The Always Up-to-Date SEO Checklist

This page has been reviewed and updated as of October 2, 2022 

An SEO checklist is a list of best practices and reminders that help you optimize a website to perform better in search engine rankings. Not making mistakes is an important first step for helping search engines, notably Google, reward your site in rankings.

A common mistake is not studying SEO before you do it. Seriously, you need to have a reasonable idea of what it is. Take a course (I recommend ours at SEOtraining.com). And to do the initial dust and clean, follow our how to do SEO Guide. Now you are ready to read and, more importantly, understand what you are being asked to do.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an evolving discipline. It’s rooted in both best practices and trending strategies. This is why having the latest information on hand is vital when you’re optimizing website content to be found in searches.

I first introduced an SEO checklist in my training course, and quickly realized its value for both new and seasoned professionals. Today, this page is a popular resource that we update regularly.

We try to keep this checklist brief for easy reference. If you want more explanation, check the linked resources or our SEO Guide to learn how to do search engine optimization.

One checklist can’t uncover everything an individual business should do when it comes to SEO and its website. But this one is pretty close with more than 40 SEO categories that will improve the way both customers and search engines find and use your site.

I hope you’ll find it to be a helpful reminder of the many items to check during your SEO projects.

SEO checklist by Bruce Clay.

I’ve divided the SEO checklist into sections, so jump around as needed:

Content Optimization

Many of us already knew by the time Google confirmed it: Content is one of the top three ranking signals (out of hundreds). If you do nothing else, your content strategy is an essential part of your online success. We believe that a proper SEO content strategy is the difference between good content and noticed good content. Do it right, or do not bother.

1. Target Audience Research

This is a biggie: Know your target audience, the questions they have, and their pain points. Knowing what questions they ask and what types of queries they might ask Google helps inform your keyword research.

This, in turn, will help you create content that answers those questions and solves their pain points. (You’ll use keywords you select as a basis for this content — one main keyword topic per webpage — but more on that shortly.)

Understanding searcher intent is an important step in crafting content. Answering typical questions your target audience might have also helped your page be found for voice search queries.

2. Keyword Strategy and Research

Keyword research needs to be an ongoing process. It starts by identifying a focus phrase or two for the topic you want to write about (using your preferred tools — there are dozens of good ones out there).

When you have a keyword phrase in mind for a page or a section of your site, check it in Google search. View the top results; the “People also ask” questions, and the rest of the search engine results. This search engine results page (SERP) provides your best clues to the searcher’s intent for this query. Make sure your content fulfills what searchers want when looking for this keyword, or looking for a more appropriate keyword phrase.

I could write volumes about this topic; just know that keyword research is part of any solid SEO checklist. Our SEO Guide will get you started and includes a free version of the SEOToolSet Keyword Suggestion tool.

Given these first two items, it reminds me of fishing. If you want to catch fish, you need to know two things … what bait the fish are biting, and where the fish are swimming. Content and keywords play together to attract and convert your fish.

3. Featured Snippet Opportunities

As you conduct keyword research, you might find that Google displays a featured snippet (aka answer box) above the search results for your targeted keyword. This means you have an opportunity to claim a featured snippet if you provide answers to question-type queries. That area of the SERP, known as Position Zero, has become a significant SEO focus.

To win featured snippets, you’ll need to structure the content according to the type of snippet (usually video, text, list or table). Optimize the answer and formatting, whether it’s a table, bulleted list, ordered list, text question-and-answer, or other. Also, applying schema markup is not required but may increase your chances to secure a featured snippet spot (see “More Structured Data” below).

If you’re optimizing text, you can also conduct competitor research to find the typical length of featured snippets. For example, the average word count for a paragraph-type snippet is 40 to 60 words. Two tools we like that can help you target featured snippets are the Featured Snippets+ Tool and inLinks.net (both are paid tools with some free options).

4. Word Count

The amount of content you need on a webpage varies by topic, keyword, competition, and the intent of the query. (Read about the three main intents behind search queries in the table below.)

3 MAIN TYPES OF SEARCH QUERIES

Transactional
These queries happen when a user intends to buy something now. Searching for the exact brand and model of a product, for instance, suggests the intention to buy.

Informational
These are research-oriented queries. People often do research in advance of a future transaction. For example, a search for “best electric toothbrushes” indicates that the searcher will probably purchase one in the near future.

Navigational
Navigational queries help a searcher get somewhere, whether online or in the physical world. Searching for the name of a restaurant, for example, should take the user to that restaurant’s website, phone number and physical address.

How many words is enough? There’s no black-and-white rule. To determine an approximate minimum page length, look at the top-ranked URLs for a keyword you’re targeting. How long are those pages?

A tool like our SEOToolSet® Multi Page Analyzer comes in handy for this kind of competitive analysis. For WordPress users, our patented SEO plugin feature handles this analysis in real-time, giving custom advice per keyword. It produces target word counts and displays them right in WordPress.

Averaging the top competitors gives you a ballpark for what a search engine considers the normal word count for that topic. It’s safe to say that informational webpages almost always warrant more text.

