BruceClay – The Always-Up-to-**** SEO Checklist

This page has been reviewed and updated as of May 8, 2024.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an evolving discipline rooted in both best practices and trending strategies. This is why having the latest information on hand is vital when optimizing website content to be found in search engines.

An SEO checklist lists best practices and reminders that help you optimize a website to perform better in search engine rankings.

Not making mistakes is an important first step for helping search engines, notably Google, reward your site in rankings.

One checklist can’t uncover everything an individual business should do regarding SEO and its website. But this one is pretty close with more than 50 SEO categories that will improve how customers and search engines find and use your site.

We try to keep this checklist brief for easy reference. If you want more explanation, check the linked resources or our SEO Guide to learn how to do search engine optimization.

The SEO checklist is divided into sections, so jump around as needed:

Content Optimization

1. Target Audience Research

This is a biggie: Know your target audience, their questions and their pain points. Knowing what questions and types of queries they might ask Google helps inform your keyword research.

This, in turn, will help you create content that answers those questions and solves their pain points. (You’ll use keywords you select as a basis for this content — one main keyword topic per webpage — but more on that shortly.)

Understanding searcher intent is an important step in crafting content. Answering typical questions your target audience might have also helps your page be found for voice search queries.

2. Keyword Strategy and Research

If you want to catch fish, you need to know two things: what bait the fish are biting and where the fish are swimming. Content and keywords work together to attract and convert your fish.

Keyword research needs to be an ongoing process. It starts by identifying a focus phrase or two for the topic you want to write about (using your preferred tools — dozens of good ones are out there).

When you have a keyword phrase in mind for a page or a section of your site, check it in Google Search. View the top results, the “People also ask” questions and the rest of the search engine results.

This search engine results page (SERP) provides your best clues to the searcher’s intent for this query. Make sure your content fulfills what searchers want when looking for this keyword or look for a more appropriate keyword phrase.

I could write volumes about this topic; just know that keyword research is part of any solid SEO checklist. Our SEO Guide will get you started and includes a free version of the SEOToolSet^® Keyword Suggestion tool.

3. Quality Content

Quality content is the priority for any good SEO checklist.

Google’s algorithm detects low-quality content and demotes its rankings. Google’s “helpful content” update (aka the helpful content “system”), which hit in August 2022, is part of Google’s efforts to clear out the junk in the search results.

So avoid thin content. Focus on robust coverage of your website topics to prove your subject matter expertise, get to know Google’s E-E-A-T principles, and leverage industry experts when possible.

Be aware of the growing trend of using AI to generate SEO content, and use those types of tools wisely. For more, see the AI content creation: A beginner’s guide on Search Engine Land.

Learn more on what makes a webpage quality.

4. Featured Snippet Opportunities

As you conduct keyword research, you might find that Google displays a featured snippet (aka answer box) above the search results for your targeted keyword (aka “position zero”).

You have an opportunity to claim a featured snippet if you provide answers to question-type queries.

To win featured snippets, you’ll need to structure the content according to the type of snippet (usually video, text, list or table). Optimize the answer and formatting, whether it’s a table, bulleted list, ordered list, text question-and-answer or other.

You may be able to increase your chances of securing a featured snippet spot (see “More Structured Data” below) by applying schema markup, but it’s not required.

One tool that we like that can help you target featured snippets is inLinks.net.

5. Word Count

The amount of content needed on a webpage varies by topic, keyword, competition and the intent of the query. (The graphic below outlines the three main intents behind search queries.)

How many words is enough? There’s no black-and-white rule. To determine an approximate minimum page length, look at the top-ranked URLs for your target keyword. How long are those pages?

A tool like our SEOToolSet Multi Page Analyzer is handy for this kind of competitive analysis.

For WordPress users, our patented SEO plugin handles this analysis in real time, giving custom advice per keyword. It produces target word counts and displays them right in WordPress.

Averaging the top competitors gives you a ballpark for what a search engine considers the normal word count for that topic. It’s safe to say that informational webpages almost always warrant more text.

6. Call to Action (CTA)

For each of your pages, ask yourself what the user would need/want to do from here. Then make it easy to do!

Your key pages should clarify what primary action a visitor can take next.

• The call to action (CTA) should be prominent on a product page (for example, “add to cart” or “start a free trial”).
• On a service page, the CTA might be “call us” or “get a quote.” Make the CTA clear and easy to select.
• On the homepage, help the visitor to take the next step in your conversion funnel.

