Even a few years ago, I used to write content and publish in my personal blog, without on-page optimization. The result was as it should be- no ranking and zero traffic. So, I started experimenting with on-page SEO techniques to improve the situation. Within a few days, I found the magic key to rank faster and get more visitors.
Here is my on-page SEO checklist that helped me to get the best out of it. The checklist includes the essential parts of on-page optimization that you shouldn’t miss. Optimizing your website pages following this checklist will bring you the ultimate success.
Without further ado, let’s jump to the topic.
Importance of On-page SEO
It Helps You Reach Your Goal
On-page SEO is a crucial part of your website as it helps the readers and search engines. A proper strategy makes your content more readable to visitors. Besides, it helps search engines understand your content and rank it for your target keyword. From both sides, you’re the ultimate winner.
It Brings You Relevant Traffic
It asks you to optimize the content with the proper keyword, which brings you relevant traffic. Relevant traffic is the person who searches for content on the same topic.
Relevant traffic means better engagement. You can drive them through your sales funnel.
It’s Completely Safe
On-page SEO is a completely safe strategy that won’t hurt your website. You just need to ensure that you’re not trying keyword spamming.
Ultimate On-page SEO Checklist
Keyword Research
First, you need to pick the right keyword for which you want a page to rank. Without keywords, your article is nothing but words undiscovered in the vast online world.
You’ll find several free and paid keyword research tools online. Use them to find the word or ‘set of words’ people typically use to find articles like yours. For example- this is an article on an on-page SEO checklist. So, the keyword should be ‘on-page SEO checklist’.
While picking keywords, make sure the intention matches your article. For example- ‘buying a house’ is not the right keyword when your article is about selling a house.
Focus on search volume and keyword difficulty while selecting your keywords. Also, pick some long-tail keywords (related sets of words with a more specific search intention).
Cover the Topic Completely
Search engines love content that covers the topic completely. Also, visitors love them too. So, whatever the topic is, you need to cover it completely.
Make sure that anyone reading the article receives enough information from it. Add relevant subtopics. For example- in this article about on-page SEO checklist, I’ve included the importance of on-page SEO.
For ideas, check the subheadings of the top websites ranking in your keyword. Besides, if you have enough idea about your target traffic, you can easily find the related topics you must cover.
Optimize Content with Target Keywords
You should optimize your page content with the keywords you’ve selected. The first step of keyword optimization is using the primary keyword in the title. Try to keep it at the beginning. Besides, use it once within the first 100-150 words of the content.
Put your focus keyword in the content a few times. There is no rule of thumb. But most SEO experts ask to use the primary keyword 6-8 times in a 1000-word article. However, don’t push it to be there. Use it where relevant.
Try to keep your keyword in a subheading. Also, the conclusion part deserves it once.
Use Keyword in URL and Meta Description
While publishing the article, don’t forget to optimize the URL with the focus keyword. It helps both search engines and visitors.
Also, your meta description should be unique and keyword-optimized. Keep it short. Give an overview of what the article contains. Put your focus keyword once here. Though it is not a direct factor that impacts ranking, search engines use it to know what’s inside the article. Thus, optimizing with keywords helps.
Add Relevant Images
Relevant images make the article enjoyable. Also, proper use of images helps you keep visitors on the page for a long time. So, don’t forget to use 2-3 images at least.
Images should be lightweight. Use a compressor tool to reduce the size without cutting the quality. Besides, rename the images according to their content. Use alt text to optimize images for SEO. Alt texts should include the keyword and the content of the image.
Keep Creating Content
Creating content regularly is a must when it comes to on-page SEO. Search engines love websites that keep posting frequently on a wide range of topics. The more content you publish properly, the more traffic you get. This helps you jump even higher.
Keep your content unique, updated, and relevant. Cover relevant information as much as possible. Also, don’t stick to written content only. Create and publish videos, infographics, and PDFs, too. Don’t forget to optimize your content.
Page Speed Matters
Search engines want to provide the best and fastest experience to the users. Thus, they prefer websites with fast page speed. People are not patient enough to wait 5-6 seconds to load a webpage.
The perfect benchmark of page speed is 2 seconds. Pages that take more than 2 seconds to load see a higher bounce rate. So, optimize your page speed.
Use Google PageSpeed Insights or such tools to know your page load time. If you’re not satisfied, improve it. Page speed can be improved by using browser caching, minifying codes, compressing images, reducing the number of redirects, etc.
Make It Mobile-friendly
Mobile-friendliness matters a lot when it comes to SEO. The reason is- more than half of internet users access the internet through mobile phones. Don’t leave your website as a random site that is tough to access using mobile phones.
Use a mobile-friendly theme, light images, and codes. Also, use plugins that support mobile-friendly sites. Focus on maximizing comfort for mobile users.
Interlink the Pages
Your website pages must have some relation with one another. Based on the relation, interlink them. It helps search engine crawlers surf your site smoothly, which impacts ranking.
However, don’t overdo it. Interlinking is good, but overdoing it is not. Linking a page with 2 pages will be enough. Also, don’t push it. Keep it as natural as possible. Connect pages that are genuinely related to each other.
Avoid Duplicate Content
Duplicate content means the same content under different URLs. This is a severe issue in on-page SEO. Duplicate pages or content is killing your SEO score, but you have no clue.
Search engines suggest a website that offers proper value through its content. Duplicate content is a big NO here. If you have a small website, it won’t be a problem. But if your site is large with too much content, it’ll be a hassle.
You can try tools to find duplicate content or do it manually. But doing it is a must.
Other Tips
- Add a question to the title.
- Try to add numbers in a title.
- Edit and update your content with time.
- Add a comment section to your blogs.
- Be regular in adding articles to blogs.
- Audit your on-page SEO at least once every three to four months.
Final Verdict
I hope this on-page SEO checklist will help you design your on-page strategy and boost your blog. However, depending on the competition, you may need to take a few more steps. Don’t miss anything included in this checklist. Avoiding any of these may hurt your on-page strategy.
If you need any assistance with on-page SEO, contact us. Our team is always ready to assist you with anything regarding SEO.