Quality content is the priority for any good SEO checklist. Google’s algorithm detects low-quality content and demotes its rankings. So avoid thin content. Focus on robust coverage of your website topics to prove your subject matter expertise, and leverage industry experts when possible. Here’s more on what makes a webpage quality.

5. Call to Action (CTA)

For each of your pages, ask yourself what the user would need/want to do from here. Then make it easy to do!

Your key pages should make it clear what primary action a visitor can take next.

  • On a product page, the call to action (CTA) should be prominent (for example, “add to cart” or “start a free trial”).
  • On a service page, the CTA might be “call us” or “get a quote.” Make the CTA clear and easy to select.
  • On the homepage, help the visitor to take the next step in your conversion funnel.

The actual language of a CTA should be active (usually an imperative verb). The placement and design of the CTA should draw the visitor’s attention. But test variations to see what works best for you.

A page doesn’t have to be transactional in nature to warrant a call to action. If an informational page is a top-performing traffic driver, such as a blog post (like this one) that answers a common question or an FAQ page, the call to action might encourage the visitor to “find out more” and enter the conversion funnel or to tell two friends.

For instance, you should do this now:

Bookmark this SEO checklist for future reference. And if you find it helpful, please consider sharing it!

6. Content Freshness

Periodically review your content (webpages and blog posts) to make sure that the information is up to date.

For example, we refresh this very checklist regularly. SEO best practices have to evolve as search engine guidelines and technology do. If your industry also moves quickly, your content needs to keep up.

From Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (PDF):

“… unmaintained/abandoned ‘old’ websites or unmaintained and inaccurate/misleading content is a reason for a low E-E-A-T [experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness] rating.”

Tip: If parts of your website could use a refresh, see our guide to refreshing your site content for a step-by-step.

7. Static Content on Homepage

Your homepage acts as a central hub to pass authority to top pages on your site through internal links. It’s probably also where people land most often when they search for your brand or main products/services.

It’s important to have static text that talks about your brand and top theme(s) on the homepage.

If you have a homepage with content that constantly changes, such as nothing but headlines, it can dilute the theme of your site. This results in poor rankings for key terms. So try to maintain sections of consistent text on the homepage.

8. Duplicate Content

Do searches to see if your content exists elsewhere on the web. You may want to check out CopyScape.com and use it regularly. If your site appears to have copied content from another source, that’s a low-quality signal to search engines and may cause your site to rank lower. Similarly, if other sites have copied your content, it could be a problem from an SEO standpoint.

If you have duplicate content within your site, such as three URLs with the same content, a search engine will filter out the dupes. Only one will display in results for relevant queries — and the page that Google chooses might not be the page that you want to rank. One option would be to use a “canonical tag” to tell the search engines which version should be indexed.

Here’s more on duplicate content.

On-Page Optimization

Review each important page, from the homepage to a high-priority product page, with an eye on the following issues in this on-page SEO checklist.

9. Title Tag

SEO has always stressed a webpage’s HTML title as a vital tag that should contain the relevant keywords you want to rank for on this page.

In general, title tags should be about 9 words (within the range of 6 to 12). You want to make sure that each page’s meta title is unique and describes the most important information about the page. Use the top keyword before the cutoff in the SERP, which for Google is roughly 60–70 characters, including spaces. (Tip: You can use a title preview tool to estimate how much will show.)

Remember, the title tag often becomes the clickable title that searchers see in search results (though Google reserves the right to choose a different title for your result). Both the title and description text can influence click-throughs to your site. So craft compelling tags. You don’t want to waste your prime real estate in the SERP with boring copy.

10. Description Tag

The meta description tag should also include the most important information and keywords near the beginning. If the search engine chooses to display your description text, it will include approximately 24 words or 160 characters with spaces.

Google indicates that it does not consider this tag an important ranking factor. I personally think that anything that appears on a Google SERP page is important. It certainly helps us get clicks — so be sure to act like it is important because it is.

Keep in mind that Google reserves the right to replace your meta description text with a search snippet generated by Google, which is usually pulled from the page’s body content. A search snippet (aka auto-snippet) appears instead of your meta description whenever Google deems the snippet of text more relevant for a given search. This is common when your description does not contain the query keyword.

Read more about meta tags.

11. Heading Tags

Headings allow a reader to see the main sections and points of a page. They give visual cues for how body content is organized. They also signal to search engines and readers what topics are covered on a page.

As a technical point, make sure the first heading tag within the body of a page is an <h1>. (Note that in WordPress, the text field at the top of the editor that says “Add Title” is actually for Heading 1.) The following heading tags can be <h2>, <h3>, <h4>, etc., and should be used like a page’s table of contents.

You may have more than one <h1> on a page according to Google, though we recommend only one in most cases. And be sure NOT to use heading tags to control font sizes, as that may confuse the search engines. Instead, use CSS to control style, and headings to describe content organization.

Navigation elements and other global text should be styled with CSS and not heading tags (watch our Ask Us Anything video for more about this).

12. Image Optimization

Images greatly enhance your pages. Content needs visual elements to break up the text and keep a reader interested.

