visitors and search engines what they can find on the corresponding pages.

To ensure your site pages rank for the proper intent, be sure to include the focus keyword for each page in the title. Incorporate your keyword as naturally as possible.

Here are some best practices for when developing a page title:

• Keep it under 60 characters (per Google’s update) to ensure that your titles display correctly. Although Google doesn’t have an exact character limit, its display titles max out at 600 pixels. Keeping your titles at 60 characters or less ensures the title won’t be cut off in search results.
• Don’t stuff the title with keywords. Not only does keyword-stuffing present a spammy and tacky reading experience, but modern search engines are smarter than ever — they’ve been designed to specifically monitor for (and penalize!) content that’s unnaturally stuffed with keywords.
• Make it relevant to the page.
• Don’t use all caps.
• Include your brand in the title, i.e. “The Ultimate Guide to On-Page SEO in 2022 — HubSpot Blog“.

Check out our free data-driven guide to writing effective page titles.

3. Headers

Headers, also known as body tags, refer to the HTML element <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, and so on.

These tags help organize your content for readers and help search engines distinguish what part of your content is most important and relevant, depending on search intent.

Incorporate important keywords in your
headers, but choose different ones than what’s in your page title. Put your most important keywords in your <h1> and <h2> headers.

4. Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are the short page descriptions that appear under the title in search results. Although it’s not an official ranking factor for search engines, it can influence whether or not your page is clicked on — therefore, it’s just as important when doing on-page SEO.

Meta descriptions can also be copied over to social media when your content is shared (by using structured markup, which we talk about below), so it can encourage click-throughs from there, too.

Here’s what makes for a good meta description:

• Keep it under 160 characters, although Google has been known to allow longer meta descriptions. (Note
• Include your entire keyword or keyword phrase.

• Use a complete, compelling sentence (or two).
• Avoid alphanumeric characters like —, &, or +.

5. Image Alt-text

Image alt-text is like SEO for your images. It tells Google and other search engines what your images are about … which is important because Google now delivers almost as many image-based results as they do text-based results.

That means consumers may be discovering your site through your images. In order for them to do this, though, you have to add alt-text to your images.

Here’s what to keep in mind when adding image alt-text:

• Make it descriptive and specific.
• Make it contextually relevant to the broader page content.
• Keep it shorter than 125 characters.
• Use keywords sparingly, and don’t keyword stuff.

6. Structured Markup

Structured markup, or structured data, is the process of “marking up” your website source code to make it easier for Google to find and understand different elements of your content.

Structured markup is the key behind those featured snippets, knowledge panels, and other content features you see when you search for something on Google. It’s also how your specific page information shows up so neatly when someone shares your content on social media.

Note: Structured data is considered technical SEO, but I’m including it here because optimizing it creates a better on-page experience for visitors.

Site Architecture Elements

Site architecture elements refer to the elements that make up your website and site pages. How you structure your website can help Google and other search engines easily crawl the pages and page content.

7. Page URLs

Your page URLs should be simple to digest for both readers and search engines. They are also important when keeping your site hierarchy consistent as you create subpages, blog posts, and other types of internal pages.

For example, in the above URL, “blog” is the sub-domain, “hubspot.com” is the domain, “sales” is the directory for the HubSpot Sales Blog, and “startups” indicates the specific path to that blog post.

Here are a few tips on how to write SEO-friendly URLs:

• Remove the extra, unnecessary words.
• Use only one or two keywords.
• Use HTTPS if possible, as Google now uses that as a positive ranking factor.

8. Internal Linking

Internal linking is the process of hyperlinking to other helpful pages on your website. (See how the words “internal linking” are linked to another HubSpot blog post in the sentence above? That’s an example.)

Internal linking is important for on-page SEO because internal links send readers to other pages on your website, keeping them around longer and thus telling Google your site is valuable and helpful.

Also, the longer visitors are on your website, the more time Google has to crawl and index your site pages. This ultimately helps Google absorb more information about your website and potentially rank it higher on the search engine results pages.

Download our free guide to Internal Linking for SEO.

9. Mobile Responsiveness

Google started favoring sites that are optimized for faster mobile speeds — even for desktop searches.

Mobile responsiveness matters.

