On Page SEO Checklist – Optimize Your Website

When it comes to SEO, there are two major parts, On-page SEO and Off-page SEO. On page SEO ensures all the technical aspects of your website are sound and updated.  On-page SEO factors are things you can control on your website.

Some of the on-page SEO factors we will cover in this article include; keyword research, page titles, meta descriptions, headings (H1, H2 & H3 tags), URL structure, image optimization, and content length. This comprehensive guide serves as an on page SEO checklist, providing valuable insights to help you optimize your website for search engines.

What Is On-Page SEO?

On-page SEO includes all the elements you can directly manage on your website to enhance its visibility and relevance to search engines. The goal of an on page SEO checklist is to provide search engines with comprehensive and accurate information about your webpage, ensuring it ranks well for relevant search queries.

Key on-page SEO factors include keyword research, page titles, meta descriptions, headings (H1, H2, H3 tags), URL structure, and content length. Each of these elements plays a crucial role in helping search engines understand and index your content effectively.

To optimize a webpage, start by focusing on the keywords you want to target. Conduct thorough keyword research to identify the most relevant and competitive terms for your audience. Tools such as Google Keyword Planner are essential for this process.

Additionally, leverage tools like SEMRush to evaluate and improve your website’s overall on-page SEO performance. Following their recommendations can help you fine-tune your site and enhance its search engine rankings.

By addressing these on-page SEO factors, you can significantly improve your website’s ability to rank higher in search engine results and attract more organic traffic.

How to Improve On-Page SEO?

For ranking on top Google search results, your website’s structure needs to be optimized.  For example, if your website’s URL structure is not clean and logical, it can be seen as spam or a low-quality site by Google when crawling.

Similarly, when you are using images on your webpage for SEO purposes, make sure you are using the right file name extension (.jpg/.jpeg/.png) for the images because this helps Google understand the intent of images.

Include appropriate headings (H1, H2 & H3 tags), and internal links to relevant pages and make sure there are no broken internal/external links on your website as this can be a sign of spam or low-quality site for search engines.

When it comes to content length, Google wants to provide its customers with high-quality content. As a best practice, the average word count should be about 300 – 500 words per page.

By following these simple on-page SEO recommendations you will help improve your website’s rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs). Keep in mind that many other factors go into improving your website’s rankings in the SERPs, such as off-page or link-building SEO.

To get a more detailed on-page optimization checklist for your site, you can use tools like SEMRush to look at your website’s overall on-page SEO status and follow the suggestions from there.

SEO-friendly Titles

All titles present on your website must be SEO-friendly.  Search engines rely on page titles as a ranking signal to determine what a given webpage is about.

For example, if your website’s URL structure for articles is something like this: http://www.domainName.com/article-name, where the article name is the title of the webpage and it contains important keywords that describe the content on that page.

That being said, you should aim to keep your page titles below 70 characters in length while optimizing for SEO purposes. This allows search engines to display the primary keywords found on a webpage within its title tag without truncating them.

Don’t make the title too lengthy, either. Including numbers in page titles, if you’re targeting a specific keyword phrase that includes one or more numbers, you must include those numbers within your page title as well if the number is part of the primary keyword phrase.

For example, if you’re writing an article about how to lose 10 pounds quickly, then your primary keywords (and the ones you should be optimizing for) would be “how to lose 10 pounds” and not just “lose 10 pounds.”

SEO-friendly URLs

URLs that are user and search-engine-friendly should contain relevant keywords and not look spammy.  There is no limit to how many relevant keywords you can include in your URLs, but it’s recommended to keep the URL length under 100 characters so it does not get truncated when search engines display them.

Also, avoid using special characters and underscores (_) in your page or post titles because search engines often ignore these characters when they crawl a website. For instance, don’t use “how_to_lose_10-pounds” in your URLs; instead, use something like “how-to-lose-weight,” which includes keywords (and numbers) that users would be searching for for in search engines.

External Linking

When it comes to external links on your webpage, use their full URL instead of just linking to “click here” or “read more.” Using the full URL ensures that you’re sending users and search engines directly to the webpage you want them to see. Keep in mind that having tons of links pointing out from a single webpage is bad for SEO.

Check your Website’s Keywords:

Your website should have a good balance of short-tail keywords, long tail keywords, and LSIs.  These will help you improve your rankings in search engines.

Your keywords should appear within the first 100 words of every webpage (ideally, they should appear closer to the beginning). If they do not, either rewrite them or make sure you add more relevant information throughout the rest of your webpage so people won’t get bored reading it or skip over it altogether. A study conducted by HubSpot revealed that users who read an entire article only stayed on the website for about 18 seconds if their primary reason for visiting was to find a piece of information.

The first paragraph of every webpage is arguably the most important section. This is where you should place your primary keywords, as well as other relevant information that describes the webpage’s content.

The first paragraph should be at least 1,000 words in length because people often use Google and Bing to find answers before they click on a website (and if their answer isn’t found in the first 100-150 words of your article, most people will move on to the next result).

Meta Description is Important

Meta description plays an important role in SEO as it helps in showing the description of the webpage and is displayed in SERPs.  It should be unique, concise, and compelling because it has one main goal: to convince users to click on your webpage.

The meta description should not be used as a substitute for the first paragraph of your article because these two sections serve different purposes and follow different guidelines (e.g., meta descriptions should only include 160 characters because they are meant to grab attention but first paragraphs can have up to 1,000 words).

Meta keywords do not play a role in SEO anymore so you don’t need to worry about them. Even if they did, Google would not use those keywords as a ranking factor unless there was an extremely high number of searches for that keyword phrase (which makes it very unlikely that any search engine will).