Images also provide additional ranking opportunities through image searches and blended web search results.

Images can slow down a page’s loading time. To reduce file size and to increase speed as much as possible, resize the files to their display size rather than uploading the original file and making the browser shrink it. Also, include width and height attributes in image tags.

NOTE: We use a plugin that automatically provides JPEG and PNG images in the WebP image format to browsers that support it, reducing image size by approximately 50%. This seriously improves SEO by decreasing page size and speeding page loads.

File names should describe the image and include a keyword when possible. You can also optimize the caption and the text surrounding an image to reinforce what the image is about.

For more about optimizing images for SEO, review our post How to Improve Google Image Search Ranking.

13. Alt Attributes

Make sure to include an alt attribute with each image. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) states that a website should describe the image on a page for the vision impaired when the description contributes to an accurate understanding of the content. And please take this seriously; although not mainstream SEO, compliance failure can lead to serious fines and penalties.

Accessibility is important to users and to Google. According to Google, having alt attributes is a primary indicator that your site is accessible.

As an SEO checklist item, ensure that your images have accurate alt text that, if appropriate, includes a keyword for the page. If an image is purely decorative, it should still have an empty alt attribute within its image tag. Alt attributes are required of validated HTML code (per W3C standards).

14. Video Optimization

Videos are powerful engagement objects that add multimedia interest to keep visitors on your page longer. Highly consumable content, videos give you additional SEO benefits and social sharing opportunities. Also, note that video is one of the formats for featured snippets in the SERP. To go further, I imagine that a significant portion of how-to query results (in the organic results area) will evolve to be video answers. Start now — you cannot say you have not been warned.

Optimize your videos to be found in the search. Video content provides ranking opportunities both in regular searches and in video-only search engines where they’re uploaded especially YouTube.

Like images, embedded videos can slow down the load of a page. There’s a slew of optimization best practices for YouTube, Vimeo, and other video hosting sites. Read our guide on 10 video SEO tips to improve SERP rank.

15. Structured Data Markup with Schema

Structured data clarifies for the search engine what the content on your page is about. Specifically, marking up your HTML content based on the standards at schema.org helps search engines understand what type of information you’re presenting.

For example, you could use structured data markup to indicate an upcoming event your business is hosting, specifying its date, time, location, and other details. If Google is clear about what’s on your site, then additional bits of information have the potential to show up in your search results.

Google search result showing event data
Example Google search result showing structured data for events

There are dozens of schema types that may apply depending on the content you have on your site. Consider for example:

Example of FAQ featured snippet in Google.

Example featured snippet in Google based on FAQ schema markup

Google’s guidelines allow three supported formats for marking up a website:

  • JSON-LD (recommended)
  • Microdata
  • RDFa

This is a technical SEO checklist item: Google requires your markup to include all of the required properties for an object to be eligible for enhancements in your SERP listing. To make sure you’ve done it right, check your page or code snippet using Google’s Rich Results Testing Tool.

For more on how to implement structured data on your site, check out How to Use Schema Markup to Improve Your Website Visibility in Search.

16. More Structured Data

Besides the schema markup we just mentioned, there are other ways you can structure your data to make it more digestible for search engines.

  • HTML tables
  • Bulleted lists
  • Ordered lists
  • Breadcrumb navigation
  • Table of contents at the top (especially with anchor links)
  • Headings that contain a key term or question, followed by the answer in body text
  • TL;DR (“too long, didn’t read”) summary near the top of your article

All of these structural formats can help people read your content more easily. They also encourage Google to use your content in featured snippets, as we discussed above. Google gives more information about structured data in the search results here.

17. Social Meta Tags

Social markup, or social meta tags, refers to the code used to enhance content on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Content in these tags dictates what image and text will show up when someone posts a link to your content on a social network. While not a link for SEO, social mentions about your pages are believed to at least temporarily assist with rankings.

By specifying social markup in your HTML, you can ensure you look your best on social media. Facebook Open Graph tags, Twitter Card markup, and Pinterest Rich Pins are the major social markup tags. Click through if you want more details on each platform’s options:

18. URL Optimization

This item is featured in nearly every SEO checklist. Long ago, URLs were heavily keyword stuffed, and it is believed that they now have minimal impact on rankings. Still, a descriptive URL can certainly assist with clicks by users.

Use dashes rather than underscores in-page URLs. Underscores are alpha characters and do not separate words. Dashes (or rather, hyphens) are word separators, but should not appear too many times, or it could look spammy. For more on this topic, check out this post by Google’s Matt Cutts (an oldie but a goodie) and ours explaining what is spam.

You also want URLs to be descriptive and contain keywords, without being spammy. And shorter URLs are preferable to long URLs.

19. Fully Qualified Links

If you make your internal links fully qualified, there’s no question by search engine spiders, browsers, etc., as to where the file is located and what it’s about. If your link looks something like “../../pagename” (a relative link), then it may cause crawl issues for some search engines.

