On-page SEO checklist

What on-page SEO covers

On-page SEO is the set of optimisations you make directly on a page to help it rank and to help searchers, as opposed to off-page factors like links from other sites. It includes your title, headings, content quality, internal links, images, and page-level technical health.

Because you fully control it, on-page SEO is usually the fastest and cheapest place to improve rankings.

The core checklist

Work through these in order. The first items carry the most weight, and each one is something you can fix today without waiting for links or authority.

• Put the target keyword in the title tag, near the front
• Use one clear H1 and logical H2 headings
• Answer the search intent in the first paragraph
• Cover the topic completely, with real depth
• Add internal links to and from related pages
• Write a descriptive meta description
• Use a clean, readable URL slug
• Add descriptive alt text to images

Titles, headings, and intent

Your title tag and H1 tell both searchers and Google what the page is about, so lead with the keyword and a clear promise. Headings should break the content into scannable, self-contained answers. For detail, see title tags and rankings and search intent.

Above all, the page must match what the searcher expects to find. The best-optimised page still fails if it answers the wrong question.

Check your page against the list

Turn the checklist into a score for a specific page and keyword. Run the free Can You Rank? check to see which items you have covered and what to fix first.