On-page SEO has the power to attract more audience towards your content. So as a content writer, you need to be more focused on on-page SEO. This is one factor that helps you reach a wider audience and rank on top of SERP.
But you might sometimes miss out on a few on-page SEO factors. That’s when you need a proper checklist. In this blog, we will look at some of the key on-page SEO checklists that you need to tick off.
10 Most Important On-page SEO Checklist for 2023
1. Conduct Keyword Research
This is an important step for creating high-quality content. The first thing that you can do is conduct keyword research on Google. Here, you will get a fair idea of what exactly people are looking for.
Once you start searching for one particular word on Google, you’ll get a lot of suggestions. Make a note of these long-tail keywords. Additionally, you can scroll down and check for the “People Also Ask” and “Related Searches” sections.
There are also keyword research tools like UberSuggest, Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner, etc which can be useful.
2. Optimize Your Page Titles
Page titles also known as title tags are one of the key elements of SEO. The title acts as an indicator for both a visitor and search engine about the kind of content you have come up with.
Let’s consider that you want to rank your website. To make sure your site pages rank at the top, add a focus keyword in every page title. Also, make sure that you have added it as naturally as possible.
3. Add Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are those short descriptions that you see under the title in SERP. Even though it doesn’t count as an SEO factor, it still influences audiences to open your page.
You can also use this as your social media post along with your content link. This will make people click on your page link.
4. Inclusion of Keywords in Your Content
Try to incorporate keywords naturally wherever possible. Even though keywords are very important for SEO ranking, try to avoid forceful keyword stuffing.
Excessive usage of keywords unnecessarily just for the sake of ranking can backfire. Google encourages you to add keywords naturally rather than forcing things. And most importantly, it affects the reading experience. So, make sure you are following Google’s set of regulations.
5. Use Images and Videos
Images and videos attract the audience and keep them engaged. The reason for that is these media enhance the visual appeal. They make the content easily understandable.
Also, you can optimize the image used by using alt text. Alt text will help you in driving traffic through image search results.
6. Make Use of Headers
Headers (also known as body tags) are HTML tags that are used to structure content. These tags organize content and help search engines understand content relevancy based on search intent.
They also improve the overall readability and make it easy for the readers to digest.
7. Add Internal Links
Internal linking is nothing but hyperlinking an anchored text to other pages of your website which is helpful. This is one of the important parts of the on-page SEO process where readers get directed to another page through the link.
What this does is it directs readers and makes them stay for a long time. This tells Google that the site is valuable for readers.
8. Add External Links
Adding external links is as important as internal links. External links are nothing but links to credible sites.
By adding external links to your content and directing them to authoritative sites, you can increase your own site authority. It also helps in building trust between you and your audience.
9. Proofread and Edit Content
If you want your copy to be readable and compelling then make sure to proofread and edit it. Remember, that you write content keeping your audience in mind rather than just ranking.
Make sure each page has content of at least 500 words and is well formatted. This makes it much easier to read and digest.
10. Site Speed
Your page speed and site speed become very important when it comes to SEO ranking. Most of the people leave your speed due to long load times.
Google prioritizes user experience a lot. So make sure your site is loading fast. Make use of sites like PageSpeed Insights, which will give you a fair idea about your site speed.
Tips for Beginners to Optimize Your Website
The on-page SEO checklist mentioned earlier can also be used as tips for beginners. However, if you are looking for an alternative then use a Content Management System (CMS). CMS like WordPress helps you in optimizing and uploading your content. By downloading different WordPress plugins, it becomes easy for you to optimize your content.
Online learning is another option for beginners. You’ll find various online tutorials on YouTube that will teach you every concept from scratch. If not, you can also choose on-page SEO courses where you can start learning from the basics and you don’t even need any previous SEO experience.
The Bottom Line
Your site’s overall ranking depends on your on-page SEO strategy. The more you are aware of on-page SEO concepts, the better it is to rank high on search engine result pages.
Most importantly, you need to have your own checklist ready for yourself, so that you don’t miss out on any of the above factors.
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