The actual language of a CTA should be active (usually an imperative verb). The placement and design of the CTA should draw the visitor’s attention. But test variations to see what works best for you.

A page doesn’t have to be transactional to warrant a call to action. If an informational page is a top-performing traffic driver, such as a blog post (like this one) that answers a common question or an FAQ page, the call to action might encourage the visitor to “find out more” and enter the conversion funnel or to tell two friends.

For instance, you should bookmark this SEO checklist for future reference now. If you find it helpful, please consider sharing it!

7. Content Freshness

Periodically review your content (webpages and blog posts) to ensure the information is current.

For example, we regularly refresh this checklist. SEO best practices must evolve as search engine guidelines and technology do. If your industry also moves quickly, your content needs to keep up.

Google agrees. From Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines (PDF):

“… unmaintained/abandoned old websites or unmaintained and inaccurate/misleading content is a reason for a low Page Quality rating.”

Tip: If parts of your website could use a refresh, see our guide to refreshing your site content for a step-by-step tutorial.

8. Static Content on the Homepage

Your homepage acts as a central hub, passing authority to the top pages on your site through internal links. It’s probably also where people often land when searching for your brand or main products/services.

It’s important to have static text that talks about your brand and top theme(s) on the homepage.

If your homepage has content that constantly changes, such as headlines, it can dilute the theme of your site, which can result in poor rankings for key terms.

So, try to maintain sections of consistent text on the homepage.

9. Duplicate Content

Do searches to see if your content exists elsewhere on the web. You may want to check out CopyScape.com and use it regularly.

If your site appears to have copied content from another source, that’s a low-quality signal to search engines and may cause your site to rank lower. Similarly, if other sites have copied your content, it could be a problem from an SEO standpoint.

A search engine will filter out the dupes if you have duplicate content within your site, such as three URLs with the same content.

Only one URL will display in the results for relevant queries — and the page that Google chooses might not be the page that you want to rank.

One option is to use a “canonical tag” to tell search engines which version should be indexed.

Here’s more on duplicate content.

10. SEO Siloing

SEO siloing structures a website’s content by grouping related webpages in section categories (silos) on the site, either through the URL structure or through cross-linking.

The goal is to have the top of each silo (the landing page of the section) be based on popular search engine queries, and then to build out the section with pages of content related to the primary query/keyword.

Siloing helps search engines understand the content and improves user experience. When done well, it aligns with Google’s principles of E-E-A-T from its Search Quality Rater Guidelines.

For more, check out: SEO Siloing: What, Why, How

On-Page Optimization

Review each important page, from the homepage to a high-priority product page, with an eye to the following issues in this on-page SEO checklist.

11. Title Tag

SEO has always stressed a webpage’s HTML title as a vital tag containing the relevant keywords you want to rank for on this page.

Google has its own guidelines for title tags, and we have our own based on experience.

In general, title tags should be about nine words (within the range of six to 12). You want to ensure that each page’s meta title is unique and describes the most important information about the page.

Use the top keyword before the cutoff in the SERP, which for Google is roughly 60–70 characters including spaces. (Tip: You can use a title tag preview tool to estimate how much will show.)

Remember, the title tag often becomes the clickable title that searchers see in search results (though Google reserves the right to choose a different title for your result).

Both the title and description text can influence click-throughs to your site, so focus on writing compelling tags. You don’t want to waste your prime real estate in the SERP with boring copy.

12. Meta Description Tag

The meta description tag should also include the most important information and keywords near the beginning.

If the search engine chooses to display your description text, it will include approximately 24 words or 160 characters with spaces.

Google indicates that it does not consider this tag an important ranking factor. I think anything appearing on a Google SERP page is important. It certainly helps us get clicks — so be sure to act like it is important because it is.

Remember that Google reserves the right to replace your meta description text with a search snippet generated by Google, which is usually pulled from the page’s body content.

A search snippet (aka auto-snippet) appears instead of your meta description whenever Google deems the snippet of text more relevant for a given search. This is common when your description does not contain the query keyword.

Read more about meta tags.

13. Heading Tags

Headings allow a reader to see a page’s main sections and points. They give visual cues for how body content is organized and signal to search engines and readers what topics are covered on a page.

As a technical point, make sure the first heading tag within the body of a page is an <h1>. (Note that WordPress’s text field at the top of the editor that says “Add Title” is actually for the Heading 1.)

The following heading tags can be <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, etc., and should be used like a page’s table of contents. You may have more than one <h1> on a page according to Google, though we recommend only one in most cases.