Rather than relative URLs, use fully qualified links, which means beginning with https:// (hopefully not http://). Note that your sitemap should always have fully qualified URLs. (You can read more about sitemaps below.)
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20. Make JavaScript and CSS External

To remove unnecessary lines of code in your body text, it’s a best practice to externalize JavaScript and CSS code that gets in the way of keyword-rich content. Externalizing large files can speed up your page load time, which plays a role in Google’s ranking algorithm.

However, there is a tradeoff to consider, especially in light of the new Core Web Vitals. In some cases, Google recommends leaving smaller CSS or JavaScript code elements inline in your HTML page in order to reduce the round trip time it may take for the server to request the external resource.

Local Optimization

Businesses with a local brick-and-mortar presence or local service areas have a special set of SEO factors to pay attention to. Here are a couple of important local SEO checklist items.

21. Claim Google My Business Listing

A Google My Business listing is free and is a critical first step for local brick-and-mortar and businesses with service areas. A Google My Business listing can enable your site to show up in Google Maps, the local pack of Google Search results, and Knowledge Graph panels for your business. Since the goal of SEO is to send traffic to your site from search engines, these appearances are important as SEO items.

Knowledge Graph box for Bruce Clay, Inc.
A Knowledge Graph panel shows information from your Google My Business listing.

There’s a lot more involved in local SEO, but claiming your listing in Google My Business and in Bing Places gets you started.

22. Local Schema Markup

Local businesses can benefit from on-page schema markup related to their business. (You can browse the available codes at schema.org). Especially important for all businesses is the NAP + W code, which designates the business’s name, address, phone number, and website.

Check out my list of other local search ranking factors. There are many factors that you have not considered that are all vital to SEO.

23. Local Citations and Links

Local citations are usually found in directories where multiple businesses are listed either by business type or by region. At a minimum, an online citation should include the business name, address, and phone number (NAP) as well as the website address. Many directory sites offer opportunities for additional business information, as well.

Local links are different from citations in that they exist on local websites, such as related businesses in the area or hyper-local blogs about the area, rather than on a directory. Both citations and local links help establish your local presence.

Mobile Optimization

We’re truly living in a mobile-first world. Businesses need to ensure that their websites cater to the mobile browsing experience. Google looks at the mobile version of your content when it comes to indexing and ranking. Yes, you may edit your pages on a desktop for convenience, and perhaps you have very few mobile users on your site. But the Google Spider is only concerned with mobile formatting, and that is how your site is viewed.

As an SEO checklist to-do, make sure you’re using a mobile-first strategy. I’ve listed a few specifics below.

24. Mobile Usability

Search engines are invested in providing users with a great mobile experience. See how your site is performing on mobile devices with the Mobile Usability report, located within Google Search Console.

Mobile Usability report in GSC.

This report lets you know if your touch elements are too close, if your content is sized to the viewport, your Flash usage, font size, and more.

You can also use the URL Inspection Tool within Google Search Console to understand how Google sees a specific page rendered on different mobile devices.

Lastly, you can run important URLs through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test for developers. Similarly, Bing offers a Mobile Friendliness Test Tool.

Page load speed is also a ranking factor. Skip to Site Speed & Performance in this SEO checklist for the SEO tools to check page speed.

25. Mobile and Voice-Related Keywords

When was the last time you tried a voice search for your keywords? Try to find your business and competitors as your customer would with a voice search. Consider:

  • Are you coming up with relevant voice search terms like “[keyword] near me”?
  • Are you accounting for searches formed as questions or full sentences? (These are more and more common with the advance of voice queries.)

As an additional test, are your keywords easily pronounced? Do you have an exotic-sounding product or company name? How well do you perform in voice search right now? Are you ranking No. 1 but getting no mobile traffic? Keyword recognition is an important part of a query, and the wrong query throws off SEO data.

Check out our articles on voice search optimization and mobile SEO for guidance.

26. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

Accelerated Mobile Pages, known as AMP for short, is an open-source project that enables webpages to load almost instantly for mobile users.

Because of the visibility of Google’s AMP carousel, AMP pages may get more visibility in the mobile search results. However, I absolutely recommend that you avoid AMP unless your website serves audiences in low-bandwidth areas of the world. Google recognizes the need for AMP is in areas of reduced bandwidth, and for much of the U.S., Google has started to discontinue advantages for AMP.

Check out our high-level overview of AMP to investigate whether AMP might benefit your site or our quick-start guide to learn how to implement AMP.

To continue learning about mobile optimization tactics, read the Mobile SEO lesson in our SEO Guide and our All-In-One Mobile SEO & Design Checklist.

Server / HTML Optimization

With Google’s page experience update rolling out in mid-2021 and the introduction of Core Web Vitals, server-level optimization has become a priority. So I am adding this new section to our SEO Checklist to help you optimize your page experience at the server level.

27. HTTPS

Having a secure site (HTTPS) has been a minor ranking signal in Google for years, and now as part of the page experience ranking factor, HTTPS is no longer optional. If your site is unsecure (HTTP), users likely see a warning in their browser whenever they try to visit your site. So if you want traffic and rankings, you need a secure site.

