Complete SEO Checklist : Everything You Need To Know About SEO

This SEO checklist covers everything that you need to know about search engine optimization. SEO helps in ranking your website higher on the Google result page and drives more traffic and sales for your website .

In this article we are going to briefly address the SEO related issues, their solution, best SEO techniques and would gain a better understanding about the entire concept of search engine optimization .

Step by step complete SEO checklist

1. Website Launch Checklist
2. Keyword Research Checklist
3. On-Page & Content Optimization Checklist
4. Technical SEO Checklist
5. Link-Building & PR Outreach
6. Local SEO Checklist
7. SEO KPI tracking

There are certain SEO tools that will come handy while dealing with the given SEO step wise checklist. Take a look at some of the most useful SEO tools .

1. Google Search Console
2. Google Analytics
3. PageSpeed Insights
4. Mobile-Friendly Test

WEBSITE LAUNCH CHECKLIST

Launching your website in the right manner is the first step towards successful SEO. Follow these steps for the no hindrance website growth .

1. HTTPS SECURITY
   This is an important element that makes your website more reliable and trustworthy. A secure encrypted website is essentially important for those dealing with sensitive user information or monetary transactions .

   Website auditor can prove useful for you in case you are having trouble converting from HTTP to HTTPS .

   To check if your website has any mixed issues (issues that cause trouble in going from HTTP to HTTPS) Then open website auditor go to site auditor and finally go to the encoding and technical factors section .

   URL CUSTOMIZATION
   URL is the first element of your website that a google bot crawls. Hence it becomes important to customise URLs. Also on a personal level sharing long URLs reflect unprofessionalism and may get embarrassing at times. Customising website URLs is a free of cost process that can benefit your website in great amount .
   To convert your regular URLs into SEO friendly URLs follow these tips:

   Shorten the length of your URLs. Better to conclude within 75 characters
   Try and include keywords in your URL
   Optimise URLs for all pages on your website
   Go for static URLs that have simple text and no symbols and special characters for search friendliness

   You can again refer to website auditor to suit your purpose

   SETTING UP ANALYTICAL TOOLS
   To track the traffic performance at your website you may add an analytic tool like webmaster or mixpanel. But Google tools are the most dynamic and widely used and also compatible with most of the platforms. You may add tracking code of Google analytics to and verify your website in Google search console .

   WEBSITE STRUCTURE
   A complex structure of your website can delay your SEO efficiency. No page at your website should be more than three clicks away. Wisely plan a clean hierarchy of web pages on your website for google bots to easily crawl your website and index your pages .

   OPTIMISE INTERNAL LINKING
   Internal links are often ignored or neglected in the shadow of other important off-site SEO techniques. But internal links play an important role while strategizing seo campaigns. It not only helps the users by easing navigation but also helps the crawlers to navigate through the entire website .

2. KEYWORD RESEARCH CHECKLIST
   Keyword research is the foundation of search engine optimization. It is that element of the SEO process that ranks your website higher on search engine results. And also serves as a basis to measure SEO performance and efficiency .

   LOOK FOR TOP RANKING KEYWORDS
   There are plenty of tools to help you find the best keywords for your website. Websites like UberSuggest provide free keyword research service and also reflect the search volume of the searched keyword.

   It is also suggested to look for new keyword ideas related to your concerned topic .

   IDENTIFY YOUR ORGANIC COMPETITORS
   To boost your own SEO strategy, find your nearest organic competitors and learn about their SEO techniques. Your organic competitors aren’t always your true competitors who offer a similar product or service to yours. Websites that rank for the same keywords and themes as you are considered organic rivals. You must benchmark your competition using main SEO indicators, keep track of their daily activity, and ensure that they do not beat you to the top of the SERP .

   Discover your main competitors on the basis of domain or topic using Rank Tracker’s Competitor Research module

   SEARCH FOR NEW KEYWORD IDEAS
   You plan website expansion by researching new keyword ideas and adding more pages that will attract organic traffic from Google. This is a crucial phase since keyword research entails extensive competitor analysis, which aids firms in better defining their distinct value offer .

   Google Autocomplete, Google Ads Term Planner, Bing Autocomplete, and other tools can help you come up with new keyword suggestions. Manual keyword research takes time, therefore Rank Tracker combines 24 keyword research approaches into a single module, allowing you to find new keywords in minutes .