And be sure not to use heading tags to control font sizes as that may confuse the search engines. Instead, use CSS to control style, and headings to describe content organization.

Navigation elements and other global text should be styled with CSS and not heading tags (watch our Ask Us Anything video for more about this).

For more on heading tags, check out: What Are Heading Tags and Why Are They Important to SEO?

14. Keyword Optimization

Do you have to do keyword optimization? No. But can you help strengthen a webpage’s relevance with a little extra effort? I believe so.

First, let’s discuss the elephant in the room: keyword optimization can seem outdated. Yes, your content is naturally optimized when you write about a topic.

However, all else equal, if you spent a little more time than the competition making sure all the target keywords showed up on your page, and all the relevant related words showed up as well, do you think you might have a better chance of ranking than the competition?

For more, read: How a WordPress SEO Plugin Can Help You Optimize Your Content with Keywords, and check out LSIGraph as a handy tool as well.

15. Image Optimization

Images greatly enhance your pages. Content needs visual elements to break up the text and keep readers interested.

Images also provide additional ranking opportunities through image searches and blended web search results.

However, images can slow down a page’s loading time. To reduce file size and to increase speed as much as possible, resize the files to their display size rather than uploading the original file and making the browser shrink it. Also, include width and height attributes in image tags.

Note: We use a plugin that automatically provides JPEG and PNG images in the WebP image format to browsers that support it, reducing image size by approximately 50%. This seriously improves SEO by decreasing page size and speeding page loads.

File names should describe the image and include a keyword when possible. You can also optimize the caption and the text surrounding an image to reinforce its content.

For more about optimizing images for SEO, review our article on how to improve Google Image Search ranking.

16. Alt Attributes

Make sure to include an alt attribute with each image. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) states that a website should describe the image on a page for the vision impaired when the description contributes to an accurate understanding of the content.

Please take this seriously; although not mainstream SEO, compliance failure can lead to serious fines and penalties.

Accessibility is important to users and Google. According to Google, having alt attributes is a primary indicator that your site is accessible.

As an SEO checklist item, ensure that your images have accurate alt text that, if appropriate, includes a keyword for the page.

If an image is purely decorative, it should still have an empty alt attribute within its image tag. Alt attributes are required of validated HTML code (per W3C standards).

17. Video Optimization

Videos are powerful engagement objects that add multimedia interest to keep visitors on your page longer. As highly consumable content, videos provide additional SEO benefits and social sharing opportunities.

Also, note that video is one of the formats for featured snippets in the SERP. To go further, I imagine that a significant portion of how-to query results (in the organic results area) will evolve to be video answers.

So optimize your videos to be found in search. Video content provides ranking opportunities both in regular searches and in video-only search engines where they’re uploaded, especially YouTube.

Like images, embedded videos can slow down a page’s load time. There are a ton of optimization best practices for YouTube, Vimeo and other video hosting sites.

Read our quick beginner’s guide to video marketing and optimization and our article on 10 video SEO tips to improve SERP rank.

15. Structured Data Markup with Schema

Structured data clarifies for the search engine what the content on your page is about. Specifically, marking up your HTML content based on the standards at schema.org helps search engines understand what type of information you’re presenting.

For example, you could use structured data markup to indicate an upcoming event your business is hosting, specifying its ****, time, location, and other details. If Google is clear about what’s on your site, then additional information has the potential to show up in your search results.

Dozens of schema types may apply depending on the content you have on your site.

Consider for example:

• HowTo Article Structured Data – Use this to identify how-to articles.
• FAQ Structured Data – Markup a Q&A section with this type of schema, and you may earn a hefty featured snippet such as the one shown below.

Google’s guidelines allow three supported formats for marking up a website:

• JSON-LD (recommended)
• Microdata
• RDFa

This is a technical SEO checklist item: Google requires your markup to include all the required properties for an object to be eligible for enhancements in your SERP listing.

To make sure you’ve done it right, check your page or code snippet using Google’s Rich Results Test Tool.

For more on how to implement structured data on your site, check out:

19. More Structured Data

Besides the schema markup we just mentioned, there are other ways you can structure your data to make it more digestible for search engines:

• HTML tables
• Bulleted lists
• Ordered lists
• Breadcrumb navigation
• Table of contents at the top (especially with anchor links)
• Headings that contain a key term or question, followed by the answer in the body text
• TL;DR (“too long, didn’t read”) summary near the top of your article

All of these structural formats can help people read your content more easily. They also encourage Google to use your content in featured snippets, as discussed above. Google gives more information about structured data in the search results here.

