Page-level standards for SEO

Overview

Page-level standards are intended to ensure priority web pages are optimized for visibility, usability, and ranking in search engines by focusing on important SEO page components including:

• URL structures
• Metadata: HTML titles and descriptions
• H1 (Title) and other headers
• Teaser copy that displays between the title and the opening paragraph of a page
• Body copy
• Internal links and anchor text
• Images, videos and alt text

URL structures

The URL is the first element of the page that a search engine has access to. URLs with the most relevance to the topic being searched are usually ranked highest.  The URL structure includes the domain, the path, optional parameters and sometimes anchor tags.  For pennmedicine.org domain, the URL path aligns to the Information Architecture (IA) that was revamped in 2024.

Maintaining a logical URL hierarchy ensures better crawling by search engines. For  pennmedicine.org, the first element of the path of the URL aligns to page types for specific types of content.  For instance, content about conditions we treat at Penn Medicine is found under the path of https://www.pennmedicine.org/conditions.

Follow these standards for pages on Penn Medicine digital properties:

• Keep the URL path short, simple and descriptive of the page intent.
• Align the URL path with the page title to ensure the topic of the page is clear and that keywords match across both elements. Note: While the presence of keywords in the URL is a signal, it is considered a very lightweight ranking factor today. The most important benefit of a keyword-rich URL is for the users to quickly understand the content of the page from the URL alone.
• Be mindful of crawl depth. Deeply nested pages (pages with multiple parent pages in their URLs and a higher crawl depth away from the root domain) are typically more difficult to find by search engines and users.

Learn more about URLs in our site architecture standards.

Metadata: HTML titles and descriptions

Meta titles and descriptions are HTML tags that describe to search engines what a page is about. These tags control the titles and teaser information shown for organic webpages in the search engine results page (SERP) but are not displayed on the page itself.

• Meta titles remain one of the most important on-page ranking factors, acting as a direct signal to search engines about the page's core topic.
• Meta descriptions are not a direct ranking factor but are crucial for encouraging user clicks from the SERP. An effective meta description serves as a mini-advertisement for your page.

Meta titles and descriptions should:

• Clearly, concisely and accurately summarize the page intent.
• Use unique titles and descriptions for each page.
• Follow character limitations set by Google. For pennmedicine.org, character limits are managed in SiteCore and in some cases are more restrictive than Google to complement our design standards.
• Include the primary keyword from your research naturally in the title, preferably near the beginning. In the meta description, use the primary keyword along with secondary or long-tail keywords to provide context and increase relevance. The focus is on natural language, not keyword stuffing.
• Refer to Penn Medicine as "Penn Medicine" in metadata, not just "Penn".
• For pages prioritized for SEO on pennmedicine.org, include Penn Medicine branding at the end of HTML titles when character limits allow. Do not use other branding. For example, for a page on the different varieties of Neuroendocrine Tumors, the title tag “Types of Neuroendocrine Tumors (NETs) | Penn Medicine” would be ideal. Note that no additional or alternative branding for a specific center or location are included.

H1 (Title) and other headers

Headers hold descending authority with search engines: H1 with the most, H2 second, H3 third, and so on. This hierarchy is a critical organizational signal that helps search engines understand the structure of your content and how different sections relate to the main topic. All headers should utilize the sentence case capitalization format as defined in the Penn Medicine Style Guidelines.
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H1 header

An H1 header is the page title on the page and also the largest size text on the page. The H1 header should:

• Clearly, concisely and accurately summarizes the page topic and intent.
• Use the same or similar page title used for the meta title.
• Be between 20 and 70 characters with prescribed lengths defined by page type for pennmedicine.org pages.
• Only appear once per page; while modern HTML allows for more, the standard practice for SEO remains one H1 to signal the page's single, primary topic.
• Use the primary keyword from your research.
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H2 headers

H2 headers act as subtitles dividing the body copy into sensible sections and are the second largest size text on the page. H2 headers should:

• Clearly, concisely, and accurately summarize the particular section’s topic
• Use the primary and/or secondary (supporting) keywords from your research naturally within the section headers
• Be ordered in a logical flow that guides users through the content in a sensible way
• Break up long blocks of text to make the content easy to scan and digest for users

Teaser copy

Teaser copy, different from the meta description, is used only for internal search and navigation descriptions to give a brief summary of the page. It's crucial for user experience (UX) and navigation because it helps users find what they're looking for once they are already on your website. Teaser copy should:

• Clearly describe the topic of a page before users click
• Use language that is unique from the meta description or another page’s teaser copy
• Be concise and limited to 250-characters or a more conservative limit enforced by SiteCore
• Not include branding as teaser copy is displayed to users that already have entered the website, therefore branding is not required

Note that for pennmedicine.org, the teaser copy is used on article pages and is referred to as dek in the Penn Medicine style guidelines.

