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Have you noticed that after you create a new website there are several steps that you repeatedly do, in order to lay the foundation for solid SEO optimization?
Also if you are doing SEO as a job when you get a new customer there are several steps that you do for every project to make sure everything is set up right.
If you don’t have a solid SEO foundation for your site you can build hundreds of backlinks and you still will not rank well, especially if you are in a competitive niche.
That’s why I decided to write this SITE SEO checklist.
Table of Contents
SEO Checklist – Why you need one?
This list covers the top 35 things you should consider when it comes to getting a new site live and into the search index.
The big mistake people tend to make is that they find a checklist, they go through everything on it and say “Oh no! I’m missing one thing – now I can’t rank and everything is ruined!”. That’s not really the way to think about it.
If you can get everything on this list, that’s great! If you can only get the most, that’s okay too.
35 Must-Do SEO Actions Checklist
Please keep in mind that not all of these may apply to your situation. Check off the items as you go along.
Technical and general steps
- Have you used SEMrush [our review], Screaming Frog, WooRank or Website Auditor [our review] to find broken links, errors, and crawl problems?
- Is your HTML code clean and error-free? Check it with W3C Validation tool.
- Have you installed Google Analytics? This is not optional! [Guide: How to track your SEO results with Google Analytics]
- Have you added the site to Google Search Console? Again, not optional. [Guide: Google Search Console]
- Have you added the site to Bing Webmaster Tools? You may also add it to Yandex Webmaster.
- Do you use WordPress? Install Yoast SEO / RankMath / SEOPress and follow instructions?
- Have you created an XML sitemap and submitted it to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools? Use XML-Sitemaps.com or the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin.
- Have you created a robots.txt file and submitted it to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools?
- Have you checked Google’s Search Console for 404 / 500 errors, duplicate content, missing titles and other technical errors that Google has found? Make sure to keep up with any messages Google is sending you.
- Is your site mobile friendly? Test it in Google Mobile-friendly tool. Have you checked it on multiple browsers with BrowserStack?
- Have you installed a valid SSL Certificate? Test on SSLShopper and SSLlabs. Does your website redirect to its https version? Test on RedirectCheck.com.
- Have you checked your site’s speed with Google PageSpeed Tool and GTMetrix.com? Try to follow as many of their recommendations as possible. If you’re on WordPress, check this speed up guide.
- Does your hosting account support loads of traffic? Do a load test on LoadView-Testing.com and a stress test on LoadImpact.com
Content
- Have you done proper keyword research? Consider searcher intent and difficulty, pick 1 keyword per page, and you’ll generally want to start with lower-volume keywords first.
- Have you incorporated your primary keyword into your page URL? Try to shorten your URLs keeping them keyword-friendly.
- Are all of your title tags ~65 characters or less? Title tags over this will be truncated in results.
- Are all of your meta description tags ~155 characters or less? Meta description tags over this will be truncated in results.
- Have you used an H1 tag? Is your primary keyword included at the beginning of the H1 tag? Is it before any (H2, H3, H4…) tags? Are you only using 1 H1?
- Do you have a healthy amount of text content on your site? My recommendation is at least 600 words so the crawlers will understand the topic of your page. Check serpIQ study on how 2000+ words content rank better.
- Did you use synonyms and LSI keywords in your copy? Synonyms are great, and using natural language that’s influenced by keyword research (rather than just pure keywords) is highly encouraged!
- Do your images have descriptive ALT tags and filenames? Search engines “see” images by reading the ALT tag and looking at file names, among other factors. Try to be descriptive when you name your images. Don’t overdo it though.
- Is your content error-free? Use Grammarly to check it or hire someone to proofread it.
- Have you made sure your site isn’t creating any duplicate content? Utilize 301 redirects, canonical tags or use Google Webmaster Tools to fix any duplicate content. Also, check it on Copyscape.com
- Does your website content have correct Structured Data Markup? Check it on Google Structured Data Testing Tool. Use WordPress? Install the Schema plugin then. The Schema Complete Guide here.
- Does your website have Contact us, About us, Privacy policy and Terms of use pages? Are your address and phone number listed?
Backlinks
- Are you linking to your internal pages in a SEO-friendly way? Are you describing the page you’re linking to in the anchor text, so that both users and search engines understand what it’s about?
- Do your pages have authority outbound links? Include at least 2 relevant, high authority links if possible.
