Before you approve anything for publishing, having an SEO basics checklist can be a great tool to help you boost your overall SEO performance, right? We are here to help you create the best SEO practices checklist and help you become a search engine optimization master.
Search engines are more important than ever right now. Most internet users resort to platforms like Google to search for content, websites, new businesses, and many other items of information. Accelerate Marketing’s clients have been utilizing Google’s features, like local service ads, Google Screened and Google Guaranteed because of how important SEO is for today’s businesses.
Creating rich content is not enough to rank on SERPs anymore. Sure, the content you post is crucial to enhancing your clients’ website quality, but if you don’t work on things like keyword usage, the hard work could go down the drain. You must ensure your clients’ have a prominent presence on SERPs, and here’s where search engine optimization comes in!
What Is On-Site SEO?
On-site SEO, also known as On-page SEO, is the practice of optimizing a specific webpage to rank higher on SERPs. By doing this, your clients’ websites will see a boost in their organic traffic. On the other hand, you’ll find the practice of Off-Page SEO, which entails optimizing external links and more related to your client’s website.
When creating an SEO checklist, be mindful of these two techniques, as they are the most basic ones concerning search engine optimization.
For now, we’ll focus on on-page SEO. Simply said, this technique encompasses everything a marketer must do to enhance their website to rank higher on search results. One of its main goals is to help you boost your client’s page and content organically.
Remember how we talked about how high-quality content isn’t everything there is to make your page rank higher on SERPs? It’s true! A webpage needs more than high-quality posts. But that doesn’t mean you want this high-quality content to get lost in the backrooms of search engine result pages.
What On-Site SEO Entails
On-site SEO refers to everything you can do on a website to help it rank higher. But what does everything mean?
This entails working on meta titles and descriptions, optimized images, and accessibility optimization. It sounds like paying attention to every detail that on-page SEO is stressful, and the truth is that it can be if you don’t have a checklist to help you with it.
So, when working on this technique, consider focusing on these topics to help you keep all SEO aspects covered:
- Content
- Website Coding
- Website Structure
The Importance of Content for SEO
Let’s start with a basic. Your clients’ website content is a vital part of SEO. If you post optimized content with great usage of keywords and headings, excellent images, and overall easy-to-read, digestible content, search engines will take them into account, and that will contribute to boosting the site’s SEO ranking.
Furthermore, there are some technical considerations. EAT, which stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, are things you must keep on top of your checklist when doing SEO work.
Consider posting valuable content with keywords placed strategically. These can help clients see what the website is all about. For example, let’s say you are working on a mechanics workshop website, and they let you know they want to increase their local popularity. Then, you would focus on local SEO efforts, like using keywords related to the business and the area it’s located in.
First, you can start by seeing what other competitors are talking about. Next, do more advanced keyword research. There are SEO tools that can help you with this task, such as Ahrefs.
What Content Writers Must Know About SEO
Search engines, like the rest of the Internet, keep facing changes and improving. Nowadays, these platforms have algorithms that understand a website’s relevance and context related to a search query.
Logically, it is here where keywords become a piece of the SEO puzzle. In the past, keyword usage and on-site optimization were almost the same thing, but nowadays these are part of the content people are writing about.
Another thing content writers must be mindful of is the length of their content. Now, here is where it can get tricky for many. Some believe the longer their articles are, the more exceptional they are for SEO. However, that is not always the case. While there are no set words related to best practices in SEO, you can see what works for the website’s SEO strategy.
Despite that, consider writing articles with a minimum of 500-1000 words, but analyze what works best for the website.
The content must be SEO and user-friendly. Look at it like this: it makes no sense to create content full of SEO keyword research, but difficult to understand. You want to have a page with content that works in multiple ways.
What Editors Need to Know About SEO
Once the content creation is complete, the next step is to edit it. When it comes to SEO, editing can provide several steps to optimize your website.
When editing a blog post, for example, consider checking that the headlines aren’t excessively creative, the article has an easy-to-read introduction that doesn’t go on for too long, and the paragraphs are simplified with just one idea per section.
We’ll give you a more in-depth look into what the on-page SEO elements checklist can look like below, so stay tuned!
Where SEO and Coding Meet: Technical SEO
Here’s where we get to the technical part of our quest. As you saw above, you need to validate you are working with on-demand keywords, that the content is high-quality, and more. But that in itself isn’t all you must work on to make your SEO results grow.
Technical SEO englobes everything that you do to improve your client’s website technical aspects. This practice increases the organic traffic of your client’s page by boosting its SEO rankings.
