SEO glossary · Updated
On-page SEO: what it covers and a checklist for every page
On-page SEO is everything you optimize on the page itself: content, title, headings, links, images and HTML, so search engines and readers understand it.
Founder, SEO·AEO·GEO
Builds SEO·AEO·GEO and writes the crawler, schema, and citation research published here.
On-page SEO (also called on-site SEO) is the work you do on a page itself to help it rank: the words, the title and headings, the links, the images and the HTML around them. It's the part of SEO you fully control.
It sits between technical SEO, which makes sure the page can be crawled and indexed, and off-page SEO, which is about other sites mentioning and linking to you.
A 12-point on-page SEO checklist
- One clear topic per page, matching what people search for.
- A unique, descriptive title tag with the main words first.
- A meta description that summarizes the page.
- One H1 that states the topic, and H2s for the main questions.
- The answer in the first two sentences, then the detail.
- Specific facts: prices, steps, examples, data, with sources.
- Descriptive internal links to and from related pages.
- Images with descriptive alt text and file names.
- A clean, readable URL.
- Structured data for the page type, such as Article, Product or LocalBusiness.
- Author, date and an about page so readers know who's behind it.
- Text that's in the HTML, readable without JavaScript.
On-page myths to drop
- Keyword density targets: Google warns against keyword stuffing, and there's no ideal density.
- Minimum word counts: Google says length alone doesn't affect ranking.
- Meta keywords: Google doesn't use them.
- Exact heading order: Google says it doesn't matter for Search.
Check it on your own site
What the free audit tests for this
- Title tag
- Meta description
- H1 and heading depth
- Answer-first content
- Readability
- Content depth
- Internal links
- Image alt text
- Schema.org / JSON-LD
- Author attribution
One URL, about 20 seconds, no login. You get the result of every check and the exact fix for the top three issues.
Audit your website freeFAQ
What's the difference between on-page and on-site SEO?+
They're usually used to mean the same thing. Some people use on-site SEO to include site-wide technical work as well.
What do on-page SEO services include?+
Typically keyword mapping, rewriting titles and meta descriptions, restructuring headings, improving content, internal linking, image optimization and structured data.
Is on-page SEO enough to rank?+
Sometimes, for low-competition searches. For competitive ones, you'll usually also need strong technical foundations and links or mentions from other sites.
Sources
- SEO Starter Guide — Google Search Central (2025-12-10)
- Influencing your title links in search results — Google Search Central
- Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content — Google Search Central