SEO Checklist
SEO Basics Checklist
Set Up Webmaster Tools
Connect your website to search engine’s webmaster tools to help search engines index your website. With webmaster tools, you can analyze indexed pages, queries that get impressions, average position on SERP, CTR, indexing problems, etc.
Google Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console/
Yandex Webmaster Tool: https://webmaster.yandex.com/welcome/
Bing Webmaster Tool: https://www.bing.com/webmasters/about
Baidu Webmaster Tool: https://ziyuan.baidu.com/login/index
Set Up Google Analytics
Set up Google Analytics to analyze website traffic, user behavior, traffic sources, etc. Analyzing user behavior gives insight into creating a strategy for a website.
Create Robots.txt
To determine which pages on websites search engine crawlers can access, create a robots.txt file.
Create Sitemap
To help search engine bots crawl the website’s URLs create a dynamic XML sitemap file and add it to webmaster tools.
On-Page SEO Checklist
For better Search Engine Optimization, use an on-page SEO checklist to review your website’s content, meta tags, and response codes and address any problems that may need fixing.
Meta Title & Meta Description
Create meta title and meta descriptions that gives information about a page. The character limit should be 55-60 characters for meta title and 155-160 characters for meta description, if you use long content on meta tags search engines cut off part of the content.
Including emojis in the title and description of content can potentially enhance the click-through rate (CTR).
Heading Tags
Use heading tags hierarchical on the page. Avoid using multiple H1 tags and keep heading tags unique for pages.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is critical for Search Engine Optimization to help identify the most relevant and valuable keywords to target in content. Use keyword research tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner, Semrush Keyword Magic Tool, Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, etc.
- Understand Your Audience
- Understand User Intent (Search Intent)
- Research Long-Tail Keywords
- Analyze Competitors
- Optimize for Voice Search
- Prioritize Relevance
- Monitor and Measure
Check 301 & 302 Redirects
To optimize the crawl budget clean 301 and 302 redirections on pages. Avoid redirect chain, long redirect chain delay loading of the page.
Check 404 Errors
Detect 404 pages on a website and clean from pages. If the sitemap includes 404 URLs update your XML sitemap.
Check Search Console for 404 Not Found errors.
Find Orphan Pages and Fix
Detect orphan pages and create an internal linking structure from one part of a page to another relevant page.
Alt Text for Images
Images’ alt text is a ranking factor, so use describing content for image alt text.
Keyword Cannibalization & Duplicate Content
Off-Page SEO Checklist
Check Spam Backlinks
Technical SEO Checklist
Use SEO-Friendly URL Structure
Use a simple and understandable URL structure for SEO. Keep the following rules below.
- Don’t use Non-ASCII characters
- Don’t use commas and spaces
- Don’t use underscores
- Try to keep URLs shorter than 1000 characters
- Specify lang code for multilingual and multi-regional websites.