Ready to win more traffic and outrank your competitors in the search results? Then it’s time to up your SEO game. Get started with this on-page SEO checklist for 2024.
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What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO is a catch-all term for techniques that focus on optimizing your own website for search engines and users. It’s the counterpart to off-page SEO, which describes techniques that focus on improving SEO through other websites, such as guest posts, backlinks, public relations, and more. On-page SEO is also distinct from technical SEO, which focuses on optimizing the code for your website, such as boosting your site speed, increasing your crawlability, or adding structured data.
While some of these technical elements relate to your website, you can think of technical SEO as behind-the-scenes and on-page SEO as everything that you can actually see on your website, such as the content and its formatting. This is the type of on-page SEO we’ll focus on in this checklist.
On-page SEO checklist
Here are the on-page SEO elements to review on each page of your website you want to perform better in the search engines.
1. Target keyword(s)
Once you’ve honed in on your priority keywords for a page, make sure that it is featured in your…
- URL
- Title tag
- Meta description
- Throughout your copy, but especially in the first 50–150 words on the page
- Header tags (e.g H1, H2, H3)
- Image alt text, if possible
2. Title tags
Each page should have a unique, keyword-rich title tag that’s around 60 characters or less. Your title tag should be interesting, engaging, and relevant. You want people to feel compelled to click.
3. Meta descriptions
Each page should have a unique, keyword-rich meta description that summarizes the page content in around 160 characters or less.
4. Header tags
Each page should have a unique, keyword-rich H1 header tag. There can be multiple other header tags (h2, h3, h4, etc.), but ideally, you have just one H1 tag.
5. Page content
Does the page content deliver what the title tag promises? Read over your content to ensure it includes both your target keywords and related keywords and phrases. You can find these using your SEO tool of choice, or even ask ChatGPT for help. Is the content:
- Accurate?
- Original?
- Backed by expertise?
- The right length for the topic?
- Readable?
- Formatted well?
Ideally, the answer to all of the above is yes!
6. Images
Visuals can help illustrate your content and make it more enjoyable to read. Each image should use descriptive alt text that explains the content of the image to a blind or visually-impaired user. If it makes sense, you can include a keyword. While this is a bit more technical, it’s also a good idea to optimize your images for faster loading during an on-page SEO audit. The goal is to strike the balance between sharp image quality and short load time.
7. Links to other pages
Internal linking (linking to and from your page to other pages on your site) makes it easier for Google to crawl your website. It also helps users find related topics and information on your website. For blogs and educational content, linking out to other websites can help add authority and relevance to your content. Check that the links on each page are still relevant and don’t lead to a 404 error page.
Ready to rock your SEO in 2024?
Talk to the SEO pros at Your Marketing People. From on-page to off-page and everything in between, our SEO experts can’t wait to help your website bring in more traffic, leads, and customers.
