Today’s customer journey is so non-linear that you can’t even pinpoint where it actually started. But one thing is for sure, one way or another, the user will end up on Google searching for something to find the answer they’re looking for.
From a simple Q&A platform, Search is now a primary channel that can significantly impact your customer journey on all stages and funnels. In fact, year on year, several marketing statistics and studies show ranking organically on search engines helps drive increase performance and drive success to businesses everywhere.
The customer journey of today is so non-linear that it’s difficult to even identify the beginning of it. A user will undoubtedly end up using Google to search for information in order to locate the solution they’re looking for, regardless of how they get there.
From a straightforward Q&A platform, search has evolved into a crucial channel that may have a big impact on all stages and funnels of your customer journey. In reality, various marketing data and research suggest that ranking organically on search engines helps organisations boost performance and success year after year.
As a best blog provider of digital marketing and technology, we are aware that ranking is difficult.
On-Page SEO: What Is It?
On-page SEO is the practice of enhancing HTML source code and content to make it apparent what your website is and what information it is offering.
It is possible to improve your website’s page title, headers (h1 and h2 tags), URL, text content, meta descriptions, internal links, and other aspects.
Why is On-page SEO Important?
Your SEO plan must include on-page SEO because it is these elements that search engine crawlers use to evaluate and choose which material should be displayed at the top of the search results page (SERP) when users enter keywords into the search box.
According to Google’s How Search Works, the “simplest indicator that material is relevant is when a webpage has the same keywords as your search query.” It is easier to determine whether the information is pertinent to the user’s queries when relevant keywords are present on critical on-page elements including metadata, headings, body copy, and even images.
Furthermore, optimising these on-page characteristics assists searchers in finding the most valuable material that best answers their queries or concerns.
The Ultimate On-Page SEO Checklist
It can be used for e-commerce stores, local companies, affiliate sites, or anything else.
The list is shown below.
- Basic SEO checklist
- Technical SEO checklist
- Keyword research check list
- Content Checklist
- On-page SEO checklist
- Link building checklist
1. SEO Basics Checklist
Let’s start with SEO basics. This section will teach you about the tools and plugins you’ll need to rank in search engines.
1. Configure the Google Search Console
An incredibly effective free SEO tool is the Google Search Console.
You can monitor how well your website performs in Google searches with the aid of Search Console.
- It has a ton of helpful features because of this, including:
- Find out which keywords are bringing you the most traffic.
- Sitemap submission
- Resolve website issues.
- Examine your page experience ratings.
In a nutshell, if you’re serious about SEO, you should start by configuring the Google Search Console.
2. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools.
Next, install Bing Webmaster Tools.
Is Bing as well-liked as Google? No. Bing, on the other hand, receives around 1 billion visitors per month. For this reason, it’s worthwhile to optimize.
Additionally, Bing Webmaster Tools includes several cool capabilities, such as an integrated keyword research tool.
3. Configure Google Analytics
The best approach to monitoring how users interact with your website is to use Google Analytics.
Its several useful characteristics include:
- Check how much traffic Google brings to your site.
- Find the web pages on your website that receive the most visitors.
- Check to see if your traffic is growing (and by how much)
- Figure out which other websites and search engines are sending you traffic.
- Your typical time spent on the site, page visits, and bounce rate
Pro tip: Integrate Google Analytics and Google Search Console. As soon as you do, you’ll see valuable SEO data from your Google Analytics account.
4. Setup Yoast SEO (WordPress Users Only)
Yoast is the most widely used SEO plugin on the internet.
Yoast simplifies the process of optimizing your WordPress site for search engines.
It also aids in technical SEO tasks such as robots.txt and sitemaps.
2. Technical SEO checklist
Technical SEO concerns frequently prevent a website from ranking as well as it should. Following these fundamental technical best practices is a good idea for everyone.
1. Create a website structure plan (new sites only)
It’s critical that users and search engines can traverse your website without difficulty. You should design a sensible site structure as a result.
Create a simple mind map to accomplish this:
To make it easier for search engines and users to move between sites, each branch on the map should be an internal link.
2. Check that Your Website can be Crawled
Check the Coverage report in Google Search Console for any robots.txt-related warnings or exclusions because Google cannot effectively index content that is not crawlable.
If you want Google to properly index any of the restricted pages, delete the rule that is triggering the block from your robots.txt file.
3. Ensure that your Site is Searchable.
Crawling and indexing are not the same thing. A page may be crawled by search engines, but that does not automatically indicate that they will index the page. Indexing is not possible if a page contains the robots meta tag or x-robots-tag “noindex”.