- Have you looked at competitor link profiles? This is the easiest way to get started with link building. Use SemRush, Ahrefs or SpyGlass [review here].
- Have you started off-page optimization and began building links? This is the hardest but one of the most important aspects of SEO! You can outsource by hiring a link building service.
- Have you added your site to Google Business?
- Have you added social media sharing buttons?
- Have you used an SEO Audit Tool to double-check everything once you go live? SEO Power Suite or SEM Rush.
- Have you reviewed all of the free SEO tools at your disposal before completing this audit?
- Have you set up social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+ and added them to your site?
- Have you claimed your business/website username on other major networks for reputation management reasons? Not only do you want to make sure no one else gets your account name, but you can often “own” all the results on the first page of a search for your brand if you’re a new website or company.
- Use NameChk.com to find available ones. Here is the URL structure of some of the major networks: Youtube.com, WordPress.com, tumblr.com, Scribd.com, Academia.edu, Quora.com, SlideShare.net, Medium.com, Etsy.com, About.me, Gravatar.com, Flickr.com
Conclusion:
Ok, now you simply built a foundation that will help you optimize and grow your website in a healthy and profitable way. You should print this SEO Checklist and use it every time you launch a website or you do SEO for your customers.
SEO is a vast topic, however, I recommend these articles if you want to dig more into this matter. I predict that on-page SEO importance will rise, overcoming backlinks so invest in yourself now, learn it well and you will be able to rank your sites in SERPS.
![How a start a blog [Ultimate Guide]](https://monetize.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/How-a-start-a-blog-Ultimate-Guide-310x165.webp)
So helpful! I’m always looking for great SEO tips, thank you so much.
Thanks. You should check our SEO category for more SEO tips you can easily apply to your blog:
https://monetize.info/category/seo/
Thanks for a great post! I’m going to have to bookmark and save this for reference! Love it
Glad that you find it useful.
Such a nice topic to talk about!! Also thanks for sharing these links ☺️☺️
Thanks for stopping by and leave your comment.
Holy Smokes! There’s so much I’m not doing. Thank you.
Glad this was useful. John. Thanks for your visit and comment.
SEO is quite the beast to conquer. Thank your for the comprehensive guide to help!
Haha. Yeah, SEO is not easy but as soon as you master it you can get large chunks of traffic as there are so many people that do the wrong things and they don’t rank..leaving the 1st spots for people that do the right thing.
Oh, thanks for this list! I haven’t even looked into SEO so for the summer I definitely gotta do that!!
http://thesofieyahdiaries.com/bullet-journal/tips-for-effective-bullet-journaling
Yeah, SEO should play an important role if you are blogging. If you dont do SEO you leave a lot of traffic on the table. Let us know how it works for you.
SEO has been a thorn in my blogging side for, well, since I started blogging! I pinned this so I can reread it and take my time following the advice/steps.I can tell this is going to be one of my Holy Grail resources in blogging- thanks!
Thank you for your nice words. I really appreciate them. If you need help with your SEO plan just jet us know.
It’s really use full tips about SEO but please share also article links that using in new trends like Guest and also share instant approve forums
Hello Eudora,
Here are some tutorials that will help you with guest posting:
https://outreach.buzz/submit-same-guest-post/
https://outreach.buzz/guest-posting-guide/
Let me know if I can help you with something else. As you know we have awesome content here on Monetize.info
Hi Daniel,
Worth reading with perfect categorization. Thanks for sharing the top handpicked list of domains to register a remarkable space over there.
Glad it is helpful for you. You should also check this article for more places to get links from: https://monetize.info/instant-backlinks-blog-post/
Dear Daniel,
Your way of explanation is very impressive and it forced me to read till the end and believe me I got each point easily which you define in your post. These SEO measures really help me to understand SEO basics and no need to go for black hats.
Please explain how to schedule SEO tasks to improve working quality?
That’s right Mukhtiar. Whitehat SEO is the only way it will keep your website in good shape in the long run. Here are 10 SEO tutorials that will help you: https://monetize.info/seo-guides-complete-list/
Oh Daniel, Thank You So Much for this wonderful list, im always searching new a seo services tip for incresing my knowledge… beacuse SEO is the only thing, if you want result always try a new technique and you gave me the treasury….
Oh Daniel, Thank You So Much for this wonderful list, im always searching new a seo services tip for increasing my knowledge… because SEO is the only thing, if you want result always try a new technique and you gave me the treasury….