20. Social Meta Tags

Social markup, or social meta tags, refers to the code used to enhance content on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

Content in these tags dictates what image and text will appear when someone posts a link to your content on a social network. While not a link for SEO, social mentions about your pages are considered trust signals that can boost your content’s reputation.

Including social markup in your HTML ensures you look your best on social media. Facebook Open Graph tags, Twitter Cards markup and Pinterest Rich Pins are the major social markup tags.

Click through if you want more details on each platform’s options:

21. URL Optimization

This item is featured in nearly every SEO checklist. Long ago URLs were heavily keyword-stuffed, and it is believed that they now have minimal impact on rankings. Still, a descriptive URL can certainly assist with clicks by users.

You want URLs to be descriptive and contain keywords, without being spammy. And shorter URLs are preferable to long URLs. One study by Backlinko found that short URLs tend to have a slight ranking advantage.

For example, don’t do this:

www.acmewidgets.com/T&Xyhtbhyd8ut

Instead, do this:

www.acmewidgets.com/blue-widgets

Also: Use dashes rather than underscores in page URLs. Underscores are alpha characters and do not separate words. Dashes (or rather, hyphens) are word separators, but should not appear too many times or it could look spammy.

URL structure is also important when doing SEO siloing (see No. 10 in this list).

For more on this topic, check out this post by Google’s Matt Cutts (an oldie but a goodie) and ours explaining what is spam.

22. Fully Qualified Links

If you make your internal links fully qualified, search engine spiders, browsers, etc., will have no question as to where the file is located and what it’s about.

If your link looks something like “../../pagename” (a relative link), then it may cause crawl issues for some search engines.

Rather than relative URLs, use fully qualified links, which means beginning with https:// (hopefully not Your sitemap should always have fully qualified URLs. (You can read more about sitemaps below.)

For more, see: Absolute vs. Relative URL Linking — What’s the Big Deal, Anyway?

23. Make JavaScript and CSS External

Externalizing JavaScript and CSS code that blocks keyword-rich content is a best practice for removing unnecessary lines of code in your body text.

Externalizing large files can speed up page load time, which is a factor in Google’s ranking algorithm.

However, there is a tradeoff to consider especially in light of Core Web Vitals.

In some cases, Google recommends leaving smaller CSS or JavaScript code elements inline in your HTML page to reduce the round trip time it may take for the server to request the external resource.

Local Optimization

Businesses with a local brick-and-mortar presence or local service areas have a special set of SEO factors to consider. Here are a couple of important local SEO checklist items.

24. Claim Google Business Profile

A Google Business Profile listing is free and is a critical first step for local brick-and-mortar and businesses with service areas.

A Google Business Profile can enable your site to appear in Google Maps, the local pack of Google Search results and Knowledge Graph panels for your business.

Since SEO aims to send traffic to your site from search engines, these appearances are important as SEO items.

There’s a lot more involved in local SEO but claiming your Google Business Profile and a listing in Bing Places for Business gets you started.

25. Local Schema Markup

Local businesses can benefit from on-page schema markup related to their business. (You can browse the available codes at Schema.org).

Especially important for all businesses is the NAP + W code, which designates the business’s name, address, phone number and website.

Check out my list of other local search ranking factors. Many factors you may not have considered are vital to SEO.

26. Local Citations and Links

Local citations are usually found in directories where multiple businesses are listed either by business type or by region.

At a minimum, an online citation should include the business name, address and phone number (NAP) as well as the website address. Many directory sites offer opportunities for additional business information, as well.

Local links are different from citations in that they exist on local websites, such as related businesses in the area or hyper-local blogs about the area, rather than on a directory.

Both citations and local links help establish your local presence.

Mobile Optimization

We’re truly living in a mobile-first world. Businesses need to ensure that their websites cater to the mobile browsing experience.

Google looks at the mobile version of your content when it comes to indexing and ranking.

Yes, you may edit your pages on a desktop for convenience, and perhaps you have very few mobile users on your site. But the Google spider is only concerned with mobile formatting, which is how your site is viewed.

As an SEO checklist to-do, make sure you’re using a mobile-first strategy. I’ve listed a few specifics below.

27. Mobile Usability

Search engines are invested in providing users with a great mobile experience. See how your site performs on mobile devices with Lighthouse, an open-source tool.

You can also use the URL Inspection tool within Google Search Console to understand the way Google sees a specific page rendered on different mobile devices.

Lastly, Bing offers a Mobile Friendliness Test Tool.

