SEO doesn’t have to be difficult. If you figure out what your website needs and track your progress, you know how to get the most out of SEO.
For those who are new to the term, SEO refers to the process of improving your website to boost its visibility when individuals search for your services or products in search engines such as Google, Bing, etc.
If you are planning to boost your site’s organic traffic and rank on Google, we have created a complete SEO checklist that talks about 101 ways to improve your SEO in 2022. Business owners and marketers in any industry can benefit from the SEO strategies and tips mentioned below.
But before we begin with the checklist, let’s discuss the basic SEO elements:
- URL Structure: A URL is a unique address to a particular page on the internet. A good example of this would be the website, “shopify.com”. If you visit their site, you can see that they have many different pages with content on them, all which are located at different URLs.
- Meta Description: These are short paragraphs appearing below the page title and URL link during a search. They should be easy to read and entice a searcher to click through.
- Header Tags: H1 tags are used by search engines to know and differentiate the theme of every page.
- Page Title: A page title is a brief description of a webpage and is shown on search engine results pages (SERPs) and at the top of a browser’s window. Page titles should be structured the same way on all your website pages.
Now, let’s begin with our SEO checklist
SEO Basics:
- Google Search Console: Google search console is a free SEO tool that you should use to track the performance of your website. It shows you how Google views your page and what it thinks about the content.
- Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a powerful website tool that tracks how individuals find and use your site. For instance, you can see how much traffic you get from Google, the pages that bring the highest traffic, your average bounce rate, and more. This data gives you an idea of what areas you need to work on.
- Yoast SEO (WordPress Users): Yoast is the most renowned SEO plugin in the world, and it makes it extremely easy to optimize your WordPress website for search engines. Yoast will check your meta descriptions and make sure they are filled with relevant keywords, as well as giving you suggestions on how to improve them.
Keyword Research and Optimization:
SEO is based on keywords. Keywords are the phrases people use to search for information on the web. So, it is crucial that you know which keywords your potential customers are using.
4. Google Keyword Planner:
Google Keyword Planner is the official keyword research tool of Google. This tool helps you find keywords that have a lot of searches and can be used to create effective content for your blog.
5. Long Tail Keywords:
Google Suggest is a great way to find long-tail keywords. Just enter a keyword in the Google search bar and look at the different suggestions Google has for you.
6. Answer the Public:
Question keywords are ideal for articles and blog posts. You can find them in almost no time on Answer the Public (ATP).
For instance, open ATP and enter the question – “How to make mint tea?”
This free tool displays questions that individuals search for on the internet.
7. Ubersuggest:
UberSuggest shows you a number of relevant keywords when you enter a single one. You can easily filter by media type (video, image, news, etc.) and geographical location.
8. Include your focused keyword in Meta Description:
Integrating your keyword in the meta description will help improve your SEO. You can also write a catchy meta description to attract readers and improve your SEO.
9. Include your focused keyword in URL:
Try Incorporating the target keyword in the URL of a website page or a blog post as it helps Google understand what the page is about.
10. KW Finder:
When you enter a keyword in KWFinder Tool, you can draw a lot of information such as:
- Cost per click
- Difficulty
- Volume
- Trends
This information makes it easy for you to choose low-competition keywords (which are easy to rank for).
11. Focus on Quality:
In an attempt to improve your SEO, do not compromise on the quality of your content. Remember, you are writing for readers and not for robots.
On-Page SEO:
12. Optimize your Title Tag with your keyword:
If you are wondering what is wrong with your SEO strategy, maybe you are not writing effective title tags. 36% of SEO experts believe the title tag is the most important SEO element.
You may already know that you should include your keyword in your title tag. However, don’t forget to front-load your keyword in your title tag. Place your keyword at the start of the title tag.
13. Optimize your keyword in the page content:
Google considers the first 100-150 words of your page very important. Hence, ensure you incorporate your keyword once here.
14. Optimize your Internal Linking:
When you write a fresh piece of content, see if you can link to 2-5 other pages on your website.
Tip: In your internal links, use keyword-rich anchor text.
15. Use of External Links:
Make sure to link out to 5-8 trusted or authority websites in your article (e.g., Wikipedia). Such a step tells Google that your content is trustworthy and well-referenced.
