Google serves billions of search results each day, and making sure that your website is showing up at the top of the search engines is key to getting organic traffic to your website.

Organic traffic is traffic that comes from the search engines without coming from an advertisement.

An on page SEO checklist will help make sure that your page is optimized in a way that will allow the search engines to know what your page is about. If you don’t optimize your page, search engines won’t know where they should put you in the search results.

Continue reading this article, and we will go over how to kick your new year off right with more web traffic from search engines.

1. Setting Up HTTPs

If you’re using chrome browser, you’ll notice in the browser bar that there is a little lock in the search bar. This little lock lets you know that our site is secure.

If the site wasn’t secure, there would be an unlocked lock that shows that the website isn’t secured. Searches and Google alike want to make sure they are safe on the web, and setting up HTTPs on your site will help you rank.

2. Avoid Thin Content

If you’re creating content for the sake of creating content, you may not be going for quality but instead for quantity.

The quantity of your content doesn’t matter if people don’t find your content helpful. A site with thin content can hurt your entire’s site ability to rank.

Instead of trying to great a lot of content and trying to rank for a lot of keywords with different blog posts, try to create the top piece of content for a given search term.

3. URL Structure

A clean URL structure is important for SEO and for user experience. No one is going to remember a super long URL, but if you put the keyword in the URL, it’s going to be more likely they can remember it.

Not only are people able to remember the URL easier if it is the keyword, but it tells the search engines what your page is about. Keep the URL as short as you can without cutting out the keyword.

4. Keyword Placement

Each of the pages of your website needs to have a focus keyword. Once you pick a focus keyword, you need to make sure it is placed in the proper place son your website.

Here are the important places you should put your target keyword.

• Title tag
• Meta description
• alt text for an image
• Intro
• Conclusion
• Within the content

Making sure that you use the keyword in these places is key and the most basic of these tips.

5. Mobile Friendliness

Since the mobile-first update from Google, being mobile-friendly is no longer an option — it’s an essential part of your on-page SEO.

The mobile-first update from Google made it so that if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, it will not show up in the first position. In fact, if your website isn’t mobile, it will show up after all of the websites that are mobile-friendly.

6. Site Speed

How long does your site take to load when people try to access it? Knowing how fast or slow your website is will allow you to see if there is room for improvement.

Even if your website is average speed, if you can improve it, it can give you an edge against the competition.

7. Remove Broken Links

If your website has broken links, this is going to hurt your SEO efforts. Broken links give search engines the impression that your website isn’t well-maintained.

Search for problem links and either fix them or remove them.

8. External Linking

Now it isn’t only important who links to you, but it’s important who you link to. Linking to high authority websites that can be good resources to your visitors is a signal to search engines that your site could be helpful.

When you link externally, you can create the link in a way that it will open in a new page so that you won’t lose people that are visiting your website.

9. CTR Optimization

Your meta description is extremely important when it comes to your CTR from search engines. Learning how to write compelling copy that shows up in the search engines and entices people to click is a good use of your time.

The better your CTR is from the search engines, the more search engines believe your website is a good choice for ranking.

10. Understand Search Intent

Understanding search intent means figuring out what the user is searching for and why they are searching for it.

Some searchers are looking for information, and others are looking for products. Knowing what people are searching for and why people are searching for it will allow you to create content that is going to rank.

If you’re creating product pages for a keyword but people are looking for information about the subject, your page isn’t likely to show up because Google understands that this was not the user’s intent when they were searching.

Following Your On Page SEO Checklist

Making sure you follow your on page SEO checklist will give you confidence that you’re doing everything within your power to help the search engines understand what your page is about.

Do you need help with SEO tasks to boost your rankings? We have helped many businesses like yours grow their organic traffic.

Contact us today to ask any questions or to get started right away.