Content
The on-page SEO checklist for every page you publish
6 July 2026 · 7 min read · Coselli, Bournemouth
A short, repeatable checklist that catches the on-page mistakes costing most sites their easiest rankings.
On-page SEO is the most controllable part of the discipline and the most frequently rushed. Run this list before every publish; it takes ten minutes.
Title tag
- Under about 60 characters so it does not truncate.
- Primary term near the front, brand at the end.
- Unique across the entire site — duplicate titles are a common, silent ranking loss.
- Written as something a human would click, not a keyword string.
Meta description
Under about 155 characters. It is not a ranking factor but it is your advert in the results. Include the primary term, the specific benefit and an implicit reason to click. Google will sometimes rewrite it; write a good one anyway.
Headings
- Exactly one H1, matching the page's purpose.
- H2s that read as the questions or subtopics a searcher has, in logical order.
- No skipped levels, and never use heading tags purely for visual size.
Copy
- 01Answer the query in the first hundred words.
- 02Short paragraphs; lists and tables wherever information is comparable.
- 03Use natural variants and related terms rather than repeating one phrase.
- 04Include the specifics — numbers, places, names, dates — that make the page verifiable.
Images
- Descriptive filenames before upload.
- Alt text that describes the image for someone who cannot see it; decorative images get empty alt.
- Correctly sized, modern format, explicit dimensions to prevent layout shift.
Links
- Two to five internal links to genuinely relevant pages, with descriptive anchor text.
- At least one link from an existing page to the new one — orphan pages rarely rank.
- External links to authoritative sources where you make a factual claim.
Technical bits before you hit publish
- 01Clean, readable URL that will not need to change.
- 02Self-referencing canonical.
- 03Open Graph title, description and image so shared links look intentional.
- 04Relevant schema — Article, Service, Product or FAQPage.
- 05Added to the sitemap; submitted in Search Console if it is important.
None of these individually wins a competitive term. Missing five of them together reliably loses one.
Frequently asked
- Do meta descriptions affect rankings?
- Not directly. They affect click-through rate, which affects how much traffic a given ranking is worth — so they are still worth writing carefully.
- How long should a page be?
- Long enough to answer the query completely and no longer. Compare against what currently ranks, then be more useful rather than merely longer.