   LOCATE LONG-TAIL AND SHORT-TAIL KEYWORDS
   The filter can be applied based on the length of key phrases (although this is not exactly what differentiates long-tail keywords from short-tails, but still). It’s a good idea to add 2-4-word phrases in your keyword list .

   ACCOUNT THE KEYWORD DIFFICULTY
   The Keyword Difficulty data is evaluated by Rank Tracker in two ways: by examining the difficulty for the top 10 and 50 organic results .

   The tool checks the top 50 ranking pages in the SERP Analysis tab and reveals how difficult it will be for your page to overtake them for the given key phrase. The programme compares page strength, links pointing to it, the keywords it ranks for, and other characteristics to determine a correlation between them .

   The average keyword difficulty score is then given: the greater the score, the more difficult it will be to rank first. Concentrate on keywords with low and intermediate difficulty scores (indicated in green and yellow) .

   CHOOSE TERMS WITH A BETTER KEYWORD EFFICIENCY INDEX
   Pay attention to the KEI (searches to competition ratio) when selecting the final keyword list. The higher the KEI (marked green), the better, indicating that a large number of people are searching for this keyword, but there isn’t a lot of rivalry among websites. Note that the KEI for all of your project keywords may be low (shown red) in some circumstances (e.g., all key phrases have low search volume) .

   Just remember that KEI is a relative metric, and therefore the numbers should be viewed as relative values within a niche. There is no such thing as a good or terrible KEI. As a result, you should only compare two keywords .

   KEYWORD INTENT
   The most significant aspect of keyword mapping and developing various types of pages is keyword intent. Determine what type of pages you need to produce for the target keywords based on their intent: a blog post or a product page, service pages, white papers, help pages, and so on .

   KEYWORD MAPPING TO CONTENT
   You must establish your landing pages, which are the pages you will improve first in order to increase traffic, conversions, and purchases. It’s preferable to choose these pages from your highest-ranking content .

   Right-click on the selected keywords in Rank Tracker and select Assign keywords to the landing page from the menu. For a single page, don’t use too many keywords. The better your landing pages are, the more focused they are. In the Keyword Map module, the assigned landing pages will show .

3. ON-PAGE & CONTENT OPTIMIZATION CHECKLIST
   On-page SEO is one of the most important ranking variables as Google algorithms strive to reward the best content. While on-page SEO and content optimization are roughly the same thing, their scopes are slightly different. For on-site upgrades, I recommend taking gradual steps (like optimising CTRs or updating content for freshness). Soon, you’ll have a bird’s-eye view of your content strategy and be able to devise a comprehensive strategy .

   REWRITE TOO LONG, DUPLICATE, OR MISSING TITLE
   Find the On-page area in WebSite Auditor’s Site Audit module. Check the factors for duplicate titles and empty title tags. If there are any duplicate title tags, they should be updated to include the principal keyword. In addition, consider the component. The titles are very long. If the titles are excessively long, they may be shortened and rewritten by Google. Page titles that are between 45 and 50 characters long, including spaces, are the most effective .

   OPTIMISE META DESCRIPTIONS
   Some may question the value of meta descriptions, but I believe they are the next most significant on-page element after the title tag. Meta description works as a kind of a marketing banner with a call-to-action on it. This, along with title tags, is the most important on-page element that influences your pages’ organic click-through rates. So don’t miss out on the opportunity to increase organic traffic with a well-optimised meta snippet. Because if you don’t, Google will, and no one can promise that it will be fantastic .

   ADD STRUCTURED DATA
   Rich snippets and a number of other SERP characteristics that make a website stand out from the throng on the search results page are more likely to appear if you have structured data. Schema markup is a set of standardised elements that are applied to HTML code to help search engines recognise that a page contains certain types of information, such as information about the author, a product, a business, a FAQ, and so on .

   There are many free schema implementation tools available, such as Google Structured Data Markup Helper. Keep in mind that improper installation can result in ranking penalties and traffic loss. So, check out our definitive schema markup guide to make sure you’re doing it right .

4. TECHNICAL SEO CHECKLIST
   Technical SEO may appear to be difficult and complicated. When you take a deeper look, you’ll notice that there are numerous significant factors that are a part of modern-day search, and they apply to all niches and businesses .

   CHECK INDEXING AND CRAWLABILITY WITH ROBOTS.TXT AND SITEMAP
   For your website or content to appear on SERPs it is firstly important for it to be accessible to the search engines. To make your content identifiable you can follow the given steps .

