The Only SEO Checklist You Need

Search engine optimization is the practice of optimizing a website or web page to rank higher in the search engine results pages (SERP). The higher the ranking, the more likely people are to find the website or page. The main aim of SEO is to improve the visibility of a website or web page so that it can attract more visitors from the online space, through the organic or unpaid search results.

Set up GSC and Bing Webmaster tools

Be sure to add your site to both Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster Tools. Both platforms will give you insights into how your site is performing in organic search, and will alert you if there are any issues. They can also help you track your progress over time.

Set up Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a indispensable tool for understanding how people interact with your website. Not only is it free, but it’s also pretty simple to set up. Once you have Google Analytics installed, you can start tracking data immediately.

To get started, create a Google Analytics account and then set up tracking on your website. You’ll need to add a tracking code to your site, which you can get from your Google Analytics account. Once you have the code, you can add it to your site using a plugin or by editing your theme’s code.

Once you have Google Analytics set up, take some time to explore the different reports and data sets that are available. This will help you understand what data is most important for measuring the success of your website and marketing campaigns.

Install and configure an SEO plugin (wordpress)

There are a number of great SEO plugins available for WordPress, but we recommend using Yoast SEO. It’s a popular, well-supported option that offers a lot of features and flexibility.

Once you’ve installed and activated the plugin, you’ll need to do some initial setup. Yoast SEO will walk you through the process, but here are a few key things to keep in mind:

-Select your target keyword or phrase. This is the word or phrase you want to rank for in search engines.
-Add your site title, description, and social media information. Yoast SEO will use this information to generate meta tags, which help improve your site’s click-through rate from SERPs.
-Configure your permalink structure. We recommend using the post name permalink setting, as it’s the most friendly for SEO.
-Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. These tools will help you track your site’s performance in search engines and troubleshoot any issues.

Keyword Research

If you’re reading this, then you’re probably interested in finding out more about keyword research. Keyword research is the process of finding words or phrases that people are searching for in the search engines. It’s a crucial part of any SEO or online marketing strategy. In this article, we’ll give you a crash course in keyword research.

Identify your competitors

To determine which keywords to target, it’s important to first understand your audience and what they are searching for. Once you have a good understanding of your target market, you can then identify your competitors.

There are a few different ways to identify your competitors. One way is to simply do a search for keywords that are related to your business. For example, if you sell men’s shoes, you can do a search for “men’s shoes” and see who comes up.

Another way to identify your competitors is to look at who is advertising for the keywords that you want to target. You can do this by using a tool like the Google AdWords Keyword Planner. Just enter in the keywords that you want to target, and the Keyword Planner will show you who is advertising for those keywords.

Once you have identified your competitors, you can then begin to do keyword research. There are a number of different tools that you can use for keyword research, but one of the most popular is Google’s Keyword Planner. This tool allows you to enter in a keyword or phrase and see how many people are searching for that term every month. This data can be very useful in helping you determine which keywords to target.

Conduct a keyword gap analysis

A keyword gap analysis is the process of identifying which keywords your competitors are ranking for that you are not. This presents an opportunity for you to start targeting these keywords and improving your organic search traffic.

To conduct a keyword gap analysis, you will need to research the keywords that your competitors are ranking for and compare them to the keywords you are targeting. There are a few different ways to do this:

• Use a keyword research tool like Google Keyword Planner or Moz Keyword Explorer to get a list of relevant keywords for your business.
• Use a competitive analysis tool like SEMrush or SpyFu to see which keywords your competitors are targeting.
• manually search for your competitor’s website on Google and see which keywords they are appearing for in the search results.

Once you have a list of relevant keywords, you can start working on improving your organic search traffic by optimizing your website for these keywords.

Find your main ‘money’ keywords

Any good SEO program starts with keyword research. You need to discover what phrases and words your target market uses when they search for the products or services you offer. This guide provides tips and tools to help you find the right keywords for your business.

There are a number of different ways to approach keyword research. The methods you choose will depend on your budget, time, and other resources. You can do keyword research on your own or with the help of an SEO consultant or agency.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when doing keyword research is that you should focus on finding keywords that are relevant to your business and that have a high search volume. Relevancy is important because it will help you attract interested users to your website or blog. And, high search volume keywords are important because they will help you get more traffic to your site.

Technical SEO

The most important thing you need to know about SEO is that it is constantly changing.

Leverage “Inspect URL” feature in GSC

The “Inspect URL” feature in Google Search Console (GSC) allows you to check if your website is accessible to Google and if there are any indexing issues. This is a valuable tool for technical SEOs, as it can help you identify and fix crawling and indexing problems.

Here’s how to use the “Inspect URL” feature in GSC:

1. Go to https://search.google.com/search-console/about
2. Click on the “Inspect URL” button in the top right corner.
3. Enter the URL of the page you want to check and click “Inspect”.
4. GSC will show you whether the page is indexed and if there are any issues with it.
5. If there are any issues, you can click on them for more details and take steps to fix them.
   Ensure your website is mobile-friendly
   
   One of the most important aspects of technical SEO is making sure your website is mobile-friendly. More and more people are using their mobile devices to access the internet, and if your website is not optimized for mobile devices, you will likely lose a significant amount of traffic.

There are a few different ways to make sure your website is mobile-friendly. One way is to use responsive design, which means your website will automatically adjust to fit the screen size of the device it is being viewed on. Another way is to create a separate mobile version of your website that is specifically designed for mobile devices.

whichever approach you choose, it is important to test your website on a variety of different devices to make sure it looks and functions as you want it to. You should also keep an eye on your website’s analytics to see how much traffic you are getting from mobile devices, and make changes as needed to ensure you are reaching your target audience.

