Essential On-Page SEO Checklist 2020
A well-optimised page is the difference between growing your website traffic and getting lost amidst hundreds or thousands of search results.
In this article, we will list the most important on-page SEO elements so you know exactly where to focus your efforts.
What is on-page SEO?
On-page, or on-site SEO, is the process of optimising a webpage with the aim of getting it to rank highly for selected keywords in order to draw more relevant traffic to a website. There are a number of key areas you need to address if you want to achieve good on-page SEO.
Essential on-site SEO checklist
Page URL:
An ideal page URL will be short, user-friendly, and keyword-rich. It should be easy enough for both search engines and users to digest the URL. Try to remove unnecessary words and focus on including your main keyword, but don’t overdo it with keyword optimisation.
Remember, your domain should ideally be HTTPS; Google uses this as a ranking factor.
Title Tag:
The title tag, or page title, is one of the most important SEO elements on a page. Relevance is key – make sure your title tag directly relates to the content on the page. Don’t stuff your title tag with keywords, but do make sure you include your most important keyword – preferably at the beginning of it. It’s good practice to include your brand name too. Remember, you need to adhere to the character limit which, at present, stands at around 50-60 characters.
Meta Description:
Whilst the meta description may not be a ranking factor, it is still an important element to consider in on-page SEO because it is ultimately the first chance you have to encourage users to click through to your site. If you want to win that all-important click, you need a meta description that is compelling and stands out from the rest of the results on the page. Make it hyper-relevant to your landing page so a user knows exactly what they will get when they click. Stick to the character limit of 160 characters.
Headers:
Headers, or body tags, help both users and search engines with the organisation of your content, breaking up the body copy into sensible and meaningful sections. Include your most important keyword in the <h1> tag, and then organise your content with <h2> and <h3> tags as needed – much like we have in this article.
Image Alt Text:
Users may not always discover your site through search results. Instead, they may find you through image search, which is why it’s important to ensure your image alt text game is strong. Alt text helps to convey to search engines, and users with visual impairments, what an image is about. When drafting your alt text, avoid keyword stuffing, and try to make it as descriptive as possible. It’s also good practice to include your target keyword in the image file name if you can.
Internal Linking:
Internal linking allows you to hyperlink to other relevant and useful pages on your website. It’s an important factor in on-page SEO as it encourages users and search engines to remain on your website for longer, consuming more of your content.
Those are the most important on-site optimisation touch points to consider when successfully optimising a webpage, but there are technical SEO factors you should also take into account. These include:
• Structured data
• Site speed
• Mobile-responsiveness.
Ensuring your webpage is well-optimised, and technical SEO elements are in hand, will put you in the best possible position for improving your online visibility in the search engines.
We hope that our onsite SEO checklist is a helpful starting point if you’re looking to improve the optimisation of your website, but if you’re still not sure, then we’re here to help. Take a look at our search engine optimisation service page to understand how we can help you.