Post# 500 - Ultimate OnPage SEO Checklist

[dadamson]

Well, I know WarriorForum is nuts for anniversary threads/posts, so as I am now on my 500th post here I thought I would give something back to you guys.

Here is my complete on-page SEO checklist that I use for all of my SEO sites with amazing results.

Some of this is pretty basic stuff but I hope a lot of you gain some helpful info anyway.

1. Title tag contains exact keyword phrase (meta & onpage)
2. Meta description contains the keyword near the beginning and is extremely captivating (think marketing as well as SEO here!)
3. Meta keywords include your exact keyword and at least 3 LSI keywords.
4. Your article body contains your keyword between 1% and 4% of the text (example, a 500 word body should include your keyword at least 5-6 times)
5. When doing the above step, try to get your keyword in the first 50 characters and the last paragraph of the body.
6. Your article body is broken up into paragraphs (use the <p> tag)
7. Use H1, H2, and H3 tags. These are 'heading' tags use them wisely and with your keyword or LSI keywords where possible.
8. Format your text. Don't go overboard - but use bold, italic, and underline tags around your keywords when fitting.
9. Use hyperlinks wisely. Link to other related pages of your site using the keyword for the page you are OPTIMIZING (this seems to work better than using the keyword for the page that the link GOES TO.
10. (Competitive KW ONLY!) - Find an authority site that is ranking for your KW currently, backlink to it with your keyword in your body (don't make the link too obvious as you will give away your traffic) - This is very controversial but Google LOVES it when you share your traffic around in your niche, Google doesn't like it when you keep all your traffic within your site with only affiliate-tagged outbound links.
11. Add an image or two. Put your keywords in your title, alt, and file name tags. - Only do this for a max of two images on the page. Any more than this can be seen as keyword stuffing.
12. Add a robots.txt file. This can tell the bots which pages you do not want/need indexed, eg. Contact Page.

I may have left out some more advanced onpage SEO tricks but this is all I ever really tick off for each page of my sites.

Some points are certainly up for debate but I personally use this checklist for each site I create and I have tweaked it a fair bit from when I started.

The above tips will lay the foundation to ranking ANY keyword online.

I've also got an Excel version of this checklist which I print out and tick for each page that I create per website. You can get that here: http://seojuice.net/onpage-checklist.zip

Cheers,
Dave

[staceymattew]

1) Fix all the broken inner links regularly;
2) Fix the Coding Error regularly.

[AllyChurch]

Thanks Dave, Great info!

[iwontgiveup]

Thanks for all your hard earn typing.

Great Article.

[iAmNameLess]

Originally Posted by dadamson

(Competitive KW ONLY!) - Find an authority site that is ranking for your KW currently, backlink to it with your keyword in your body (don't make the link too obvious as you will give away your traffic) - This is very controversial but Google LOVES it when you share your traffic around in your niche, Google doesn't like it when you keep all your traffic within your site with only affiliate-tagged outbound links.I may have left out some more advanced onpage SEO tricks but this is all I ever really tick off for each page of my sites.

Dave, can you expand on that? I don't understand how that could be true.

[dadamson]

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

Dave, can you expand on that? I don't understand how that could be true.

This is a very controversial SEO technique so I understand your disbelief.

I first heard of it from SEO guru Matt Carter. Obviously I had my doubts but when I implement it my rankings are always better off once it gets crawled. - I don't believe it is a coincidence either!

Basically, the theory behind it is that Google doesn't like websites that are full of inbound links yet provide no outbound links (other than affiliate links).

So, in Googles eyes, your site appears more valuable if you allow the user to exit your site to more valuable and related content.

Cheers,
Dave

[sr41056]

Thanks Dave. Good stuff. I printed a copy so that I always have it.