Mini Workshop: On-Page SEO Checklist

1. URLs, Titles, Meta Description 2. Headings 3. Content

URL is understandable Has at least one Heading 1 (H1) 1st paragraph answers searcher
intent. Keyword in first 150
URL is short (remove a/the/etc) H1 contains keyword words.

URL contains keyword Ran H1 (and title) through Contains at least 500 words.
CoSchedule Headline analyzer 1500+ is great!
Page title contains keyword
Uses H2, H3, etc to organize Short sentences at grade 6-9
Page title contains website name content and help with skimming reading comprehension level

Page title doesn’t get cut off in Use keyword/LSI in headings Chunk content: multiple short
SERP (desktop & mobile) paragraphs instead of large ones

Meta description provokes Used at least one bullet point or

someone to click numbered list
4. Images & Media
Meta description doesn’t get cut Used bold and italics effectively
At least one image that is not
off in SERP (desktop & mobile)
decorative
Pepper synonymous/LSI
keywords throughout
Image names contains keyword
ex: ‘alison-k-headshot.jpg’
5. UI/UX Design Mention own brandname

Images are correct dimension for

Text colour against background is At least one internal relevant link
intended use (width x height)
high enough contrast
At least one external link
Run image through ‘tinyjpg.com’
Heading are obvious
to reduce size before uploading
Clickable part of links are
Clickable headings are obvious descriptive, not ‘click here’
Alternative tag filled out
or just the url
(describe image, any text in
Copy text is comfortably large
image that is important)
Content is not too similar to
Button colour strong contrast to something previously published
Caption to further explain
site branding
content if needed

Links are clearly defined and

Clicking image link does as
consistent throughout BONUS: Once Published/Updated
intented (lightbox? new page?)
(underlined, bolded, coloured)

Videos loads fast Annotate in Google Analytics

Overall width of textual content
is not too wide or narrow
Videos have auto-play turned off Update/submit sitemap if not
dynamic
Videos have thumbnail/poster
Request reindex of URL in
Videos have closed-caption Google Search Console

Audio loads fast Reach out to websites with 30+

Domain Authority for
backlink opportunities

Hey, Alison here! Any questions? Please email me at alison@alisonkconsulting.com | Schedule a consultation: click here!
Simple Keyword Brainstorm Exercise (example)

1. Write down a keyword/phrase you’d like to organically rank for. Don’t use your own brand name!
Google Analytics Training

2. Dig deeper into what people are actually searching for by typing in the keywords from #1 into Google.
Try auto-prediction, letting Google fill in the blanks by typing ‘ ’ in parts of your phrase or looking at the ‘People also
ask’ suggestion box. List interesting results. *
Auto-prediction: Typed in “Google Analytics ”:
- Google Analytics training for beginners - What does Google Analytics do
*
- Google Analytics training course - Is Google Analytics free to use?
- Google Analytics training in person - How to use Google Analytics

‘People Also Ask’ Box:

- How do I get Google Analytics certified?
- What is Google Analytics Training?
- Google Analytics guide

3. Type some of these new phrases into Google again. Notice who is coming up on page one. Are they competition?
Local? Huge established brands while you are new? Make notes on this, and also visit their pages and see how they
setup their content using the Simple SEO Checklist on the next page.
“Google Analytics training for beginners” top results will be hard to compete with
because they’re all from Google’s Analytics Academy or Moz.com. However, if I narrow
down to “Google Analytics training for Halifax”, I do come up, along with the local
community college and a national online training company. I should probably focus on
content that helps answer specific GA questions with regional flair.

4. Check to see if your site already contains these new keywords/phrase in a way Google can find them. Find out by
typing ‘yourwebsiteaddress: keyword/phrase’ into Google. If it returns results, you may want to optimize these pages.
If you do not (or that pages that do come up aren’t important to your web strategy) then it may be time to consider
creating content.
When I type in “mywebsite.com: google analytics training” I get my main
Google Analytics training page but work needs to be done to the description.
My two blog posts about GA also show up. I should write content based on the
questions I found in step #2, and do more keyword research still.
5. Using Google Keyword Planner, Keywords Everywhere, Moz Keyword Explorer etc., determine what keywords are a
balance of having interest and not costly to compete with. Now you can think about creating new content or optimizing
existing content for these keyword/phrases.
Keywords Everywhere notes that “google analytics training for beginners” is
pretty low volume, with most activity March-June. However, “how to setup Google
Analytics” has a moderate volume, and is stable all throughout the year.

Hey, Alison here! Any questions? Please email me at alison@alisonkconsulting.com | Schedule a consultation: click here!
Simple Keyword Brainstorm Exercise

1. Write down a keyword/phrase you’d like to organically rank for. Don’t use your own brand name!

2. Dig deeper into what people are actually searching for for by typing in the keywords from #1 into Google.
Try auto-prediction, letting Google fill in the blanks by typing ‘ ’ in parts of your phrase or looking at the ‘People also
ask’ suggestion box. List interesting results. *

3. Type some of these new phrases into Google again. Notice who is coming up on page one. Are they competition?
Local? Huge established brands while you are new? Make notes on this, and also visit their pages and see how they
setup their content using the Simple SEO Checklist on the next page.

4. Check to see if your site already contains these new keywords/phrase in a way Google can find them. Find out by
typing ‘yourwebsiteaddress: keyword/phrase’ into Google. If it returns results, you may want to optimize these pages.
If you do not (or that pages that do come up aren’t important to your web strategy) then it may be time to consider
creating content.

5. Using Google Keyword Planner, Keywords Everywhere, Moz Keyword Explorer etc., determine what keywords are a
balance of having interest and not costly to compete with. Now you can think about creating new content or optimizing
existing content for these keyword/phrases.

Hey, Alison here! Any questions? Please email me at alison@alisonkconsulting.com | Schedule a consultation: click here!