SEO Heading Tags

There are many heading tags available from H1 to H6 and you need to know when to use which one.  H1 is used to highlight the most important title of your webpage (e.g., “How to convert YouTube videos into MP3s”).

H2-H6 are subheadings that help break up large chunks of text and break up your content into organized sections. You want to incorporate at least one H2-H6 heading tag on every webpage because it helps with readability, improves user experience, and can increase time spent on your webpage by 15%.

The SEO factors mentioned will improve your website’s rankings in search engines but you also need to focus on other things too like using informative titles, meta description, good design for better UX, a proper internal linking structure so users know where they should be clicking next, etc. to get high conversions.

Internal Linking

Internal linking is a crucial component of your on-page SEO checklists that helps improve website rankings by facilitating user navigation. By performing research to identify which pages can be linked together, you enhance the user experience and make it easier for visitors to find related content. Linking closely related pages not only supports better navigation but also contributes to a more effective SEO strategy.

Internal links can also be used to improve CTR (click-through rate) because people are more likely to click on your website when they see other relevant articles that may interest them.

Do not forget about these important factors otherwise, you may lose ranking positions and traffic which is very bad for any business. Optimize the website properly with the use of the latest technology so you can get higher rankings in search engines. Try using SEO-friendly keywords, long-tail keywords, and LSI keywords while performing the keyword research.

Duplicate Content

Google and other search engines hate duplicate content and plagiarism because it makes their job very difficult. They need to identify which website is the source of content and which one is copying another without providing enough value.

If your website has any duplicate content issues, Google offers a free search tool called Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools) that allows you to quickly discover if there are any problems with your webpages or how they’re displayed in search results. You can then fix the problem by using a rel=canonical tag, blocking access from bots by using a robots.txt file, setting up a 404-redirect page, etc.

If you find that some content is duplicated, consider rewriting it from scratch because it will help you rank higher in search engines and provide some unique value to your users. Do your own keywords research and improve the content.

Focus on Mobile-friendliness

Search engines pay great attention to checking whether a website is mobile-friendly or not.  This means you need to prepare your website so that search engines can index it properly and show correct results in mobile search, including the content, links, images, etc.

You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test or check how Google sees your site by using the Structured Data Testing Tool. They will provide step-by-step instructions on what you need to do for your website to be more mobile-friendly.

Mobile devices with a slow internet connection are not reliable when it comes to loading heavy web pages with a lot of images, HTML5 videos, and interactive elements. Studies have shown that users abandon pages if they take too long to load, which seriously damages traffic numbers and online sales opportunities. Many people think that speed should not be a major concern, but it is to search engines.

Google uses page load speed as a ranking factor and if your webpage takes too long to load you can lose rankings or even be removed from search engine results completely. There are many tools available online for checking the load time of web pages such as Google’s Page Speed Insights, YSlow and GT Metrix.

SEO-content Length

For ranking higher on Google search results, you need to create high-quality content that has all the information.  SEO-content length can help you improve the on-page SEO factors and rank higher on Google.

Length of content is one of the most relevant factors affecting rankings. A longer article provides more keywords opportunities, creates a better user experience, establishes expertise, builds trust, eliminates distractions for users, and helps them find what they are looking for quickly.

According to many types of research, SEO articles with 2000+ words generate an average of 87 backlinks.

If you want your website to be ranked highly by search engines like Google, create quality content that goes beyond 500 words unless it’s a product or service page designed only to provide information about something.

Google loves fresh content that is frequently updated because it shows that your website has value which is exactly what Google wants. So make sure you frequently update your site with fresh content, not just adding pages here and there, but pushing out at least 1 blog post per week.

When it comes to website optimization, you need to minimize thin content that is not relevant or quality enough to rank higher on search engines. It’s better to create fewer posts that are longer than average because they will provide high value for your readers.

Make sure the focus keyword is in the title tag and H1/H2 tags as well as throughout the whole article so search engine crawlers can index them quickly. Use targeted long-tail keywords which are also relevant to your industry so users will find your page when they look for them.

If you are auditing your competitors, look at their content and see what are the on-page SEO factors that have helped them get ranked high in search engines, then implement these changes on your website to rank higher.

SEO-friendly Images

Images play a crucial role in improving SEO as well as looking good to your visitors. Images can contribute to approximately 20% of the overall ranking of a webpage.

The most important factor that will mark you out is using high-quality images with descriptive filenames and alt tags, ideally including your target keyword phrase(s). See an example of this in action on Amazon where you can see keywords are used in images across Amazon’s website. Amazon has refined every element on their site to improve conversions which includes placing relevant text within product images. Google algorithms now check these alt tags to make sure they are present before serving up rankings for each page.

Be very careful about how you use images, if your image is an advertisement, product shot, or review then Google will know. Try to steer clear of using advert-style images because it’s not what readers are looking for. Always try to add value by including informational content within the image.

Focus on the XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap is a crucial thing to boost your SEO as it helps in crawling your site and finding all the web pages in a single place. It is always better to have an XML sitemap because it reduces the load on their servers, and improves the crawling speed of search engine bots because they can crawl one page instead of several by using sitemaps. It also helps you in getting indexed pages quickly.

Making an XML sitemap for your website may sound simple but there are several factors that you need to take care of before adding content into an XML file. First thing first, do not create multiple XML files for different sections or subsections on your website as it will only complicate things further rather than help you out.

Wrapping up

An on-Page SEO checklist is essential for optimizing your website’s search engine performance. By focusing on key factors such as keyword research, page titles, meta descriptions, and internal linking, you can enhance both user experience and search engine rankings. For those looking to achieve top rankings and improve site visibility, partnering with a top digital marketing consultant in India can provide the expertise and tools necessary to implement these strategies effectively. A professional consultant will help ensure that every aspect of your on-page SEO is optimized, driving higher traffic and better results for your business.