On-page SEO checklist
On-page SEO is one of the main branches of SEO and has to do with optimizations you can make on your website to improve the readability for search engine crawlers. Below lists some of the key areas I focus on when building a website’s SEO profile.
Keyword Research: Identify relevant keywords or phrases that your target audience is likely to search for. Keep in mind the demographics and psychographics of your audience. Place your chosen keywords strategically within your content, including in the title, headings (H1, H2, etc.), meta description, and main text. Avoid keyword stuffing, using keywords repeatedly in your text, as it can harm your on-page SEO efforts - search engines look for content created for the consumer, not the search engine. Also, avoid keyword cannibalization, where multiple pages are optimized for the exact keywords, turning your pages into competitors.
Quality Content: Create high-quality, informative, and engaging content that provides value to your audience. Longer, well-researched articles often perform better in search results. Again, search engines evaluate on-page SEO efforts by how helpful the page is for consumers, not by how optimized you make the pages for the search engine itself.
Title Tags: Craft compelling and descriptive title tags for your web pages. The title tag appears as the clickable link in search engine results and is thus the first thing customers and search engines will rely on to discover what the page is about.
Meta Descriptions: Write concise and informative meta descriptions for your pages. This is the text that is displayed beneath the title in search results. Meta descriptions provide more details about your pages and significantly impact click-through rates.
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Header Tags: Use header tags to structure your content and make it organized and readable. Many increase the font size or bold/underline/italicize headings without using the actual tags, harming their on-page SEO. Header tags help search engines understand the hierarchy of your content and the information your page provides for your search results.
Optimize Images: Compress and optimize images to reduce load times (more on page speed below). Use descriptive file names and alt tags for images to help search engines understand the content and how the images relate to the main text.
Linking: There are four main types of links. By strategically structuring these links, we guide consumers toward conversion pages, enhancing sales potential. Similarly, search engines are directed through these paths, optimizing on-page SEO for the conversion pages, with each preceding page in the journey contributing to the total SEO authority of the final destination. This is essential in creating a logical and impactful user and search engine experience."
Internal Linking: Links to other relevant pages within your website. This helps users navigate your site and distributes link equity (SEO authority) across your pages. Internal linking is part of on-page SEO.
External Linking: Links to authoritative external sources when relevant. Outbound links can improve the credibility and trustworthiness of your content. External linking is part of on-page SEO.
Site Links: Are essentially mini ads that show up under your main SEM ad. They provide alternative starting points for a consumer journey but will ultimately guide users to your main pages. They improve ad engagement and maximize screen real estate. Site links are part of SEM optimizations.
Backlinks: Links from other sites to yours. Backlinks tell search engines that your content is credible and authoritative enough that others link to your content as a reference. Backlinks are part of off-page SEO.
URL Structure: Use clean, descriptive URLs that include relevant keywords. Avoid long, complex URLs with unnecessary parameters.
Other On-page SEO considerations
The additional considerations below are generally best handled by overall website design rather than specifically on-page SEO optimizations.
Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and responsive to different screen dimensions. Mobile-friendliness is a significant ranking factor for search engines.
Page Speed: Improve your website's loading speed by optimizing code, compressing images, and using content delivery networks (CDNs). Search engines want sites that their users have good experiences with,; thus page loading speed and responsiveness factor in on-page SEO; however, much of the relevant architecture is best managed at the site level and not necessarily to the specific page.
Schema Markup: Implement structured data (schema markup) to provide search engines with additional information about your content, which can lead to rich snippets in search results.
User Experience (UX): Create a user-friendly and intuitive website design. A positive user experience can indirectly improve your SEO by reducing bounce rates and increasing user engagement.
Security (HTTPS): Ensure your website uses HTTPS to encrypt data. Google gives preference to secure websites in its search results.
Social Sharing: Include social sharing buttons on your content to encourage users to share it on social media platforms.
Content Updates: Regularly update and refresh your content to keep it relevant and accurate. Fresh content can help maintain or improve search rankings.