It’s critical to choose a website hosting service, site design and theme, and content layout that’s readable and navigable on mobile devices. If you’re not sure about your own site’s mobile readiness, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

10. Site Speed

Whether viewed on a mobile device or desktop, your site must be able to load quickly. When it comes to on-page SEO, page speed counts big-time.

Google cares about user experience first and foremost. If your site loads slowly or haphazardly, it’s likely your visitors aren’t going to stick around — and Google knows that. Moreover, site speed can impact conversions and ROI.

Check your website’s speed anytime using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. If your website is movin’ slow, check out 5 Easy Ways to Help Reduce Your Website’s Page Loading Speed.

Note: Mobile responsiveness and site speed are considered technical SEO, but I’m including them here because optimizing them creates a better on-page experience for visitors.

Now that you understand the different on-page SEO elements, let’s talk through the steps of auditing and improving your on-page SEO.

If you’ve been in search of a solution for organizing and tracking the various on-page SEO elements, you’re in luck. The HubSpot marketing team released an updated version of our On-Page SEO Template, an Excel document that allows you to coordinate pages and keywords — and track changes — all in one place.

Download Now: On-Page SEO Template

In this section, we’ll be using this template as a guide as we walk you through a checklist for your on-page SEO management, step by step. Download the template now and follow along.

Note: The fictional website “http://www.quantify.ly” will be used as an example throughout this post. It’s simply meant to help you imagine how your own website will fit into the template.

1. Crawl your website.

Get an overview of all of your website pages that search engines have indexed. For HubSpot customers, our Page Performance tool (under Reports) will allow you to do this. If you’re not using HubSpot, you can try using a free tool like Xenu’s link crawler.

After crawling your site and exporting the results into an Excel (or .csv) file, there will be three key columns of data that you should focus on:

1. The web address (a.k.a. URL)
2. The page title
3. The page meta description

Copy and paste these three columns into your template.

The URL should be pasted into column B, the page title into column C, and the description into column E.

2. Conduct an SEO audit and define your site architecture.

Now that you have a basic index of your site in the template, you’ll want to organize and prioritize your web pages. Start by defining where within your site architecture your existing pages currently sit.

Do this in column A. Note whether a page is your homepage (ideally you’ll only have one of those), a page in your primary (or secondary) navigation menu, an internal page, and so on.

3. Update URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions.

Review your current URLs, page titles, and meta descriptions to see if they need updating.

(This is the beauty of using a template to organize your SEO: You get a broad overview of the type of content you have on your website.)

Notice how column D and column F automatically calculate the length of each element. The recommended length for page titles is anything under 60 characters. (And, actually, a quick and easy optimization project is to update all page titles that are longer than 60 characters.)

The recommended length for page meta descriptions is 155-160 characters. This is the perfect length to ensure none of the description is cut off by the ellipses. Make sure you’re not too repetitive with keywords in this space. Writing a good meta description isn’t tough, but it deserves just as much consideration as the page content itself.

(Note: For some sites, you may also have to update the URLs, but that’s not always the case and thus was not included as part of this optimization template.)

4. Make sure your keyword is in your URL.

As we mentioned above, add your keyword to your URL. For example, imagine you own a hot yoga studio called ADYoga. You have a web page that includes videos of your classes. The keyword for this page is “hot yoga online classes” — so, you’d want to include that keyword in your URL. The URL for this web page may look like this: https://ift.tt/xMCVk6R.

5. Include your keyword throughout your web page.

In addition to your URL, you’ll want to add your keyword throughout your web page(s). This includes your title and headers. Sprinkle your keyword throughout your content as well where it fits naturally.

6. Track keywords and topics for each page.

Think of your target keyword as the designated topic for a particular page. If you’re using the HubSpot template, In column O, define just one topic per page.

By doing this, you’ll be able to go more in-depth and provide more detailed information about that topic. This also means that you are only optimizing for one keyword per page, meaning you have a greater chance to rank for that keyword.

There are, of course, a few exceptions to this rule. Your homepage is a classic example. The goal of your homepage is to explain what your entire website is about, and thus you’ll need a few keywords to do that. Another exception is overview pages like services and product pages, which outline what all of your products and services may be.

