Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Checklist  

for Content Writers  

 
Element  Used for ranking?  Considerations  Yes? 

URL  No - but can affect  ● Is the URL ​short a

​ nd descriptive of the content?   
click-through rate  ● Is the URL ‘evergreen’? (no need if this is a blog/lifestyle post) 

Page title   Yes - an important  ● Ideally the page title and H1 should be the same - but the H1   
and H1  ranking factor  should remove the pipe/hyphen and any branding 
● Is the ​main keyword​ at the beginning of the page title?​ If not, is 
it ​at least​ mentioned within the first 55 characters of the body 
content? 
● Have you separated important keywords by pipes or any other 
separators? It’s important to write titles that flow naturally.  
● Is your page title unique from other page titles on ’s website?  
Tip: Search for ‘site:.co.uk“[YOUR MAIN KEYWORD HERE]” within 
Google to see what other content exists on your article subject. 
● Is your page title length around 60 characters (check 
serpsim.com​)? 
● Will your title stand out in Google against those competitors 
already ranking?   

Meta  No - but can affect  ● Does the article’s m

​ ain keyword​ feature in the meta description?   
description  click-through rate  ● Are there any calls to action? Eg. look, read, offers 
● Does the description accurately represent the content on page 
and entice the user to click? 
● Is your meta description length no more than 160 characters 
(incl. spaces)? 

Subheadings  Yes - They can also  ● Is the article divided into subsections with their own subheading   
/ Subsections  help Google  to improve readability? ‘Eyeball’ (manually review) whether this is 
understand the  necessary or not - long content needs subheadings, shorter 
content structure.  content may not so much. 
● Do subheadings feature related keywords that are sub-topics of 
your main keyword? 

Article body  Yes   ● Does the keyword feature at least once in the standfirst of the   
content  article? (Ideally in the first 100 words) 
● Have you included secondary keywords and synonyms naturally 
throughout the content? 
● Is your content more than 300 words? It’s best to “eyeball” the 
length of other competing pages already ranking for your main 
keyword.  

Images  Yes - image search  ● Are there eye-catching, relevant images on the page?   
visibility  ● (If relevant) Is the keyword included in the image file name? eg. 
“staff-meeting.jpg” 
● Do all images featured in the content have alt text that accurately 
describes the image on-screen? 

e: ​academy@bluearray.co.uk​ Blue Array Ltd., Reading Bridge House, George Street, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 8LS

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Inline linking  Yes - can improve  ● Are there related pages on that you can inline link to using   
ranking of the linked  relevant text? 
content  ● Could these inline links improve user experience and 
complement the existing page content?  

Featured  Yes  ● Does the content topic have a featured snippet that can be   
snippets  targeted? (Search for the article topic on Google)  
● Does the content of your article answer the query better than the 
current featured snippet?  
 
 
 
 

e: ​academy@bluearray.co.uk​ Blue Array Ltd., Reading Bridge House, George Street, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 8LS

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