On-page SEO doesn’t need to be complex. It’s just about giving the reader — and search engines — what they want

If a reader lands on your page, it’s because both they and their search engine have decided that your page best fits their needs. On-page SEO is about making sure that your page pleases both the bots and the people looking at your web page. This requires a mixture of quality page design and quality page content.

Let’s start with page design…

On-page SEO Checklist: Page Design

• Title tags — Does your page have a punchy, attention-grabbing title which is fewer than 580 pixels long and contains your target keyword?
• URL — Does the URL of your page explain what the page is about to both humans and search engines?
• Alt-text and descriptions — Do all of your images have relevant alt-text and descriptions? Where possible, do they contain keywords?
• Meta description — Does the meta description for your page grab people’s attention, contain a keyword (where possible) and consist of fewer than 1840 pixels?
• Site speed — Is the website running as fast as it possibly can? People can be a lot more impatient than you might think!
• Mobile-friendly — More people use mobile than desktop. In fact, this has been the case since 2016. So, does the website work as well on mobile as it does on desktop?

On-page SEO Checklist: Page Content

• Headings — Does your page contain headings which break up the text into easily digestible chunks and (where possible) contain your keyword?
• Sentences — Does your page contain a mix of longer and shorter sentences? Are there some sentences which are too long? Are there some sentences which are too short? According to Yoast, more than 20 words is too long for a sentence. However, take this information with a pinch of salt. Long sentences are not inherently evil, but too many of them can confuse your reader.
• Paragraphs — Does your page contain a mixture of longer and shorter paragraphs? Are there some paragraphs which are too long? Are there some paragraphs which are too short?
• Clarity — Will your page content clearly and concisely satisfy the desire of your reader? In other words, have you delivered what your title and headings promised, without waffling?
• Keywords — Does your page naturally contain the target keywords? If not, ask yourself if your page is actually about something else.
• Internal and external links — Where relevant, does your page link to other pages on your website? Where relevant, does your page link to sources beyond your website?
• Length — Does your page contain enough information? Without waffling, is it over 600 words? If not, ask yourself what extra information needs to be added, or whether this page is worth making at all.

Another way of checking your on-page SEO is to analyze a good example. So, let’s do that!

SEO Analyser: a Good Example of On-page SEO

Some great on-page SEO from — you guessed it — This is the page for our content marketing services, and all of the elements of great on page SEO are right there.

Page design

• Title tags — The title explains exactly what the page is about. No waffling and no faffing about.
• URL — The URL tells you that this is the content marketing page for the Thinkplus website and that content marketing is a service.
• Alt-text and descriptions — The alt-text and image descriptions for all of the images on that page are all there.

• Meta description — The meta description for the content marketing page explains exactly what the page is about and (where possible) we’ve got our keyword in there, too: ‘content marketing’.
• Site speed — The website is running as fast as we can make it. However, if you have any issues, please let us know!

Page content

• Headings — We have a variety of different kinds of heading throughout the page, which break the text up every three paragraphs or so. The headings make each section clear and, where relevant, we’ve got our keywords in there as well.
• Sentences — The page contains some shorter sentences and some longer ones, but it’s an easy read overall.
• Paragraphs — Once again, the page contains some shorter paragraphs and some longer ones, but it’s easy to follow.
• Clarity — People searching for content marketing or content marketing services get exactly what they’ve asked for from this page.
• Keywords — ‘Content marketing’ and ‘content marketing services’ naturally appear throughout the page because, well, that’s what the page is about.
• Internal and external links — We’re always sure to cite sources for our claims, which means external links. Plus, we’re always sure to direct our readers to relevant pages on our website, which means internal links.
• Length — The page contains over 1,500, words but not a syllable of it is wasted on anything unnecessary.

Do you want on-page SEO that will get you to the top of Google? Contact Thinkplus today for a FREE marketing review to see how you can improve your on-page SEO and so much more!