In this Mother of All Onpage SEO Guides series of articles, I catalog all the crazy things I did to make the most comprehensive onpage SEO report possible today.
This first page you’re reading now is a preface. It contains topics such as:
- my qualifications for teaching this subject
- related skillsets that will be beneficial, such as AI and data scraping
- the current status of the SEO industry
- definition of terms for beginners
If you are moderately adept at SEO and would like to jump straight into the mechanics of implementing onpage SEO for your website, you can skip to Part 2 without fearing that you’re missing any vital information on how to do onpage SEO.
Here are the articles in this series:
If you simply would like me to perform a comprehensive onpage SEO report for your website, you can order one at this link, or contact me on Whatsapp here.
What is Onpage SEO?
On this website I primarily talk about data scraping, AI, business automation and also SEO. SEO stands for “search engine optimization”. SEO is what you do in order to rank highly in Google when someone searches in Google for terms that your website is about. There are two fundamental categories of things that can affect your SEO, internal factors and external factors.
Internal ranking factors would be things such as: (don’t feel bad if you don’t understand all the terms below, all will be explained)
- how you write your articles
- how in-depth you cover the topic throughout your website
- how you interlink between your articles, and what anchor text you use in those links
- how well you take advantage of elements such as titles, meta descriptions, header tags, microformats and other onpage ranking factors
- how well you establish EEAT (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness) in your subject matter
- how you structure your website, grouping topics into silos and how well your website sticks to a central theme
External ranking factors include things such as how often other websites link to your own, off-site demonstrations of authority, brand mentions, brand searches, social media validation and many other factors that have nothing to do with how you’ve built your website.
The primary difference between the two categories of SEO is that internal factors are things that you can change by editing your website, while external factors are not. In this article series I will only be discussing things you can edit on your own website to influence how you rank in Google — otherwise known as onpage SEO.
Who am I and Why Should You Listen to Me?
One of the elements in ranking well for onpage SEO, as mentioned above, is EEAT (experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness) on your subject matter. Here I’ll kill a few birds with one stone and show you how to implement this on your website — as it will help you rank better in Google as well as assure to your readers that they’re not wasting their time listening to someone who hasn’t a clue what they’re talking about.
For any other topic I cover on this website, you can be assured that you’re dealing with an expert immediately. I can teach you how to scrape data, and after a couple hours of playing around you will agree that I know what I’m talking about, because you see the results that quickly. The same goes for business automation or how to use AI — you can also implement the results of my tutorials almost immediately on these topics.
The same isn’t true for SEO.
SEO is a difficult and nuanced slog that can fail when you do everything right, or succeed when you do many things wrong. Advice that works today might not have worked a year ago and vice-versa.
There is no instant gratification for SEO in 2025. Changes you implement today might not even show a single change in your rankings until Google’s next algorithm update. Changes you implement might be exactly what your site needs, but if you’re lacking in other areas (proper backlinks, lack of brand mentions or bad performance metrics) you might not see a change in your rankings.
Not to mention, things continually get more difficult for SEO over time. Google has a new business model — that model is to keep people from leaving Google. Google doesn’t want to send clicks through to your website, they would much rather give a searcher that information directly than to give that visitor to you.
Google does this by offering AI-generated answers to questions. They directly provide information to those who are seeking it, instead of forwarding them to your website. This has caused a massive drop in traffic to websites who offer information and answers to questions.
Nonetheless, SEO remains a multi-billion-dollar industry. Businesses still need proper guidance when it comes to ranking their websites. But you should only listen to an expert, someone who has a proven track record and who knows what they’re talking about. Who am I and why should you listen to my advice on SEO?
My name is Kevin Hemminger. I’ve been doing SEO (for my own sites) since 2009. I’ve been a successful SEO for the last 16 years. Back in 2011, I started frequenting a website called blackhatworld.com, where I went by the user name phpbuilt. Since 2013 I’ve been consulting website owners on how to rank their own sites. I wrote several guides on SEO at that time, one in 2013 and another in 2015. I’ve consulted hundreds of businesses on SEO and can say that I received overwhelming feedback about how my guides helped people rank their websites in Google.
The guide you are currently reading is the 10 year anniversary update to my last guide, and is 100x more comprehensive.
Buck Up, Little Camper!
A good majority of those who find this onpage guide are probably looking to fix something that is broken. Perhaps you’ve lost a good chunk of change as Google has stopped favoring your website and you need to reverse the damage ASAP. Perhaps you’re even wondering if SEO is dead.