Body copy

Body copy plays a significant role in helping search engines understand the content to improve ranking for a page. Always refer to the content guidelines in these web standards when creating or updating body copy.  For SEO, also following this guidance:

• Naturally integrate your target keyword(s) within the first section of the body copy to establish the page's topic and intent
• Front-load the most important and useful information for your user, ensuring it addresses their search query immediately. This often aligns with a natural inclusion of important keywords.
• Utilize keyword variation, synonyms, and related terms to avoid keyword stuffing and create natural-sounding copy
• Focus on content depth and value rather than a specific word count (an outdated practice) until you have thoroughly covered the topic
• Use headers to break up long stretches of copy (see previous section of these guidelines)
• Include internal links (see next section of these guidelines)
• Take inspiration from other front-page SERP results to gauge what Google and search engines are prioritizing for your target keyword(s)

Internal links and anchor text

Internal links are used to connect related pages within your domain for optimal user navigation. These links also highlight the site architecture and page hierarchy for search engines, helping them to discover and index new content and understand the relationships between different pages on your site.

Anchor text, often called link text, is the visible, clickable text of an internal link. Using keywords in the anchor text that are aligned with the keywords of the destination page helps to convey topical relevance and authority. Google now uses more than just the anchor text to understand a page's context; it also considers the surrounding text and the overall content of the linking page.

For internal links:

• Put the most important links first and as high up on the page as possible. Similar to the rule for content structure, the earliest crawled internal links have the most equity ("link juice"); this gets diluted as more links get crawled throughout the page. This is particularly important for pages you consider to be core to your site's business or user journey.
• Balance link equity. Avoid linking to every single page from your homepage or main navigation. Strategically link to your most important content to concentrate link equity and signal its importance.

For anchor text:

• Use simple and clear anchor text that is descriptive of the destination page’s intent using the destination page’s keyword targets - consider if the anchor text aligns to the content you would expect this link to take you.
• Use natural, user-friendly language. Focus on creating anchor text that flows naturally within the sentence and is helpful to the user. While including keywords is a good practice, over-optimization or "exact-match" keyword stuffing in every internal link can look unnatural and potentially raise a flag with modern algorithms.
• Avoid generic terms that provide no context to the user or search engines about the destination page; for example, use “stages of breast cancer” for anchor text leading users to a page about Breast Cancer Stages instead of just “stages”.
• Anchor text should not exceed 5-7 words to encourage clarity and conciseness.

Images, videos and alt text

Visual content like images and videos can be useful for a page if optimized correctly but can be detrimental to organic rankings if not.

• Provide image alt text for all images and videos: All images should be given an attribute called image alt text (also referred to as an alt tag or alt description), which is a written description of an image that appears on a webpage if the page fails to load the image itself. From an SEO perspective, alt text helps search engines understand the image's content, which is vital for appearing in Google Image Search results. While it's a small ranking factor for organic web search, its primary value is in providing context and improving accessibility for all users.
• Place images near relevant text: Surrounding text provides critical context that helps search engines understand the image's relevance.
• Do not place videos with long load times “above the fold”: This is even more critical now with Core Web Vitals, which heavily penalize slow-loading content that negatively impacts the user's initial experience.
• Utilize mobile-friendly, responsive resizing: This is essential as Google's mobile-first indexing and an increasing number of searches are done on mobile devices.
• Use descriptive file names and organize images in a logical construction: Clear and descriptive file names reinforce the image's topic to search engines.
• Compress file sizes prior to uploading: This will help to reduce the file size needing to be loaded, which is a critical factor for Core Web Vitals, as images are often the single largest contributor to a page's total file size.
• Use image formats supported by Google (BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, and SVG.): It's highly recommended to prioritize modern formats like WebP or AVIF (which Google also supports) over older formats like JPEG or PNG, as they offer superior compression without a noticeable loss in quality, leading to significantly faster page loads.

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