Free SEO Checklist
Do you want your website to be found?
Optimise your SEO with our handy checklist.
If you are looking to improve the visibility of your site on Google then it is important to make sure your site meets all of Google’s requirements for understanding what your site is about and for which search terms it should rank.
In this checklist, we will cover the tools and processes you should use to check that your site is built with solid foundations.
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Grab your free SEO Checklist now and make sure your website is performing as it should.
Setting Up The Basic Tools
Before we delve into your website you will need to ensure you have some tools in place to be able to check your site is optimised, track visitor interaction and measure your ranking.
The Basic SEO Tools
- Google Analytics – This is a free tool which enables you to see how people interact with your website. You will be able to see data and insights about how many people are reaching your website, and what they are doing when they get there.
- Google Search Console – This tool provides invaluable insights into your site’s performance. Link this with Google Analytics to get a bigger picture of the ways that users are interacting with your content.
- https://whatsmyserp.com/ – Sign up for an account for free so that you can check your position in Google. This will show you how your pages are ranking for your chosen keywords.
- SEO Plugin for your website – If you are running a WordPress site, it is important to install an SEO plugin. This will allow you to optimise your site and add all of the relevant SEO to your page.
Additional Optional Tools
SEM Rush – a great tool for tracking your site’s performance. More than just one tool, SEM Rush can give you insights into your competitors and your keywords, and can guide you to create content based on long tail keywords and much more.
Hotjar – This is a free tool for up to three pages of your website (if you choose to pay, you can monitor your entire site). It allows you to see tons of data about the ways that users are interacting with your website. It will show you what devices people are using to view your content and you can see where they have clicked, when they have stopped reading and you can even record the customer journey to see where your website can be improved.
Website Performance Check
SSL Certificate – Check your site is loading over SSL. An SSL certificate is super important. It encrypts all of the data on your website to keep yourself and clients secure. Without one, users will be less inclined to give you personal data, such as filling out a contact form.
Mobile-Friendly – Does your site work on all devices? There are now more users than ever searching for products and services via mobile devices. Your site might look great on a desktop, but if it all falls apart when it’s viewed on a mobile device, this is a big problem.
SEO friendly URL Structure – Can you understand what your pages are about from the URL? If the page URL doesn’t make sense, not only will this confuse potential customers, Google won’t know how and where to rank your page.
We prefer to use something called a silo structure – this helps Google to find and rank your pages and it improves the entire site SEO. For example:
www.mjsmedia.co.uk/website-design/
www.mjsmedia.co.uk/website-design/bexhill
www.mjsmedia.co.uk/website-design/battle
We want all of the pages to rank for the keyword ‘website design’ but then we also want to rank for the original areas. By creating a parent page with subpages, Google will understand that all pages are relevant to the main search term and it will rank the subsequent pages accordingly.
Create and upload a sitemap – If you don’t know whether you currently have a sitemap, you can check this by going to https://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml
Some sites will generate a sitemap as standard but if you can’t find yours, you can create an XML sitemap.
On-page SEO
Does the page have a clear H1 heading? – This should be what the page is about and there should only be one per page. Search engines will pick up the H1 heading as the main content subject of the page. Adding more than one H1 will confuse search engines and cause your page to rank badly.
Is there at least one H2 that relates to the H1 heading? – This is where long-tail keyword research comes in handy. Creating H2 headings based on what your target market is actually searching for makes it much more likely that your page will be ranked and found by the right people.
Is your page title optimised? – Optimising your page title will allow users to easily see what they are looking at, but it will also help you to rank for your main & variant keywords.
Is your meta description optimised? – Your meta description should always show a brief write up of what your page is about. If you don’t add one, Google will automatically show part of your website which may not be relevant. It should be between 130 – 160 characters and it should encourage users to click through to your content.
Do your images use ALT tags? – An alt tag is basically an explanation of the image on the screen. This helps visually impaired users but it will also be picked up by search engines which will improve your SEO.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is step one of creating content for your website. These are the keywords that relate to your products and services, but you also need to research what your audience is actually searching for on search engines. Once you know the keywords that are going to bring you the most business, you can start to create content for your website.
There are so many levels to keyword research, from figuring out who your main competitors are and seeing the keywords they are targeting, to finding out how hard it is to rank for your chosen keywords.
When you know which keywords you are targeting, you can start to research long-tail keywords based on what consumers are searching for on Google. Long-tail keywords are great for H2 headings (as mentioned above).
Free Download
Grab your free SEO Checklist now and make sure your website is performing as it should.