There are free tools you can use, like Google Search Console. This Google platform allows you to see how indexable a website is, among many other services it offers.
There are several things you must be mindful of, like page speed, how navigable the website is, and mobile optimization.
Your SEO optimization can even go as far as implementing coding tools, like schema markups, which are also known as structured data. These codes help search engine crawlers lurk through your website, telling search engines vital information about your client’s webpage.
You’ll find many other HTML factors that will help you create a complete SEO checklist below.
Website Structure
Maintaining a clean, fully working website architecture is vital to increasing a website’s SEO ranking. Having a logical web page structure helps search engine crawlers understand your page even further. Furthermore, it will create a better experience for page visitors, as it will create a user-friendly website as a whole.
When working on the technical SEO checklist for a website structure, consider URLs, linking effectiveness (working internal, external, and inbound links), and if the website is easy to navigate.
SEO Tips: Optimization Checklist
We have finally arrived at the most crucial part of our quest, the checklists. These lists can lead you to an effective SEO performance, which is the ultimate goal of any marketer.
Rely on SEO checklists to help you create foolproof content and overall website optimization. Be mindful that SEO is an ongoing process, so your lists can vary from time to time, based on any new strategies your agency comes up with.
On-Page SEO Checklists
Use these checklists to make sure your client’s websites are on top of their game:
Keywords Checklist
- Find the keywords to work on.
- Ensure the titles have these keywords in them.
- Be careful with keyword stuffing! Sometimes, less is more.
- Add keywords to the content in a natural manner. Add them where you must, and be strategic.
- Use tools to check your keywords’ density.
Grammar and Spelling Checklist
- Be mindful of the tone you write the content. You want to be polite, sound professional, and friendly.
- Consider the country your client is in, as this will determine your content’s spelling.
- Proofread your pieces. If possible, have another person as an editor.
Formatting and Structure Checklist
- Use headings and subheadings accordingly. Ensure you include at least one H1 heading.
- Include keywords on your titles.
- Add lists and bullet points, and highlight anything needed through bold or italicized phrases.
- Keep your sentences concise. Wordy text can be troublesome for search engine crawlers and page visitors.
Content Checklist
- Do a thorough analysis to understand the length of your website content. Some pieces might not require that many words, but others will. See what works for your website.
- Your introductions don’t need to be lengthy. Be straightforward in a clever manner.
- Add anything that can enhance your articles—images with alt text, working links, videos, and more.
- Avoid going off track. Stay on the subject, be precise.
- Avoid duplicate content. The components of your website content shouldn’t be duplicates, as you want to avoid creating confusion (for visitors and search engines!)
Technical SEO Checkpoints
When creating a technical SEO checkpoint, consider the following items:
Website Structure Checklist
- If you are creating a new page, use tools like mental maps to help you outline the site’s structure.
- Make sure the page’s navigation is working correctly. Any faulty links that stop the navigation process can increase the site’s bounce rate.
- Is the web page’s navigation user and SEO-friendly?
Links Checklist
- Make sure you are using authoritative sources for your external links.
- Ensure links open on a new page. You want visitors to stay on your website for as long as possible.
- Keep an eye on your backlinks. Reclaim them when needed.
- When necessary, link to any resources that back up your article.
- Create and implement outreach strategies.
Website Optimization Checklist
- Is the content on your website optimized for mobile?
- Are you using schema markups on your website?
- Ensure the web page doesn’t take too long to load.
- Make sure your site is indexable and crawlable.
- How does your website’s accessibility look? Is it understandable on screen-readers? Does it have alt text? Do you use meta titles and descriptions?
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Most Important KPI in SEO?
The answer will vary depending on each marketer and SEO expert. However, many believe that the most important KPI in SEO is the conversion rate since this is where you can see if the strategies used to generate profits on your website are working.
Can You Improve SEO Yourself?
Yes, you can. There are several free tools, like Google Analytics or Google Search Console that can help carry out this task. Of course, it’s not as simple as it seems since it requires you to learn about it and get familiarized with concepts, codes, and different software and platforms.
Is It Hard to Master SEO?
No, it isn’t. Mastering SEO requires time and practice, but given the relevance of digital marketing, some online academies and websites can help you learn more about this and further your SEO expertise.
Conclusion
We hope this article helps you create the best SEO checklist practices. Creating an SEO checklist that covers the essential parts of your clients’ web pages will be a great tool for your agency.
Using these checklists, you will deliver better results to your clients and that is the ultimate goal of any agency.
