Digital Marketing

SEO Best Practices Checklist

  • List of the fundamental SEO best practices to follow when building or redesigning websites.

  • Written by: Emily Straubel

For better Google rankings - start here.

For every site we build or redesign, we refer to this SEO checklist to make sure our developers build in technical SEO best practices and our content writers and UX designers incorporate every possible SEO-friendly tactic into the site.

While there are hundreds of things you can do to improve the SEO of your site, these are the absolute must-haves; the fundamentals that lay the ground work for a website that drives leads and builds business.

 

On page SEO

Technical

  • Install Google Analytics / Bing Analytics
  • Add Website to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
  • Install Yoast (if using Wordpress or compatible CMS)
  • Upload a sitemap
  • Create robots.txt file and submit it to Google Search Console
  • Site must be responsive and look great on mobile devices
  • Site must load quickly
  • Secure your site with SSL certificate
  • Canonicalize any duplicate or similar pages
  • Fix broken links
  • Write clean code

 

User Experience and Structure

  • Add rich snippets to SERP
  • Structure URLs to reflect the hierarchy of your site
  • Add Structured Data Markup to all pages
  • Add social meta markup tags to each page
  • Create easy-to-read navigation and menu structure
  • Wireframe all content pages so layout is
  • Add social sharing buttons to pages and blog posts

 

Keywords

  • Add keywords to any URL
  • Use keywords in title tags
  • Write unique meta descriptions for each page of content
  • Use keyword in first 100 words of content
  • Include links from other pages within every piece of content.
  • Use your keyword phrase once in your H1 tag
  • Use H2 and H3 tags if there are multiple sections
  • Add keywords in anchor text when linking to internal pages
  • Add Call-To-Action (CTA) on all product/service pages and blog posts

 

Content Creation

  • Make everything easy to read
  • Write unique content, never copy/paste or duplicate.
  • Write short sentences and paragraphs 3-5 sentences long.
  • Use bullet points and bolding to break up large blocks of content.
  • Add engaging images, videos and rich media to important pages.
  • Create unique filenames for images and videos and include keywords
  • Link back to category page
  • Always provide easy link back to your homepage
  • have at least 300 words on each URL
  • Add or refresh content weekly
  • Place contact information in footer of every page
  • Have a privacy statement on your site
  • Create secure contact forms
  • Link out to one high-value source (industry report, non-profit, government)

 

Off page SEO

  • Claim your business and/or URL on all social networks and directories (G+, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Technorati, Pinterest, etc.).
  • Use landing page strategy to have inbound links connect to highly relevant content
  • Leverage brand partnerships to create mutually beneficial links between relevant websites
  • Guest blog on reputable websites and blogs
  • Plan newsworthy campaign to gain digital press exposure
  • Launch new products to leverage media opportunities

 

Need support as you optimize your website?

Get in touch for a free consultation with our Marketing Director and SEO expert, Emily. We offer 3 week intensive consulting packages to get small marketing teams set up with SEO best practices and Google ads. 

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