   Find indexing and crawlability issues in the coverage section of the search engine console .

   Launch WebSite Auditor, enter your website’s URL, and wait for the tool to complete the assessment. Look for the Pages barred from indexing category and see if there’s any content that’s been blocked. Check to see if any critical content is being obstructed .

   FIND TECHNICAL ERRORS THAT EAT YOUR CRAWL BUDGET
   Broken links are inconvenient to use and might result in traffic loss. When pages become obsolete, such as when a product is discontinued or a promotion expires, the page can be forwarded to another page with a similar topic. Correct the erroneous link URLs and establish the 301 redirects to fix any broken links. Keep in mind, however, that too many redirects on a website are bad for the crawl budget.

   FIND UNCRAWLABLE ON-PAGE ELEMENTS
   Although JavaScripts and frames are less of a concern these days, keep them in mind because search engines still have a hard time indexing content in frames. You should utilise these elements with caution so that page crawling is not hampered .

   Check if you have any pages with Frames in the Site Audit module’s Encoding and technical factors category, and then follow the suggestions in that section. Add text transcripts to the pages if you have a lot of content in frames .

   CHECK SITE SPEED AND PAGE LOAD TIME
   Pages may take varying amounts of time to load, depending on the speed of your Internet connection and other variables. As a result, it’s sometimes more practical to consider page size rather than load time. Check the Too big pages factor in the Site Audit, the Encoding and technical considerations section to identify which pages may take longer to load .

   You may assess your site’s compliance with the Core Web Vitals characteristics using Google’s PageSpeed API, which is a free tool. Integrate the PageSpeed API into WebSite Auditor to maximise the tool’s capabilities and perform a mass check for all pages. Check all the criteria and resources in a single workspace .

   CHECK MOBILE-FRIENDLINESS
   Since Google’s Page Experience Update was fully implemented in summer 2021, the mobile-friendliness aspect has become critical for every website. Use Google’s free Mobile-Friendly Test to see if your website is mobile-friendly. Tap into the Search Console data on the Experience > Mobile Usability tab to get an overview of all your difficulties .

5. LINK-BUILDING AND PR OUTREACH
   Backlinks are vital for SEO, but it’s important to remember that quality, not quantity, comes first. Organic rankings are directly influenced by off-page SEO. As a result, backlink research must become a key component of your SEO approach. By conducting regular link audits .

   Maintain a healthy link profile on your website to prevent Google’s manual actions and algorithmic penalties
   To improve the site’s backlink profile, improve the quality of your backlinks.
   Compare the strength of your domain to that of your organic competitors and select the most effective optimization approaches.
   To enhance brand awareness and internet visibility, look for opportunities to develop links.

   You can follow the given steps for efficient link building

   FIX SPAM ISSUES
   If search engines detect spam on your pages, your website may be penalised, and its ranks may suffer. These can be algorithmic punishments, such as Penguin, or manual actions imposed by Google. As a result, you must address any link difficulties as quickly as feasible .

   You should always mind these kind of actions

   CLOAKING: Cloaking is when the material displayed to a search engine spider differs from the content displayed to a user’s browser.
   DOORWAY: A web page designed only for the purpose of redirecting users to another website is known as a doorway.
   LINK FARM: Any group of websites that all connect to each other is known as a link farm.

   CHECK THE ORIGIN OF YOUR BACKLINKS
   Consider the connected page’s Google PageRank, age, amount of outbound links, and geography. In the Backlinks section of SEO SpyGlass, you may examine the linking pages of your existing backlinks .

   FOCUS ON DOFOLLOW LINKS
   You may also observe that some of your incoming links contain the nofollow tag in the Backlinks module. This essentially means that the connected pages do not receive link juice (or PageRank) from these links. That is why it is preferable to concentrate on obtaining more dofollow backlinks from relevant sources linking to your website .

   INCLUDE MAIN KEYWORDS IN ANCHOR TEXT
   Your target keywords should be optimised in the anchor text (the visible clickable text in a hyperlink). This text is used by search engines to determine the relevance of the linked-to document. Because anchor texts like here, read more, and this page are not descriptive, they are less effective in terms of SEO value. To examine the anchors on your backlinks, go to the Backlinks module’s Statistics button and look at the detailed anchor data .