Page load speed is also a ranking factor. Skip to the Site Speed and Performance in this SEO checklist for the SEO tools to check page speed.

28. Mobile and Voice-Related Keywords

When was the last time you tried a voice search for your keywords? Try to find your business and competitors as your customer would with a voice search.

Consider:

• Are you using relevant voice search terms like “ near me”?
• Are you accounting for searches formed as questions or full sentences? (These are increasingly common with the advance of voice queries.)

As an additional test, are your keywords easily pronounced? Do you have an exotic-sounding product or company name? How well do you perform in voice search right now? Are you ranking No. 1 but getting no mobile traffic?

Keyword recognition is an important part of a query, and the wrong query throws off SEO data.

Check out our articles on voice search optimization and mobile SEO for guidance.

Server / HTML Optimization

With Google’s page experience update and the introduction of Core Web Vitals, server-level optimization has become a priority. This section will help you optimize your page experience at the server level.

29. HTTPS

Having a secure site (HTTPS) has been a minor ranking signal in Google for years, and now as part of the page experience ranking factor, HTTPS is no longer optional.

If your site is unsecured (HTTP), users likely see a warning in their browser whenever they try to visit your site. So if you want traffic and rankings, you need a secure site.

Also, consider upgrading your site to HTTP/3. This protocol lets sites be better optimized for performance.

30. No Intrusive Interstitials

Intrusive interstitials are pop-ups that get in a user’s way by covering up too much of a webpage soon after the user arrives.

This no-no is on Google’s page experience list, so be sure your site avoids blocking the content with a pop-up or at least waits until 20–30 seconds after the page is opened.

31. Core Web Vitals

Three metrics that Google calls Core Web Vitals now have some influence on the ranking algorithm.

These metrics are LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), INP (Interaction to Next Paint) and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift), which measure how easily people can view and interact with your webpage.

Check your scores per page using the Core Web Vitals Report in Search Console among other tools.

For more details, read our Overview of Core Web Vitals and to go in-depth, watch our on-demand webinar 3 Expert Tips to Improve Core Web Vitals.

32. Server Configuration & Maintenance

Regularly check your server looking for 404 errors, improper 301 redirects and other errors. The many diagnostic reports in Google Search Console also point out errors to be fixed.

Server configuration also impacts site speed. This is a major checklist item because speed is a significant SEO issue. Run Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool and pay attention to its recommended fixes.

Server maintenance, especially plugin maintenance, is important at many levels.

For instance, you may have suffered a malware attack. In such cases, a hacker may have exploited a system weakness and installed hidden links or transfers to other sites into your code without your knowledge.

Such attacks will harm your SEO efforts by poisoning your content and potentially harming people visiting your site. That makes safe browsing a priority even if Google decided to drop it as a page experience ranking signal.

To better understand Google’s recent update, read our CMO’s overview of the page experience update or get a free copy our complete page experience guide.

33. Site Speed and Performance

Check PageSpeed Insights in Google Search Console or use tools like GTmetrix.com to analyze and improve a website’s performance on desktop and mobile devices.

For more details on improving page speed, read our page speed issues overview for SEO.

Sitewide Optimization

A website as a whole should demonstrate experience, expertise, authority and trust while conveying subject relevance and optimizing for search engine accessibility.

While your basic content strategy is a big piece of this (see the Quality Content section, above), the following items help support E-E-A-T.

34. Contact Information

An explicit trust signal is to have the business contact information, such as a phone number and physical address, clearly visible on the site. The search engines expect that a trustworthy site will provide this for users. Seriously, be easy to find.

35. Testimonials

Testimonials located on your site support your trustworthiness as a business. They also demonstrate tangible proof of your experience, expertise and value to your customer base. Testimonials are great for signaling your value to your human visitors, too!

Make sure your testimonials and reviews can be indexed. That means displaying them in text (not just images) that’s easy for search robots to digest.

Schema markup allows review ratings to be displayed, extending SEO value by increasing the possibility that your site will be shown for review featured snippets in the search results.

36. Privacy Statement

Another trust signal is having a privacy statement on your site. A privacy statement lets site visitors know what you’re doing with any data you collect about them.

Every site should have a privacy link in its footer to the privacy page. You are welcome to take our privacy statement from our site and modify it for your use.

In addition to bolstering your trust with Google and Bing, offering a privacy statement is a best practice. Privacy laws such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (aka GDPR) require many sites to clarify their privacy policies, have visitors opt-in to allow data collection, and more.

For those not concerned with Europe, there are equally strong laws for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and other states have their versions, too. Be sure to research the privacy laws where your site visitors are located and make sure your website complies.

