On-page SEO checklist: 12 checks, free tools included

Short answer: Decide what the page is for (intent). Write the parts Google shows (title, description, URL). Structure the page (headings, an answer-first intro). Link and illustrate it. Add markup and trust signals. Then check page experience and freshness. A few checklist staples don't work the way people assume, and Google says so: there's no preferred word count, no ideal number of headings, and E-E-A-T isn't a ranking factor. We flag those as we go.

An SEO checklist has layers. Technical SEO decides whether Google can crawl and index a page. Off-page SEO is the links and mentions from other sites. On-page SEO is the layer you control inside the page, and it's what this checklist covers: 12 checks, in the order you'd work through a page. Each has what good looks like, how to check it, a free tool where one exists, and what Google's docs say.

The checklist at a glance

1. Search intent

• Good looks like: the page is the kind of page the searcher wants, judged by what already ranks: a guide, a list, a tool, a comparison, a product page. One page, one main intent.
• How to check: search the phrase and open the top five results. Note the format, the questions they all answer and the one thing none of them does. The SERP checker lists the live results and the features around them, such as AI Overviews and People Also Ask. The search intent checker labels up to 200 keywords informational, commercial, transactional or navigational, with a confidence score. It's an AI label, so treat it as a starting point.
• Source: Google's self-check for helpful content asks whether your page adds substantial value compared with the other pages in the results. Its starter guide says people use different words for the same thing ("charcuterie" and "cheese board") but not to worry about every variant, because Google's language systems match them.

If the top ten are all "best X" lists and yours is a how-to, change the plan, not the title.

2. Title tag

• Good looks like: unique to the page, descriptive and concise, with the searched phrase near the front. Add your brand at the end only if it fits. Our own rule is about 50 characters.
• How to check: the title tag checker reads up to 20 URLs and shows length in characters and pixels, whether the title matches the H1, and duplicates. Its pixel limit of about 600 on desktop is our estimate, because Google publishes no width. The SERP preview shows roughly how it will look.
• Source: Google's title link guide sets no length limit but says titles are cut to fit the device width. It asks you to avoid repeated words and boilerplate. It also says Google builds the title link from several sources, including the title element, the main visible title, headings and anchor text, and may rewrite titles that are half-empty, outdated, repeated across pages or don't match the page. Our rule is to keep the title and H1 saying the same thing, and Microsoft's guidance on AI answers says the H1 should match or closely reflect the title.

Our rules for rewriting titles that already rank are in title tags that get clicked.

3. Meta description

• Good looks like: unique to the page, one or two sentences on what the reader gets, plus one fact the title couldn't fit: a number, a format, an audience. Write it for the click, not for keywords.
• How to check: the meta tag checker reads the title, description, canonical, robots and Open Graph tags on a live URL. The meta tag generator builds the tags with length checks and a preview. The AI meta description generator gives five drafts of 120 to 155 characters to edit.
• Source: Google's snippet guide says it builds snippets mainly from the page and sometimes uses your description when it describes the page better. There's no length limit, and the snippet is cut to fit the width. Google said in 2009 that it doesn't use the description in ranking, and its current docs describe the tag only as a possible source for the snippet.

4. H1 and headings

• Good looks like: one visible H1 that says what the page is and matches the title, and H2s that name the questions or steps. Each section should make sense on its own.
• How to check: the heading checker lists the H1 to H6 outline from the page's HTML and flags missing or multiple H1s, skipped levels, empty headings and headings that are really paragraphs.
• Source: here is a myth worth dropping. Google's starter guide says it doesn't matter to Google Search if headings are out of order, and there's no ideal number of them. Headings still help readers and screen readers. Google also reads headings such as the H1 when it builds the title link, and Microsoft's guidance on AI answers says headings mark where one idea ends and another begins.

5. URL slug

• Good looks like: short, readable words in your audience's language, lowercase, separated by hyphens. No IDs, no parameters. Decide it before you publish, because changing a live URL needs a redirect.
• How to check: the slug generator turns a title into a clean slug: lowercase, accents converted, optional stop-word removal, a length cap.
• Source: Google's URL structure guide recommends readable words over ID numbers and hyphens over underscores, and notes that URLs are case sensitive. The starter guide adds that keywords in the URL path alone have hardly any effect beyond appearing in breadcrumbs. So don't contort a slug for SEO.

6. Intro and answer-first content

• Good looks like: the first screen says what the reader will get and, if the page answers a question, answers it. We open posts with a short answer, then the evidence, then the depth. Paragraphs are short, and each section works if someone lands on it alone.
• How to check: read the first 100 words on your phone. The readability checker gives Flesch, Fog and SMOG scores and marks long sentences, passive voice and adverbs. The word counter shows reading time. The keyword density checker lists your most-used phrases, which exposes over-repetition.
• Source: Google has no preferred length. Its helpful-content page lists writing to a word count as a warning sign and answers "No, we don't" to the idea that it has one. Its spam policies count repeating words so often that it sounds unnatural as keyword stuffing. For AI answers, Microsoft advises one- to two-sentence direct answers and sentences that still make sense when lifted out of the page. That's vendor advice, not a tested result. You can't mark a page up to win a featured snippet: Google's answer is "You can't."

