Welcome all SEO analysts to my SEO checklist!
Table of Contents
This SEO checklist is helpful mainly for beginners who are confused about where to start on SEO and what tools to use. Here is a comprehensive checklist that you can follow.
Now, to begin with, What is SEO? SEO is the simple process of boosting the visibility of your website organically in search engines to get more people to visit your website. Though this is not rocket science, you need to have a solid strategy for this.
You can use this checklist to kick-start your journey on SEO. Before we dive into the checklist part, you need to understand SEO basics, Technical SEO, on-page and content SEO, Off-page SEO and keyword research.
SEO Checklist
SEO Basics
What are the SEO basics you should know or simply what is SEO? SEO is the process of organically increasing your website’s visibility in search engines. For this, you will first need to understand how search engines work. This stands as the core factor of SEO basics. Next is to understand the different types of SEO. There are mainly 3 types of SEO
- On-page SEO
- Off-page SEO
- Technical SEO
Along with knowing these, you must understand the importance of keywords and keyword research.
The first step to SEO is to set up Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tools. Along with this you must install and configure a WordPress SEO plugin. There are many SEO plugins you can choose from. Some popular SEO plugins are Yoast, AIO SEO, RankMath, etc.
Next, you must generate and submit a sitemap, create a robots.txt file, and ensure your website is indexed. Remember to check Search consoles for any manual actions imposed on the website.
On-Page and Content SEO
Next comes On-Page and Content SEO. This includes optimizing your web page titles, headers, and meta descriptions. Creating high-quality, informative content that engages users is an important part of SEO. There is a saying ‘Content is King’ and nowadays there are a lot of controversies on this topic. But I strongly believe that it is true. Content is important. You must ensure that the content is well-structured and easy to read.
Here are a few things to check and fix when doing content SEO
- Fix duplicate, missing and truncated title tags and meta descriptions.
- Check for multiple H1 tags. There can be just one H1 tag on a page.
- If required, rework title tags, meta descriptions and page content for improvement.
- Optimize images for SEO
- Find and fix keyword cannibalisation
- Update outdated content and improve content readability.
- Run a content audit and prune your content
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO is also equally important. Off-page SEO includes creating backlinks from high-quality websites, engaging in social media and online communities and promoting content through guest posting and other outreach like Quora.
It is important to know your competitors’ details and what SEO strategy they implement. Off-Page SEO also includes analysing your competitor’s link profile. You can conduct a link intersect analysis and target your competitors’ broken backlinks.
There are a lot of link-building tools available and the best is Semrush Link Building tool.
Technical SEO
A slow website always hurts your conversion. It is important to ensure the website loads quickly on all devices perfectly. Technical SEO as the name suggests is all about the tech details of your website. It includes optimizing website speed and performance, implementing proper URL structure and redirects and ensuring that the website is mobile-friendly and accessible on all devices. That is, it has to have a responsive design.
You can check the speed of your website with Google’s Pagespeed Insights tool. It will give you all the details like the time taken to load the page and what are the things to do to increase the page speed including all technicalities. This includes the overall performance details, SEO report and much more.
Here are some key points to consider on technical SEO
- Make sure you are using the HTTPS version and not the unsecured version
- Find and fix crawl eros
- Check the loading speed
- Check the responsiveness of the website
- Identify and fix all broken links
- Find and fix orphaned pages
- Check canonical tags
- Add structured data
- Check for duplicate content and also duplicate versions of your site
- Add structured data
The tools that will help you in this include GSC and GA and the Semrush Site Audit tool
Keyword Research
Another important aspect of SEO is keyword research. As the name says it is researching keywords. It is important to identify relevant keywords and phrases for your website and include them strategically in your content. Keyword research allows you to analyse the search volume and know the competition for the keywords.
Create content with the major keywords in mind and include them in your website content.
Conclusion
To summarise, SEO is an important aspect of ensuring your website is visible and accessible to users. Understanding the fundamentals of SEO, including the different types, keyword research, and technical considerations, is essential for effective optimisation. By implementing on-page and content SEO strategies, building high-quality backlinks, and focusing on technical aspects such as website speed and mobile-friendliness, you can enhance your website’s search engine rankings and drive more organic traffic. But always remember, SEO is an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring and adaptation to stay competitive in the ever-changing digital landscape.