The Ultimate On-page SEO Checklist 2022 (Printable)

Everyone knows “Content is King” but you are not ranking on google for your awesome content.

Do you know why?

There are certain factors for On-page SEO that are a little technical and need special attention while publishing your content online.

I would rather say “Content is king if On-page SEO is done correctly”. Google has run unlimited algorithm updates since 2002 but one thing, which never changed till now, is On-page SEO.

There are multiple factors while creating content that converts readers into customers and drives traffic from search engines as well. Alpha Bee Design gives a clear picture of the SEO process:

Source: alphabeedesign

Matt Cutts, ex-employee for Search operations & web spam and SEO veterans at Google created a number of articles, videos, and forum comments on Onpage SEO to help fellow content creators to write SEO Friendly blogs.

Here I have created a checklist to follow while optimizing a page on basis of Onpage SEO.

#1 Blog Title

The first thing to check while writing a piece of content is Blog Title SEO. Generally, it can be anything you think but if you follow certain points experimented on by top bloggers and SEOs of the world, you will get decent ranking and results.

Checklist to “Blog Title” as Per On-Site SEO

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☐ Add modifiers to the title like 2022, checklist, guide, review, top, best, ultimate, etc.

☐ Blog title should be H1 tag (in WordPress title is automatically set as an H1 tag)

☐ Title should be engaging and long not short

☐ Tweak your blog title according to search and social media differently using Yoast by SEO.

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#2 Meta Tags

The most important factors for search engine optimization of a webpage are “Meta Tags” Since Search crawlers are developed that automatically check your webpage content, Meta Tags are the first factor that they check and create a cache in their database.

When a new user search for a query on the google search box, Search crawlers go with the meta tags first from its pool of data. Then show the most relevant page to the user and the first factor in that is Meta tags. Link-building strategies are also important to rank in google SERPs.

For Example, We, Dignitas Digital, are ranking for our business keyword “Digital Marketing Agency” on the first page of google India (which has 40,500 search volumes per month, quite competitive). Check out the meta tags and keywords optimization for the webpage.

On-Page SEO Checklist to “Meta Tags” SEO

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☐ Meta title should be optimized under 60 chars but it’s not necessary to optimize the blog title under 60 chars.

☐ Meta titles must have target keywords and if possible in starting.

☐ Meta Description should have LSI Keywords (Synonyms and relevant phrases)

☐ Meta Description should be optimized to get high CTR through the google search page

☐ Meta Keywords are not required.

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#3 Blog Post Content Structure

The Internet is flooded with billions of pages and every other blogger is writing every second and trying to get some eyeballs online.

You need to think about why would a user read your content instead of others.

Here matters the content structure and heading tags that should be highly structured from the point of users as well as search engines. Better the content is structured better would be rankings. Salesforce has created an ultimate Infographic to understand a perfect blog post structure that you can check here.

Checklist of Onsite SEO to “Content Structure”

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☐ Focus on 1–2 long-tail keywords that match the intent of your ideal reader.

☐ Target keywords should come in the very first paragraph.

☐ Use H2 and H3 tags to create a well-defined structure for readers.

☐ Use short paragraphs of 3-4 lines and use bulletins or numbers.

☐ Use target keywords in H2 tags if possible (Google’s Zeroth position read these Heading tags and bulletins, so use them wisely.)

☐ Try to create well-researched content of around 2000 words.

☐ Sprinkle LSI Keywords around the writeup.

☐ Content should be easily consumable. (The easier the consumability, the longer the user invests time on a blog post. Indirectly improve the dwell time of a page and counter the google Rank-Brain algorithm.)

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Brian Dean and his team on Backlinko ran their own analysis of optimum length of content to rank on google, here’s what they found.

#4 Internal Linking

The best and doable SEO tactic is internal linking. Most of the long-term keywords rank through content and internal linking. Link all of your content with each other.

Internal linking puts meat on the bones of a logical site hierarchy. Moz’s article on internal links lists three reasons why they are important:

• They allow users to navigate a website.
• They help establish an information hierarchy for the given website.
• They help spread link juice (ranking power) around websites.

But it’s important to note that the internal linking should be keywords based and should not be done so aggressively as it lowers the text/HTML ratio which is prescribed as above 15%.

Checklist to “Internal Linking” as Per On-Site SEO

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☐ Interlink as max the same level pages and link to 1 or 2 target landing pages.

☐ Use Target keywords to link internal pages.

☐ Do not link the same page in one blog post twice.

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For example – all the blog posts on a domain are on the same level, but service pages are above the level of blog posts and the homepage is at the top level.

This image might help you to understand how to link the pages and blog posts.

#5 Image Alt Text

Images are 50% more engaging than text-based content and we use images on almost all web pages.

But do you optimize the images to be better able to rank in SERPs? Images also need optimization like videos and it helps a lot in writing SEO-friendly content.

On-page SEO Checklist to “Image Alt text”

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☐ Always fill in the image alt text and description and feed the target keyword in the alt text of the image.

☐ Use image description to explain image context and target keyword of the blog post.

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#6 Outbound Links

No one knows everything, we need to take help from others’ knowledge.

Do you publish research, facts, and infographics in your blog posts?

If not, you are missing a bigger factor of authentic content. The Internet has a number of research papers and facts that helps to make your content worthy and shareable.

Link to source or reference of facts, research, and images to show that you respect others’ content as well. It creates authority in the eyes of the audience and search engines.

Checklist to “Outbound links” for SEO-friendly content

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☐ Link to similar industry blogs and high-authority research pages.

☐ Provide content source pages. (Google loves well-researched and reference-linked pages.)

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#7 URL Structure according to Search Robots

URL is 2nd most important factor after meta tags that search robots look for. Your URL also shows the content and what’s in it for the user. Short and clean URLs always win. The below image will help you to understand the perfect structure of an SEO-friendly URL.

URL structure Checklist for perfect Onpage SEO

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☐ Add the main keyword in starting

☐ Under 55 Chars

☐ 3-4 words

☐ Avoid using stop words like at, on, in, how, to, etc. if possible

☐ Use a hyphen to separate two different words in a URL

☐ Avoid using underscores

☐ Avoid using date and year in the URL

According to an interview with Matt Cutts, this is a pretty good formula to stick with.

Here’s a snippet from the interview.

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This On-page SEO checklist can help you to develop a Search engine-friendly blog post that will drive eyeballs from Search Engines.

If you have anything to add to the list, Spill your brainy juice about Onpage SEO in the comments section below.