37. Text Navigation

Verify that there is text navigation within your site. You want text links, which are more SEO-friendly than using images for menu items.

Make sure you have text navigation at least on the bottom of the page if there aren’t any crawlable navigation links in the top menu. This is a search engine accessibility issue.

As a note, I strongly encourage you to use breadcrumbs with their schema markup throughout your site. Replace “Home” in that breadcrumb with a top-level keyword appropriate to your homepage (unless you sell homes).

Having internal links that point up from lower-level pages gives an SEO advantage and is also a usability factor.

For more, check out:

38. Sitemaps

Your site should have an HTML sitemap (see Google’s sitemap info). Every page should link to that sitemap, probably in the footer.

You should also have an XML sitemap that you submit to search engines. If you already have sitemaps, check and update them regularly to ensure they contain the currently active pages on your site.

You can learn how to create a sitemap for users and search engines to easily access all areas of your site in our SEO Guide. See: What Is an XML Sitemap and How Do I Create One?

39. Robots.txt File

The robots.txt file tells the search engine spiders what not to index. This file must exist, even if it’s empty. Also make sure the file doesn’t accidentally exclude important files, directories, or the entire site. (This has been known to happen!)

One important item in this file is the locator for your XML sitemap file. We encourage you to have a reasonable robots.txt file (see our robots.txt file if you are an SEO — and read the top eight lines).

For more on this, see: What Is robots.txt? A Beginner’s Guide to Nailing It with Examples

40. Linking Strategy

This section warrants way more than just a few sentences, but it should be noted as part of the SEO checklist.

Your internal linking structure typically stems from your siloing strategy, which is vital to establishing SEO relevance.

In addition, your inbound/outbound links should be part of an organic, natural strategy in compliance with search engine guidelines. As part of site maintenance, monitor your link profile regularly.

It is worth mentioning that with Google promoting PageRank in the past, links became a commodity. As such, a big-money business developed around selling links.

Google has considered selling links as spam for a long time (see its spam policies on links), has enforced several penalties around it and has built a great amount of technology to fight it.

There are still gray areas — see my post discussing guest posting for links as one example. But links do not hold as much weight as they used to. However, quality links still matter.

Also, check out:

41. Static URLs

Complex, dynamic URLs can be a problem. If your site has any of the following, consider converting your URLs to static URLs:

• More than two query string parameters.
• Dynamic pages that aren’t getting indexed.
• A lot of duplicate content getting indexed.

You can also use mod_rewrite or ISAPI_rewrite as appropriate to simplify URLs. Rewritten URLs will appear to be static URLs. This tends to be a lot of work but is a surefire way to address this issue.

You can also use the canonical tag to tell search engines which page is intended to be indexed as the canonical version. Also see: How to Use the Canonical Link Element for Duplicate Content.

42. No Spam Tactics

Ensure your SEO strategy follows Google Search Essentials and Bing Webmaster Guidelines. If ever in doubt about any of your tactics, you can also refer to what Google recommends for SEO.

Note that many sites have no idea why they do not rank. They have used cheap SEO consultants who perhaps have done cheap tricks to fool the search engines into thinking you deserve rankings.

Such deceptive acts are spam, they may have hurt your site, and until repaired you will not rank. Do not buy cheap.

Webmaster Tools

What’s an SEO without their tools?

There’s a difference between data and wisdom. SEO tools can help you discover what’s happening with your site, but plotting an action plan requires an understanding of SEO. That’s SEO wisdom.

43. Web Analytics

No question — analytics data is important for SEO. Ensure your analytics are properly set up and monitor them regularly to find out if the keywords generating traffic are in your keyword list, and if your site is optimized for them.

A ranking monitor (such as the one in our SEOToolSet) is also useful for tracking SEO changes across search engines.

Admittedly, this is more difficult without specific keyword-tracking data. Google long ago decided to suppress that data (but keep it for PPC) for privacy concerns. Now, that argument is invalid, but the data remains lost to the SEO community.

Our SEO Guide unpacks the role of analytics in how to monitor your SEO rankings.

44. Webmaster Tools Accounts

Webmaster tools, which are known by various names for Google and Bing, give site owners insight into how search engines view their sites.

These free tools collect data and provide essential reports on issues like what search queries bring traffic to your site, crawl errors you need to fix and penalty notifications.

45. SEO Plugins

Plugins make a WordPress site more SEO-friendly. Many exist, with both free and premium versions. Many people use more than one.