Also consider moving your site into the future with HTTP/3. This protocol lets sites be better optimized for performance. Though it’s still technically in “draft” status, most browsers and content networks already support it. It’s coming.

28. No Intrusive Interstitials

Intrusive interstitials are pop-ups that get in a user’s way by covering up too much of a webpage soon after the user arrives. This no-no is on Google’s page experience list, so be sure your site avoids blocking the content with a pop-up or at least waits until 20–30 seconds after the page is opened.

29. Core Web Vitals

Three new metrics that Google calls Core Web Vitals now have some influence on the ranking algorithm. These metrics are LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), FID (First Input Delay), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift), which basically measure how easily people can view and interact with your webpage. Check your scores per page using the Core Web Vitals Report in Search Console among other tools.

For more details, read our Overview of Core Web Vitals, and to go in-depth, watch our on-demand webinar 3 Expert Tips to Improve Core Web Vitals.

30. Server Configuration & Maintenance

Regularly check your server looking for 404 errors, improper 301 redirects, and other errors. The many diagnostic reports in Google Search Console also point out errors to be fixed.

Server configuration also impacts site speed. As speed is a significant SEO issue, this is a major checklist item. Run Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool and pay attention to its recommended fixes.

Server maintenance, especially plugin maintenance, is important at many levels. For instance, you may have suffered a malware attack. In such cases, a hacker may have exploited a system weakness and installed hidden links or transfers to other sites into your code without your knowledge. Such attacks will harm your SEO efforts by poisoning your content and potentially harming people visiting your site. That makes safe browsing a priority even if Google decided to drop it as a page experience ranking signal.

To better understand Google’s recent update, read our CMO’s Overview of the Page Experience Update or download our complete page experience guide.

31. Site Speed and Performance

Check PageSpeed Insights in Google Search Console or use tools like GTmetrix.com to analyze and improve a website’s performance on desktop and mobile devices.

Google PageSpeed Insights tool

For more details on improving page speed, read our Page Speed Issues Overview for SEO.

Sitewide Optimization

Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (here’s a PDF of the most recent version) introduced the terminology E-E-A-T to the SEO community. A shorthand way of referring to experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness as the top indicators of page quality, E-E-A-T is now a pillar of search engine optimization.

A website as a whole should signal experience, expertise, authority, and trust while conveying subject relevance and optimizing for search engine accessibility. While your basic content strategy is a big piece of this (see the Content Optimization section, above), the following items help support E-E-A-T.

32. Contact Information

An explicit E-E-A-T signal is to have the business contact information, such as a phone number and physical address, clearly visible on the site. The search engines expect that a trustworthy site will provide this for users. Seriously, be easy to find.

33. Testimonials

Testimonials located on your site support your trustworthiness as a business and your value to your customer base. Testimonials are great for signaling your value to your human visitors, too!

Make sure your testimonials and reviews can be indexed, too. That means display them in text (not just images) that’s easy for search robots to digest. Schema markup allows review ratings to be displayed, extending SEO value by increasing traffic.

34. Privacy Statement

Another E-E-A-T signal, having a privacy statement on your site, helps establish trust. A privacy statement lets site visitors know what you’re doing with any data you collect about them.

EVERY site should have a privacy link in its footer to the privacy page. You are welcome to take our privacy statement from our site and modify it for your use.

In addition to bolstering your trust with Google and Bing, offering a privacy statement is a best practice. Privacy laws such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (aka GDPR) require many sites to clarify their privacy policies, have visitors opt-in to allow data collection, and more. For those not concerned with Europe, there are equally strong laws for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) that are expected to expand nationally, so this applies to you. Be sure to research the privacy laws where your site visitors are located and ensure your website complies.

35. Text Navigation

Verify that there is text navigation within your site. You want text links, which are more SEO-friendly than using images for menu items. Make sure you have text navigation at least on the bottom of the page if there aren’t any crawlable navigation links in the top menu. This is a search engine accessibility issue.

As a note, I strongly encourage you to use breadcrumbs with their schema markup throughout your site. And replace “Home” in that breadcrumb with a top-level keyword appropriate to your homepage (unless you sell homes). Having internal links that point up from lower-level pages gives an SEO advantage and is also a usability factor.

36. Sitemaps

Your site should have an HTML sitemap (see Google’s sitemap info). Every page should link to that sitemap, probably in the footer.

You should also have an XML sitemap that you submit to search engines. If you already have sitemaps, check and update them regularly to make sure they contain the pages that are currently active on your site.

You can learn how to create a sitemap for users and search engines to easily access all areas of your site in our SEO Guide.

37. Robots.txt File

The robots.txt file tells the search engine spiders what not to index. It’s important that this file exists, even if it’s empty. Also, make sure the file doesn’t accidentally exclude important files, directories, or the entire site. (This has been known to happen!)

One important item in this file is the locator for your XML sitemap file. We encourage you actually to have a reasonable robots.txt file (see our robots.txt file if you are an SEO — and read the top eight lines).

38. Linking Strategy

This section warrants way more than just a few sentences, but it should be noted as part of the SEO checklist. Your internal linking structure typically stems from your siloing strategy, which is vitally important to establishing relevance for SEO.

