On-Page SEO
On-Page SEO Checklist 2026: 47 Things to Check Before Publishing Any Page
On-page SEO is everything you control inside the page itself: the markup, the structure, the copy and the links. It is the fastest part of SEO to fix and the easiest to verify.
Run this checklist before you press publish. Fixing an element after indexing costs a re-crawl and delays the result by weeks.
Free tools used in this guide
Title, Description and URL
- Title 30–60 characters, primary keyword near the front, brand at the end
- Title unique across the entire site
- Meta description 70–160 characters written to earn a click
- URL slug short, lowercase, hyphenated and descriptive
- Canonical tag present and self-referencing
- Meta robots set to index, follow for public pages
Headings and Structure
- Exactly one H1 that matches the page's promise
- H2s phrased as questions where the topic allows
- No heading level skips
- Table of contents on pages longer than 1,500 words
- Paragraphs of three sentences or fewer
- Lists and tables used wherever data is comparable
Content Quality and E-E-A-T
- The core question answered in the first 200 words
- Named author with credentials and a link to an author page
- Visible publish and last-updated dates
- Original data, examples or screenshots included
- Every statistic attributed to a named source
- No thin duplicated sections shared with other pages
Links and Media
- Three or more internal links with descriptive anchor text
- Links to genuinely relevant authoritative external sources
- No broken links anywhere on the page
- Descriptive alt text on every meaningful image
- Explicit width and height on all images
- Below-the-fold images lazy-loaded; the hero image never lazy-loaded
Technical and AI Readiness
- Valid JSON-LD matching the page purpose
- FAQPage markup mirroring visible questions
- Open Graph and Twitter Card tags complete
- Responsive viewport with no horizontal scroll
- HTTPS with no mixed-content references
- Core Web Vitals within the good thresholds on mobile
- AI citation bots allowed in robots.txt
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the most important on-page factor?
Matching search intent. A page that answers a different question than the query asked will not rank regardless of how well its tags are optimised.
How long should a page be?
As long as the intent requires. Compare with the pages currently ranking; padding to hit a word count reduces quality signals rather than improving them.
Does keyword density still matter?
Only as a guard rail. Keep the primary term natural — roughly once per 150 words — and focus on covering the topic and its related entities.
Should every page have FAQ schema?
Only where the page genuinely contains questions and answers users ask. Markup that does not mirror visible content is a policy violation.