Check out:

46. Other SEO Tools

Every SEO needs a good tool stack; one tool alone will not do everything. As you are building that stack, consider the following:

47. Manual Penalty Review

If you have been subject to a manual penalty, Google will report it to you within Google Search Console. Check the Manual Actions report and the Search Console message center.

You can also find out if you’ve suffered a penalty from Bing. Review the Search Performance chart within the dashboard of Bing Webmaster Tools. If the number of pages for a given site is set at zero, you have been hit with a penalty.

Note that a manual action penalty is the kiss of death for your SEO efforts. Once you have one, you cannot see the consequences of your improvements until the penalty is lifted. And a search engine never forgets … a penalty can have a lasting impact for some time even after repair.

Read more about dealing with manual penalty actions.

48. Algorithm Updates Review

If your site runs Google Analytics, use the Panguin Tool to check your traffic levels against known algorithmic updates.

If you see big drops or rises in search referrer traffic that coincides with known algorithm updates or receive a manual action notice from Google, you may be affected by a penalty. Read more about penalty assessment and recovery.

Google changes its algorithm all the time, much to the dismay of SEO consultants everywhere. RankBrain and machine learning — powered by artificial intelligence technology — are changing the search results.

While optimization for AI is not as straightforward as checking for traffic drops, familiarize yourself with the real impact of RankBrain and my advice on the shrinking of organic results in Google SERPs.

Advanced SEO Methods

During the lifespan of your website, you will encounter many situations that impact SEO. You will also want to go beyond following a checklist to understanding how to approach SEO from a bird’s eye view.

This section covers some common, more advanced SEO strategies and how to handle them.

49. SERP Features

Understanding the types of features that show up on a search engine results page helps you know what and how you need to optimize to show up on page one.

For more, read:

50. Whole-SERP SEO Strategy

There is much more to SEO than just ranking in the “blue links” section. Most know that by now.

However, many may not know how to compete at the top of the search results when there are so many SERP features to optimize for.

This is where a whole-SERP SEO strategy comes into play. A whole-SERP SEO strategy analyzes the features that show up most in the search results for target keywords and then optimizes for them.

For example, if you are targeting “how-to” queries, you might find that YouTube videos pop up more often in the search results as an answer to those queries.

That means you will want to focus on creating video content in addition to webpage content for those queries to compete.

For more, check out: What Is a Whole-SERP SEO Strategy?

51. Website Migrations

A website migration is a term used to describe when a website undergoes major changes. Some examples include:

• Redesigning the website and changing the code.
• Renaming URLs.
• Consolidating webpages and implementing 301 redirects and/or URL changes.
• Changing domain names.
• Merging with another website.
• Rearranging the website structure/navigation.
• Moving a website from HTTP to HTTPS.
• Switching to a new content management system.
• Switching to a new hosting provider.

These types of changes can have a profound negative impact on SEO if they are not handled properly.

For more on how to handle this, see: SEO Website Migration Guide and our on-demand webinar Website Migration Dos and Don’ts to Avoid Disaster.

52. Handling New and Old Content

Should you spend your time creating new webpages for SEO, or optimizing old ones? The answer is yes to both.

We recommend spending about 50% of the time generating new pages and 50% optimizing and refreshing old pages so the website remains relevant.

For more, read:

53. Diagnosis

There will likely be a time when you lose rankings and traffic. Traffic loss happens for any number of reasons: Lost links, new competition, algorithm updates, reputation blunders — and more.

When this happens, you need to have a plan for how you will diagnose the problem. So check out these articles:

There will be other times when your website fails to produce results (traffic, leads, revenue, etc.) and/or just plainly fails to rank. We’ve hosted a couple of webinars on this subject to help you diagnose the root factors that can cause website failure. Catch these on demand:

54. Press Releases

At first glance, press releases may seem like an outdated SEO tactic. Not so.

It’s true that at one point, SEOs used press releases as a way to stuff keyword-rich links to their site. That tactic has fallen by the wayside, but that doesn’t mean press releases still aren’t good for SEO.

Press releases are still good for what they were created for, which is increasing visibility, which can lead to more brand recognition and traffic.

There are rules, however, for doing press releases in an SEO-friendly way–and best practices that help entice the media to pick up the story.

For more, check out: Why Press Releases Still Matter to SEO and How to Write One That Entices Media

Case Study

There is no clear-cut way to succeed in SEO; often, we use a variety of strategies to boost a website’s performance in search results and improve user experience.

