Free On-Page SEO Checker

What does the on-page SEO checker actually check?

15 specific factors, grouped into three categories. Each check is scored individually so you see exactly which signals are pulling your score down — and what to fix first.

Keyword placement (8 checks · 50 points)

Whether your target keyword appears in the locations Google weights most heavily: title tag (10 pts) — the single highest on-page signal. H1 heading (8 pts) — should appear exactly once and contain the keyword. Meta description (6 pts) — not a direct ranking factor but boosts click-through rate when keyword is bolded in SERPs. First 100 words (6 pts) — Google weights early-position keywords. Subheadings (5 pts) — at least one H2 or H3 should reinforce the topic. URL slug (5 pts) — a clean keyword-rich URL is a small but real signal. Image alt text (5 pts) — at least one image should have keyword-rich alt text. Density (5 pts) — 0.5-3% is the sweet spot; below is underuse, above risks stuffing.

Content quality (4 checks · 30 points)

Word count vs competitor average (10 pts) — we fetch the top 3 ranking pages and benchmark your length against theirs. Going to war 60% shorter than the SERP average rarely works. Internal links (6 pts) — 3+ to related pages. External links (4 pts) — at least one citation to an authoritative source. Heading structure (10 pts) — exactly 1 H1, 3+ H2s, and 2+ H3s.

Technical signals (3 checks · 20 points)

Image alt coverage (8 pts) — % of images with descriptive alt text. Schema markup (7 pts) — JSON-LD with content-specific types (Article, FAQ, LocalBusiness) trigger rich results. Generic Organization schema alone scores partial. Mobile + canonical + indexable (5 pts) — viewport meta tag, canonical link, and no accidental noindex meta tag.

Where should my target keyword appear on the page?

In priority order, here's where keyword placement actually moves rankings:

1. Title tag. The single most important on-page placement. Keyword near the start. 50-60 characters. "Emergency Plumber Austin · 24/7 Service" beats "Our Services · ABC Plumbing" by a wide margin.
2. H1 heading. Exactly one per page, containing the keyword. The H1 is what users see first; Google reads it as the page topic confirmation.
3. First 100 words. Google weights early-position keywords. Don't bury "dental implants Austin" 600 words deep in a generic intro.
4. Subheadings (H2/H3). At least one subheading containing the keyword or close variation. Helps with Featured Snippets.
5. Body content. Naturally throughout, at 1-3% density. Use semantic variations — Google understands "dentist Austin," "Austin dental practice," and "dental care in Austin" as the same topic.
6. URL slug. /dental-implants-austin beats /page-id-12345. Keep slugs short and readable.
7. Image alt text. Where natural — don't stuff every image with the same phrase.
8. Meta description. Not a ranking factor, but Google bolds keyword matches in SERPs, lifting CTR by 5-10%.

What is keyword density and how much is too much?

Keyword density is the percentage of times your target keyword appears relative to the total word count. For a 1,000-word page targeting "dentist in Austin," 2% density means the phrase appears about 20 times. The optimal range is 1-3%.

Below 0.5% means you may not have mentioned your keyword often enough for Google to confidently associate the page with that search term. Above 3% starts to feel unnatural to readers and can trigger Google's keyword stuffing filters — which actively hurts rankings.

The right approach: write naturally for your audience, then check density. If you're below 1%, add the keyword in 2-3 natural places (an H2, a body sentence, an alt text). If you're above 3%, replace some exact-match instances with synonyms and related phrases. Google's semantic models understand "dentist," "dental practice," and "dental care" as the same topical territory.

On-page SEO for local businesses

Local businesses have a structural advantage with on-page SEO: your target keywords almost always include a city or service area. Keywords like "dentist in Austin," "emergency plumber San Diego," or "personal injury lawyer Houston" have explicit local intent that pages can match directly.

The winning strategy is straightforward: create a dedicated page for each service + city combination you want to rank for. "Dental implants in Austin" gets its own page. "Teeth whitening in Austin" gets its own. Each page has a unique title, H1, and 800+ words of content specifically about that service in that city. Mention neighborhoods, landmarks, and nearby areas to reinforce local relevance.

The biggest mistake local businesses make is trying to rank one page for everything. A single "Services" page cannot compete with a competitor who has 15 individual service pages — even if your single page is better written. Use this tool to check each of your service pages against its target keyword, then prioritize fixes by impact.

How this tool differs from Ahrefs, Surfer, and Semrush on-page tools

We built this because every existing on-page tool had at least one of these problems: locked behind $99+/mo subscriptions, didn't fetch live SERP context, or didn't write actual rewrites. Here's how we compare:

Frequently asked questions

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