The On-Page SEO Checklist: 30 Checks Per Page, With a Pass Test for Each

How to use this on-page SEO checklist

Use it one page at a time, top to bottom, and score each check pass or fail. The checks run in order of importance, so if a page fails the intent section, stop and fix that before polishing anything else.

Each check carries a weight:

• Critical (3): a fail here can stop the page ranking for its target at all.
• Major (2): a fail costs rankings or clicks.
• Minor (1): worth fixing, rarely decisive on its own.

Add up the weights of the checks a page passes. The maximum is 60. Below 42, rewrite the page. Between 42 and 52, fix the failed critical and major checks. Above 52, move on to the next page.

This list covers what lives on the page. Whether Google can crawl, render and index the page at all is a separate set of checks, covered in our technical SEO checklist. Run that first on the site, then this on each page.

Part 1: Intent and targeting (checks 1-5)

Every page should target one main search intent, and the page type should match what Google already shows for it. This is the section that decides whether everything else matters.

Check 2 is where most pages fail. If the top results for "kitchen remodel cost" are guides with cost tables and your page is a sales page with a contact form, you are answering a different question than the searcher asked. Look at the results page before you write a word.

Check 3 matters on sites with years of blog posts. Two pages chasing the same phrase split links and confuse Google about which to show. Merge them, or give each a distinct target.

Part 2: Title tag and snippet (checks 6-10)

The title tag and meta description are your listing in the search results. Their job is to tell the searcher, at a glance, that this page answers their question.

Google's title link documentation asks for titles that are "descriptive and concise," warns against keyword stuffing and says to "avoid repeated or boilerplate text in <title> elements." It also lists where Google looks when it rewrites a title: the title element, the main visual title, headings such as the H1, og:title, prominent text and anchor text. If your H1 and title disagree, Google may pick something you didn't choose.

On descriptions, Google's snippet documentation says snippets are "primarily created from the page content itself," and that Google uses the meta description when it describes the page better. There is no hard length limit; results truncate to fit the screen. Write a strong one anyway, then make sure your opening paragraph is just as clear, because that is often what shows instead.

Part 3: Headings and structure (checks 11-15)

Headings give the page a shape a skimmer, a screen reader and a search engine can follow. Each one should tell the reader what the section answers.

One note from Google's SEO Starter Guide: heading order doesn't affect ranking. It says "it doesn't matter if you're using them out of order." Use a logical order anyway, for readers and screen readers, but don't spend an afternoon renumbering H4s.

Check 14 is the one that pays twice. A section that answers its question in the first sentence is easier to skim, and it is the passage Google and AI engines are most likely to quote. Our guide to generative engine optimization explains why.

Part 4: Content quality (checks 16-21)

The content checks ask whether the page is genuinely the most useful answer to its search. They are the hardest to pass and the most important after intent.

The test we use for check 19: cover your logo and read the page. If it could belong to any of your competitors, it is not finished. Add the details only you know: the questions customers really ask, the mistakes you see, how you actually do the work.

On length, Google's Starter Guide is clear: "The length of the content alone doesn't matter for ranking purposes." Write until the question is answered well, then stop. A 600-word page that answers a narrow question can beat a 3,000-word page that wanders.

Part 5: Links (checks 22-25)

Links tell Google how your pages relate and tell readers where to go next. Internal links are the most underused on-page lever we see.

Check 22 is the one most people miss, because it isn't on the page you are editing. A new page with no internal links pointing to it is close to invisible. When you publish, go back to two or three older pages that discuss the topic and add a link with clear anchor text.

Google's Starter Guide defines anchor text as the visible part of a link and says it tells people and Google something about the page you are linking to. That is why "water heater repair in Morristown" is a better anchor than "our services."

Part 6: Media, markup and page experience (checks 26-30)

The last group covers what supports the content: images, structured data, URLs and how the page behaves on a phone.

Google's Starter Guide describes alt text as "a short, but descriptive piece of text that explains the relationship between the image and your content." Write it for someone who can't see the image, not as a place to repeat keywords.

For markup, our guide to schema markup for SEO shows which types still earn features after Google's recent retirements. For speed, see our Core Web Vitals guide. For check 30, our guide to improving conversion rate covers what to fix once visitors land.

What Google says you can stop worrying about

Some on-page habits survive long after they stopped mattering. Google's Starter Guide names several directly. Cross them off your list and spend the time on checks 2, 18 and 22.

This is why our checklist asks for the main phrase in one heading and natural language everywhere else, rather than a density target. Write for the reader first.

A worked example: one page through the checklist

Here is a typical service page for a fictional roofing company, before and after a pass through the on-page SEO checklist.

Notice that most of the gain came from three checks: the target (1 and 3), the opening answer (16) and the original table (18). The title rewrite helped clicks; the content changes are what give the page a reason to rank.

The 45-minute per-page workflow

Here is how we run the on-page SEO checklist on an existing page without it turning into a day-long rewrite.

1. Minutes 0-10: Intent. Search the target phrase. Note the page types and the questions the top results answer. Score checks 1 to 5.
2. Minutes 10-15: Snippet. Rewrite the title and description. Score 6 to 10.
3. Minutes 15-30: Structure and content. Rewrite the opening, fix the H2s and add the missing answers. Note the original element you will add. Score 11 to 21.
4. Minutes 30-40: Links. Add links out, then find two or three older pages to link in. Score 22 to 25.
5. Minutes 40-45: Media and checks. Alt text, markup test, a phone check and a test form submission. Score 26 to 30.

Record the before and after score with the date. A month later, compare the page's impressions and clicks in Search Console. Over a quarter, that log shows which checks move results on your site. Our SEO reporting guide shows how to roll that into a monthly report.

Template checks versus page checks

Some checks belong to the template, not the page. Fix those once in the site's code and every page inherits the fix. Use the on-page SEO checklist for what is unique to each page.

This is how large sites stay clean. On a store or a real estate site with hundreds of near-identical page types, the template decides most of the score. Our ecommerce SEO playbook and real estate SEO guide show page-type templates for each.

How Unified runs on-page SEO

UnifiedIQ, our own platform, scores every page we publish for SEO, so the checks above run automatically on every page and a failing template shows up as a drop across many URLs at once. Our strategists handle what software can't judge: intent, originality and whether the page is truly the best answer.

That combination is how all 50 SEO landing pages we built for Joe Sale Photography score 99 to 100. Our SEO team runs this checklist on new pages, and our website improvement team applies it to existing sites. If you want your top pages scored and rewritten, talk to us.

On-page SEO checklist questions, answered