In addition, your inbound/outbound links should be part of an organic, natural strategy in compliance with search engine guidelines. As part of site maintenance, monitor your link profile regularly.

It is definitely worth mentioning that with Google promoting PageRank, the voluntary link became a sellable commodity. As such, a big-money business developed around selling links. Google has considered this spam for a long time, has enforced several penalties around it, and has built a great amount of technology to fight it. We can expect significant consequences for SEO consultants that still prosper by fabricating and distributing such links. See my post discussing Guest Posting for Links.

39. Static URLs

Complex, dynamic URLs can be a problem. If your site has any of the following, consider converting your URLS to static URLs:

  • More than two query string parameters
  • Dynamic pages that aren’t getting indexed
  • A lot of duplicate content getting indexed

You can also use mod_rewrite or ISAPI_rewrite as appropriate to simplify URLs. Rewritten URLs will appear to be static URLs. This tends to be a lot of work, but it is a surefire way to address this issue. You can also use the canonical tag to tell search engines which page is intended to be indexed as the canonical version.

40. No Spam Tactics

Make sure that your SEO strategy follows Google Webmaster Guidelines and Bing Webmaster Guidelines. If ever in doubt about any of your tactics, you can also refer to what Google recommends for SEO (PDF).

Note that many sites just have no idea why they do not rank. They have used cheap SEO consultants that perhaps have done cheap tricks to fool the search engines into thinking you deserve rankings. Such deceptive acts are spam, they may have hurt your site, and until repaired, you are not going to rank. Do not buy cheap.

Webmaster Tools

What’s an SEO without the tools to surface data that leads to analysis? Just remember, there’s a difference between data and wisdom. SEO tools can help you discover what’s going on with your site, but plotting an action plan requires an understanding of SEO.


Want to find out about Bruce Clay SEO services? For expert help with your website strategy, request a free quote today.


41. Web Analytics

No question — analytics data is important for SEO. Ensure your analytics are properly set up and monitor them regularly to find out if the keywords generating traffic are in your keyword list, and if your site is optimized for them. A ranking monitor (such as the one in our SEOToolSet) is also useful to track SEO changes across search engines.

Admittedly, this is more difficult without specific keyword-tracking data. Google long ago decided that it would suppress that data (but keep it for PPC) for privacy concerns. Now that argument is invalid, but the data remains lost to the SEO community.

Our SEO Guide unpacks the role of analytics in How to Monitor Your SEO Rankings.

42. Webmaster Tools Accounts

Webmaster tools by various names for Google and Bing give site owners insight into how search engines view their sites. These free tools collect data and provide essential reports on issues like what search queries bring traffic to your site, crawl errors you need to fix, and penalty notifications.

43. Manual Penalty Review

If a manual penalty has been levied against you, Google will report it to you within Google Search Console. Check the Manual Actions Report and the Search Console message center. Read more about dealing with manual penalty actions.

You can also find out if you’ve suffered a penalty from Bing. Review the Index Summary chart within the dashboard of Bing Webmaster Tools. If the number of pages for a given site is set at zero, you have been hit with a penalty.

Note that a manual action penalty is the kiss of death for your SEO efforts. Once you have one, you cannot see the consequences of your improvements until the penalty is lifted. And a search engine never forgets … a penalty can last for months, even after repair.

44. Algorithm Updates

If your site is running Google Analytics, use the Panguin Tool to check your traffic levels against known algorithmic updates. If you see big drops or rises in search referrer traffic that coincides with known algorithm updates, or you receive a manual action notice from Google, you may be affected by a penalty. Read more about penalty assessment and recovery.

Google changes its algorithm all the time, much to the dismay of SEO consultants everywhere. Google results dances are simply not fun. RankBrain and machine learning — powered by artificial intelligence technology — are changing search results. While optimization for AI is not as straightforward as checking for traffic drops, familiarize yourself with the real impact of RankBrain and my advice on the shrinking of organic results in Google SERPs.

Closing Recommendations

This is a very high-level summary of the things you need to consider about performing SEO on your site. Many people only do what is convenient. Some work cheaply and get it wrong. Some SEO teams do not have management support. I wish that you would, please, download this Declaration of SEO: 6 Fundamental Truths To Live By ebook and share it with your company. It also comes with a video presentation. This is important if you are an SEO. Trust me.

Want more SEO tips? Use our SEO Guide and learn how to optimize your website step by step, including free tools.

Bookmark this SEO checklist for future reference. And if you found it helpful, please share it!

FAQ: How can I effectively optimize my website using the SEO checklist to improve search engine rankings?

Optimizing your website in the dynamic realm of online visibility is vital to unlocking better search engine rankings. Utilizing an SEO checklist is an effective way to ensure your digital presence is finely tuned for success. By delving into the core principles and strategies outlined in this comprehensive guide, you’ll gain expert insights that can help you achieve higher search engine rankings and attract more organic traffic.