In this section, I’ll share one case study that uses several of the steps outlined in this checklist. It proves that there is no “one way” to get you from Point A to Point B. It takes experience and wisdom to apply the strategies that will work for each website.

166% Traffic Jump

Through technical analysis, on-page analysis, internal linking analysis and a backlink audit, we implemented the following and boosted a client’s organic traffic by 166%:

• Content siloing
• Content improvements
• Schema markup
• Disavowed links
• XML sitemaps
• Canonicals
• 301 redirects
• Page experience, Core Web Vitals and speed improvements

Read more about our client success stories on our Case Study page.

Closing Recommendations

This is a very high-level summary of the things you need to consider about performing SEO on your site. Many people only do what is convenient. Some work cheaply and get it wrong. Some SEO teams do not have management support. As I always like to say: Don’t be surprised by the traffic you didn’t get for the SEO work you didn’t do.

One common mistake is not studying SEO before you do it. Seriously, you need to have a reasonable idea of what it is.

Take a course (I recommend ours at SEOtraining.com). To do the initial dust and clean, follow our How To Do SEO Guide.

Also, be sure to ask yourself these questions before doing DIY SEO.

Finally: Get your copy of the Declaration of SEO: 6 Fundamental Truths To Live By e-book and share it with your company. It also comes with a video presentation. This is important if you are an SEO. Trust me.

Bookmark this SEO checklist for future reference. And if you found it helpful, please share it!

If you’re struggling to implement any of the SEO tips and strategies outlined in this checklist, our SEO experts can help. Schedule a free 1:1 consultation today and let’s discuss how we can get your more traffic, better search ranking and more revenue.

FAQ: How can I effectively optimize my website using the SEO checklist to improve search engine rankings?

There is no easy button when it comes to SEO — from keyword research to technical SEO and content development to link building, there are a lot of areas you have to pay attention to in order to build a successful SEO program.

Utilizing an SEO checklist is a great way to stay organized and ensure you are following every step in the process. This comprehensive guide outlines the core principles and strategies to optimize your website, improve your SEO and earn more organic traffic.

Whether you’re writing compelling content that resonates with your target audience, or employing savvy on-page optimization techniques, each step of our SEO checklist contributes to your website’s success — and your business.

The journey to successfully optimizing your website starts with a deep understanding of your target audience. Research their challenges, pain points, questions, and search queries to inform your entire optimization process.

Next, develop a keyword strategy to align your content with user intent. Analyze search engine results, identify relevant keywords and focus phrases, and look for opportunities to display your content in featured snippets. Moreover, optimizing your content’s structure and ensuring readability can enhance the chances of securing a featured snippet spot.

For local businesses, optimizing for local SEO is critical to stay competitive online in your area. Create, claim and optimize your Google Business Profile, and ensure you have accurate business information listed. Implement local schema markup, too. You’ll want to include customer reviews and consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) details across all platforms.

As search engines emphasize user experience, understanding Core Web Vitals and optimizing your server and HTML configuration must be a priority. HTTPS adoption, avoiding intrusive interstitials, and excelling in Core Web Vitals improves user experience and establishes trust, ultimately increasing your search engine ranking.

Finally, webmaster tools like Google Analytics 4 provide invaluable insights into your site’s performance. SEO tools like SEOToolSet®, SEMRush or Ahrefs can help you track your SERP rankings data, conduct keyword research, uncover potential issues hindering your website performance and much more. Use these tools regularly to make informed decisions that will get the best results from your SEO campaign.

Implement the strategies and tips in this SEO checklist to build a strong online presence, earn more qualified traffic and increase your search engine ranking.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Understand your target audience by researching their pain points and search queries.
2. Do keyword research to identify focus phrases.
3. Regularly review search engine results for insights on target keywords.
4. Look for opportunities to appear in featured snippets.
5. Optimize content structure and readability.
6. Focus on website speed and mobile optimization.
7. Use proper heading tags for organized content.
8. Implement structured data to improve search visibility.
9. Optimize Core Web Vitals for better page experience, improved user experience and a technically sound website.
10. Maintain a user-friendly URL structure.
11. Adopt HTTPS for a secure and trustworthy website.
12. Create, claim and maintain your Google Business Profile for local optimization.
13. Implement local schema markup to boost visibility in local search.
14. Obtain local citations, reviews and links for an improved local presence.
15. Check for manual penalties using webmaster tools.
16. Stay current on algorithm changes and the latest updates in SEO.
17. Optimize server configuration and maintenance.
18. Regularly monitor web analytics to track performance and adjust your SEO strategy as needed.