7. Don’t keyword stuff.

We just covered many examples in which keywords are both helpful and necessary for SEO purposes. However, one mistake many first-timers make when improving their on-page SEO is “keyword stuff”.

Keyword stuffing can be detrimental to your website and web page’s SEO and it can feel spammy to readers/ visitors.

8. Establish value propositions for each page.

A very important next step, which is often overlooked, is establishing a value proposition for each page of your website. Each page should have a goal aside from just ranking for a particular term.

If you’re using the template, you’ll do this in column G.

9. Define your target audience.

Define your target audience — do you have a single buyer persona or multiple personas? Keep this persona in mind as you optimize your site’s pages. (Remember, you are optimizing for humans, too — not just search engine robots.)

In column H of our template, you’ll have the opportunity to define your page’s target audience.

10. Plan new page titles.

Now that you’ve documented your existing page titles and have established value propositions and target audiences for each of your pages, write new page titles (if necessary) to reflect your findings.

You can do this in column K of the template — and double-check each title length in column L.

People usually follow the formula of “Keyword Phrase | Context.” The goal of the page title is to lay out the purpose of the page without being redundant. You should also keep the additional recommendations we made above related to titles.

11. Add new meta descriptions.

As we covered above, meta descriptions should be a short, declarative sentence that incorporates the same keyword as your page’s title.

It should not reflect the content verbatim as it appears on the page. Get as close as you can to the 150-character limit to maximize space and tell visitors as much as possible about your page.

If you need to create new meta descriptions, do so in column M of the template.

12. Review and edit page content as needed.

Good copy needs to be thorough, clear, and provide solutions … so, be compelling! Write for your target audience and about how you can help them. Compelling content is also error-free, so double-check your spelling and grammar.

Aim to have at least 500 words per page, and format content to make it easier to read and digest with the use of headers and subheaders.

Columns P through R can be used to keep track of changes that you’ve made to your content or to note where changes need to be implemented.

13. Incorporate visual content.

Content can be more than just text, so consider what kind of visual content you can incorporate into each page (if it adds value and serves a purpose, of course). Columns S and T allow you to note which visual elements need to be added. When adding an image to a page, be sure to include a descriptive file name and image alt-text.

14. Optimize your visual content.

We talked earlier about image alt text. You’ll want to optimize your visual content this way — and be sure to include your keyword in your image alt text. It’ll help with the page’s SEO as well as offer the potential to rank in image search (e.g. on a search engine image results page or image carousel).

15. Add internal links.

As mentioned earlier, incorporating links throughout your pages is a must, but it’s often something that’s easily overlooked.

Make sure that your anchor text includes more than just your keywords. The goal isn’t to stuff in as many keywords as possible, but to make it easy for people to navigate your site.

Use columns U through W to plan for these elements if you don’t already have them, or to document how you’ll improve them.

16. Include external links.

It may seem counterintuitive to include external links throughout your page considering we just covered multiple reasons why internal linking is so important for on-page SEO. However, external links are also important.

By externally linking, to credible and trustworthy sites, Google will know your page is also credible and trustworthy. Not only does Google want to know your site is well-referenced, but your visitors do, too.

17. Optimize for conversions.

If you’re also not optimizing your site to increase the number of leads, subscribers, and/or customers you’re attracting … you’re doing it wrong.

Remember that each page of your website presents a conversion opportunity. That means every page of your website should include at least one call-to-action (CTA), though many pages may have multiple CTAs.

Columns X through AF allow you to plan for conversions.

Be sure that your site has a mix of CTAs for different stages of the flywheel.

(Note: The On-Page SEO Template refers to the stages of the buying funnel — top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel. If you are a HubSpot customer, you can even use Smart Content to display these specific CTAs only to people in a specific part of the funnel.)

Also, as you add, edit, or update CTAs, be sure to note conversion rate changes in columns Z, AC, and AF.

Put Your On-Page SEO to Work

Once you finalize your SEO plans, implement these changes on your website or pass them along to someone to implement for you. This will take time to complete, so aim to work on 5 to 10 pages per week.

Remember: SEO is not a one-and-done deal. It’s something you should continually improve upon. You should treat this On-Page SEO Template as a living, breathing document that will help guide your SEO strategy for months (or years) to come.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in October 2012 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.