How to Perform an On-Page SEO Audit on a Page

Download the SEO Audit Worksheet → open it in Excel or Google Sheets. Fill in the header: • Website / Client name • Page URL you are auditing • Target keyword (the primary keyword this page should rank for) • Your name and date If you do not know the target keyword, check Google Search Console → Performance → Pages → Click the page URL → See which query gets the most impressions. That is your de-facto target keyword.

Open the page in Chrome. Look at the URL. ✓ Pass if: • URL contains the primary keyword (or a close variation) • URL uses hyphens between words (not underscores or spaces) • URL is short and human-readable (under 60 characters ideally) • URL is in a subfolder not a subdomain (yourdomain.com/topic not topic.yourdomain.com) ✗ Flag if: • URL has no keyword in it • URL has tracking parameters (?utm_...) — these should be in the canonical tag not the URL • URL has redirect issues — install Redirect Path extension and check Mark your answer in the worksheet Score column: Pass / Needs Fix / Fail / N/A

Right-click on the page → View Page Source → Ctrl+F → Search for '<title>' Title tag checks: • Is the primary keyword in the title? • Is the keyword in the first 60 characters? • Is the title under 70 characters total? • Is it compelling and unique (not a duplicate of another page)? Meta description checks: • View Page Source → Search for 'meta name="description"' • Is the keyword mentioned? • Is it under 155 characters? • Does it have a clear benefit or CTA? Alternatively: use Ahrefs → Site Audit or Semrush → On-Page SEO Checker for faster bulk checking.

Press F12 (Chrome DevTools) → Ctrl+F → Search for '<h1>' H1 checks: • Is there exactly ONE H1 on the page? • Does the H1 contain the primary keyword? • Is the H1 different from the title tag? (It should be — the title is for search engines, H1 is for readers) H2/H3 checks: • Are subheadings used logically (H2 for main sections, H3 for subsections)? • Do subheadings include keyword variations or related terms? • Are there enough subheadings to break up the content every 200–300 words?

Read the page carefully. Check: Keyword usage: • Is the primary keyword used 2–3 times naturally in the body? • Is it in the first paragraph? • Are LSI (Latent Semantic Index) / related keywords used throughout? Content quality: • Is the content more detailed, more up-to-date, or more useful than the top 3 ranking pages for the same keyword? • Is there original data, real examples, or unique insight? • Is there a clear CTA guiding users to the next step? Images: • Do all images have descriptive alt text containing keywords where natural? • Are images compressed (right-click → Inspect → check file size)? Target: under 150KB per image.

Internal links check: • Does this page link to 3–5 related pages on the same website? • Do those links use descriptive anchor text (not 'click here' or 'read more')? • Are there pages on the site that should link TO this page but don't? Broken links check: • Install the 'Check My Links' Chrome extension • Run it on the page • Any red/orange links are broken — fix them with redirects or updated URLs

Go to PageSpeed Insights → Enter the page URL → Run the test on Mobile. Core Web Vitals targets: • LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) ≤ 2.5 seconds • INP (Interaction to Next Paint) ≤ 200ms • CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) ≤ 0.1 Check the 'Opportunities' and 'Diagnostics' sections — these list specific fixes. Most common issues on Kerala websites: 1. Uncompressed images — fix with Smush or manual compression 2. No caching — install WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache 3. Render-blocking JavaScript — defer non-critical scripts Also check Mobile Usability in Google Search Console for this specific page.

Indexing check: In Chrome address bar: site:yourdomain.com/exact-page-url If the page shows in results — it is indexed. If nothing shows — check for noindex tags in the source code and fix. GA4 tracking check: Open the page → Open GA4 Real-Time report in another tab → Navigate around the page → Confirm you see yourself as an active user. If you do not appear in Real-Time, GA4 is not firing on this page — check Google Tag Manager (see SOP 004 and SOP 005).