SEO Checklist for SEO Audits and New Websites
First and foremost, this SEO checklist helps you carry out the most important tasks you should do when creating a new website or performing an SEO Audit.
Essentially it helps you methodically organise your website optimisation. This way you know where to start and to check all aspects of technical SEO, Keyword Research, On-Page SEO, as well as Incoming Links. Most noteworthy: a blog needs to make good reading for the public but also for the robots.
In today’s blog we will see the following SEO Checklist for SEO Audits and New Websites:
- Install Google Analytics
- Majestic SEO
- Opensite Explorer
- Squirrly SEO Plugin essential for your SEO checklist
- Google Search Console
- Google Page Speed Insights
- Better Delete Revision
- Take the Google Mobile-Friendly test
- Google Keyword Planner
- LSI Graph
- Use prominent Social Sharing Buttons
- Double-check everything with an SEO Audit Tool
SEO CHECKLIST
Install Google Analytics
Essential to measure key SEO metrics like website traffic, conversions and revenue. Here you can track the 7 most important metrics for your site.
Google Analytics provides you with SEO website insights and it’s incredibly valuable to the ultimate success of your blog. So all the way from marketing campaign optimisation through to budget allocation, we will show how to do this correctly later on in this blog.
2. MajesticSEO
First of all, find out about how your site is doing in terms of trust and citation flow. Follow the progress of your site as it gains more links and climbs up the google rankings. Take a look at what the competition is doing and get some ideas of where to get links.
- This will help you define a Link Building Strategy. Not all backlinks are good, so cherrypick the ones that have good metrics. The idea is to have quality “do follow” backlinks from high ranking pages in your sector. Earn these naturally by creating high-quality content which is worth linking to.
- Majestic helps you analyse your Competitor’s Backlinks, Rankings and site Traffic. Therefore one of the easiest way to get started with link building is to copy. Look at each of Top 10 search results for your target keyword, by typing in the keyword in the search box.
- Reach out to those sources to pitch your latest blog post or product. In this case you can expect about a 5% response rate from these reach out emails.
3. OpensiteExplorer
Employ Open Site Explorer to help find link building opportunities. Analyse backlinks, look at the competition, view social activity, and analyse anchor text.
Moz is really easy to use and they are not only really helpful but also they really know their subject.
4. Squirrly SEO Plugin essential for your SEO checklist
This plugin will make your life 10x easier. Use it to complete many of the Technical and On-Page SEO best practices and to see what off page activity you need to apply. Furthermore Squirrly will give a score on your page based on the following points among others:
- How to Write Title Tag For SEO
- Using Modifiers in the Title Tag to Rank long tail keywords
- How to Optimize Header Tags for Good SEO
- Understanding SEO Friendly URL
- Using Multimedia for SEO
- Why You Must Use Long Form Content for SEO
- Shema Mark up
- How to Use Internal Linking Strategy to Get Ranking Boost
- Understanding Keyword Prominence
- Understanding Outbound Links
5. Google Search Console
This free tool allows you to check how the search engines view your site with reports about indexing status, search queries, crawl errors and penalties. To learn more, read this helpful guide.
6. Google PageSpeed Insights
PAGE SPEED INSIGHTSOne of the most important factors in SEO is how fast your page downloads. The robots know that people will not wait for a slow page; they will just bounce. Improve Website Performance & Speed. Analyse your site with the aim to score 80.
Speed things up with the free WordPress Plugins:
7. Better Delete Revision
WordPress keeps a copy of your page every time you make the slightest change. So without knowing it you can have thousands of copies of your pages, this will slow down your site.
Use this easy to use free plugin to delete the page revisions you don’t need.
8. Take the Google Mobile-Friendly Test
Your site should deliver a great user experience across all devices. Extra important now that Google’s algorithm favours mobile friendly sites.
Every day more people search on mobile so this is important. Just enter your URL and you can see your score and how to optimise your site in order to improve it.
9. Google Keyword Planner
There are three types of Keywords. Remember you are trying to guess what people are going to type in as a search query.
- Head: single words, usually they are too competitive to rank and not specific enough to reach your target audience.
- Body: two or more words with high number of people searching for them. They show a buyer intent and they are possible to rank.
- Long-tailed: as many as five words+ very specific and low competition.
However, if you optimise your page for body keywords you will rank for the long-tailed ones. I recommend body every time.
Some excelent alternatives to Google Key planner are:
10. LSI GRAPH
The search robots need more help to identify what a page is about. 10 years ago it was possible just to repeat the same keywords many times. Today that is different. You must include words in your text that you would associate with your keywords.
These are not synonyms but words that are commonly found together such as steam iron and Phillips. The LSI graph will help you find those words.
11. Use Prominent Social Sharing Buttons
Make sure your social sharing buttons are front and centre on blog posts and articles.
There are many free WordPress plugins but the most effective in my experience is the Social Warfare WordPress plugin.
It’s worth paying for the impact it will have on your site.
12. Double-check everything with an SEO Audit Tool
Portent’s SEO Page Review Chrome Extension
Portent’s SEO Page Review Chrome Extension reviews basic onsite SEO elements such as Title Tags, Meta Description, Canonical tag, HREFLANG tags, on-page links, Open Graph, Twittercard, and other metadata.
Unlike other extensions, their tool is built extremely lean – it does not make any external requests and loads in a blink of an eye. Its minute footprint has an almost indiscernible impact on your browsing experience. All data can easily be copied and pasted into documents. The Open Graph section sends you directly to the Facebook Debugger to test the page.