From crafting compelling content that resonates with your target audience to employing savvy on-page optimization techniques, each step of the SEO checklist contributes to your website’s success. However, the journey begins with a deep understanding of your target audience. Researching their pain points, questions, and search queries forms the foundation for your entire optimization process.

Keyword strategy and research play a pivotal role in SEO success. Identifying focus phrases, analyzing search engine results, and recognizing featured snippet opportunities are some of the tactics that empower you to align your content with user intent. Moreover, optimizing your content’s structure and ensuring readability can enhance the chances of securing a featured snippet spot.

Website speed, mobile optimization, and effective use of heading tags are integral elements of on-page optimization. Employing structured data, enhancing user experience, and maintaining a user-friendly URL structure further improve your website’s overall SEO health.

Local optimization cannot be overlooked, especially for businesses with a physical presence. Claiming your Google My Business listing, implementing local schema markup, and obtaining local citations and links can significantly boost your local search visibility.

As search engines emphasize user experience, understanding Core Web Vitals and optimizing your server and HTML configuration become critical. HTTPS adoption, avoiding intrusive interstitials, and excelling in Core Web Vitals contribute to a seamless user experience, ultimately enhancing your site’s search engine rankings.

Finally, webmaster tools provide invaluable insights into your site’s performance. Regularly analyzing web analytics, monitoring manual penalties, and staying updated on algorithm changes ensure you stay on top of the SEO game.

Optimizing a website requires taking an exhaustive and meticulous approach with an SEO checklist. By applying these strategies and insights to your search engine rankings and building an online presence, this guide can help improve them dramatically and establish strong footing.

Step-by-Step Procedure for Effective Website Optimization Using the SEO Checklist:

  1. Understand your target audience’s pain points and search queries.
  2. Conduct keyword research to identify focus phrases.
  3. Analyze search engine results for keyword insights.
  4. Recognize and capitalize on featured snippet opportunities.
  5. Optimize content structure and readability.
  6. Focus on website speed and mobile optimization.
  7. Utilize proper heading tags for organized content.
  8. Implement structured data for enhanced search visibility.
  9. Enhance user experience and avoid intrusive interstitials.
  10. Optimize Core Web Vitals for a better page experience.
  11. Adopt HTTPS for a secure and trustworthy website.
  12. Claim your Google My Business listing for local optimization.
  13. Implement local schema markup to enhance local search visibility.
  14. Obtain local citations and links to boost local rankings.
  15. Regularly monitor web analytics for performance insights.
  16. Check for manual penalties in webmaster tools.
  17. Stay updated on algorithm changes and their impact.
  18. Optimize server configuration and maintenance.
  19. Maintain a user-friendly URL structure.
  20. Embrace webmaster tools to gain invaluable insights.

By following these steps meticulously, you’ll be well-equipped to optimize your website effectively using the SEO checklist and confidently improve your search engine rankings.

Bruce Clay is founder and president of Bruce Clay Inc., a global digital marketing firm providing search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media marketing, SEO-friendly web architecture, and SEO tools and education. Connect with him on LinkedIn or through the BruceClay.com website.

See Bruce's author page for links to connect on social media.

Comments (569)
Filed under: SEO — Tags: ,
Still on the hunt for actionable tips and insights? Each of these recent SEO posts is better than the last!

569 Replies to “The Always Up-to-Date SEO Checklist”

Thanks for the helpful content. I am glad you shared this SEO checklist with us.

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Thanks for sharing this list. However, there is an important concept that you have missed is the CRO in this checklist

I completely agree – effective keyword research is the cornerstone of any business. Content alone can’t attract the right audience without it. This blog post answers many questions. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I found your SEO content to be incredibly valuable. I’ve bookmarked your website and plan to incorporate your checklist into my upcoming SEO projects. Thank you, Bruce.

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Thanks Bruce

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I totally agree with all, especially that the title needs to grab the attention of the searcher and that the description is your sales pitch as to why the page should be clicked on.

This SEO checklist is a lifesaver! Thanks for breaking it down into actionable steps. It’s a must-have resource for anyone looking to boost their website’s visibility online.

Great piece of SEO content. I have bookmarked your site and will be using your checklist on my future SEO projects. Thank you Bruce.

awesome article thanks for posting.

Content and keywords are bloodlines of any SEO strategy. I personally believe that now links game has gotten weaken now and currently putting quality content and keeping social signals very strong so that your content gets viral and it starts building natural links.

Thanks Bruce,

I cant agree more, specially point 24. Mobile and Voice-Related Keywords, I found it’s being ignored by many SEO expert

The checklist is fantastic, and I will appreciate of your this kind of effort. And Want to add one more thing regarding the seo checklist that I will personally experience. That’s your content; yup, we optimize our article, but now in 2023, we need topical authority in our topic.

Thanks for sharing this in-depth seo checklist.

Thanks for sharing this Checklist. SEO helps establish your brand’s authority and reliability.

Thank you for providing such a valuable resource. I’m excited to implement the suggestions from “The Always Up-to-Date SEO Checklist” and watch my website climb the search engine rankings. Kudos to you for recognizing the need for an up-to-date guide in the ever-evolving world of SEO!

