The SEO score - what each check means and how to fix

---
title: The SEO score — what each check means and how to fix
section: SEO & Performance
slug: seo-score
---


Every article in BlockPress gets a live SEO score in the editor's right-hand panel. It updates as you type so you can see the impact of every edit. This article explains what each check looks for and how to fix the ones that go red.


## The grade


Articles get a letter grade A–F based on how many of the 15 checks pass. The grade is calibrated:


- **A** — 14–15 passes; ship it
- **B** — 11–13 passes; minor fixes worth doing
- **C** — 8–10 passes; meaningful issues
- **D / F** — fewer than 8; needs work before publishing


The grade is **non-blocking**. You can publish a D-grade article — BlockPress will warn you in the publish modal but won't stop you.


## The 15 checks (grouped)


### Basics


1. **Title present and 30–65 characters** — too short = weak signal; too long = truncated in search results
2. **Slug is keyword-rich and ≤60 characters** — clean URLs rank better
3. **Meta description present and 120–160 characters** — what shows under your title in search


### Content quality


4. **At least 600 words of body content** — thin content rarely ranks
5. **Reading level Grade 9 or below** (text-readability check) — accessible prose ranks for more queries
6. **At least one H2 every ~300 words** — scannable structure for both readers and crawlers


### Keyword usage


7. **Focus keyword in title** — set the focus keyword in the right panel
8. **Focus keyword in first paragraph** — establishes relevance early
9. **Focus keyword in at least one H2 or H3** — reinforces theme
10. **Focus keyword density 0.5–2.5%** — under-used = weak signal; over-used = keyword stuffing penalty


### Media + structure


11. **At least one image with alt text** — accessibility + image-search ranking
12. **All images have alt text** (not just one) — fully accessible
13. **At least one internal link** — distributes page authority across your site


### Technical


14. **No broken links** in the article body
15. **Featured image set** — required for clean social shares and category pages


## How to fix common red checks


**"Focus keyword not in title"** — set the focus keyword in the right panel first, then BlockPress will check the title against it. If they don't match, edit the title to include the keyword naturally.


**"Reading level too high"** — break long sentences into shorter ones, swap complex words for simpler synonyms. The check uses Flesch-Kincaid grade level under the hood.


**"Meta description missing"** — scroll the right panel to **SEO** → **Meta description**. If you skip this, Google generates one from your content automatically — usually worse than what you'd write.


**"No internal links"** — use the **Internal Link AI** feature (Growth plan and above) — it scans your other articles and suggests natural anchor text to insert. Or insert manually with the Link block.


**"Image missing alt text"** — click any image block → fill the **Alt text** field. Use **AI alt text** if you don't want to write it (1 generation each).


## Why your A-grade article isn't ranking yet


The SEO score measures **on-page optimization** — the stuff fully under your control. Actually ranking also depends on:


- **Backlinks** — other sites linking to you (BlockPress doesn't build these)
- **Topical authority** — having multiple articles on related topics (use Topic Explorer to build clusters)
- **Time** — fresh articles usually take 4–12 weeks to climb if at all
- **Competition** — some keywords are dominated by larger sites no matter how well-optimized you are


A-grade on-page is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Pair it with consistent publishing in your niche and you'll see results within a quarter.


Want a sanity check on a specific article? Paste the URL in chat and I'll take a look.

Updated on: 26/05/2026