We have divided this checklist into sections that cover the main areas of SEO:
- The basic elements
- Keyword Research
- Technical SEO
- On-page SEO
- Content
- Off-page SEO
You need to focus on all of these points to achieve a holistic SEO strategy. Take a look at our checklist to make sure you are following best practices in each area.
By implementing best practices and addressing any errors, you’ll have a better chance of SEO success.
Basic SEO Checklist
Are you still figuring out what SEO is whatsapp lead exactly ? If you don’t have the basics covered, your site will struggle to rank competitively.
The following points are largely housekeeping tasks, but they are part of the foundations of a good SEO strategy.
1. Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
Google Search Console is an essential tool that provides you with important insights into your website’s performance. It also offers a wealth of data that you can use to grow your site’s organic visibility and traffic.
You can learn more about why it’s so important to use this tool, how to set it up, and more in our ultimate guide .
Bing Webmaster Tools is the equivalent platform, they simply provide data and insights for your search engine.
Both tools allow you to view the terms and keywords that users use to find your website in search results, upload sitemaps, identify crawl errors, and much more.
If you don’t have these tools set up yet, do it now and thank us later.
2. Set up Google Analytics
Without the right data, you can’t make the right decisions.
Google Analytics is a free analytics tool that lets you view data and insights about how many people visit your website, who they are, and how they engage with it.
Our ultimate guide to Google Analytics will walk you through everything you need to know about the tool as a beginner, including how to set it up and the most useful reports. One thing is for sure, and that is that you cannot implement a successful SEO strategy without this tool.
Additionally, you will need to connect Google Analytics and Google Search Console to import the data later.
3. Install and configure an SEO plugin (if you are using WordPress)
If you are using WordPress as your CMS (which is quite likely, since it powers 35% of the entire web ), you should install and configure an SEO plugin. This will give you access to the features you need to optimize your site.
In our Wordpress SEO checklist , we have plugin suggestions for you. Which plugin to choose depends mostly on your personal preferences, but these are three good options.
If you’re using a CMS other than WordPress, talk to your developer to see if you need to install a specific SEO plugin or module.
Plug in SEO , for example, is one of the most popular SEO apps for Shopify.
4. Generate and submit a sitemap
The purpose of a sitemap is to help search engines decide which pages to index and which canonical version to choose.
It’s as simple as a list of URLs that specify the main content of your site to ensure it is indexed and crawled properly.
In Google’s own words :
A sitemap tells the crawler which files you think are important on your site. It also provides valuable information about these files. For example, for pages: when it was last updated, how often it has changed, and any alternative language versions.
Google supports a number of sitemap formats, but XML is the most commonly used. You’ll typically find your website’s sitemap at
If you are using WordPress and one of the plugins mentioned above, you will find that generating a sitemap is a standard feature.
If not, you can create an XML sitemap using one of the many sitemap generator tools available. In fact, we recently updated our ultimate guide to sitemaps , which includes our top recommendations.
Once you’ve generated your sitemap, make sure it’s uploaded to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Make sure to reference your sitemap in your robots.txt file.
5. Create a robots.txt file
Simply put, your website’s robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers which pages and files they can and cannot request from your site.
This is typically used to prevent certain sections of your site from being crawled and is not a way to deindex a page and stop it from being displayed in Google.
You can find your site’s robots.txt file at txt
Check if you already have one.
If not, you need to create one, even if you don’t currently need one, to prevent any page on your website from being crawled.
Some WordPress SEO plugins allow users learn about the features and impacts of the boleto api for companies to create and edit their robots.txt file, but if you are using a different CMS, you need to manually create the file using a text editor and upload it to the root of your domain.
You can learn more about how to use robots.txt files in this beginner’s guide.
6. Check Search Console for manual actions
On rare occasions, you may find that your site has been subject to a manual action that has negatively affected it.
Manual actions are typically caused by violating or manipulating Google’s webmaster guidelines . This includes things like: user-generated spam, structured data issues, unnatural links, poor content, hidden text, and even what is considered outright spam.
Many sites have never experienced a manual penalty and will never experience one in the future.
That said, you can check this in the manual actions tab of Google Search Console.
You will be notified if your site receives a manual action, but if you’re working on a new project or working on a website, it’s always one of the first things you should check.
7. Make sure Google can currently index your website
It is not as rare as you might think for a website not to be indexed in Google.
In fact, you’d be surprised how often a sudden deindexing of a site occurs accidentally caused by developers forgetting to remove noindex tags when migrating from development to live environment.
You can use the Site Audit tool to make sure your website can be crawled and indexed.
Set up Site Audit for your project. school email list Once you’ve run the audit, you can head over to the Traceability report for more insights.
Double-checking that your site’s pages are indexed can save you a lot of trouble down the road.
Not sure if your site is indexed in Google? Let Jason Barnard guide you through the steps and get your site indexed correctly.