SEO Best Practices: The On-Page SEO Checklist for Webmaster

On Page SEO Checklist

Whenever we heard the term of On-Page SEO it gives us thought of Meta tags, HTML coding, Image tags, and other elements that are directly connected with a website. When you are thinking to put your website in high ranking it’s important that at first, you give importance to your website Structure, and ON page SEO is totally a matter of that.

Moreover, On-Page SEO is the most important factor for SEO. It is basically the factor that directly connects to your website. For ranking high in search engines, Anything worth doing merits doing great, and that is surely the situation when it comes to your site's Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Yet, SEO best practices can feel like a moving target.

In November 2003 Google did a major modification to its search relevancy algorithms. That was known in the SEO community as the Florida update. That algorithm strikes SEO harshly. So, today I am going to share a simple blog post about “SEO Best Practices: The On-Page SEO Checklist for Webmaster”  I hope this will help your On-Page SEO project be more effective and Successful. 

So here we go……

1. Title Tag 

Title Tag

The title tag informs Search Engines about your website. Basically, what the page is all about. It informs if your website is relevant for that specific keyword or keyword phrase.

However, Search engine results will highlight the keyword phrase or the keyword of your website to the user who has searched for those items. So it’s very important for On-page SEO. 

Here Are Some Best Practices for Title Tag:

Ø  Title tag should be unique
Ø  Title tag length should be 55 characters or less in length. (Actual length of the title tag is 79 characters) 
Ø  Use dash in keyword phrases and a pipe at the end before the brand name 
Ø  Avoid using duplicate title tags.

2. Permalink Structure  

Permalink is basically a URL that links to specific news, blog, or any web posting. Now a day’s permalink is mostly used for blog posts. This frequently changed and updated. 

The Permalink option in WordPress lets you simply modify the layout of your URL and make it understandable for humans and even more significantly boost your search results in the search engine.

Here Are Some Best Practices for Permalink Structure:

Ø  Using “Day and name” for specific posts.
Ø  If there is a similar post in one domain then use the post name
Ø  Including website keyword, phrase, or a variation of it in the URL of the website page whenever it's possible
Ø  Try to use a permalink like www.example.com/post-name, Don’t use this www.example.com/?p=N


3. Meta Description

Meta Description Tag

The meta description is a tag. It’s basically an HTML and XHTML element.

However, this describes the website page to search engines. The meta description is the very top important thing for search engines.

Meta descriptions show with searched keywords painted in bold, so incorporating your targeted keywords into the Meta description can help to further emphasize your search result to prospective visitors.

The Best Practice for Meta Description: 

·       Meta description length should be around 150 to 160 characters
·       Not using any quotes or any non–alpha characters (Google doesn’t allow this)
·       Do not use any duplicate meta description
·       Meta description should be compelling.

4. Unique Content  

“Unique Content” doesn’t mean that we have to write the content in our own words. It means the original Content. It’s not necessary that the idea should be new. 

Unique content has basically rewritten some ideas that you have learned in school, newspapers, or the internet. For ON page SEO Unique Content Is one of the most important factors.

There is Some Best Practice that You Need to Follow for Unique Content:

·       Using search engines tools for uniqueness check

·       Re-write the ideas with a different keyword 

·       If there are many articles on the same topic its best practice is to create a difference in the title, writing style, keyword phrase, and the length of the article.

·       Use a tool to check the uniqueness of your Content. You can use a plagiarism Checker for that. 

5. JavaScript & CSS External 

JavaScript is basically a programming language used in web development and CSS is a style sheet language used for relating the appearance of a document written in a markup language. You need to make certain the most vital code is the principal thing the search engine bots crawl. You can externalize the code that hinders this to guarantee there aren't pointless lines over the body content.

To find out the best practice for JavaScript and CSS, you should read this.

6. Content Keyword

The content keyword is basically the keyword selection for the Content of your website. Choosing the right keyword for the content is one of the most important things for search engines. 

The keyword should be absolutely relevant to the keyword phrase and to the content. This is the most important factor in ON-PAGE SEO.

The Best Practice for Content Keywords:

Ø  Content keyword should be totally relevant to the content phrase.
Ø  Use the keyword phrase 4 times within your Content ( abuse is not acceptable)
Ø  Using Internal linking within your website that point back to these pages


7. Mobile Friendliness 

The website should be mobile-friendly. Cause, in this digital era technology is very fast. In order to get more responses from search engines or from users, the website should be mobile-friendly. GOOGLE gives importance to mobile usability websites. You can also check for your website Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test for developers here.

The Best Practice for Mobile Friendliness:

Ø  Creating A touches friendly design 
Ø  Reducing HTTP requests and increasing site speed.
Ø  Fixable layout that detects user screen size and orientation

8. Image Alt Tags  

The alt tag is an HTML element that indicates the image on the website. Alt tags provide useful information to the search engine's crawl. Because of that Image Alt tag is most things for Search engines.

The Best Practice for Image Alt Tags:

Ø  Name should be describing the images like what they are.
Ø  Using dashes between the words 
Ø  Avoid using non-alpha characters in images like- %,&,@....etc.

9. Anchor Text

Anchor text is basically a visible text which contains a hyperlink, and that hyperlink links to another document or the location on the web. Anchor text is mostly used to link to websites.