   HIGH PENALTY RISK KEYWORDS SHOULD BE REMOVED
   When search engine bots examine your site’s links, they look for signs of naturalness. The Penalty Risk section in SEO SpyGlass explains why a page could appear to Google as spammy. High-risk backlinks are highlighted in red, indicating that they may result in a penalty for your website. If there are too many, contact the webmasters of the connected websites and request that they be removed, or use the Google Disavow tool to tell search engines to disregard them .

   TRY TO GET MAXIMUM BACKLINKS
   In general, the higher the number of backlinks, the better. Use white-hat link-building strategies to obtain natural links. Links connecting to relevant sites in a niche comparable to yours are considered credible. This means that visitors will find your content valuable and fascinating, and that the links aren’t unnaturally placed .

   Find the right link building sources
   Run campaigns for link outrage:
   Optimise your social media pages
   Find best performing posts on social media

6. LOCAL SEO CHECKLIST
   Location has a great amount of significance in the process of search engine optimization that it deserves individual attention as a separate topic itself .

   TRACK AREA WISE ORGANIC SEARCH
   Rank Tracker works with search engines in any country and area, right down to a street address. And can be of great importance to a business in terms of local audience targeting .

   SET UP A GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PROFILE
   To improve visibility in local search results and on Google Maps, complete your Google Profile listing. It has a lot of useful features for businesses that have a physical location. Furthermore, it is completely free. Google’s business tools allow you to see reviews, location on maps, information about operating hours, product availability, and even crowdedness. Our Google My Business guide guide can assist you .

   IMPLEMENT LOCAL SCHEMA MARKUP
   Structured data is a method of providing more information about your website to search engines, hence increasing your online presence. For enterprises, local schema markup is critical. It includes NAP information such as the company’s name, address, phone number, and website .

   USE HREFLANG FOR LANGUAGE SPECIFICATION
   If you manage a worldwide website with users from all over the world, make sure you offer the appropriate language version to them. The use of hreflang tags is one technique to construct multi-language webpages. Using WebSite Auditor’s built-in website tools, you can easily incorporate hreflang tags .

   DEVELOP LOCAL CITATIONS
   To be commercially successful, you must be present in your location’s or community’s most influential media channels. LinkAssistant will assist you in locating appropriate business directories, forums, local media, public channels, and communities with whom to collaborate .

   RUN ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS
   Choose the optimal timing and platforms for your advertising initiatives. You must assess the efficacy of your marketing channels before deciding where to run your next ad campaigns, whether they are Google advertisements, display ads, or Facebook ads. By analysing CPC and PPC expenses for your keywords, Rank Tracker can assist you .

7. SEO KPI TRACKING
   Finally, establish criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of your SEO campaign. The most popular key performance indicators in SEO are listed below, but they may vary from one organisation to the next .

   TRACK YOUR RANKINGS FOR KEYWORDS AND TRAFFIC
   Make sure you use Rank Tracker to track your term ranks in search engines. You’ll be able to check your current and historical rankings, as well as compare them to those of your competitors .

   Examine both traditional organic and Universal Search results (Images, Videos, Places). Rank Tracker will also provide a ranking page’s various positions .

   USE GOOGLE ANALYTICS TO TRACK SEO GOALS
   When you use Google Analytics to its maximum marketing potential, it may deliver a wealth of information. Set up SEO-focused goals, such as completed conversions on your landing pages, to begin. You may also connect Search Console and Google Analytics to get more information on the most profitable terms. However, you’ll need the help of the Console and Rank Tracker for a more in-depth look into keyword performance .

   Determine which keywords generate the most traffic and which landing pages result in the most conversions, and then enhance them to make the most of it .

   IMPROVE BEHAVIOUR SIGNALS ON YOUR SITE
   Each component will provide you with information on how to optimise pages for your website’s growth and efficiency. Find pages that detract from your average and work on improving them. Analyse your audience’s behaviour and analytics such as bounce rate, page views per session, dwell time, and so on .

   PUBLISH COOKIE POLICY
   Cookies explain why and how user data is tracked. A cookie policy informs your users about the cookies that are active on your website. Because cookies can track, record, and share user behaviour, they can put users’ privacy at risk. As a result, several laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, require websites to explain how they use cookies. Most data protection rules continue to demand user agreement to process their data .

   A privacy statement, regardless of the method you employ to process user data, is a way to communicate with your users (and spare yourself from legal risks as well).