On-Page SEO — What the Writer Controls Directly
On-page SEO is entirely in the writer’s hands — before publishing and after. This article walks through every element a writer directly controls, from the title to the last image, with practical application in WordPress and RankMath.
This is the most hands-on article in this group — on-page SEO. No additional theory today. What follows is a working checklist you can apply to your next article the moment you finish reading.
On-page SEO covers everything you do inside a single page to make it more understandable to search engines and more valuable to its reader. It is, without exception, the part of SEO that belongs entirely to the writer.
1 — The Main Title (H1): The Article’s Gateway
The H1 is the first thing a crawler reads and the first thing a reader sees. In WordPress, the title you type into the “Title” field is automatically converted to an H1 — you don’t need to add one manually inside the editor.
What makes a strong H1:
- Contains the focus keyword or sits close to it.
- Accurately reflects the page content — no false promises, no deliberate vagueness.
- Appears only once on the page — never repeated.
- Ideally between 50 and 70 characters — descriptive without being cut off in search results.
2 — Subheadings (H2 and H3): The Article’s Structure
Subheadings aren’t just formatting — they’re a map the crawler reads to understand your article’s main points before reading the full text, and a navigation path for readers moving through the content.
H2: For the article’s main sections — each H2 represents a major independent idea.
H3: For details and subdivisions within each H2.
A practical test: read your H2 list in order. Do they form a logical summary of the article on their own? If yes, your structure is sound.
3 — SEO Title and Meta Description: What the Searcher Sees Before Clicking
These two elements don’t appear on your page — they appear in search results. They’re the first things a person reads before deciding whether to click or scroll past.
SEO Title (Meta Title)
This sometimes differs from your article title — the article title is written for the reader who’s already on your page, while the SEO title is written for the searcher who hasn’t arrived yet. In RankMath, you’ll find the SEO title field in the SEO block below the editor.
- Recommended maximum: 60 characters — anything longer gets cut off in search results.
- Place the keyword toward the beginning when possible.
- Make it compelling enough to earn a click — ask a question, or promise a specific benefit.
Meta Description
The text that appears beneath your title in search results. It doesn’t directly affect ranking — but it significantly affects click-through rate (CTR), which in turn influences ranking indirectly.
- Recommended maximum: 160 characters.
- Include the keyword naturally.
- Summarize what the reader will find — accurate, not inflated.
4 — The Slug: Your Page’s URL
The slug is the descriptive part of your page URL: in yourdomain.com/on-page-seo-writers-guide/, everything after the last slash is the slug.
The rules are simple:
- Short and descriptive — no random numbers, no filler words.
- Contains the focus keyword.
- Words separated by hyphens (-), not spaces or underscores.
- In WordPress, it appears directly below the title field and is editable before publishing.
Important: if you change the slug after publishing, the URL changes and you’ll need to set up a redirect to avoid broken links. Edit it before publishing, not after.
5 — Internal Links: Your Site’s Network
An internal link is any link in your article that points to another page on your site. Its benefits work on two levels:
- For the crawler: it discovers your other pages and understands the relationships between them.
- For the reader: they find additional relevant content and stay on your site longer.
The practical rule: in every new article, link to at least two or three related articles you’ve already published. And go back to those older articles to add a link to the new one — this is called bidirectional internal linking, and it reinforces your site’s topical structure.
6 — External Links: Trust Works Both Ways
An external link points to another website. Many beginners avoid them out of fear of “losing visitors” — this is a mistake. External links to trusted, relevant sources send a positive signal to Google: your content doesn’t exist in an informational bubble; it references real sources.
The rule: link only to trustworthy, relevant sources. Always set external links to open in a new tab (target=”_blank”) so readers don’t fully leave your page.
7 — Images and Alt Text
The crawler can’t see images — it reads only the alt text attached to them. Writing good alt text serves two purposes:
- Helps search engines understand the image’s context and the page’s overall content.
- Makes your content accessible to visually impaired users and screen readers — an accessibility dimension that search engines increasingly factor into evaluation.
How to write it: describe the image in a natural, descriptive sentence. Instead of “image”, write “a diagram showing the relationship between search volume and competition level for keywords.” Include the focus keyword naturally if it’s genuinely relevant — don’t force it.
8 — RankMath: Your Proofreading Partner
After completing your article, scroll down to the RankMath block below the editor. You’ll find a score out of 100 and a checklist of completed and missing elements.
Don’t aim for 100 at any cost — some points are optional and not worth distorting your article to achieve. But aim to consistently hit:
- Keyword in the title ✅
- Keyword in the meta description ✅
- Keyword in the first paragraph ✅
- Keyword in the slug ✅
- Appropriate content length ✅
- Internal and external links present ✅
- Images with alt text ✅
For advanced users: RankMath supports adding Schema Markup with a single click — choose your content type (Article, Recipe, FAQ, HowTo) and it can transform your search appearance into a visually rich result card that significantly improves click-through rate.
On-page SEO isn’t a one-time task — it’s a habit you build into every article until it becomes as natural as proofreading. The more you practice it, the less time it takes.
This closes the SEO Concepts group. In the next section, we shift to SEO as a profession — who the SEO writer is, how to become one, and what sets them apart from a general content writer.
Previous in the series: Keywords — How Your Reader Thinks and How You Find Them
Next in the series: The SEO Writer — Who They Are and What They Actually Do
