On-page SEO checklist

On-page SEO is the part that is entirely under your control and the part most people do inconsistently. Not because it is hard, but because there is no feedback when you skip a step. A missing meta description doesn’t throw an error. It just means Google writes one for you, badly.

This checklist turns the inconsistency into a mechanical process. Twenty minutes per page, and the page ships correctly every time.

The checklist

Tick these here (progress saves in your browser), or take the PDF.

5 groups · 30 checks

URL and indexability 6

• The page is not blocked by robots.txt
• The page does not carry a noindex tag
• The URL is short, descriptive and contains the target keyword
• The page has a self-referencing canonical tag
• The page returns a 200 status code
• The page is linked from at least one other page on the site

Title tag and meta description 6

• Title tag is 50 to 60 characters, including the brand suffix
• Title tag contains the target keyword, preferably near the start
• Title tag is unique across the site, no duplicate titles
• Meta description is 120 to 155 characters
• Meta description summarises the page and contains the target keyword
• Meta description is unique, not a copy from another page

Heading structure 6

• Exactly one H1 per page
• H1 matches the search intent, if not the exact keyword
• H2s describe the sections a reader would scan for
• Headings do not skip levels, no H1 directly to H3
• No heading exists only for keyword stuffing
• Heading count is appropriate for the content length

Content and readability 6

• The target keyword appears in the first 100 words
• The page answers the query directly, not after a long introduction
• Paragraphs are short, most under 3 sentences
• Images have alt text that describes what the image shows
• No thin content, the page has enough substance to justify its existence
• Structured data is present where appropriate (FAQ, Product, HowTo)

Internal links 6

• At least 2 internal links from other pages point to this page
• This page links out to 2 to 4 related pages on the site
• Anchor text on internal links is descriptive, not "click here"
• No broken internal links on the page
• Internal links open in the same tab, not target blank
• The page is reachable within 3 clicks from the homepage

What each group covers

Group 1: URL and indexability. Can Google reach this page and has it been told to index it? A page blocked by robots.txt or carrying a stray noindex tag doesn’t benefit from any check below.

Group 2: Title tag and meta description. The two elements that appear in every search result. The title tag is the single highest-leverage on-page element, and most of the mistakes are mechanical: too long (gets truncated), too short (wastes space), or does not contain the target query at all.

Group 3: Heading structure. One H1 per page, matching the title tag in intent if not in exact wording. H2s that describe the sections a reader will scan. No heading should be there for keyword stuffing; if it doesn’t help someone scanning the page, cut it.

Group 4: Content and readability. The target query answered in the first 100 words. Short paragraphs. Images with alt text that describes what is in the image, not what you wish it ranked for. This is also where structured data goes: FAQ schema if the page has real FAQs, not because a template adds them automatically.

Group 5: Internal links. Links from this page to related pages, and links from existing pages back to this one. Internal links are how you tell Google what this page is about and how important it is relative to everything else on the site. A page with no internal links pointing at it is an orphan, and orphans don’t rank.

The per-page tracker

The Excel workbook has one row per URL and the checks as columns, so you can track which pages have been optimised and which still need work.

Preview of the file

The title tag is the highest-leverage element

If you only do one thing from this checklist, fix the title tag. It appears in every search result, every browser tab, and every social share. And the most common problem isn’t that it is badly written. It is that it is too long.

Google displays roughly 50 to 60 characters. A title tag of 80 characters gets truncated mid-word, and the part that gets cut is usually the part that contained the value proposition. Check it in the SERP preview before publishing. This site’s build enforces a 33 to 43 character title in the frontmatter because the theme appends ” | Alston Antony” (17 characters), landing the rendered title at 50 to 60.

What on-page SEO won’t fix

On-page optimisation assumes the site itself is technically sound. If Google can’t crawl the page, can’t render the JavaScript, or is told not to index it, no amount of title-tag work will help. Run the technical SEO checklist first if you have not already.

On-page also doesn’t create demand. A perfectly optimised page for a query nobody searches is still a page nobody visits. That is what the keyword research template is for: picking the queries worth optimising for before you start.

Which tool answers which check

What you need to know	Use	Note
Title and meta checks	Screaming Frog or the SEO browser extension	Free up to 500 URLs in Screaming Frog.
Heading structure	Detailed SEO Extension or View Source	One click shows the heading tree.
Internal link audit	Screaming Frog, Inlinks tab	Shows orphan pages and anchor text distribution.
Content and keyword presence	Surfer or NeuronWriter	Or just Ctrl+F. Paid tools add SERP comparison.
Structured data	Rich Results Test	Free, and shows exactly which rich result types qualify.
Page indexability	Google Search Console, URL Inspection	The definitive answer on whether Google can index it.

For what each of these costs and where it stops, the SEO tools directory has the verified pricing with the date it was checked.

Where this fits

This is the page-level companion to the technical SEO checklist, which covers site-wide infrastructure. Use this checklist every time you publish or update a page. For the broader content strategy that decides which pages to create and which queries to target, the keyword research template and the content SEO guide are where to start.