Website SEO Checklist
by Paul
This guide is a simple SEO Checklist to apply to your site. Tick off all these items from the SEO checklist and your website will be in a much better position to ensure you achieve top rankings that will generate more sales.
NOTE: Some points on this checklist may require basic HTML knowledge to execute properly...
1. Install Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed reports about how your website pages appear on Google search.
Get started with Google Webmaster Tools
NOTE: You will need to create a Google Account to set this up.
2. Install Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics & reports about the visits or hits to your website.
We have a Beginners Guide to Google Analytics to help you get started once you have signed up.
Get started with Google Analytics
3. Creating an XML Sitemap
Sitemaps are a way to tell search engines like Google about pages on your site by creating a list of all the pages.
You can create a free sitemap easily by going to the following link, entering your website address and the site will automatically generate a sitemap for you:
Once you have generated the sitemap you will then need to upload it to your website and submit it in Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools (for Bing and Yahoo).
4. Optimise ALL Images with ALT Tags
Search engines can’t read images so you need to use alt tags to help describe your images, ensure all are named appropriately though and have alt tags placed near text that is relevant to the image.
5. Fix Broken Links
Broken links are links on your website which when clicked go to an error page or unreachable page, this could be because the page your link goes to is no longer available or the link has been incorrectly typed on the site.
Ensure you fix all broken links by correcting the invalid links.
There are many websites which do a detailed crawl of all your pages to check for broken links online, if you search 'broken links checker' on Google for example a number of websites offer this service.
6. Is your site mobile friendly?
It is essential for websites to be compatible with all devices as the number of people using smartphones to access the internet is increasing.
A fully responsive website will adapt and work on every type of device so whether your website is viewed on a PC or an iphone the website will fit perfectly to the screen size ensuring best possible viewing.
7. Improve page load speed of pages
Page load speed is one of the ranking factors used by Google. To improve the page load speed, you can do the following:
- Apply the file compression (e.g. gzip)
- Utilize browser caching
- Use the externalized CSS/JavaScript code
- Optimize graphics and video size
- Put the scripts at the bottom
On average, if it takes a page more than 3 seconds to load, the speed is considered slow and the page is heavy.
8. Get more quality backlinks
This is an on-going process so it's not a case of adding some and leaving it but generally the more quality backlinks you have, the better. You can get natural links when people find your content useful and interesting and place links on their own websites and you can build up backlinks using such methods as:
- Getting listed in popular directories
- Social media marketing, etc.
- Guest Blogging
9. Improve the quality of backlinks
The backlinks are of great importance for your SEO, but you should remember that it's the quality not the quantity that matters first.
10. Create a custom 404 page
Customize a 404 page to make it useful for your website visitors. The custom 404 page may include links to the most important pages of your website.
Extras: Enhance Your Online Presence
11. Create a Google Places listing
97% of consumers search for local businesses online, so If you run a local business (sell flowers in London, provide consulting services in Bath, have a small consultancy business in Bristol, etc.) and have a physical address, you should sign up for a Google Places account. This will help you enhance your local search engine rankings.
12. Produce some videos
Videos are an important marketing tool you can leverage to get more traffic and sales. If you offer media-related services, video marketing is simply a must for you. In all other cases, use videos to tell customerss about your brand, expertise, and success stories.
Apart from your website and blog, you can use the following video content platforms to promote your videos:
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- Dailymotion
- Flickr Video
If you can tick off most of the items on this list, your site will be in a better position to take on the top pages in Google and search engines.
Want to improve your Google ranking? Check out our seo packages
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