- In the Coverage report, Google informs you about noindexed URLs.
- This information is also available in the Indexability report in Ahrefs’ Site Audit.
- Removing the “noindex” tag will allow you to index any “noindexed” pages you may have.
- Readers are advised to: Everything You Need to Know About Robots Meta Tag & X-Robots-Tag
4. Ensure that HTTPs is used.
HTTPS is a recognized lightweight ranking factor.
Now is the time to switch to HTTPS if you aren’t already.
Aside from potential ranking increases, HTTPS will safeguard the data of your visitors. If your website contains any contact forms, this is very crucial. It’s not just crucial; it’s a requirement if you’re asking for passwords or credit card numbers.
5. Ensure that your website is only accessible from one domain.
You shouldn’t allow visitors to access your website from different places. It may cause problems with crawling, indexing, and security.
Enter the following four URLs into httpstatus.io to confirm everything is in order:
http://yourdomain.com
http://www.yourdomain.com
If everything is in order, three of them should automatically redirect to the fourth.
Creating a permanent 301 redirect is required if that doesn’t take place.
If you’re using HTTPS (which you should be), make sure the accessible version of your website is likewise the secure version. Either https://yourdomain.com or https://www.yourdomain.com should be used for that.
Readers are advised to: 301 Redirects for SEO: All the Information You Need
6. Ensure that Your Website Loads Quickly
Since 2010, desktop page speed has been a ranking criteria, while mobile page speed has been a ranking component since 2018.
It’s simple to understand why. When you click on a search result, you have to wait for it to load, which is annoying. For this reason, when page speed drops, the likelihood of a bounce rises.
To determine how quickly your website loads, use tools like PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix.
These tools, however, can only check one page at a time. Crawl your website with Ahrefs’ Site Audit to examine all of your pages. Slow pages will be highlighted in the Performance report.
7. Ensure your website is responsive to mobile devices.
A mobile-friendly website is now more crucial than ever because the majority of searches take place on mobile devices.
Utilize Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool to determine whether your website requires improvement.
8. Conveniently add an image compression plugin.
Images can be compressed to reduce file size and speed up websites. Page speed is a ranking element used by Google, thus this is significant.
There are numerous plugins for this if you’re using WordPress. We appreciate ShortPixel. You get free access to compress up to 100 pictures each month.
If you’re using a different website platform, look for an appropriate plugin on Google or utilise ShortPixel’s web app.
9. Fix the Broken Pages
Broken links can degrade user experience and disrupt the flow of ‘authority’ into and out of your website.
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools will help you detect broken links on your website.
Crawl your website with Site Audit
Click on the Internal Pages Report.
Analyze “404 page” errors
If you discover any broken links, follow these instructions:
Reading suggestion: How to Recover Valuable “Link Juice” from Broken Links.
10. Resolve Duplicate Content Problems
The term “duplicate content” refers to content that is same or nearly identical that exists on the web in many locations. Due to faceted navigation, it is a typical ecommerce SEO problem. Numerous duplicate content problems could result from that alone.
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools allows you to detect duplicate content problems without charge.
- Utilize Site Audit to crawl your website.
- Click on the Duplicate Content Report link.
- Click the “Issues” tab.
- Canonicalize the impacted URLs as needed to resolve these issues.
Also Read: Free Duplicate Content Checker Tool
3. Keyword Research Checklist
The basis of SEO is keyword research. Additionally, I’ll demonstrate to you how to uncover keywords that buyers are looking for rapidly using this checklist.
1. Use “Google Suggest” to find long-tail keywords.
One of the finest methods for finding long tail keywords is through this.
Here’s how it operates:
- Google should be used as your first step.
- Do not, however, hit Enter. click the “Google Search” button. Rather, look at the terms that Google suggests:
- They are referred to as “Google Suggest” keywords.
- You can be sure that people are searching for these terms because these keywords come directly from Google.
- This indicates that you should use them as your site’s primary keywords.
Pro tip: Take a look at Keywordtool.io. This tool scrapes Google Suggest keywords, greatly simplifying the procedure.
2. Utilize the Google Keyword Planner to locate reliable keywords
Google’s official tool for conducting keyword research is the Google Keyword Planner.
Technically, it is built for Google Ads. Despite this, it’s still VERY helpful for SEO keyword research.
After all, Google is the source of the information. So you are aware of its incredible accuracy.
