TL;DR Maximize your website's visibility across the web with this On page SEO Content Optimization Checklist. From crafting effective URLs to optimizing content and images, our guide is your key to excelling in search engines.
Unlock the potential of your website across the web with this tailored On page SEO Content Optimization Checklist. Designed to navigate the complexities of SEO, this guide offers step-by-step strategies for enhancing your web presence. Dive into our checklist to ensure your site resonates with European audiences and search engines alike.
URL Optimization: Sleek and Simple: Crafting URLs for Optimal SEO
- Keep the URL as short as possible
- Keep the URL descriptive
- Use subfolders (/blog/, /articles/, /news/, …) for easier reporting/segmentation
- Keep the URL clean (no stop words, no special characters)
Title Tag & Meta Description: Writing Titles and Descriptions That Click
- Title Tag: keep it aligned with the post title
- Title Tag: Contain target keyword
- Title Tag: Highlight benefits/differentiators to hook users (make it click-worthy)
- Meta Description: Include CTA (learn more etc.)
Content Quality and Structure: Quality Content: The Heart of SEO Success
- Search intent: Does your post match what Google prefers? (Which kind of pages dominate the search result?)
- Search Intent: How do the top competitors format their content? Match them
- Quality: How can you make your post more valuable to the users compared to the competitors
- Quality: write for users, not for SEO.
- H1: Contain target keywords
- H1: Be descriptive and attention-grabbing
- Intro paragraph: Be attention-grabbing, outlining the core benefits the users would get
- Intro paragraph: Include the main keyword
- Subheaders: Include keywords or related keywords in H2’s and H3’s
- Subheaders: Be unique and descriptive – anticipating users’ next questions
- Quality: Avoid Jargons, and make sure the readability level is as low as possible
- Quality: Break up content into short paragraphs for ease of reading. Add subheadings if needed.
- Quality: give a quick recap of the article at the beginning (TL;DR), highlighted in a stand-out format (different CSS/Format)
- Quality: In the conclusion section, outline the core next steps users should take.
Strategic Linking: Building Connections: Smart Linking
- External links: Link to relevant authoritative resources
- External links: Aim for at least 2-3 external links
- Internal links: link to other topically relevant blog pages
- Internal links: Link from other topical blogs pages
- Internal links: Lik to relevant uses case/software pages
- Internal links: The first link holds the most weight – use it to link to conversion pages to boost performance
- Internal links: Add a link to a relevant lead magnet
Image Optimization: Visual Appeal: Using Images to Enhance User Experience
- Alt text added to all images, include your keyword on at least 1 if possible
- Ensure image file names are relevant to the content on the page, and include your keyword where possible
- Optimize the size of images by using something like https://tinypng.com or https://xquoosh.app to squish the size.
- Do you have any pictures of what you’ve implemented? Or them using it?
- Add multiple images to break up the content
- Use unique images, not stock images.
UX & Technical Optimization: Seamless Browsing: Perfecting UX for the Audience
- Add a table of contents at the top
- Content should be shown by default to the user, without hiding it in tabs
- Every page of the site should be responsive and pass Google’s mobile validation: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
- Every indexed page should be included in the site XML Sitemap (avoiding including non-indexable, error, redirected, or canonicalized pages)
- Add structured data to the pages (most frequent ones are: FAQ schema, Article Schema, and Organizations Schema)
- Important pages (blog, use cases, case studies) should be indexable and canonicalized (feature an index, follow mate robots tag, and a self-referring canonical tag, including the indexable URL)
- Is the page fast? Pages should load under 3 seconds.
- Add an author box to the page with information about who’s writing the content (more relevant for blogs) – link to social media handles – show expertise in the author bio section
- Breadcrumbs at the top of each page so the user and search engines can follow the links back to the root
Additional Suggestions
- Repurpose your content into different formats (written long-form content -> multiple short-form contents for more social media platforms)
- Conduct interviews with your customers – add more insights to your current pages over time
- Review sales materials for more ideas
- Sync with your customer teams for more ideas
- Leverage internal statistics to make your content more valuable and stand out
- Is there an opportunity to add a video? Video is great for content and adding it to YouTube ensures another great result in Google