16. Analyze your content regularly:
This is another important tip for this SEO checklist. Remove content that doesn’t rank in SERPs, doesn’t add any value to your site, and doesn’t provide any benefit at all. To do so, check underperforming content and audit and remove any duplicate or thin content 1-2 times a year.
17. Analyse and Optimize Images:
Google uses images to help understand the content and make it easier for search users to find. Image filenames and alt tags are important as they help Google recognize your image as relevant to the content on your page.
Note: Optimized images help you rank in image search.
Technical SEO:
Technical SEO is the process of making sure a website meets the technical requirements of search engines. The goal is to improve ranking in organic searches. Important aspects include indexing, rendering, and architecture.
The common areas of best practice you need to focus on are:
18. Optimize the loading speed of your site:
Having a slow website can be a severe SEO mistake. If your site takes an extra 2 seconds to load, the bounce rates increase by 103%.
Check if your site loads fast enough. If not, you will not rank as well.
Visit a free tool called PageSpeed Insights to know how quickly your website loads for mobile and desktop users. It will also show what steps to take to increase speed.
19. Fix Broken Links:
Broken links can mean one of two things – poor user experience or an issue with the website structure. The former is not important for SEO purposes, but you should still fix all broken outbound and internal links for your users’ sake.
20. Mobile Friendly:
In 2019, Google switched to mobile-first indexing for all websites. If you don’t offer a user-friendly mobile experience, your organic visibility will be affected.
Use Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool to check your site’s mobile friendliness. 87% of smartphone owners use a search engine on a daily basis. Hence, ensure that your website is mobile-friendly.
21. Secure the website using HTTPS:
HTTPS is important to use as it provides encryption between your site and the visitor’s browser. It became a ranking factor in 2014, and if you are not using HTTPS, now is the time to switch.
22. Optimize your website URL Structure:
An SEO-friendly URL structure is one that enables search engines to crawl your content easily. You should use descriptive and simple URLs.
An SEO-friendly URL looks like this:
https://www.domain.com/yellow-shoes/
Tip: Use hyphens in your URLs for separating words. Never use underscores.
23. Generate and Submit a Sitemap:
A sitemap is a file that helps search engines understand the structure of your website. It contains information on which pages are important, how they’re coded, and how often they change.
A sitemap can be found at https://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml
If you have to generate an XML sitemap, you can use the different sitemap generator tools available. After you generate it, ensure that you submit it to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
24. Create a Robots.txt:
Your website’s robots.txt file is a text document that communicates with search engine crawlers about the files and pages on your site that bots cannot access, and which ones they can request from your site.
If your website is hosted in a shared environment, you will need to create a separate robots.txt file for it. If you don’t have one, Google recommends that you create one along with instructions for what not to crawl.
25. Check the Page Depth:
The farther down a page is on the site, the less likely it will be found by search engines or users. Avoid having more than three clicks to access a page.
26. Inspect how Google Views your Page:
If Google cannot access your entire web page, it will not rank. Use the “Inspect URL” feature of the Google Search Console to see what Google sees when it visits your site.
27. Add Structured Data:
You must know that structured data markup is more and more valuable today. If you are not using structured data, you should use it. This is because your organic listings stand out on the SERPs with the help of structured data.
Off-Page SEO:
Let’s discuss the SEO checklist:
28. Create Social Media Profiles to enhance your audience
29. Publish your official Content on LinkedIn Page
30. Do guest Podcasting as it helps you to speak to your audience directly
31. Stay active and be a contributor on Pinterest
32. Comment on blogs on your target niche
33. Contribute to newsletters
34. Optimize your Google My Business page
35. Post regularly on Google My Business
36. Generate genuine links
37. Contribute to similar niche websites to generate links
38. Work on the website that offers awards
39. Consult a Digital Marketing Consultant to optimize your strategy
40. Give Badges to your most loyal fanbase
Branding:
41. Optimize your “About Us” page as it gives a voice to your brand personality
42. Create a brand through your blogs and content
43. Provide excellent service to your customers to stand out in the industry
44. Emphasize on your brand name
45. Display a tagline that defines your business in the most appropriate way
46. Choose a logo that defines your business goals
Backlinks:
As per the latest SEO statistics, Google ranks pages that have more backlinks above those that do not. If you want to rank in Google, links are an absolute necessity.
47. Guest Posting to generate quality backlinks
48. Do not over optimize your anchor text. Also work on generic words such as click here, read more
49. Prioritize generating relations with the industry leaders. This is because bloggers link to other webmasters and bloggers who they know and trust.
