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An on-page SEO checklist for every article you publish

A practical on-page SEO checklist: title, description, headings, links, images and structure. Run it in ten minutes before you publish any article.

Nov 14, 2026 · 4 min read

On-page SEO is everything you control on the page itself: the title, the description, the headings, the words, the links and the images. Done well, it tells a search engine exactly what the page is about and gives a reader a reason to click and stay. The checklist below takes about ten minutes per article.

It will not rescue an article nobody needs. It makes a useful article findable.

Before you write: one page, one intent

Decide two things first.

• The search phrase. The words a person would type to find this page.
• The intent behind it. Are they trying to learn, compare, or do something? Search the phrase yourself and look at what ranks. If the results are all step-by-step guides, write a guide.

Then check you do not already have a page answering the same question. Two pages on one intent compete with each other.

The checklist

Title tag

• Includes the main phrase, near the start.
• Says what the reader gets.
• Is roughly 50 to 60 characters, so it is not cut off in results.
• Is unique on your site.

Weak: "Our Thoughts on Meetings". Better: "How to run a meeting that ends on time".

Meta description

• One or two sentences, around 120 to 155 characters.
• States the answer or the benefit.
• Reads like an invitation, not a list of keywords.

Search engines sometimes rewrite it. Write a good one anyway: when it is used, it is your pitch.

Address (URL)

• Short, lower-case, words separated by hyphens.
• Describes the page: /blog/on-page-seo-checklist.
• No dates or numbers you will regret when you update it.

Headings

• One main heading, matching the title's promise.
• Sub-headings that outline the article on their own.
• Headings phrased as the questions people ask, where that is natural.
• No skipped levels purely for styling.

The opening

• Answers the question in the first paragraph.
• Uses the main phrase naturally, once, early.

An answer-first opening helps readers, featured results and AI answer engines alike. See answer-first writing.

The body

• Covers what a reader needs to act, and nothing they do not.
• Short paragraphs. Lists and tables where they help.
• Related terms appear naturally. Do not repeat the main phrase to hit a count.
• Claims have sources or come from your own experience. See E-E-A-T.

Internal links

• Links to two or three related pages on your site.
• Link text describes the destination. Not "click here".
• At least one older page now links to this new one.

That last one is the step everyone forgets. A new article with no links pointing to it is hard to find, for people and for crawlers.

External links

• Sources are linked where you rely on them.
• Links go to the original, not to a summary of it.

Images

• Each meaningful image has alt text describing it.
• File sizes are small enough to load quickly.
• Width and height are set, so the page does not jump.

Structured data and previews

• Article structured data is present.
• Open Graph tags are set, so the link looks right when shared. See Open Graph tags.

Experience

• The page is readable on a phone.
• Nothing covers the content when it loads.
• It loads quickly.

After you publish

• Request indexing, or let your site's sitemap do it.
• Share it, so real people arrive.
• Put a date in your calendar to review it in six months.

Articles decay. A review date is how you catch it. More in content decay and refresh.

What not to do

• Keyword stuffing. Repeating a phrase makes the page worse and helps nothing.
• Writing for a word count. Length should match the question.
• Hidden text or misleading titles. They work against you.
• Publishing thin pages in bulk. Many weak pages drag a site down.

A shorter version for a busy day

If you have two minutes, do these five:

1. The title contains the phrase and a promise.
2. The first paragraph answers the question.
3. Sub-headings outline the article.
4. Three internal links, descriptive.
5. One older page links to the new one.

Having the checklist written for you

In FinalPost AI, each run of the SEO agent includes an on-page checklist and an internal-linking plan for the article it proposes, alongside the target keyword and a content brief. The Content agent's drafts come with a title, a meta description, tags and internal-link suggestions, ready for you to check against this list before you approve.

For the page itself, the share readiness check tests any public address for title length, description length, preview tags, structured data and more, and lists what to fix.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most important on-page SEO factor?

Matching what the searcher wants. A page that answers the question clearly, with a title that says so, outperforms a perfectly tagged page that does not.

How long should an article be for SEO?

Long enough to answer the question fully. Some questions need 500 words and some need 2,500. Padding helps nobody.

Do meta descriptions affect rankings?

Not directly. They affect whether people click your result, which is the point of ranking.