7. Internal links

• Good looks like: every page you care about has a link from at least one other page, in running text, with anchor text that makes sense read alone ("list of cheese types", not "click here"). A few links out to sources that back your claims.
• How to check: the internal link checker lists one page's links and anchors, or scans up to 50 pages for inbound link counts and orphan candidates.
• Source: Google's link guide says there's no magic number of links per page, but "if you think it's too much, then it probably is". It says external links can help establish trustworthiness when you cite sources.

Our four rules are in internal linking for small sites.

8. Images and alt text

• Good looks like: real <img> elements near the text they illustrate, short descriptive filenames (my-new-black-kitten.jpg, not IMG00023.JPG) and alt text that describes the image in context. Compressed, with sizes set.
• How to check: the image alt checker lists every image on a URL and flags missing, empty or over-long alt text, filename alts, missing sizes and lazy-loading mistakes.
• Source: Google's image guide calls alt text the most important attribute for image metadata. It warns against filling it with keywords and notes that Google doesn't index CSS background images.

9. Structured data

• Good looks like: JSON-LD that describes what's visible on the page. For a post, Article or BlogPosting with headline, author, datePublished and dateModified. Add BreadcrumbList on inner pages, and SoftwareApplication on a tool page. Don't mark up what readers can't see.
• How to check: the structured data validator pulls every JSON-LD block from a URL, flags broken JSON and checks the properties Google lists as required. Run our rich results test beside it, with Google's own Rich Results Test as the official second opinion. The schema markup generator builds the JSON-LD.
• Source: Google's Article guide lists no required properties, only recommended ones, and its general guidelines say valid markup doesn't guarantee a rich result. FAQ rich results stopped appearing on 7 May 2026, so FAQ markup no longer changes how a result looks. Visible FAQs still help readers.

The technical side (testing, monitoring, errors) is in the technical SEO checklist.

10. E-E-A-T signals: author, sources, dates

• Good looks like: a visible byline that links to an author page with real background, sources linked next to the claims they support, first-hand detail only you can add (what you tested, with screenshots), an About page, and a visible published or updated date.
• How to check: read the page as a stranger would. Who wrote this? How do they know? Why was it written? We have no tool that scores this. The structured data validator shows the JSON-LD on a page, so you can see whether your author and dates are in it.
• Source: Google's helpful-content page frames it as Who, How and Why. It strongly encourages accurate bylines where readers expect them, calls fabricated creator profiles deception, and suggests disclosing automation when readers would wonder how a page was made. It also says E-E-A-T isn't a specific ranking factor, that its systems use a mix of factors that can identify content with good E-E-A-T, and that trust matters most.

11. Page experience

• Good looks like: Core Web Vitals within Google's targets (LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, CLS under 0.1), a page that reads well on mobile, no intrusive interstitials, and ads that don't crowd the content.
• How to check: the page speed checker runs PageSpeed Insights on a URL, mobile or desktop, with real-user data when Google has enough, a lab score and the top fixes.
• Source: Google's page experience guide says there's no single page experience signal and that Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems. It also says chasing a perfect score just for SEO reasons may not be the best use of your time. The full speed and rendering checks are in the technical SEO checklist.

12. Freshness

• Good looks like: facts, prices, screenshots and years are current. The visible "Last updated" date changes only when the content substantially does, and dateModified in your markup matches it.
• How to check: compare your Search Console Performance report across periods to find pages whose clicks have slipped, then read those pages for stale facts. Our Search Console guide shows where. We review Versely's page 1 to 2 pages every month.
• Source: Google's byline date guide asks for a visible, labelled date that matches the structured data. Its helpful-content page lists changing dates to seem fresh, and adding or removing lots of content only to look "fresh", as warning signs. A year in the title that nobody updated is a classic miss: Google's title guide calls it an obsolete title.

Run it on one page first

Pick one page that already gets impressions. Put its URL through the title tag checker, meta tag checker, heading checker, image alt checker, internal link checker and structured data validator, and fix what they flag. Then read the page against checks 1, 6, 10 and 12, where the tools only help and a person has to judge. Change one thing at a time and log the date, so you can tell what worked.

Where this checklist stops

Whether Google can crawl, index and render the page is the technical SEO checklist. Whether AI search can find and cite you is the AI SEO launch checklist and our GEO guide. For a new site, the 90-day plan puts the order of work on a calendar.

If you'd rather not run checks 2 and 3 by hand across hundreds of pages, Autopilot has a Search Console optimizer: it proposes new titles and snippets for pages ranking on page 1 or 2 that people don't click, and applies them after you approve.