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Page essentials checker

Reads one page the way search does and tells you, in order, what is holding it back: the title, the description, the H1, thin content, image alts, and links.

This is one of the checks inside Growth Score

Growth Score runs it with the rest on your live site, scores the result and shows what to fix first.

Test your whole siteOpen in your dashboard

Why it matters

Why this is worth checking

Most pages that do not rank miss something basic: no description, two h1s, a title written for the company rather than the search.

This reads a page the way search first reads it and tells you what is absent.

What it reads

What it looks at

  • Title and description length
  • How many h1s the page has
  • Enough content to be worth ranking
  • Alt text, canonical, internal links

Reading a result

What a finding means

Each finding says what was seen. This is what it tells you about the page.

Title or description too longSearch will cut it, so the part you wrote last may never be seen.
Two h1s, or noneThe page has no single clear subject, so search has to guess one.
Thin contentThere may be too little here to be worth ranking for the query you want.

Common fixes

What to change first

The fixes that come up most, in the order they usually pay off.

Write for the searchPut the phrase people type near the start of the title.
Add a descriptionWrite one sentence that earns the click, within the visible length.
Add alt text and a canonicalDescribe each image and point duplicates at the version you want listed.

In Growth Score

Feeds Findability

Whether search engines can find and then list your pages. txt and sitemap, your page titles and descriptions, and how your pages are addressed.

It reads what is in the markup. Anything drawn by JavaScript after the page loads is not in what you paste, and is also invisible to the first thing search sees.

Glossary

Terms behind this check

Title tagThe page title shown in browser tabs and as the headline of a search result.Meta descriptionA short summary of a page that search engines may show under its title in results.On-page SEOOptimizing what sits on a page: its content, title, headings, links and markup.

Go deeper

Guides that cover it

Turn tickets into decisionsA monthly pass that turns a pile of tickets and reviews into one ranked list.Search for a new siteWhat moves a new domain, in what order, and what to skip so early effort is not wasted.Get pages found in searchSix checks in the order search meets them, from robots.txt through to indexing.

FAQ

Questions

Does a good title guarantee a ranking?

No. It removes the basic misses. Quality, links and competition decide the rest.

Why paste the markup?

It reads what is in the markup. Content drawn by JavaScript after load is not in what you paste.

Does the check change my site?

No. It only reads. Nothing is installed, edited or sent to your site by a check.

The other 11

The rest of the checks

Run it with the rest

Growth Score reads your whole site, scores it against sites like yours and ranks what to fix.

Test your whole siteAll the checks

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