Updated:
by Wayne Smith
On-page SEO remains fundamentally about demonstrating relevance: the degree to which a page aligns with a user’s intent and the entities behind their query. Without establishing this relevance, even well-linked pages may struggle to appear in search results. Backlinks primarily act as amplifiers of relevance rather than its source—though in practice, both backlinks and strong user engagement can often compensate for minor on-page SEO shortcomings.
Emergent vs. Proxy SEO Factors
SEO factors are often given human-readable names, which are subjective, whereas the underlying measurements are quantitative. For example, off-page SEO frequently refers to “popularity” or “authority,” but these concepts are actually proxies: backlinks serve as measurable indicators of popularity.
Emergent factors, on the other hand, arise naturally from system behavior rather than explicit programming. For instance, users tend to engage more with recognized brands or familiar sites. While brand recognition is not a directly programmed ranking signal, it becomes an emergent factor as search engines observe increased engagement, click-throughs, and repeat visits.
Query Research
SEO remains query-based at its core, but modern relevance is determined by how well a page represents the topics or entities connected to that query. Query terms guide on-page focus, though implementation varies with keyword competition and search intent.
Query research is also necessary to identify how layered AI interprets the search intent for a given query. It can also reveal the SERP features present for that query—such as featured snippets, carousels, or knowledge panels—which may push content below the fold, even if it ranks first, resulting in minimal clicks and actual views.
Marketing and Keyword Research focuses on identifying and prioritizing the keywords that best align the page’s purpose with user intent. Effective keyword research should be completed before content creation to ensure the query targets match both the marketing objective and the searcher’s informational or transactional intent.
Meta Content (title and description) and Above-the-Fold
It can be strategically useful to consider the page title and meta description as an extension of the above-the-fold content. These elements are often the first things a user sees in search results and help signal the page’s relevance. For optimal user engagement and relevance, the page’s meta content (title and description) should align closely with the above-the-fold content.
A key factor in evaluating above-the-fold performance is Navboost, which analyzes human behavior. For example, Navboost tracks when a user clicks a result but quickly returns to the search results because the page does not appear to address their query, then navigates to a different page. These behaviors indicate a lack of perceived relevance and can influence ranking adjustments.
Keyword Relevance
AI can improve search by helping search engines better understand content relevance. While it's still expensive to implement at scale, the cost is rapidly becoming more manageable.
Basic keyword optimization—though evolving—remains a core part of effective SEO. For the long game, using semantically related keywords and entities can help keep content evergreen and contextually relevant over time.
Even with AI, the page title, description, and above-the-fold content remain critical places for using keywords. People still scan these elements to judge relevance and decide what to click—and AI learns from those interactions.
LEDE: Above the Fold, Early in Content, and Predominant
Above-the-fold content and keyword prominence are key concepts in both website design and SEO. Query terms—or semantically related phrases—should be visible and noticeable within seconds of landing on the page. Typically, this means including them in both the main headline and the opening paragraph, often referred to as the LEDE. LEDEs help both users and search engines quickly understand the topic and relevance of the content.
Page Structure
Search engines have been analyzing page structure for a long time—going back as far as Inktomi (also known as HotBot). They look at where important keywords appear on the page and how prominently they’re used, such as in larger or more visible elements.
Headers, footers, and sidebars can be isolated from the main content by inspecting the page structure.
Today, search engines can even evaluate relevance in PDFs and digital books by using structural cues like headings, layout, and formatting.
Even without being able to read Romanian, structural clues in the document allow someone to identify its relevance to terms like "vizual," "Relevanța," and "Motoare de căutare" or "visual," "relevance," and "search engines." These cues are present in the headline and subheadings.
Mobile Friendliness
Today, Google renders pages as they appear on mobile devices to evaluate visual structure and usability. Ensuring that your pages display correctly on mobile is critical for on-page SEO and overall relevance.
Supplemental Content
Supplemental content refers to elements like PDFs, images, links, videos, audio, and other media that enhance the main content. This content is often embedded from its own URL or hosted externally.
Image relevance can be improved using the alt attribute, descriptive file names, and structured data (schema). A well-optimized image contributes to the page’s overall relevance, and in turn, the page provides context that improves the relevance of the image itself.
Image SEO – Relevancy Optimization
Supplement content like links to other web pages or PDFs may be self-explanatory, but using schema on the page containing the content can unambiguously provide a clue to their relevance. Adding relevancy to the page and citation.
Structured Data (Schema)
Schema: Content structure and supplemental content
Schema markup added to a page helps define its relevance by providing structured signals about the content. However, it's not necessary to include full schema markup for externally embedded supplemental content.
To avoid content cannibalization and maintain topical focus, it's best to include only the schema that directly supports the on-page content’s relevance to the supplemental media—whether that’s an image, video, or another embedded resource.
The relevance of the embedded resource itself is determined (upon confirmation) by the combination of all references to it across the web, including its own schema and how it's linked or cited elsewhere.
Schema types such as citation and mentions accept the CreativeWork property, which can include attributes like description, about, author, and more to clearly express content relevance.