Checklists are helpful for everyone, from novices to experts, because they provide easy-to-understand instructions that can be shared with anybody involved in the project. They also facilitate improved cross-departmental collaboration, ensuring that all teams work together in the same direction.
So, if you’re looking for a lesson, follow this step-by-step SEO software and technical checklist to handle even the most challenging SEO initiatives and maximize traffic to your website.
Software Checklist
Software should be a big part of your SEO plan since it makes things run more smoothly.
Google Analytics
Setting up Google Analytics is an intelligent practice regardless of the reporting and dashboarding tools you choose. If you can, install it early on your site to have as much historical data as feasible. Perform a few fast real-time traffic checks to make sure nothing is amiss. Make use of several profiles to speed up the processing of a wide range of data sets. Monitoring traffic by source, geographic area, or URL is possible. Make sure to install Google Analytics (GA) on any microsites and subdomains you create.
Google Search Console
Google Analytics’ jelly is peanut butter, while Search Console’s peanut butter is jelly. 404 errors and duplicate/missing metadata are caught by tracking the keywords that drive traffic to your site. Bounce rate, for example, is monitored by Google Analytics, whereas Google Search Console tracks impressions and clicks. Sitemaps should be submitted through Google Search Console, which may be accessed via Google Analytics. Bing Webmaster Tools is another option if you’d want to see things from a different angle.
Google Tag Manager
You can use Google Tag Manager to manage all your Google and third-party tags from a single dashboard. In addition, Google Tag Manager makes it easier to collaborate with your IT department. Use this tool for testing, QA, debugging, and integration between your paid and organic campaigns.
SEO Plugins
Whether you’re using WordPress, Drupal, or Magento, look for SEO plugins that can help you streamline your on-page SEO efforts. The Yoast SEO plugin is one of my personal favorites, and it’s available for free with a paid upgrade. Metadata can be customized, SEO and readability are scored, and Yoast provides ideas for internal links. In addition, it makes managing redirects a breeze. If you’re using Magento, look at the Magento SEO guide’s recommended plugins.
SEO Tools
Any SEO checklist would be incomplete without the inclusion of SEO tools. Search engine optimization, competitive analysis, and more will all benefit from these tools. Moz, Ahrefs, Majestic, and SEMrush are all excellent options. Listed here are some additional resources for video SEO and long-tail keywords.
Technical SEO Checklist
404 Errors
Even though a URL is marked as having a 404 error, Google will continue to try to find the content. However, a 410 signal warns the search engine that the URL is no longer accessible, so don’t bother returning. Any links on your site pointing to deleted or redirected URLs should be updated as well.
Mistyped URLs and other factors that are out of your control can result in 404 errors, so make sure your 404 page presents your brand’s best face forward to offer the ideal user experience. If you visit this web hosting company’s 404 page, you’ll see an interactive Space Invaders game!
Broken Images
You will get broken images when an image link in your HTML code is poorly entered or coded, or the image itself has been relocated or renamed. It results in a poor user experience and diminishes their confidence in the product. It also appears to be a complete sham. Checking for and fixing broken image links is a simple process. It’s vital to ensure that your photos load correctly on various devices and browsers.
Broken Links
Check for broken links on the website using a crawling tool. Correct any internal links that impede the flow of visitors and search engines between pages on your website. Additionally, any links pointing to third-party websites that have broken over time should be taken care of.
After all, you want your site’s visitors to have a positive experience.
A rise in broken links might also damage Google’s opinion of your site.
Crawl Errors
Search engine optimization audits are an excellent approach to discovering potential problems with your site’s ranking in search results. Using tools such as DeepCrawl or Screaming Frog, perform a comprehensive web crawling. Recognize and correct major crawl mistakes as soon as they occur by being familiar with your error codes. A noindex meta tag is also an excellent time to ensure that critical pages aren’t being filtered out of Google’s search results.
Domains
When a website has multiple subdomains (like blog or support), it’s normal to have one main domain (www.example.com) and several subdomains (like blog or support). I prefer subfolders to subdomains as an SEO best practice. Subdomains, on the other hand, may be necessary for some circumstances.
