The Complete SEO Checklist
This comprehensive SEO checklist will help you rank high on Google.
This article will cover:
SEO Basics Tools
What is SEO?
SEO stands for “search engine optimisation”, meaning the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business on:
The more visible your site and pages are in search results, the more likely the new users are to click on your site.
How SEO works
Search engines such as Google and Bing use bots to crawl pages on the web, going from site to site, collecting information about those pages and putting them in an index.?
Next, algorithms analyse pages in the index, taking into account hundreds of ranking factors or signals to determine the order pages should appear in the search results for a given search term.
What’s important to Google?
SEO Basic Checklist
There are a few quick items to implement before building your on-page and off-page SEO strategy.
Step 1: Set up the Google Search Console: Google Search Console is designed to help you track your site’s performance in Google search. It gives free features including:
Step 2: Install Bing Webmaster Tools: Whilst Bing doesn’t have as many views as Google, it still has approximately 1 billion visitors per month globally, typically, for an older demographic.
Step 3: Set up Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a great way to track your website's performance from popular pages to bounce rates and session duration, the features are endless. Some of the inclusions are:
We recommend connecting your Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Step 4: Install Yoast SEO (WordPress Users Only): Yoast is a plugin used for WordPress sites making it easier to optimise your site for search engines. It is also great with technical SEO, such as robots.txt and site maps.
Step 5: Generate and submit the site map
Step 6: Create a Robots.txt file
Step 7: Make sure your site is indexed
Keyword Research Checklist
Keyword Research forms the foundation for SEO, allowing your site to stay relevant and high on search rankings. A keyword is a word or phase that searchers enter into search engine, for example:
Step 1: Discover Long Tail Keywords with “Google Suggest”
A great way to uncover long tail keywords is to type a keyword into Google, however, don’t press enter on the Google Search button, instead, view what Google presents as options below your search term. We also recommend using the Keywordtool.io to make the process easier to scale.
Step 2: Use Google’s Keyword Planner Tool
The Google Keyword Planner is Google’s official keyword research tool which can help to create lists for relevant keywords and search terms for your campaign.
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Step 3: Identify Low Competition Keywords With KWFinder
It is always great to use additional tools so you are not solely reliant on Google. KWFinder is a free keyword research tool which can make the keyword research process easier. It allows for hyper-targeting for location and language. The benefits of this tool include:
Step 4: Try AnswerThePublic
Another great free tool to build out your keyword research list is Answer The Public. This tool provides comprehensive and accurate lists for what searchers are looking up.
On-Page SEO Checklist
On-page SEO is the process of optimising a websites content for search engines and users. Common methods to do this include: optimising title tags, content, internal links and URLs.
Follow these steps for your On-Page SEO
Basic Checklist
Technical SEO Checklist
Content Checklist
Off-Page SEO Checklist
Off-page SEO refers to actions taken outside of your own website to directly impact your search rankings on Google and Bing.
Follow these steps for your Off-Page SEO
Off-Page SEO Checklist
2. Check your competitors’ backlink profiles
3. Improve your link building by using quality links
4. Harness the power of social media by:
5. Add an RSS feed subscription box
6. Have guests feature on your websites blog
7. Be present on your Google MyBusiness page by. Learn to optimise your Google MyBusiness listing with the comprehensive guide?
8. Tap into PR strategies such as featuring on podcasts, guest blog posts
Naomi Johnston
Founder & Creative Director | NJ CONSULTING
Wordpress Developer & SEO Specialist
1 年this helped me https://www.fiverr.com/s/RjkR0V
National Business Development Manager - Nurturing long-lasting business partner relationships
2 年Interesting read Naomi. It seems both off-page and on-page SEO are equally important. Is that correct?
Property Investment Consultant at Meridian Australia | Helping my clients make smart property investment selections
2 年Some helpful tips in this - especially for keyword research. Thanks NJ
When you absolutely, have to increase sales, open more opportunities, negotiate deals with profit, I can help, contact me. Psychology in Selling. Keynote Speaker. Executive Coach. Sales Trainer.
2 年Thanks Naoimi I’ve never considered SEO at all, so will read this