Technical
On-page SEO checklist: title, description, headings, images and links
Ilyes Massoudi6 min readThe short answer
On-page SEO is everything you control inside the page itself: a title tag with the target query at its start and no more than about 60 characters, a meta description that answers and invites the click at 120 to 160 characters, one H1 carrying the query, H2 headings phrased as the searcher's questions, alt text describing every image, a short readable URL, and internal links whose anchors describe the destination. The governing rule: a different title and description for every page, one target query per page, and anything beyond that is padding a reader recognises as writing for a machine.
What “on-page” actually means
On-page SEO is the part that needs nobody’s permission and no budget: the elements inside the page itself that tell the engine and the reader what it answers. It is also the part where free tools catch most errors, which is why every automated report shows dozens of warnings about it.
This checklist is ordered by impact rather than by tool order, and written for the Arabic page specifically. Apply it to your ten most important pages first, not the whole site at once.
1. The title tag
What appears in the browser tab and in Google results as the blue line. The single most important on-page element.
- The target query at the start, in the most-searched form in your country.
- A specific promise after it: how much, where, what. “SEO audit for online stores in Saudi Arabia | 4 days”, not “Our services”.
- About 60 characters. Google measures in pixels, so Arabic sometimes allows slightly more and sometimes less.
- Different for every page. Identical titles are the most common on-page error I see: twenty pages titled with the company name.
- The business name at the end if room remains, not at the start.
2. The meta description
The two grey lines beneath the title in results. It does not raise ranking; it raises clicks.
- 120 to 160 characters.
- Answers the question and mentions something specific: a price range, a city, a duration, an outcome.
- In the reader’s language, not the engine’s: a sentence they want to click.
- Different for every page, and Google may rewrite it when it does not match what the person searched, which is normal.
3. The H1 heading
- Exactly one per page, and the first thing the visitor reads.
- Carries the target query, and may differ slightly from the title tag to read more naturally or run longer.
- The logo and the menu are not the H1. Many themes put the logo in an H1 by mistake.
4. H2 and H3 headings
- Divide the page into the questions the searcher asks: “how long does it take”, “what is included”, “what is the difference”.
- Carry the other forms and synonyms of the target query naturally.
- Never use headings for styling alone. A heading is a unit of meaning, not a large font.
- The footer and widget titles are not headings; if the theme makes them so, fix it.
5. The first paragraph
Before any introduction: the answer in two or three sentences, with numbers and names. This paragraph is what Google lifts into snippets and what answer engines quote, and what the visitor uses to decide within seconds whether to stay.
6. Images and alt text
- Alt text describing what is in the image in a short sentence, in the page’s language, with no keyword stuffing.
- The main image sized for mobile and in a modern format; details in the speed article.
- A readable Latin filename:
seo-audit-riyadh.webp, notIMG_4821.jpg. - Purely decorative images get an empty alt, not a description.
7. The URL
- Short, readable, stable. Never changed after publishing except with a permanent redirect.
- In Latin letters for most Gulf sites for shareability, or in Arabic if you choose that consistently. Details in technical SEO for Arabic websites.
- No automatic numbers and no meaningless parameters.
8. Internal and external links
- Two or three links from inside the text to related pages on your site, with anchors describing the destination.
- An external link to a trusted source when you cite a figure or a policy. It does no harm, and it raises trust.
- No “click here”. Details in the internal linking article.
9. What you can safely ignore
- The meta keywords tag. Google has not read it for years.
- Keyword density. Nobody measures it.
- Bold on the keyword. Decoration.
- Length for its own sake. The page is as long as the answer needs.
The short list for printing
| Element | Rule | Check |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Query at the start, about 60 characters, different per page | Pages report or a free crawler |
| Description | 120 to 160 characters, answers and specifies | Same |
| H1 | One, carries the query | View source |
| H2 | The searcher’s questions, not styling | View source |
| First paragraph | The answer before the introduction | Read on a phone |
| Images | Descriptive alt, right size, readable name | PageSpeed Insights |
| URL | Short, stable, readable | Copy and paste it |
| Links | 2 to 3 inside the text with descriptive anchors | Read the page |
In the audit
In the Digital Presence Audit the on-page list comes out page by page for the most important pages: the current and proposed title, the description, the missing headings, the images without alt text, ordered by the page’s traffic and value, so whoever executes starts with the pages that deserve it.