This is the ultimate on-page SEO article and checklist, which I’m going to link to in the description, that you can use to get your website ranking in most local markets for non-super competitive searches.
It’s largely focusing on the 20% of the things that you can do that can drive 80% of the results that you can get.
All right, so let’s get into it.
Core On-Page Essentials
Section number one is going to be the core on-page essentials, starting off with your title tag.
When you perform a search, the very first thing that people are going to see in the search results is going to be your title tag, unless Google really doesn’t like what you write and they rewrite it.
This is the single most impactful thing that you can do when it comes to getting your website to rank for a specific keyword.
There is a formula that you should follow here: Target Keyword | Separator | Value Proposition.
In this case, use “tree service.”
I’m going to rewrite this: I got the tree service, I got the name of the city, I put in the separator, and now I gave you a reason to actually click on them.
The number of years you’ve been open, the number of reviews, or maybe you were named “Best of South Jersey”—whatever it is that you can say about your business that is going to get people to want to click on you versus one of these other results over here, this is the place where you want to say it.
Now, this value prop works better if it speaks to the pain point of the person.
If the person is worried about paying for a free estimate, talk about the free estimate.
If they’re worried about the fact that you’re going to take three weeks to get out to them, tell them you can have same-day service or same-week service.
Make sure that as you’re writing this, no important information is included after 60 characters because that’s when, on desktop, this is going to get cut off.
On mobile, it’s closer to around 70 characters.
But do remember that there is no actual character count limit with all these; it’s just a limit to what is going to be visible.
I’ll also say that if you do write a keyword-stuffed title tag, very often Google will completely rewrite it or maybe even pull your H1 instead.
Meta Descriptions
All right, next thing we’re going to talk about is your meta description.
Below the title, you have this right here.
Now you can define your meta description and what you want to say about your business.
This will also impact whether people decide to click on you or a competitor in the search results.
Do know, though, that about 50% of the time Google is going to rewrite it.
Speak to people’s pain points and give people a reason to click on you instead of a competitor.
If you’re dealing with a low-involvement purchase decision like a tree service and you’re not really vetting them too hard, it may even make sense to include the phone number right in the meta description.
This is one of the few cases where this actually might be advisable.
The Hero Section
Next is your hero section.
The hero section is the first thing you’re going to see when you land on the website.
The very first thing you want to do is confirm the click.
In this case, you’re looking for tree service; you know you got a tree service.
Then you want to have a call to action of some sort.
You want to have an image that supports what you’re trying to tell people.
In this case, this works because they have actual footage of them doing the work.
It looks real; this is clearly a real company and not some sort of lead generation website that’s going to sell your information.
Now, you want to get your target keyword into your H1 tag.
In this case, they wrote “Expert Tree Care for Over 35 Years.”
This would have been better if it were “Tree Services in Egg Harbor Township.”
We use a format where we include the target keyword as an exact match in small text and then say the thing we want to say about the business in large text below that, not in an actual H tag.
Then add a subheading that’s going to reinforce everything.
Slug and Content Structure
All right, next, let’s talk about your slug.
Keep it clean and keep it readable.
Do include the target keyword if you can, but don’t make this a mile long.
Use your target keyword within the first couple of sentences of the content.
Make sure that it reads naturally.
We don’t want to stuff any sort of keywords anywhere.
Add internal links to relevant articles using relevant anchor text.
You can see here I’ve linked over to an article on medical spa marketing.
Make sure that you use proper schema for the page that you’re writing.
This is not an article on schema, but when it’s done right, I found that having the schema present doesn’t necessarily increase rankings, but it does increase relevance.
In particular for local SEO, I’ve seen that the “area served” schema can often be the difference between you not showing up at all for a search in a specific location and you being a top three result.
It’s happened with our website.
Page Structure and Engagement
All right, next let’s talk about the page structure.
To start off your first H2, don’t just throw in a keyword here, but you want to have the keyword in there.
State some sort of value proposition.
In this case, we’re talking about the fact that we actually know what we’re doing.
As you’re writing these H tags, try to appeal to people’s emotions if you can, but do remember that people are going to scan these and you want to make sure that you’re writing them in a way that’s going to resonate quickly while including relevant keywords.
Now, it used to be a practice to shoehorn in the name of the city into each one of these H tags, and years ago, it worked.
This no longer helps.
As a matter of fact, I’ve seen indications in the last two years that it may actually be a negative signal that could potentially hurt you.
So, make sure as you’re writing all this content that you’re writing for people and not the search engines.
On your page, you want to get some engagement hooks as well.
One thing that we learned from the Department of Justice lawsuit against Google is that Google uses user signals—meaning how people actually interact with you in the search results and your website—in all of its ranking systems.
Adding engagement hooks is going to help people to scroll down the page, make them want to stay on the page, and send frankly positive signals back to Google.
Use bullets whenever possible.
Include testimonials and things people are going to care about.
Do anything that’s visual and have before-and-afters.
Make sure that your design has bold headings and no blocks of text.
Show us what you do.
Conversion Triggers
Next, we want to make sure that we’re adding some conversion triggers.
We usually open up with two conversions: one to do the thing that we want our visitor to do, as well as one to send them over to the thing that’s going to help them to make their decision.
In the case of a marketing agency, that would be our results page.
In the case of a dermatologist, it could be the before-and-afters.
In the case of an investment firm, it could be going over to past investments and deals they’ve done.
At some point in your page, you should have an alternative sales pitch.
On ours, it’s to send people over to our blog feed where we have videos that are embedded from YouTube.
In this case, we are trying to get people over from our website to our YouTube channel where they’re going to get to know us a lot better and where we’re going to have a better chance to build trust with them and frankly demonstrate that we know what we’re doing.
Figure out what your alternative sales pitch is going to be.
For the person that’s landed on your website that’s not really ready to pull the trigger, what’s the thing that you can get them to do that’s going to have them take one step closer to possibly contacting you?
Overcoming Objections with FAQs
Lastly, include some FAQs.
The purpose of the FAQs is to overcome objections, not just to shoehorn in keywords.
So, let’s say you’re doing a landing page for dental implants in Haddonfield, New Jersey.
How long does it take to get dental implants? How much does it cost? What’s the difference between dental implants and all-on-four dental implants? Do you accept insurance? Do you offer any financing? What is the recovery time?
I mean, there’s a virtually infinite list of questions that people are going to have.
Not only will this help to drive more conversions, but it is believed that this will also help you to get recommended in any sort of AI search systems and LLMs.
The Final Check
All right, so this is the last section: the final check.
First, check if there are internal links going from this page over to other pages on your website.
Two, ensure there are internal links from other pages on your website pointing over to this new page that you’ve put up or that you’re trying to get ranking.
Three, make sure all your form buttons and everything are working.
Ensure all the widgets are functional.
Fourth, you’re going to check your navigation.
You made some edits; did it do anything to the website?
We’ve had cases where somebody edited something in the H1 and it ended up changing the navigation for that page and then threw off all the formatting of the menu.
Next, check if the page loads quickly.
I’m not talking about Google Lighthouse or anything like that.
I mean, go to GTMetrix and check in-browser.
Does the page load in under three seconds?
Was the schema implemented properly?
Throw it into ChatGPT, tell it what you’re hoping to get this page ranking for, and ask if this is appropriate schema for this.
Preview the page.
Is it scannable?
Does it evoke any emotions in people?
Next, is social proof present on this page?
Is there something here that’s going to make people trust you and want to do business with you?
Next, make sure all the images have alt text and that we’ve strategically but naturally included target keywords.
And lastly, you submitted the page to get crawled by Google through Google Search Console, right?
I hope this article was helpful.
