Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website so that it ranks higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This can help you reach a wider audience and drive more traffic to your website.
In this article the key factors of website optimization will be listed to provide better results in Google, Bing, and other search engines.
SEO Checklist
- SEO Basics
- Keyword Research
- Technical optimization
- On-Page Ranking Factors
- Content
- Usability
- Link building
- Off-Page optimization
1. SEO Basics
- Set up Google Search Console
- Set up Bing Webmaster Tools
- Set up Google Analytics
- Set up Events and Conversions in Google Analytics
- Connect Google Search Console to Google Analytics
- Check Google Search Console for Manual Actions
- Check if Google’s Webmaster Guidlines are violatied or manipulated
- Provide SEO settings for website pages (the best practice is to program them, if not possible, install a plugin, for example, Yoast SEO, Rank Math, Semrush SEO Writing Assistant for a website on WordPress)
- Create a Sitemap.xml, it should be regularly updated
- Create a robots.txt, and make sure that search engines can crawl and index your website (for WordPress you can use the plugin DB Robots.txt developed by Bisteinoff Web Agency, it will help to set up the file easily and correctly, your website will be indexable and accessible to search robots)
- CSS and JS scripts should be open for indexing
- Check noindex, nofollow meta tags, and fix them if necessary
- Check canonical, prev, next meta tags, and fix them if necessary
- Check that your website is not fully or partially duplicated on the internet (for example, a dev site), if so than the copies of your website should be closed from indexing, for mirror websites use 301 redirect
- Check that the frontpage is not duplicated (/index.php, /index.html, /index.htm, etc.), if so 301 redirect to the principle URL of home page should be used
- Check if there are dev pages or duplicated pages on your website, if so, they should be removed or blocked from indexing in robots.txt
- Check that website pages are not duplicated with and without slash at the end of URL
2. Technical optimization
- Use HTTPS
- Set up 301 redirect from HTTP to HTTPS
- Set up 301 redirect either from ‘with WWW’ to ‘without WWW’ or the opposite, as you prefer
- Use SEO-friendly URLs, remember that for search robots URLs are case-sensitive
- Fix redirect chains and loops (multiple redirects)
- Fix 301 redirect internal links
- Check if some or all temporary 302 redirects should be changed to permanent 301 redirects
- Error 404 page is configured and well-designed
- HTTP status codes work correctly
- Fix broken internal and outbound links (errors 4xx, 5xx)
- Add breadcrumb navigation on all pages, use Schema.org BreadcrumbList markup
- Check website’s crawl depth, it is recommended that the path to any page wouldn’t be any deeper than 3 clicks
- Check cross-browser compatibility
- Check if your website is mobile-friendly, use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool
- Improve your website speed, use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to analyze page performance and Core Web Vitals: Loading (Largest Contentful Paint), Interactivity (First Input Delay), and Visual Stability (Cumulative Layout Shift)
- Implement Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology
- Add Schema.org structured data for logo, contacts, products, events, reviews, articles, how-to, Q&A, books, movies, videos, podcasts, recipes, jobs etc
- Add OpenGraph markup
3. Keyword Research
- Collect keywords for your website that can drive conversions, leads, and sales
- Find long-tailed keyword variations, and questions people frequently ask
- Make keyword clusters, and adapt your website structure to them
- Fix keyword cannibalization issues when some pages on your website are targeting the same keywords and intent
- Analyze the ranking difficulty and make a content optimization strategy
- Track regularly the keywords ranking, and analyze the data
4. On-Page Ranking Factors
- Fix duplicate, missing and truncated Title tags and Meta descriptions
- Write or rewrite Title tags and Meta descriptions contents using the keywords, make them unique
- Check the length of Title and description tags contents, it is recommended that Title is between 30 and 60 characters or 200 and 561 pixels, and description is between 70 and 155 characters or 400 and 985 pixels
- Fix duplicate and missing H1 tags
- Check that H1 tags include the principle keyword
- Check the length of H1 tags, it is recommended to be under 70 characters
- Check that Title and H1 tags contents are not the same
- Check the structure of Hx tags: the structure should be hierarchical, normally only H1, H2, and H3 tags are used, don’t use Hx tags just for design
- Check the contents of Hx tags, add keywords if it is applicable, though normally not every Hx tag contains them
- Use STRONG or EM tags if you want to highlight some information in text
- Use alt and title attributes for images, use keywords for them
- Improve internal linking
- Fix orphan pages (those without any internal links to it)
- Remove empty pages
- Add HTML-sitemap, and check its structure, the link to the page should be found on the website
5. Content
- Audit website’s content to be unique, up-to-date and free of spam
- Make the texts rich with synonyms and Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords
- Make the content rich with images, videos, tables, blockquotes, etc.
- Publish pricing on your website
6. Usability
- Audit user experience on your website
- Make sure that your website is easy to navigate
- Use Click to action buttons
- Add scroll to top button
- Check that web forms are easy to use and work correctly
- Improve the design of messages that the users receive after a form is sent
- Add links on your social media
- Add social share buttons
- Set up links for phone numbers, whatsapp chats, and emails on your website
- Use Live chat to easily interact with your potential customers or clients
- Avoid annoying pop-ups (modal windows)
7. Link building
- Set up and optimize your Google Business profile
- Analyze your website’s link profile
- Try turn unlinked mentions into links reaching out to the page’s owner or author
- Analyze your competitors’ link profiles
- Make a link building strategy, and gradualy improve your link profile
- Use guest blogging for natural link building
- Add the information about your company and links to your website and social media to popular catalogues where potential customers or clients might search your products and services
- Find new opportunities to link building
- Try to minimize bad back links
8. Off-Page optimization
- Analyze your performance on social media
- Track your competitors’ social media activity
- Make your channels on social media channels, and post there regularly
- Post on other social media channels
Monitor your results
Once you’ve implemented these SEO tips, it’s important to monitor your results. You can use tools like Google Search Console to track your website’s rankings and traffic. This will help you see what’s working and what’s not, so you can make adjustments to your SEO strategy as needed.
SEO is an ongoing process, but by following these tips, you can optimize your website for search engines and improve your chances of ranking higher in SERPs.