The Best Practice for Anchor Text:

To find out anchor text best practices, click here 

10. Privacy Statement 

The privacy statement is basically a statement of the visitor’s data. Suppose your website contains some visitor’s information like their name, number, address, account details, etc. Then there should be a privacy policy to inform visitors about their data

The Best Practice for Privacy Statement:

Ø  Privacy Statement should be legal 
Ø  The statement should be as per the country's government
Ø  The privacy policy should appear on the homepage 
Ø  There should be an option to download the privacy statement.

11. Website Map/ Structure

Website mapping is one of the most important factors in ON-Page SEO. Every website should have an HTML sitemap and every page of the particular website should link to the sitemap.

The Best Practice for Website Map/Structure: 

Ø  Using HTML sitemap
Ø  You should also have an XML Sitemap you submit to search engines.
Ø  Website navigation should be descriptive.
Ø  Avoiding drops down menus

12. Social Media Sharing Buttons

For search engine optimization social media is the most important factor. Your website must have Social media share buttons. If any visitor likes any of your posts or blogs from your website he or she could easily share that to social media sites. That will increase the number of visitors. For search engines ranking social media is one of the biggest or we can say the most important factor.

The Best Practice for Social Media Buttons:

Ø  Using top and most used social media sites
Ø  Don’t use too many social media buttons
Ø  Using left aside to include the social media buttons (Depending on your website structure) 
Ø  Always show the number of shares, likes, and involvedness results to visitors, people usually like most recommended things. The number will give your website visitors an idea about the people involved.


13. Heading Tag

The heading is basically the headline or the introduction text. A heading Tag is an HTML tag to define the headline. In HTML heading is defined with <h1> to <h6> tags. 

The Best Practice for Heading Tag:

Ø  Don’t use a heading for design.
Ø  Title should be in an h1 tag
Ø  Try to use the keyword in the headers
Ø  Avoid stuffing.
Ø  Avoid using an HTML header tag multiple times for multiple pages.

14. Internal Linking

Internal linking means the link to your own website. Internal links are hyperlink that links one page on a domain to a dissimilar page on a similar domain. It’s basically allowing the user to navigate a website. Internal linking helps to improve the ranking for certain keywords.

The Best Practice for Internal Linking:

Ø  For user experience, internal linking should be done when it's useful
Ø  Internal linking should not be more than 6-7 links per page 
Ø  Careful about broken links as this is bad for SEO
Ø  The total links of per page should not cross 100
Ø  Use no follows tags wisely
Ø  Anchor text or keywords can be used for internal linking but avoid exaggerations.
Ø  Variation in internal and external linking is always recommended

15. Server Configuration 

To keep the website running and for better user experience it is very important to keep the server under surveillance all the time. Like: 404 errors, 301 redirects, and other errors.

The Best Practice for Server Configuration:

For the best practice of server configuration, you can check out this link. Learn more 

16. Page Load Time

The website loading time or we can say the page load time is one of the most important factors. Basically, it means how extensively it takes for your browser to obtain the first byte of information from the web server.

The Best Practice for Page Load Time:

Ø  Improving Server loads time
Ø  Enable Compression, which means reducing the size of your CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files that are greater than 150 bytes.
Ø  Reducing redirects.
Ø  Optimizing Images.

For better page Speed analysis you can directly use the page speed tools to analyze and optimize your site following web best practices.

17. Content-Length

Content length is basically a collection of the content present on each web page. The length of the content is very important for On-page SEO. For search engine ranking, content length is one of the important factors.

The Best Practice for Content Length:

Ø  Try to write the content of 1500 words.
Ø  Remember quality is better than quantity.
Ø  Don’t force your content and fill it with fluff.
Ø  Always make your content easy to learn.
Ø  Podcast 22 mins, title tags 55 characters, video length should be 3 to 3.5 mins, paragraph 4 lines or less. 

18. Linking Out Relevant Resources

Linking out relevant resources means linking the other piece of content on the web. For Search Engine ranking linking out the relevant resources is very important. Irrelevant linking could make your website penalize.

The Best Practice for Linking Out Relevant Resources:

Ø  Relevant Anchor text while linking out
Ø  Link out with the high-rank domain for gaining more value for your content
Ø  Global popularity like Wikipedia got thousands of diverse sites linking to it. while means global popularity is most important while linking out.

For more external linking you can read the MOZ guideline for external linking

19. Ensure NO Spam Tactics

Last but not least ensure no spam tactics for SEO. I am pretty much sure that you don’t want all your hard work goes useless and affectless. Ensure that you go through Webmaster Guidelines and also you can read the Google guidelines to make sure there are no spam tactics for your SEO.

You can read this post to check your site has not been marked as Spam # SEO

Final Thought

That was the most important element for ON page SEO. Every website owner tries to do the best structure for their websites. I have tried to incorporate the best practices and a simple checklist for On-page SEO. However, a mistake is bound to happen. I hope you can use this article as a checklist and you will be able to avoid those mistakes.    


Jabed Hasan
Jabed Hasan is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Mountnow. He is passionate about writing and loves to write on SEO, CRO, Growth Hacking, and Online Marketing Strategies.


Gangadhar Kulkarni

Gangadhar Kulkarni is an internet marketing expert and consultant having extensive experience in digital marketing. He is also the founder of Seogdk and Director at DigiTechMantra Solutions, a one-stop shop for all that your website needs. It provides you cost-effective and efficient content writing and digital marketing services.

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