This is the best SEO checklist on the internet.

The best part?

Everything on our list works for all types of sites. So, if you want to rank higher on search engines, you’ll love our SEO checklist.

Let’s get started.

What is SEO Checklist?

A SEO checklist is designed to help you improve your results on search engines. 

– Mailchimp

It’s a roadmap that helps you identify problems and improve your website. 

It’s a blueprint that helps you execute a comprehensive SEO audit for any website.

Through an SEO checklist, you can find out what’s working and what’s not working for your website. This makes it easy for you to modify and enhance your existing SEO strategy.

Let’s look at the SEO checklist for website:

1. Basic SEO Checklist;
2. SEO Technical Checklist;  
3. Keyword Research;
4. Content SEO Checklist;
5. On-Page SEO Checklist;
6. LinkA link is a connection that let you jump from a webpage to another. It can be attached to pieces of text, images or HTML elements and it's actually a... Building Checklist.

Let’s look at each of these checklists one by one.

Basic SEO Checklist

These are SEO best practices you should follow. They won’t directly boost your rankings but they’re important in terms of SEO.

• Set Up Google Search Console: It’s a free tool that helps you track your website’s organic search performance. You can use it to identify the keywords you rank for. You can also check ranking positions and find errors. In addition, it allows you to submit sitemaps.
• Set Up Bing Webmaster Tools: It’s like Google Search Console but for Bing. It helps you achieve the same things.
• Set up Google Analytics: It’s a free tool that allows you to see how many people visited your website and the source that led them there. In addition, it also helps you understand how they interact with your website.
• Install an SEO Plugin: Plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math will help you optimize meta tags and sitemaps. 
• Create and Submit a Sitemap: They guide search engines about where to find the most important content on your website. This helps search engines crawl and index these pages. 
• Create a Robots.txt File: It helps search engines understand which pages they should not crawl. 

SEO Technical Checklist

An SEO Technical Checklist will help you identify technical issues. Here are the basic technical best practices you should follow.

• Plan The Website Structure: Sketch a simple mind map. Every branch on your map should have an internal link. This link should allow visitors and search engines to navigate between pages.
• Make Sure The Site is Crawlable: Check the Coverage report in Google Search Console to make sure your site is indexed.
• Ensure The Site is Indexable: Crawling and Indexing are two different things. Ensure that your site is crawlable. Remove noindex tags on the pages that you want to crawl on search engines.
• Ensure That You’re Using HTTPS: It’s a confirmed lightweight ranking factor. It helps protect your visitors’ data. It’s an absolute must if you have contact forms that require payment information or passwords. 
• Ensure That Your Website is Accessible at a Single Domain: Your website shouldn’t be accessible on multiple domains. If it is, it will lead to security, indexing and crawling issues. 
• Ensure That Your Site Loads Quickly: Page Speed is one of the top ranking factors since 2010. Use PagSpeed Insights to identify portable areas.
• Ensure That Your Site is Mobile-Freindly: Most people prefer using mobiles to surf the internet. Therefore, it’s crucial to hav e a mobile-friendly website.
• Install an Image Compression Plugin: It will help compress images and make their file size smaller. This helps improve site speed and rank your website higher.
• Fix Broken Pages: Broken links negatively impact user experience. Remove or redirect such links.
• Fix Duplicate Content Errors: By canonicalizing duplicate URLs. This helps improve your rankings on search engines.

Keyword Research

It’s the most important aspect of the SEO puzzle. How will you optimize your content if you don’t know how to find a keyword or what people are looking for? Follow this checklist to get started.

• Find a Main Keyword: Every page on your website should target one primary keyword. Research and target the best keyword every time you publish a new post or page. 
• Evaluate Search Intent: Understand the reason why someone is searching something. Once you understand it, align your page with it so that your page starts ranking. 
• Evaluate Your Chances of Ranking: Take the keyword difficulty score into account before you start creating your page. This helps prioritise opportunities.
• Research What People are Searching For: Take a look at the top three search results for your keyword. Identify  content gaps and cover them in our page. This will help you rank higher in search results. 

Content SEO Checklist

Selecting the right keyword is important. But, creating good content is what will help you rank higher. Follow these tips to create high-quality content.

• Solve Your Reader’s Problem: Understand the search intent. When creating the page, use as much information as possible. When you cover a topic in-depth, you’ll be able to address almost all problems.
• Write a Good Intro: A compelling intro will keep the reader engaged. Your intro should connect with your reader, build trust and promise a solution to their problem. 
• Create Hierarchy by Creating Subheadings: Use headings such as H2, H3, H4 and more to break your content. A clear hierarchy helps searh engines understand the structure of your page.
• Use Images: No one wants to read a big wall of text. Use images to break text. Improve your reader’s experience by adding relevant images.
• Use Short Sentences: 50% of the US population reads below an 8th-standard reading level. Use short sentences and paragraphs to ensure everyone can understand your content. Hemingway is an excellent tool that helps you identify problem areas. 
• Use a Table of Contents: Jump links to different sections on a page make it easy for people to navigate. It also influences sitelinks and help you rank higher.

On-Page SEO Checklist

It is the process of optimizing the content on your page. Here’s how to ace it.

Use Descriptive But Short URLs: It helps search engines understand what your page is all about. Remember to include the primary keyword in the URL. 

Write Good Title Tags: They show up in search results. They help search engines understand what your page contains. Include your primary keyword in title tags. 

Write a Good Meta Description: Meta descriptions are visible in the SERPs almost all the time. Focus on summarizing your page’s content into 120 words. This helps your reader understand what your article is about before they open it. 

Link to Relevant Sources: Include informative internal and external resources. This makes it easier for visitors to navigate your website.

Optimize Images: Add Alternative Texts in images and use a plugin to optimize images. 

Add Schema Markup: They help search engines understand your content better. In addition, they improve click-through rates and bring more traffic to your site.

Add Internal Links: Link to relevant pages on your website. This makes it easy for users to navigate your site. 

Link Building Checklist

It’s one of the most important factors in determining your search rankings. Here are the best link building tactics you should know. 

Replicate Competitor’s Links: Use tools such as Moz or Ahrefs to find out sources that link to your competitor. Pursue them to gain valuable links. 

Reclaim Lost Links: Nothing lasts forever. Especially backlinks. Use the same tool to find lost links.

Pursue Unlinked Mentions: Sometimes, people mention your brand but don’t link to your website. Reach out to them and request them to make the link clickable. 

Publish Guest Posts: It’s an excellent way to get high-quality backlinks. Write guests posts for top-ranking websites in your niche. 

Pitch Resource Pages: These pages curate and link to resources about a particular topic. Find such resource pages and request them to add your pages. 

Find Sources Linking to Inferior Content: If you have followed our content checklist, you must have created a fabulous post. This means there will be tons of articles inferior to yours. Reach out to people who have linked to such inferior pages and request them to link to you instead. 

Tell People About Your Content: Tell more and more people about your content so that they can link to you. Share your posts on social media and other platforms to get the maximum coverage.

In Conclusion

Search Engine Optimisation is an ongoing process. If you tackle our SEO checklist for website, will be able to rank higher. You’ll also be ahead of your competitors. And that’s what really matters!

Did you find our SEO Checklist useful? Which tactics were you not aware of? Tell us in the comments section below!