The 10-Step On-Page SEO Checklist

The most important starting point, when it comes to SEO, is your very own website. On-page SEO should always occur before you begin focusing on off-page SEO.

This checklist is meant to help ensure that you take the proper elements into consideration in the right order.

1. Keyword Targeting

Keyword research is the cornerstone of a good website, as the keywords you choose for your website will dictate how much effort you have to put into off-page SEO to see success.

Each of your website’s pages should target two to three main keywords. To find your keywords, use a tool such as the free Google AdWords Keyword Tool or specialized keyword research software such as Market Samurai or WordTracker. Once you find your keywords, map them to each page of your site.

2. Page Titles

Page titles are the most single most important element of each page when it comes to search engine optimisation. Each page of your website should have a hand-picked title that presents the main keywords at the beginning and helps to ensure visitors from search engines will click on your website’s result.

3. Meta Descriptions

While meta descriptions aren’t vital for ranking well in search engines, they are vital to having a good click-through rate.

Think of your meta description as a miniature sales copy that shows up alongside your page’s title in most search engines that convinces users to choose your site.

4. Headings

Make sure you use H1 and H2 mark-up tags around your titles, which should contain your keywords. To make it really simple, ensuring that you do this allows search engines to easily decide what your pages are about.

5. Copy

There id two bare main requirements for the content on your pages. You need at least 200 words, preferably more, and you need to have your targeted keywords appear in a natural way.

In other words, you need a sufficient amount of words without keyword stuffing.

6. Images

Your images can be just as important as the text on your page when it comes to bringing visitors. Make sure that your images each have a descriptive, keyword-rich filename and that you have used the alt attribute to describe them using your keywords and key phrases.

7. Site Navigation and Links

There are two types of links on your website: navigation and contextual links.

Ensure that your navigation links are in plain text. It’s preferable that you have your most important pages linked at the top level of your navigation, when it’s possible.

Your contextual links appear within the actual text of your page. You should interlink your site’s most important pages this way by using some variation of that page’s keyword text as your anchor text.

8. Mark Up

Semantic, tableless HTML mark-up should create the structure of your website’s layout. External CSS code should establish how it looks. This keeps the code as clean and uncluttered as possible.

9. Social Media

Visitors to your site should readily be able to tweet your pages, share them on Facebook and bookmark them using websites like StumbleUpon. This is especially important for websites that have fresh content regularly, like blogs.

Ensure that you have facilities that allow users to share content using these social websites. In other words, put the appropriate buttons on your page in a way that allows users to share your page.

10. Dynamic Content

It is important for websites that have new content regularly as this will show that a site is current and up to date.. You need to establish some way for users and search engines to see what your latest content is.

You can do this by setting up a “latest posts” section or something like a Twitter feed.

There are many SEO and online marketing companies including Vroom Digital in Dublin, Ireland who will provide a full SEO service including a website audit, implementation and link building.