What is OnPage.org?
Well. I presume that there’s no real need to introduce it here. There’s a good reason to presume that most of the readers of this blog already do know it. That being said, let me introduce in anyway:
OnPage.org is the most complete online technical SEO audit tool I have ever used. It makes crawling a website and analyzing the results a pleasure. It makes its optimization so much easier that I almost can’t believe that at some point in time in the past we were doing it without it. The data it provides is simply essential. This tool is a must-have.
But! Enough hype! Let’s get into details!
What features are there?
… well: into some of the details. Because – let’s face it – describing all of the OnPage’s features and possible uses would take a book worth of text.
Let’s start with some basics. As I have said, OnPage is an online SEO audit tool. Meaning: it can be accessed anytime, anyplace. Though there’s nothing particularly exceptional nor extraordinary to this fact – can’t imagine a SEO tool not being offered on a software as a service (SAAS) basis nowadays – but still: it’s worth the mention.
Once logged in, what’s there? The landing page looks like this:
The features are:
- Zoom (Which is the most important feature: one that allows deep monitoring of the page status in most all of its SEO aspects. I will write more on this feature below.)
- Focus (Allowing the analysis of the competing webpages in real-time, their actual and possible advantages, as well as their shortcomings. I will write more on this feature below: it’s incredibly deep and useful!)
- Impact (The newest OnPage feature, offering real ranking data of Google Search Console & detailed overviews of domain statistics, as well as some other functionalities.)
- TF-IDF (The TF-IDF algorithm – crucial for content optimization! – in a pill.)
- Keywords (Current rankings, competitor comparison, historical rankings.)
- Navigator (The best entry point for SEO beginners with a to-do list!)
- Monitoring (Which allows the monitoring of the website server’s performance. It also has its other uses.)
The features can be accessed directly from the landing page – or from the toolbar to the left side:
Let’s now have a look at the particular features and some of their uses. As I have said, to completely cover all of them would require me to write a book on them – instead, I am going to focus on the most important three: Zoom, Focus, and TF-IDF (along with Keywords). There are the features that I have found myself using most often.
OnPage Zoom
Zoom presents one with the most important results of the latest crawl.
(One can crawl and re-crawl the website at will – there’s no limit to the number of crawls!)
This is where OnPage really wins.
You can see the detailed reports on your page’s indexability, its content, assets, multilingual settings, links. You can review the sitemap, site performance, and the URL structure. There’s a lot of data there, waiting to be used.
Let me show you an example Zoom dashboard overview:
There’s even more data presented below:
From this board, you can see what aspects of the site demand your attention, an overview that will allow you to plan and organize the further page optimization process.
You can review each of the aspects presented on the dashboard.
An example look at this particular Content Aspect:
When you decide to review it, it looks like this:
There’s plethora of data presented there. There’s also a list of all the problematic subpages that need optimization below (in this case, there’s 17 of them, which is not that much – especially considering the size of the site at hand – but much, much often there is more, unfortunately, and that’s precisely why this particular feature is so useful).
Also! Notice the filters on the top of the screen! Just another example of how well-designed is the OnPage’s UI!
OnPage Focus
Focus is another great OnPage feature – one that allows you to review the page in realtime in terms of its problems, in terms of errors and shortcomings.
(Note that the fact that you can review any page means that you can also review your competitors.)
An example review looks like this:
Though in this case the site is all right, it is not uncommon for the list of errors and shortcomings to go on and on, and on. Focus finds them for you – and lets you focus on them to eliminate them one by one.
The detailed content review offers all the features of the most useful plugins – and more! A peek:
There’s also a v. detailed review of your keyword usage:
You can also check out how is your site performing on Mobile Phones, Social Media, and with Apps like iTunes, Google Play App, and Apple Web App (if applicable, if the particular app is linked to on your page).
OnPage TF-IDF
The importance of the TF-IDF algorithm is huge. In short, it is used to calculate the general relevance of the content that is present on your page. If you’re looking for an in-depth explanation, this one is the most extensive and accessible one.
The OnPage TF-IDF feature allows you to generate a detailed content report for any particular keyword to assess its TF-IDF average score.
The report looks like this:
Once it’s done, you can actually do a lot of things with it. I am not going to delve too deep into this matter here; instead, I’ll focus on two of the most important functions:
First, you can compare the average keyword TF-IDF score with its score on your website:
Which is more than useful (as, let’s face it, it’s one of the most important things when it comes to the site’s performance in Google and most other search engines).
Second, you can run a competition report, which looks like this:
The amount of data is astonishing, indeed. What’s more important, however, is the fact that you no longer have to use all the particular tools to gather it: it’s all here, in one place, condensed, but not overwhelming.
I am aware that on the screenshots presented above it can look like it was unintelligible; in fact, OnPage allow you to organize the data at will, as you see fit, making it suitable for your current needs. Thus, it can also look like this:
Summing up. The experience of using OnPage
Given the amount of features, I have no idea how is that possible, but OnPage.org is, in fact, really intuitive. This may be the result of it’s UI design; I’m not sure. The fact is that, using it, I have never encountered a problem; should there be any, the customer service is helpful and knowledgeable, and, what’s also important, v. nice. Though I had no problems, I’ve contacted it just to find out how will it perform; the answers I’ve received were both fitting and extensive – just what was needed to cover the question.
I have been using OnPage for quite some time now, and though I am finding its Zoom and Focus features most useful, I have no doubt that the rest of them is not a matter of good looks only; that being said, it’s the Zoom and Focus features that make OnPage stand apart from competitors. The data it provides is simply more relevant. It goes deeper with its analysis than any other tool I have happened to stumble upon (and there were a few, believe me). It really makes SEO look easy. And, as a matter of fact, it makes it much easier.
And much more effective.
There’s a free trial available here. You simply log in – and all the features are ready to use!
(And, in case you need it, there’s also extensive glossary provided on-site that is sure to help you get started.)