50. Links from .edu and .gov domains are much more authoritative and advantageous than from .net and .com.
Content:
51. Create content using the “skyscraper technique”. It helps you increase your Search Engine ranking.
52. Always focus on the readability of the content. It is important that the user find your content readable
53. As per the analysis conducted by Backlinko on over 11M Google Search Results, content that ranks best in Google covers an entire topic in an in-depth manner.
54. Different multimedia elements such as images, videos, charts and visual content help your content rank better.
55. Keep your customers informed about the latest deals you have going on. By using a blog or a website, your customers will keep coming back to see what new deals you have posted.
56. Create amazing, long guides that attract a lot of traffic, backlinks, and social shares.
57. Content design is the process of formatting your text to highlight your content, making it easier for readers to read.
58. Your content needs to be so amazing that readers can’t wait to read more. Readers should be able to find your blog and spend hours reading it because of the quality and relevancy of your content.
59. If you want to go viral, then consider creating infographics. They work really well, getting tons of shares and attracting a lot of attention. In other words, they have the potential to go viral!
60. Use numbered lists and bullet points so that your content becomes skimmable.
General Checklist:
61. Do not make URLs unnecessarily long as it makes it difficult for Search Engine to read and index.
62. Don’t publish the same content twice on your website
63. Ensure you always put an ALT tag on the media you upload on the website.
64. Always look to generate new and unique ideas.
65. Ensure you cover everything in the topic while writing a blog.
66. The more comments you have, the better it is for your website
67. Develop your brand authority in the target niche of the industry
68. Increase your blogging frequency to generate more organic traffic
69. Properly structure your website.
70. Great User experience always helps in retaining customers and increasing direct customers
71. Fix multiple H1 Tags
72. Fix duplicate Meta Descriptions
73. Visit Soovle and use it to brainstorm keywords
74. Build your audience and target them through newsletters
75. Stay aware of Google algorithm Updates
76. Use social sharing buttons to attract people of social media handles
77. Regularly check your backlinks profile.
78. Focus on community websites such as Quora and Reddit.
79. Social Crawlytics lets you analyze the most shared blog posts of your competitors.
80. Encourage your audience to share your blog posts on social media.
81. Work on Magazine and Newsletters websites
82. Incorporate a “popular posts” widget on your sidebar so that you are able to increase page views and make visitors browse your site even more.
83. Concentrate on user engagement for a better user experience. Engaging with the audience will help you retain them longer, maximizing your pageviews per visitor and social shares.
84. Influencers can help you promote your content and drive traffic to your blog. They could share your post if they like it. If you mention them in the post, they will be more likely to share it because they will see that you appreciate their work. In addition, influencers may also share your blog posts on social media if it is valuable for their followers.
85. Remember, older the domain, the better.
86. Focus right keywords in your blog posts
87. Use relevant H2, H3, H4 tags in your blog posts
88. Use LSI (Latent Semantic Index) keywords in your blog posts.
89. Ensure Image are properly optimized
90. Be extra careful on Press Releases
91. If your customers return to your site over and over again, it is a sign that they find it useful. This will help Google better determine how valuable your site is to users.
92. When you search your keyword in Google by typing it with double-quotes, the number of results shown beneath the search bar is called Keyword Competition.
93. Find and Detect Redirect Loops and Chains and fix them
94. Fix Keyword Cannibalization issues
95. Keeps URLs as Short as Possible
96. Fix duplicated title tags
97. Fix orphaned site pages
98. Check duplicate issues in Google Index
Advanced SEO:
99. Limit Website Downtime
Google says that unplanned site outages can negatively impact the reputation of a site.
To track site downtime, you can use a tool called Pingdom.
100. Increase Website Dwells Time
Dwell time is the amount of time a Google searcher spends on a web page before returning to search results.
101. Update Outdated Content and Relaunch It
Do you have old posts from your blog that are just collecting dust?
You can update them and make them better by taking the following steps:
- Enhance the formatting
- Include new screenshots
- Add more meaty content
Final Thoughts
There are ample other ways to improve SEO. Here we have listed the important ones. AI Advertisement is a digital marketing agency that is all about improving the results of your website on top search engines. Our motive is not only to make your business ranking better but to also target the SEO strategies in a way that they fetch good profits for you.
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