SEO Checklist to Maintain a High Ranking on Google

Having an SEO checklist within easy reach is vital for every digital marketer. Does your business website follow all? Find out here.

So you have created a new website. But is it getting enough visibility on Google yet? 

Maybe you could get some pages to rank that later disappeared from the top 10 results on Google. 

SEO plays a big role in websites to gain organic traffic. But it has never been that easy or quick.

Here is what you need – an SEO checklist that you can refer to in 2022. 

Table of Contents

• Basic SEO Checklist
• Keyword Research Checklist
• Technical SEO Checklist
• On-Page SEO Checklist

SEO Checklist

Read below on the main elements that should be included in an SEO checklist. 

Basic SEO Checklist

• Google Search Console  

Powered by Google, this free tool helps you check the organic traffic of all your pages. It gives you all the information you need when it comes to queries for the keywords you used, top and low ranking pages, countries where your article was read, etc. 

Another similar tool is Bing Webmaster Tool. While Google owns over 90% of the market share, Bing comes second, followed by Yahoo. Although their market shares are not much, they still help in gaining organic traffic and increasing conversions.  

• Google Analytics 

If you want to find out how internet users are visiting your website, set up a Google Analytics Account. It is a free web analytics tool, it also has a paid version. Many experts advise on connecting your account on Google Search Console with this tool to import all the data into an MS Excel sheet. 

• SEO Plugins for WordPress 

According to Barn2, out of 1.3 billion websites, 455 million sites use WordPress. WordPress is a full-fledged content management system (CMS). It has many plugins that ease your workflow. But do note, too many plugins on the platform will affect the page loading speed. So choose and install them carefully. 

One of the best plugins for checking your page’s SEO health is Yoast. While you can go for its subscription plan or a premium, one-time-pay plan, you will also find a free version. 

This plugin will analyse your text’s readability based on the Flesch reading test. Along with that, it has other algorithms that tell you if your paragraph is too long or if two sentences begin with the same word and so on. 

You can even manage your page better with this plugin. You can customise your meta description, title, URL slug, etc with it. 

Some other similar SEO plugins for WordPress are the following. 

1. SEOPress
2. SEOquake
3. Broken Link Checker

• Generate and Submit Sitemap

For Google to find your content, you will have to create a sitemap. A sitemap has all the types of information on specific pages. A sitemap includes a list of the URLs of your pages. 

With a sitemap, Google crawlers can read faster what your site contains. You may check how Google executes crawling and indexing by reading more on SEO guidelines.   

Google does not recommend creating a sitemap when your site is too small. Or when you have all the links to all the pages that users can click right on your homepage. 

To submit your sitemap, you can use Google Search Console. 

• Generate robot.txt file

You can tell Google not to crawl some of your pages. For that, you will have to create a robot.txt file. 

To generate one, just Google the phrase “robots.txt generator”. 

Keyword Research Checklist

• Evaluate the Keyword for Your Topic Based on High Search Volume

High search volume keywords bring more conversions. They indicate what a large number of users type to find solutions to their queries. 

They also indicate the competition. The higher the volume the more difficult it is to rank on the top three spots on the Google SERP (search engine results page). 

So how do you find the volume of keywords? 

It’s simple. Search for keyword tools online. 

While there are many useful paid tools such as SEMRush, Moz, Ahrefs, you can find free ones such as Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest. Even the paid ones have free plans that you may check out. 

These keyword tools show the keyword volume based on individual countries, difficulty from easy to hard, etc. 

Here are two snapshots of the Ubersuggest tool showing how the difficulty and volume differ from country to country. 

• Find Variations of the Main Keyword 

Part of your keyword research strategy should be identifying the variations of your primary keyword. They form the long-tail keywords and help shape the content better. Here again, you can use the keyword tools and use keywords based on the search volume. 

• Evaluate Search Intent of the Keyword

Without search intent, it is impossible to know how your page ranks on Google or any SERP. 

Let’s focus on Google for now. 

Google algorithms work on offering the best answers for any query the user types. 

For instance, when a user types a name of a dish as a keyword, Google doesn’t show the recipe at first. Instead, it will show where they can get that dish near their location. The user has to type the keyword like <dish> recipe to find it on the search engine. 

Search intent matters when it comes to SEO. Digital marketers often segregate search intent based on the following. 

1. Informational – The users want to know how, what, when, why. 
2. Navigational – When the user is looking for a product or service on the site. 
3. Transactional – Here the user is looking to buy and uses attributes to main keywords such as buy, discounts, deals, etc
4. Commercial – When the user is looking for more options for buying or learning something. Keywords for this type of intent begin or end with ‘top’, ‘best’ or ‘near me’. 

Technical SEO Checklist

• Give Importance to Website Structure

Website visitors will leave your website when it is difficult to navigate. Businesses put pages based on the hierarchy of the content.

For instance, the homepage will be the top priority. That will be followed by your ‘about us’ page. Then you can create separate pages for each category of services or products you offer. Another category may be your blog content that the user can instantly click while visiting your website and start reading. And you can further expand as your business grows. 

• Ensure Your Website has HTTPS Connection

When it comes to Google’s indexing, John Mueller confirms an HTTPS connection is a ‘light-weight ranking factor’. 

HTTPS or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure is safe encryption that protects the data of your website visitors. HTTP websites are the opposite. 

• Ensure Fast Page-Loading Speed

The slow loading speed of pages disrupts the attention of your website visitor. And. it is one of the many reasons why many websites have a high bounce rate. 

As it is a Google ranking factor, Google Developers have their own engine PageSpeed Insights. Just put your website URL and see the results for both mobile and desktop. 

• Leverage Mobile-Friendliness

Every website today has to be mobile-friendly. According to Statista, India has the largest population of mobile users. So, your site’s visibility through organic search will decrease if it is not created for mobile. 

On-Page SEO Checklist

• Fix Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Title tags determine what your page is all about. By seeing the title tag of your page on SERPs, your reader clicks on it. 

From a user experience perspective, a good title tag is extremely important. Digital marketers use the primary keyword of the page for title tags.

Title tags are generally around 60 characters with spaces. 

Similarly, meta descriptions are important for understanding more about what the topic is saying. The user may see the title tag, but s/he will also take note of the meta-description before clicking on the page. If you do not write meta descriptions, Google rewrites them even though this is not a penalty for your website. 

Many suggest meta descriptions should be around 150 characters with spaces. But you can write up to 200-250 characters if you need to explain more about the topic. 

• Ensure You Link Only Relevant Pages Internally and Externally

Relevant links in your blogs increase your authority. According to John Mueller, links are valuable to your audience. But stuffing links for the sake of it, will not work. You have to add them logically to help your reader understand more about your topic. 

• Image Optimisation

Images on your page must have short descriptions too. This is to describe the nature of the image. You can fill in the Alt Text. 

Also, compressing your images will increase your page loading speed. Just keep in mind that the images are not blurry after you compress them. For that, you will find several free image compression tools online. 

• Update Your Old Pages

Updating your old content can be a great organic traffic booster. According to Neil Patel, Google is able to crawl your website on a frequent basis. This helps when you are not publishing new content every day.  

Parting Thoughts

These were the main elements of an SEO checklist. They will prevent your pages from ranking lower in Google and other search engines. So start applying them today.

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