The Complete SEO Checklist for your Website
SEO is becoming increasingly important for businesses across the world. It's no surprise that there are new tools and guides being developed to help SEO companies implement their advice. Here's a complete seo checklist you can follow to improve your site, including tips from top SEOs.
The complete seo checklist guide includes:
1) Prepare your business for SEO
2) On-page SEO
3) Off-page SEO
4) Analytics checkup
5) Image seo best practices
6) Local business seo best practices
7) The future of search engine optimization
1) Prepare your business for SEO
The success of your website is carefully undermined by the way in which you choose to follow up with search engine optimization.
When we talk about SEO we talk about two types: on-page and off-page.
On page SEO is like a puzzle, each element plays a role and they all must be perfect for Google (or any other search engine) to rank you well. Marketing your website using only one type of strategy might lead you to failure as there are many elements that impact your rankings at the same time. For example: building good backlinks will improve your rankings but without keywords or content on your blog articles you won't show up as high as you should.
It's important to note that these strategies complement each other, however you must choose the one that will have the greater impact on your rankings.
2) On-page SEO
On page SEO is like a puzzle, each element plays a role and they all must be perfect for Google (or any other search engine) to rank you well. Marketing your website using only one type of strategy might lead you to failure as there are many elements that impact your rankings at the same time. For example: building good backlinks will improve your rankings but without keywords or content on your blog articles you won't show up as high as you should.
It's important to note that these strategies complement each other, however you must choose the one that will have the greater impact on your rankings.
3) Off page SEO
Off-page Search Engine Optimization is all about generating links to your website. It includes everything that happens outside of your website, like guest blogging, infographics creation, link building campaigns and much more.
The success of off page SEO highly depends on the success of on-page SEO . If you don't do good research in order to provide Google with quality content, you won't be able to generate quality backlinks. Most importantly you'll take up space for other people who are doing their jobs right.
4) Analytics Checkup
One of the first things I recommend doing after signing up for Adwords is checking which keywords are driving traffic towards your website. This will allow you to take informed decisions when optimizing pages or writing new articles.
5) Image seo best practices
Following image seo best practices will help you get more traffic from photo sharing websites like Flickr. Images are also important for your website's social media strategy!
6) Local business seo best practices
With over 50% of web searches having local intent, if you own a local business it is necessary that you optimize your site for local search. Google may display different results depending on whether the user enters "Italian restaurant" or just "restaurant". This means that optimizing for location has become really important. If you don't want to lose traffic or offer poor service to customers just because they used an incorrect city name in their search, I recommend using geolocation tools such as Yext and MaxMind
7) The future of SEO
Back when we started our company, online marketing was all about keyword stuffing, over-optimizing your website and other spammy SEO techniques. This led Google to create new algorithms, like Panda and Penguin, to fight spammy backlinks and content.
Today the future of SEO is about creating great content that will engage users and let them interact with it; this involves social media marketing, blogging (yes you should blog!), syndication, guest writing for relevant websites etc...
One last important note: Some people are concerned by Google's updates because they tend to change things so often. However recent studies have shown that 47% of small business owners are still afraid to do anything on their website because they fear breaking current rankings. So if 47 out of 100 businesses could rank, you probably will be able to do the same!
Following these simple steps will help you get better rankings in search engines and make your business more profitable. We can't stress enough how important it is to not only create good content but also promote it on social media and other relevant websites.
Remember that there isn't a magic trick for ranking well in Google, however following the best practices listed above will help you get there!
Lastly, keep an eye out for future updates from Google as they might change their algorithm again!