What is on page SEO score: A complete guide

Trying to get a handle on search engine optimization (SEO) can feel like putting together a puzzle where the pieces keep changing. You write content, tweak your website, and hope for the best, but how can you tell if you’re actually making progress? It’s hard to know you're moving forward when the goalposts seem to shift constantly.

This is where an on-page SEO score can be a huge help. Think of it as a quick health report for your website's pages, giving you one number that sums up your technical setup and content quality.

Let's be clear, though: this score isn't something Google looks at directly to rank you. It’s a reflection of the things Google does value. A high score is a good sign that you're ticking the right boxes. It's much easier to build on a solid foundation from the get-go rather than publishing content and then scrambling to fix a dozen small problems later. Tools like the eesel AI blog writer help with this by creating publish-ready content that already has an optimized structure, meta-information, and assets included.

What is an on-page SEO score?

An on-page SEO score is a metric, usually on a scale of 1 to 100, that SEO tools use to gauge a website's overall health based on search engine guidelines. It’s a snapshot of how well a single page, or your entire site, is set up to be found and understood by search engines like Google.

A high score suggests that your site is easy for search engine crawlers to get around and offers a good user experience. A low score, well, that flags issues that could be holding you back from ranking higher.

The main thing to remember is that the score is a diagnostic tool, not a direct signal to Google. You don't get a gold star for hitting 100. The real benefit comes from digging into the issues the score uncovers and fixing them. Improving those underlying factors is what actually boosts your rankings.

It's also worth noting that different tools calculate this score in their own way, so your number might vary depending on the platform. For instance, a tool like Semrush might base its score on a combination of critical "errors" and "warnings". Ahrefs, on the other hand, focuses its score strictly on "errors." This means the same website could get different scores on each platform, which is completely normal.

Key factors that determine an on-page SEO score

So, what are these tools actually looking at when they generate a score? Most SEO audit tools break the factors down into a few key areas. According to Search Engine Journal, you can think of them in three main buckets: technical stuff, content stuff, and user experience.

Technical performance

This part is all about how easily search engines can find, crawl, and make sense of your site's technical backbone. If the crawlers can't get in the door, nothing else you do will matter.

• Crawlability: This boils down to having a proper "robots.txt" file and a clean XML sitemap. The "robots.txt" file tells search engine bots which areas of your site to stay out of, while the sitemap gives them a map of all your important pages.
• Site Speed: Nobody has patience for a slow website, and that includes Google. Core Web Vitals, page load times, and optimized images are all super important. A speedy site makes for a better user experience, which is a huge plus for SEO.
• Security: Using HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate isn't just a nice-to-have anymore; it's essential. It encrypts data between your site and your visitors, which builds trust. It’s also a confirmed (though small) ranking signal.
• URL Structure: Your URLs should be clean, descriptive, and easy for a human to read. A URL like "yourblog.com/how-to-train-a-puppy" is way better for everyone than "yourblog.com/p?id=123".

Page speeds affects user experience. If a site is too slow then I just close the site down and go to another site instead. That is very important to SEO, if the user stays on the page for long and interacts with many different elements of the site

Reddit

This bucket covers the quality of what your visitors actually see and the HTML tags that tell search engines what your content is all about.

• Meta Information: This includes your title tags and meta descriptions. Every single page needs a unique, optimized title tag (the blue link in search results) and a compelling meta description (the little blurb underneath it).
• Content Structure: A well-structured page is easier for both people and bots to read. This means using heading tags correctly: one H1 per page for the main title, then H2s for the main sections, and H3s for the subsections. It creates a clear, logical flow.
• Duplicate Content: If you have the same or very similar content on multiple URLs, it can confuse search engines and water down your authority. This is usually fixed with canonical tags, which tell Google which version is the original.
• Image Optimization: Every image needs descriptive alt text. This helps visually impaired users who use screen readers, and it gives search engines context about what the image is showing.

User experience

This is all about how your site's design, navigation, and readability affect visitors, especially those on mobile devices.

• Mobile-First Indexing: Google primarily uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking. That means having a responsive design that looks and works great on any screen size is a must.
• Internal Linking: Linking to other relevant pages on your own site helps users find more of your content and helps search engines understand how your pages are related. Using descriptive anchor text (the clickable words) is important here.
• Readability: Your content should be easy to scan and digest. Breaking up text into short paragraphs, using clear headings, and adding bulleted or numbered lists can make a world of difference.

