Complete On-Page SEO Checklist September 2025

Last Updated:

Table of Contents

Domain-Level On-Page SEO Checklist

These optimizations affect the entire website.

1. Domain & URL Structure

  • Use a short, brandable domain name Example: seoprashant.com
  • Ensure your domain is HTTPS secured (SSL Certificate installed)
  • Prefer a .com domain extension
  • Avoid using hyphens, numbers, or special characters in the domain
  • Canonicalization: Redirect all non-www to www (or vice versa)
  • Ensure URL structure is SEO-friendly
  • Enable gzip compression for faster loading
  • Use a CDN for global speed improvements

2. Robots.txt & Sitemap

  • Block unnecessary pages from indexing (/admin, /wp-content/uploads/)
  • Submit an XML sitemap to Google Search Console
  • Use a dynamic sitemap for auto-updating new posts and pages

3. Site Speed & Performance

  • Implement lazy loading for images and videos
  • Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files
  • Enable browser caching and use next-gen formats like WebP for images
  • Ensure Time to First Byte (TTFB) is under 200ms
  • Use AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) for fast mobile loading (optional)

4. Mobile-Friendliness

  • Ensure a fully responsive design (Google Mobile-Friendly Test)
  • Use Viewport meta tag (<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">)
  • Optimize touch elements (buttons should be easily clickable)

5. Internal Linking & Navigation

  • Use a logical site structure (Home → Category → Subcategory → Page)
  • Ensure a crawl depth of no more than 3 clicks from the homepage
  • Add breadcrumb navigation (Home > Category > Page)
  • Ensure header navigation is user-friendly and concise

6. Security & Technical SEO

  • SSL certificate installed (https://)
  • Fix broken links regularly (404 errors)
  • Ensure Core Web Vitals are optimized (LCP, FID, CLS)
  • Implement HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security)
  • Set up redirects properly (301 for permanent, 302 for temporary)
  • Use Hreflang tags for multi-language support
  • Ensure proper pagination handling (rel=prev and rel=next)

Individual Page-Level On-Page SEO Checklist

Optimizations for each page/post.

1. URL Optimization

  • Keep URLs short and descriptive (3-5 words max)
  • Use lowercase letters and hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_)
  • Avoid stop words (and, of, the, in, etc.)

Example:

❌ https://www.seoprashant.com/seo-guide-for-beginners-and-advanced-users/

✅ https://www.seoprashant.com/seo-guide/

2. Title Tag Optimization

  • Primary keyword at the beginning of the title
  • Keep title tags between 50-60 characters (avoid truncation)
  • Use power words to increase CTR (Best, Ultimate, Complete Guide)

Example:

❌ SEO Guide: Learn Everything About SEO

✅ The Ultimate SEO Guide: Rank #1 in 2024

3. Meta Description

  • Include primary keywords naturally in the description
  • Keep it within 150-160 characters
  • Write compelling, action-driven text to increase CTR

Example:

❌ Learn SEO in this article.

✅ Master SEO with our step-by-step guide and boost your rankings in 2024!

4. Header Tags (H1-H6)

  • Only one H1 tag per page (should match page title)
  • Use H2 for main sections, H3-H6 for subtopics
  • Include keywords naturally in some headers

Example:

<h1>Complete SEO Guide for 2024</h1>
<h2>What is SEO?</h2>
<h3>Types of SEO</h3>
<h4>On-Page SEO</h4>

5. Keyword Optimization

  • Use targeted keywords naturally (no keyword stuffing)
  • Maintain a keyword density of 1-2%
  • Use LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords
  • Place keywords in the first 100 words

6. Image Optimization

  • Use descriptive file names (e.g., seo-guide-2024.jpg)
  • Add ALT text (alt="SEO Guide 2024")
  • Use WebP format for faster loading
  • Compress images (TinyPNG, ImageOptim)

7. Internal Linking

  • Link to at least 3-4 related pages
  • Use descriptive anchor text (not "click here")
  • Avoid orphan pages (pages with no internal links)

Example:

❌ Click here to learn about keyword research.

✅ Learn more about keyword research strategies.

8. External Linking

  • Link to relevant high-authority sources
  • Set external links to open in a new tab (target="_blank")
  • Use nofollow for affiliate links (rel="nofollow")

9. Structured Data & Schema Markup

  • Use Article schema for blog posts
  • Use FAQ schema for FAQs (How-to, Review)
  • Use Breadcrumb schema for navigation
  • Test with Google Rich Results Test

10. Content Readability

  • Write short paragraphs (2-3 sentences max)
  • Use bullet points and lists for better readability
  • Keep sentence length under 20 words for clarity
  • Use bold and italics for important points

11. Call-to-Action (CTA)

  • Include a clear CTA in every article (Subscribe, Contact, Download)
  • Use CTA buttons instead of plain links

Example:

🚀 Want to learn SEO faster? Subscribe to our newsletter!

12. Social Media Optimization

  • Add Open Graph meta tags for Facebook & LinkedIn
  • Add Twitter Card meta tags
  • Use Share buttons on articles

Final Checks

  • Check for broken links (Google Search Console, Ahrefs)
  • Validate HTML & CSS (W3C Validator)
  • Test page speed (Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix)
  • Check mobile-friendliness (Google Mobile Test)
  • Run a site crawl (Screaming Frog, Sitebulb)
  • Ensure proper indexing in Google Search Console

🚀 Conclusion

By implementing domain-level and page-level on-page SEO, your site will be search engine optimized, user-friendly, and highly performant.