Today I want to share with you guys my OnPage SEO checklist. You can use this for every kind of content you write for your website.

Keyword research

This is as always in SEO one of the most important steps. Depending on your content approach you either will search for keywords you can write articles about or the other way around: finding keywords that fit your content idea.

Either way, you want to go for keywords that have low competition and high search volume. In the past year, there was a trend to go for long-tail keywords, but when I do keyword research I very often can find hidden gems.

find low competition keywords for onpage seo

There are many tactics to do keyword research, but without a tool, it will be very difficult. You can use the free tool from Google Keyword Planner or Jaaxy from the creators of Wealthy Affiliate or Long Tail Pro. I would suggest you start off with using the free tool from Google and once you feel comfortable and build some know-how start using a paid tool. It does make a big difference. Information is power πŸ˜‰

3 steps of keyword research
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Where to use your keyword

Now that you chose a keyword, of course, you also have to use it in your content, that’s the entire purpose of researching a keyword. WARNING: Don’t overdo it, keep it natural. Write your article without having SEO in mind and then find fitting places or create filler sentences where you can use your keyword (you can also try to use multiple keywords in an article, but that you should try once you are advanced).

The Ultimate Guide to Off-Page SEO

I should use my keyword…

  • in the title (H1 tag)
  • in the first 100 words
  • in the subheadings at least once (H2 tag)
  • in the meta description
  • in the image alt attribute (here you can also use just certain words of the entire keyword)

OnPage SEO Checklist for the content itself

This will be quite short. OnPage SEO is not just about how and where to use your keyword, but also about the content itself. You should try to implement the following 3 points:

  • Your text length should be MINIMUM 300 words (MINIMUM!!!)
  • Use internal links (Link to other relevant articles of your site)
  • Use outbound links (Link to other relevant websites that are very trustworthy)
internal and external links

Google wants good content

In the end, Google just wants good content and that your content shows up for keywords that the users are searching for. So, also have that in mind: the search intent. If I search for “buy notebook”, I probably want to buy a notebook… If I search for “best notebooks reviews”, I probably want to buy a notebook, but have not decided yet which one, so I am doing research about what would be a good option.

onpage seo keyword search intent

Also, make your article pleasant to read. Add subheading every few paragraphs. Add pictures that enhance your content. Maybe even add videos (a little trick for you there to increase the time people spend on your page).

Read more about how to get ranked on Google.

OnPage SEO Checklist

So, here again summarized:

Use the keyword…

  • in the title (H1 tag)
  • in the first 100 words
  • in the subheadings (H2 tag)
  • in the meta description
  • in the image alt attribute

My content should…

  • be at least 300 words
  • have internal links
  • have outbound links

If you fulfill these checkpoints you are already a big step ahead. If you are using WordPress, check out the plugin Yoast SEO. It’s free and basically checks all the things mentioned above for you! I hope this OnPage SEO checklist will help you to rank better in the future πŸ™‚

If you are interested not just in OnPage but also OffPage and just SEO in general, check out: General SEO checklist