Again, SEO is a billion dollar industry. Here are some statistics taken from seo.com for 2025:
- Businesses spending $500 per month on SEO are 75% more likely to be dissatisfied than those spending at least $500 per month
- 74% of small businesses will invest in SEO
- 65% of small business owners have worked with at least one SEO provider
- 60% of small-to-midsized businesses that use SEO use pay-per-click advertising
- 40%+ of revenue is driven by organic traffic
- 38% of marketers cite budget as the biggest SEO challenge
- 30% of people would recommend their SEO provider to a friend or co-worker
- 2% of small businesses in the U.S. spend more than $25,000 annually on SEO services
- 14% of small businesses in the U.S. spend $5000 annually on SEO services
- $79 billion is overall spend on SEO services
- $497 is the average cost for monthly SEO services for U.S. small businesses
Although these statistics are primarily useful for SEO providers, you should take heart in knowing that everyone is in the same boat with Google and are not giving up. SEO is not dead. Though things are becoming more difficult, you can turn that into an advantage if you improve your skill stack and become better than those who won’t put in the effort.
Increase Your Skill Stack
Forgive me, as I’m now over 1000 words into this onpage SEO guide and have not yet mentioned a single tip on how to improve your SEO. Intensive training in onpage SEO starts in part 2 which you can start reading here. Yet, onpage SEO is not an isolated topic that someone can master without facing the elephant in the room, which is AI.
Do you have to learn AI to know onpage SEO? In my opinion, yes. In 2025, you need to learn how to use AI to remain competitive as an SEO. I will be discussing the use of AI extensively in this onpage SEO guide. It is a powerful tool that your competition is using, and if you aren’t staying on top of your game in regards to AI, you will be at an extreme disadvantage.
Throughout this guide, I will be explaining how to directly use AI — specifically OpenAI (ChatGPT) but you can find similar functionality in Grok or other AI providers. This won’t merely be in regards to generating content for your site, though that is what most often comes to mind as your competition stuffs Google’s index with AI-generated slop.
Instead, I’ll be showing you how to take advantage of AI in analyzing your competition, structuring your website, decannibalizing your content as well as generating proper content for your site. For those who aren’t afraid to improve their skill stack, I’ll show you how to do this step-by-step throughout this guide. For those who would rather pay a subscription fee to have it already done for them, I will recommend companies that offer comparable services. I’m always available as a consultant if you get stuck along the way.
Eggs in Multiple Baskets
In 2025, SEO is not dead. But AI could kill it. My goal is to not alarm you, but to prepare you by developing new skillsets that will allow you to flourish with, or without SEO. SEO is an industry that has been heavily influenced by AI already.
Here are some more stats about AI taking jobs:
Global and long-term estimates on AI replacing employees
- Goldman Sachs: AI could replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs worldwide by 2030, but it will also create new jobs.
- McKinsey & Company: Estimates that 400 to 800 million people globally may need to change occupations due to automation by 2030.
- PwC: Predicts that by the mid-2030s, up to 30% of jobs could be automatable.
- World Economic Forum: Projects that by 2025, 85 million jobs could be displaced by automation, while 97 million new jobs will be created, leading to a net positive effect.
- Long-term projections: Some forecasts suggest AI could automate 50% to 60% of jobs by 2040 and up to 80% by 2050, assuming steady innovation.
During the 1920s, the automobile replaced horses as a primary mode of transportation.
Think of all the industries that killed.
- Wagon and carriage manufacturing: Shops and factories that built wagons, carriages, and buggies closed as demand for these products evaporated.
- Farriers and blacksmiths: The need for horseshoeing declined significantly, displacing farriers. While some blacksmiths adapted to service and repair automobiles, the demand for traditional horse-related ironwork was no longer a major business.
- Saddlery and harness making: The production of saddles, bridles, harnesses, and other leather goods for controlling and adorning horses was no longer a viable industry.
- Horse breeders and traders: The market for breeding and selling horses for transportation purposes collapsed. The American Horse Exchange, a symbol of the horse-powered era, was replaced by office towers for automotive companies.
- Livery stables: These businesses housed and fed horses, and often rented them out for transportation. As private car ownership soared, livery stables became obsolete.
- Supporting agricultural industries: Farmers who grew hay and oats for horse feed lost a major market. The use of gas-powered tractors instead of horses for farming also displaced the agricultural economy that fed working animals.
- Manual labor: The need for people to care for, feed, and handle large numbers of urban horses dropped considerably. New jobs in driving, repair, and vehicle manufacturing replaced these roles.
To add insult to injury, I used AI to generate the above list. Out there, somewhere, someone thoughtfully put together a list of all the industries affected by horses being replaced by automobiles as a primary means of transportation, but they didn’t get my click. Instead, Google output the above result and I copied and pasted it.
As I teach you how to do onpage SEO, I will be providing instructions on how to use AI during the process. Sure, there are online services that already exist which can do many of the things I’ll be showing you to do directly with AI — but I hope you take the plunge and learning to use AI directly, instead of using paid services as a crutch. The process of learning to do onpage SEO with AI will open the door to doing many other things with AI. In the end, these skills can carry you over to new endeavors outside the scope of onpage SEO.
Metaphorically, instead of clinging to the saddle and harness industry, I’ll be showing you how to open a car dealership. The bulk of the content on my website is about data scraping, business automation and using AI. These skills will serve you well with performing onpage (and offpage) SEO. They will also give you a foundation to pivot away from onpage SEO if necessary.
But enough with lecturing. Let’s get started doing onpage SEO.