When it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), there are a number of different elements you need to be aware of and which should be included in your strategy to help your site perform as well as possible in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Knowing what each of these elements is can be confusing, and it can be difficult to know where to start. We recommend taking one element at a time and optimising as much as you can before moving on to something else.
On-page SEO will form part of your strategy, so we have compiled a full list of everything you need to check and optimise to help your site perform as well as possible.
Before we get into our checklist, let’s look at exactly what on-page SEO is.
On-page SEO involves optimising your website content for search engines and users. In short, it’s everything your website users can see and which Google crawls and indexes to understand your website.
This is different from off-page SEO which involves optimising SEO signals that happen off your website, such as backlinks.
Despite various updates in which Google states that it is looking for helpful content on your website, it still looks for relevant keywords on your website to decide on the relevancy of your site and, therefore, where it’s going to rank in the SERPs. And it’s not just Google. Other search engines will also scan your website content to check whether it matches user search intent. Those web pages that meet the needs of searchers the best and will prioritise these in the search results.
But there’s more to on-page SEO than just cramming your website pages full of keywords.
Without further ado, let’s have a look at your checklist to make sure your SEO strategy is as effective as possible.
Follow this checklist, and you’ll be well on your way to SEO success.
Your website structure is essential to your SEO strategy. Not only will it help users to easily navigate your site and find the information they need, but search engines also crawl your full website to understand how it’s linked together.
Internal links between pages will help search engines understand the relationship each page has to the other so it can start to rank your site effectively.
You can’t complete an on-page SEO checklist without including keyword research. The keywords your customers are using online, and the keywords you optimise your site for will (and should!) form the foundation of your SEO strategy. You can’t progress with the rest of this checklist without it!
Make a list of all the keywords you can think of to do with your business. This includes anything around your business sector and what you do, and each of your products and services too. We’re going to use these across your website to help it rank highly in search.
Use a tool such as the SEMrush keyword magic tool or Google Search results to find the keywords your customers are actually using in relation to your business. Answer the Public is also a great resource for finding out about the questions your potential customers are asking online so you can use these to create content for your website.
Your title tags on your website are one of the most important elements of on-page SEO. This is the link that appears in the search engine results and lets searchers know about what they can expect when they click through to your website. It also helps search engines understand the content of your page, and it’s relevancy to a particular search query.
Make sure you have your primary keyword for a specific page in the page title and keep it to 70 characters to make sure it shows fully in the results.
If you’re a local business, you will want to have the location of your business in the title to help your site appear for ‘near me’ searches.
Your page description isn’t a direct ranking factor, but it can have an impact on click-through rate which, in turn, has an impact on your SEO results.
As you can see in the screenshot below, the page description appears underneath the title in the search results. It lets searchers know more about the content of the page and what they can expect. You’ll also notice the key phrase highlighted in the description, which helps to reassure users that the page is likely to meet their intent.
Every page on your website should have H1 tags with the primary keyword for that page. Search engine bots scan websites for title tags (specifically H1’s) to learn more about the content of a website. It’s also the first thing a visitor sees when they land on a page.
Make sure you only have one H1 per page, and use H2, H3 and H4 headings for other titles.
Keep your URLs simple and include keywords where you can. Your URL structure explains the content and structure of your website. Make sure any page can only be accessed using one URL.
The content on your website should include your keywords where possible. Optimise the content on your website and focus on your home page and product or service pages to make sure they have the best chance of appearing in the search results when your customers are searching online.
Have a look for the long-tail keywords your customers are using (questions they’re asking about your products or services) and create detailed and helpful blog content around them.
Content is great for keeping visitors on your site for longer and building a relationship and trust with them. By answering their question and providing a solution, they’re more likely to want to buy from you either now or in the future.
In addition, content shows search engines that you are an expert on your subject and in your industry which helps to build authority and makes your site more likely to appear highly in the search results.
Internal links help search engines crawl your website and understand how each page relates to the other.
If you want to improve rankings for a particular page on your website, you’ll need to make sure it’s linked to and from other popular pages on your website. You can pass authority down to other pages to help improve their performance, so internal linking is particularly important.
For example, if you have a category page on your website for ‘women's trainers’ and it ranks quite well, you might want to link to it from a blog post on a similar topic to help improve the performance of both pages.
On-page SEO is essential if you want your website to be found, crawled, indexed and appear in the search engine rankings. It’s a crucial part of any SEO strategy and will help you to make sure your potential customers find your website when they’re searching online.
In addition, the content you have on your site and the elements we’ve listed above will help users to navigate and understand your site. User experience is a key part of SEO, so you’ll need to consider how your website looks and reads to your visitors.
If you’d like help with your SEO strategy, please request a free digital marketing audit from our team. We’ll show you what you need to improve to drive the results you need for your business.
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