Check your site’s loading speed

Slow loading pages are a barrier to success online, and site speed is now a key ranking factor for Google. No matter how well you optimize your website’s other SEO factors, if your pages take too long to load, your site will struggle to rank highly in search results.

To check your site’s loading speed, you can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Simply enter your URL and click “Analyze”. The tool will then give you a report on how well your page performs, and provide recommendations on how to improve its loading speed.

Make sure to also test your site on mobile devices, as mobile users are especially likely to abandon slow-loading pages. You can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool for this purpose.

On-page and Content

When it comes to on-page and content, it is better to marry than to burn meaning that you should be focused on your content and on-page SEO. This means that you should make sure that your content is well-written and informative. You should also focus on your keywords and make sure that they are included in your content in a way that is both natural and effective.

Fix duplicate, missing, and truncated title tags

Duplicate, missing, or truncated title tags can hurt your search engine ranking.

A title tag is the main text that describes an online document. It is meant to be an accurate and concise description of the page’s content.

The title tag shows up in three places:
-The search engine results pages (SERP)
-The browser tab
-The browser bookmark/favorites list.

The following tips will help you create title tags that are both effective and appealing:
-Keep it short and sweet. A good rule of thumb is to keep your title tags to 60 characters or less, including spaces. This ensures that your titles are both concise and readable.
-Make it unique. Every page on your website should have a unique title tag that accurately reflects its content. This can be a challenge if you have a large website, but it’s important to avoid duplicate content whenever possible.
-Include keywords wisely. Keywords are an important part of any title tag, but you don’t want to stuff them in there just for the sake of it. Use keywords thoughtfully and sparingly, sticking to only those that are relevant to the page’s content.
-Make it readable. In addition to being keyword rich, your title tag should also be easy for people to read and understand. Keep things clear and straightforward, avoiding any unnecessary jargon or ambiguity.

Find and fix duplicate or missing meta descriptions

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines advise against duplicate content. If you have identical or very similar content on multiple pages of your website, it can be difficult for Google to determine which page is most relevant for a given search query. As a result, your site may not rank as highly as it could in search results.

If you suspect that you have duplicate content on your site, you can use Google Search Console to find and fix the problem. Simply enter your website’s URL into the search bar and select the “Content Keywords” tab. From there, you can see which pages are being indexed by Google and which pages have duplicate content.

If you find that you have duplicate content on your site, there are a few ways to fix the problem:
-Redirect duplicate pages to the original page
-Add rel=”canonical” tags to duplicate pages
-Remove or update duplicate content

Find and fix multiple H1 tags

While most SEOs agree that having only one H1 tag per page is ideal, sometimes it’s not possible to avoid having multiple H1 tags on a single page. If you find yourself in this situation, there are a few things you can do to make sure your H1 tags are working for you, not against you.

To start, take a look at the content on your page and see if there is a way to break it up into smaller sections. If each section could be its own stand-alone page, then that’s probably what you should do. However, if the content on the page flows together and can’t be easily divided up, then you’ll need to figure out how to work with multiple H1 tags.

One way to do this is to make sure each H1 tag is unique and descriptive. For example, if you have a page about coffee that has two sections – one about light roasts and one about dark roasts – you could have an H1 tag for each section that says “Light Roasts” and “Dark Roasts.” This would help search engines understand the content on your page and index it accordingly.

Another way to approach multiple H1 tags is to use them as subheadings within your content. So, if you have a section about light roasts, you could have an H1 tag that says “Light Roasts” and then use H2 tags for subheadings like “Light Roast Types” or “How to Make Light Roast Coffee.” This would help search engines understand the structure of your content and index it accordingly.

Finally, if you’re stuck with multiple H1 tags on a single page, try to use them sparingly and only when they’re absolutely necessary. Search engines will still be able to index your content without issue, but using too many H1 tags can create a messy and confusing experience for users.

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO (also called “off-site SEO”) is the process of optimizing a website for better search engine rankings, primarily through link building and social media engagement. Off-page SEO is a catch-all term for all the ranking signals that aren’t directly on your website.

Analyze your competitor’s link profile

A link profile is simply a collection of all the links pointing to a given website. To get an idea of what your competitor’s link profile looks like, you can use a tool like Moz’s Open Site Explorer.

Conduct a link intersect analysis

Link intersect analysis is a process of analyzing a given website’s backlink profile and finding intersections, or commonalities, between the links. This can be useful for a number of reasons, including:

• To find link opportunities: If you see that a competitor’s links are coming from a certain type of site (e.g., .edu websites), you may be able to get a link from that type of site as well.
• To assess link quality: If you see that a high percentage of a competitor’s links are coming from low-quality sites, it may be an indication that their links are not very valuable.
• To find negative SEO attacks: If you see a sudden influx of links from low-quality sites, it may be an indication that someone is trying to spam your site with low-quality links.
  Target your competitors’ broken backlinks

Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for SEO. A backlink is created when one website links to another. This is also known as a link back or an inbound link. Backlinks are important because they show search engines that your site is popular and relevant. The more backlinks you have, the higher your site will rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

One way to get backlinks is to target your competitor’s broken backlinks. A broken backlink is a link on a website that no longer works. This could be because the website has been taken down, the page has been moved, or the link has simply been removed. When you find a broken backlink on a competitor’s website, you can contact the site owner and ask them to replace the broken link with a link to your website. This is known as link reclamation.