When it comes to your career area, for example, you may have an entire website dedicated to it. Using a subdomain can assist Google in differentiating between your primary company content and your career-related stuff.
Duplicate Content
It’s never safe to believe you’ve caught every instance of duplicate content manually because it’s created in so many different ways. The best way to ensure that none of your new posts are too similar to those on other websites in the index is to use a crawling tool to look for duplicate content throughout the entire website. The latter is possible due to auto-populated manufacturer descriptions on eCommerce product pages.
HTTPS
Users and search engines value safe websites. Make sure that your website is hosted over HTTPS using SSL encryption. Remove all URLs that aren’t the HTTPS version.
Link Attributes
Google established “Nofollow” links in an effort to combat spam about 15 years ago. To this day, many people still benefit from and make use of this quality. On the other hand, Google implemented the rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc” link characteristics in September 2019 to better address handling various types of links.
Mobile-Friendliness
A mobile-friendly test should be the final item on your SEO checklist.
You should follow Google’s lead and go mobile-first. Mobile-first indexing indicates that your site’s content, including images, videos, and other rich snippets, should be optimized for mobile devices first. You can’t have content on your desktop site that doesn’t appear on mobile, and you can’t have information on your mobile site that doesn’t appear on your desktop site. It’s also critical that the entire site be mobile-friendly. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and easy to use.
Page Load Time
The search engine giant favors fast-loading websites over those with more opulent designs. Your site’s speed is a ranking factor for Google, so make sure it’s speedy. Make sure your page loads quickly by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights. Improve website load times by following all suggestions, such as compressing images and files and deleting superfluous scripts. Using Google’s mobile-friendly test tool, you should also test your website on mobile devices.
Redirects
In addition to directing users to the preferred version of your website, 301 redirects are also required when content is relocated. Regarding search engine optimization, an SEO company like MTB Strategies may offer a new URL structure that reflects your website architecture better. 301 redirects inform search engines of the URL’s new location. The link equity a page has accrued will be transferred to the unique URL. However, following Google’s advice about implementing redirects one-to-one is critical.
Robots.txt
One way to prevent a search engine from crawling a specific page or area of your site is to ban it in the site’s Robots.txt file. The Robots.txt file is a great tool to control URL parameters like session IDs or referral tags. It will prevent the crawling of duplicate data created by dynamic URLs.
If you’re using robots.txt, you should know that it is not meant to keep URLs out of the search results. A robot meta tag should be used to do this.
Schema Markup
Using rich snippets might help your website stand out on the search engine results page (SERP). Choose rich snippets that are a) most helpful to your audience and b) on par with (or better than) what your competitors utilize from the many types of markup available. If the top results for your keyword objectives utilize a specific style of markup, you should also use it. It is a vital element of keyword research.
Site Structure
Site architecture is the next item on our SEO checklist. Because it gives a logical framework for Google to crawl and prioritize, good site architecture is an SEO must-have.
Poor site architecture makes Google’s job more difficult, causing crawl bandwidth to be pulled and authority to be spread thinly among low-value pages. Keep your web design as straightforward as feasible. Aim to keep most of your material three clicks deep and use internal links to support your organization.
URL Canonicalization
Website features like faceted navigation, pagination, product variants, in-site search, and more can mistakenly produce several copies of a single parent page. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s more to come. If you have an older domain, Google may index various versions of your site.
Your web pages must have only one distinct URL to reduce SEO value. To ensure that search engines index the correct version of your site, you must use canonical tags correctly. Your crawl budget will be drained if you don’t execute it flawlessly.
XML Sitemap
Search engines can use an XML sitemap to find specific pages on your site. Eventually, Google will discover your content and create a sitemap. You can’t control what stuff is crawled when this method takes time. Don’t wait for Google to create a sitemap; instead, create one yourself. Use Search Console instead as a part of your SEO checklist. Make sure it’s well-organized and devoid of broken links and out-of-date URLs.