How to check your on-page SEO score

Alright, you get the factors. But how do you actually find out your score? There are plenty of great tools that can run a full audit on your site. Many are paid, but several offer free versions or trials that are more than enough to get you started.

Proactively improve your score with the eesel AI blog writer

Instead of writing content and then running an audit to find all the things you did wrong, what if you could just get it right from the beginning? That’s the whole idea behind the eesel AI blog writer. It's a tool that helps you get a high on-page SEO score from the start by baking optimization right into the content creation process.

It automatically handles the key factors we just discussed:

• Optimized Structure: It generates articles with a proper H1, logical H2s and H3s, and a natural flow, so you don't have to stress about your heading hierarchy.
• Automatic Assets: The tool can embed relevant YouTube videos and create AI-generated images to improve engagement. It even helps with alt text, ticking off another important optimization box.
• Deep Research with Citations: It adds authority to your content by pulling in real insights from Reddit threads and including external links to credible sources.

We used this very tool to grow our own blog from 70k to 750k+ impressions in just three months. The best part? It's completely free to try, so you can generate a few posts and see the quality for yourself.

Using Ahrefs, Semrush, and SEObility

While the eesel AI blog writer is great for creating new, optimized content, dedicated audit tools are useful for checking the overall health of your existing site. Here’s a quick look at the free options from some of the biggest names:

What is a good on-page SEO score?

This is the million-dollar question, but the answer is... it depends on the tool. Since they all calculate scores differently, a "good" number on one platform might not mean the same thing on another.

It's not a major ranking factor, it's a tie breaker

Reddit

Still, we can use some general benchmarks:

• In Ahrefs, a Health Score of 91-100 is "Excellent". This means over 90% of your site's internal URLs are free of critical SEO errors.
• In SEObility, a score above 80% is well-optimized.

Just remember, the number itself isn't the prize. It's a guide. As some SEO pros on Reddit have mentioned, aiming for a score in the 90-95% range is a solid target. The effort needed to get from 95% to a perfect 100% often means fixing tiny, low-impact issues that don't give you much bang for your buck. Your time is better spent creating awesome content or fixing the major problems the score has already pointed out.

Practical steps to improve your on-page SEO score

Okay, you've run an audit and your score isn't what you'd hoped. Don't worry. Here’s a smart way to tackle the issues without feeling overwhelmed.

1. Prioritize Critical Errors First: Your audit tool will probably sort issues by how serious they are. Start with the "Errors." These are the big problems most likely hurting your SEO, like broken links (404s), server errors (5xx), or major crawlability issues that stop Google from even seeing your pages. Fix these first.
2. Optimize Core On-Page Elements: Once the big fires are out, move on to the basics. Go through your most important pages (like your homepage, key service pages, and top blog posts) and systematically check and update their title tags, meta descriptions, and heading structures. Make sure every page has a unique title and a clear H1.
3. Enhance Content and User Experience: Now, turn your attention to the content itself. Deal with any duplicate content issues by using canonical tags or redirecting thin pages. Read through your content to make sure it's easy to understand and looks good on mobile. Look for chances to add internal links to other relevant posts on your site.
4. Automate New Content Optimization: To keep your score from dropping again, build good habits into your content process. Instead of manually checking every heading and meta tag for each new blog post, you can use a tool like the eesel AI blog writer. It generates everything correctly from the start, saving you time and making sure you're consistently following best practices.

For a more hands-on look at how these factors come together, the video below offers practical tips and a visual walkthrough of the optimization process, showing how you can boost your score.

This video provides a visual walkthrough of the optimization process with practical tips to boost your on-page SEO score.

Final thoughts

Your on-page SEO score is a vital health check for your website. It's a simple number that reflects dozens of important technical, content, and user experience factors that search engines pay attention to. While you shouldn't lose sleep over hitting a perfect 100, keeping an eye on this score and methodically fixing the issues it brings to light is a key part of any solid, long-term SEO strategy.

Ready to build a content strategy that gets a high score right out of the gate? Try the eesel AI blog writer for free and see how simple it is to create fully optimized content that's ready to rank.