3. Participate in Online Communities
The websites Reddit, Quora, forums, and other online communities are great resources for finding keywords.
Additionally, I made a video that demonstrates how to locate untapped keywords in these forums (step-by-step).
4. Use KWFinder to Find Low Competition Keywords
KWFinder is a freemium keyword research tool.
The fact that KWFinder provides you with TONS of information on each keyword is what sets it apart.
As you can see, entering a keyword into KWFinder yields results for:
- Search volume
- Keyword Difficulty
- CPC
- estimated visits
In this manner, you can pick keywords with little competition that are simple to rank for.
5. Find “Question Keywords” Using Answer The Public Question For articles and blog posts, keywords are perfect.
Additionally, Answer The Public makes it simple to locate them.
You may see questions that people are searching for online with this free tool.
You can then use your content to respond to these queries.
4. On-page SEO checklist
On-page SEO refers to the procedure of enhancing the actual content of your page. It consists of improvements to both visible and source code-level material.
Let’s look at the process.
1. Use a concise, illustrative URL
Searchers can better comprehend the content of a page in the SERPs by using short, descriptive URLs.
For instance, these two sites discuss weight loss.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322345
https://www.dietdoctor.com/how-to-lose-weight\s… yet judging from the first URL, you wouldn’t know it.
Usually, using your main keyword as the URL slug is the quickest and easiest approach to make brief, informative URLs. With the majority of our blog postings, we do this.
ahrefs.com/blog/on-page-seo/\sahrefs.com/blog/link-building/\sahrefs.com/blog/free-seo-tools/
Because long URLs frequently get truncated in the SERPs, keeping them brief is beneficial.
2. Create a catchy title tag
Title tags appear in Google’s search results, just like URLs, and they aid users in understanding the content of the page.
The most common piece of advise for title tags is to contain your target keyword.
Although this is important practise, don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense. Writing appealing content that encourages clicks is far more crucial.
Your post’s or page’s title will typically be effective.
3. Compose an intriguing meta description
Roughly one-third of the time, Google displays meta descriptions in the SERPs.
Our top recommendations for writing an engaging meta description are listed below:
- Clarify the title
- Describe the title in more detail
- Increase your search intent.
- Use an active voice.
- Try to limit it to 120 characters.
- Include your primary keyword
4. Provide a link to related resources
Making internal links to different information on your website makes it easier for users to navigate.
However, what about outside resources?
John Mueller from Google had the following to say:
A fantastic method to give your users something of value is by linking to other websites. Links frequently assist readers in learning more, investigating your sources, and comprehending how your material relates to their inquiries.
John Mueller, Google’s Search Advocate
Do you have to impose internal and external links on your material as a result?
Nope. Simply provide links when and where they make sense.
5. Improve your Image Quality
If you followed the checklist in the correct sequence, you should have already installed an image compression plugin. Nevertheless, there are a few extra picture optimizations you ought to carry out page by page:
Give each image a descriptive name. Avoid using generic image filenames like IMG 875939.png or Screenshot-2021-06-01. Use descriptive filenames like eiffel-tower.jpg or black-puppy.png.
Include descriptive alt text. When an image fails to load, its alt text replaces it on the page. Additionally, screen readers users find it useful. Find out more by visiting this.
6. Include Schema Markup for Rich Snippets
Schema markup makes it easier for search engines to interpret your content. However, it may also have a significant impact on how your page ranks in the SERPs.
Here is a page using schema markup that is currently ranked for “pizza dough recipe”:
Here’s how it would look if there was no schema markup:
What a change, do you think?
Schema markup can boost click-through rates and increase visitors to your website.
Putting it into practise is also not that complicated. To do it quickly, use this Schema markup generator or Google’s markup helper.
7. Include internal linking
Internal links assist Google in understanding the topic of your page. They aid both visitors and search engines in navigating your website.
We’ve already talked about how important it is to provide links to relevant internal and external resources in your writing. However, if you post fresh content, it’s also important to include internal links from other pertinent pages.
Here are some tips for locating chances for useful internal links:
- Create an account with Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for free.
- Utilize Site Audit to crawl your website.
- Check out the Link Opportunities report.
- Add a “Target page” filter and point it to your new page.
Final thoughts
SEO is a continuous process, and it is hard to include everything that is necessary in a single checklist. However, if you complete the tasks on the checklist above, you will be well on your way to higher ranks. Additionally, you’ll likely be far ahead of the competition. All that matters is that.
Want more suggestions for SEO? See our list of SEO advice.