Nice and thanks for sharing this checklist.

nice article. I like the guidelines for SEO improvement of our websites

Excellent article! I’ve learned so much from this SEO checklist. The comprehensive list of optimization techniques and best practices is incredibly valuable for improving search engine rankings. The author’s expertise and attention to detail shine through, making this article an indispensable resource for anyone looking to optimize their website. Thank you for sharing this informative and actionable checklist that has empowered me to enhance my SEO efforts!

Yeah…This blog is most informative to newbies in the SEO

Hey Bruce Clay! I love this article and the Declaration of SEO: 6 Fundamental Truths To Live By ebook with its accompanying video presentation.

It’s an invaluable resource for any experienced or novice SEO, and I’m so glad you are offering it to your readers.

I agree that some SEO teams don’t have the management support they need to be successful.

Still, even if they have that support, they should also ensure they use their resources appropriately and get the best quality work possible.

This means ensuring that whoever is doing the work clearly understands what needs to be done and how to do it efficiently – no cutting corners or taking shortcuts.

Another essential point you make is the need for collaboration between departments.

SEO teams should not be working in silos – they should work closely with other departments, such as marketing, product, and development, to ensure that all efforts are integrated for maximum efficiency and success.

I also appreciate your emphasis on ensuring the website’s content is useful and valuable to its audience.

Content is vital for any successful website; if it isn’t helpful or relevant, users will quickly move on to something else with what they need.

Finally, measurement is an integral part of any successful SEO strategy.

It allows us to see what works and doesn’t and how to improve our strategies.

Amazing content. Keep up with the good work.

Wow, this is such an incredible SEO checklist resource. Thanks Bruce!

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Great article on SEO. SEO contributes to your authoritative voice in your field. Authority then leads to brand trust, which ultimately leads to brand loyalty

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I always follow these steps when I do on-page for my new website and my website ranking day by day progress. Keep it up, mate.

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It’s a great way to built traffic and increase the exposure of any website.

What you will get is a list of the most important dates for any SEO campaign. It will cover the basics from organic search engine optimization to paid search engine optimization.

I think I’d like to add that social media monitoring has become an increasingly important part of the checklist since you started writing it six years ago.

Now more than ever, brands shouldn’t just be reactive to social media mentions, or simply see it as a means of reputation management…but should structure their content strategy around addressing people’s pain points, which they air organically on social media. Social media can also uncover long-term trends and shifts in audience preferences – you just need to start gathering the data to form the insights….

Thanks Bruce Clay for sharing SEO Checklist. This is helpful in setting up the priority for SEO too. Appreciate this article, it’s a good one!

Useful information!! Thanks for the post!!

This is both informative and educational. It was extremely beneficial and expanded my knowledge. Thank you for your contribution. Except for the first point, which I believe is the most important, I agree with everything. Above all, your content must be relevant and useful to your readers. Furthermore, because most online readers today have the attention span of a spaniel, it must be written in an engaging style and get to the point quickly.

Thanks Bruce Clay for sharing SEO Checklist. This is helpful in setting up the priority for SEO too.

agree,

Nowadays the main factor is FCP and LCP which website is opened in under 4 second so according google algorithm google will push rank up on particular keyword. for example, visit Indglobal official website.

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cover a lot of crucial topics in this essay concerning the entire SEO process, which is nice.

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Great to see the inclusion of SItewide and Server Optimization on the checklist, many of us SEO persons miss it while optimizing big stuff we just outsee these or just ignore them, which later affects the site enormously.

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Thank you for sharing this useful information! I must mention that a big number of internet forums still accept do-follow connections. We’ve gone through some of the important methods for incorporating SEO into your inbound marketing approach from the outset.

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Many of checklist has been updated now but key factors are still like fundamentals.

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for crawling and indexing use google console right, and submit sitemap. definitely i use in my website.

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Thanks for share, which standard can we use to measure SEO, I mean every time we measure from a different SEO scan website the results will be different, can Google pagespeed be a reference?

Robert Stefanski

Hi Didi,
Thanks for your question! Page speed is one of the many metrics you can reference to measure SEO. In fact, there are over 200 factors that Google uses in its algorithm. (You can learn more about them here: https://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors)

You’ll want to identify which metrics are most important to your business, then measure and analyze those. Some of the more critical metrics include organic traffic, keyword ranking, SERP visibility, click-through rate, bounce rate, backlinks, page speed and conversion rate.

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According to industry experts, it’s recommended you revisit your keyword strategy on a quarterly basis and at least 3 – 6 months before any campaign or promotions.

Content optimization and on-page optimizations are the most important strategies to achieve high SEO rankings.

Thanks for sharing SEO checklist

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I always work on a checklist once my article is ready. I found some new points that I’ve never seen before.

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Robert Stefanski

Hi Varun,

Thanks for your comment! If you’re interested in SEO training, we recommend signing up for the Bruce Clay SEO Training & Membership program at https://www.seotraining.com. It’s the best way to get trained and learn what it takes to compete in the search results. We hope you’ll try it!

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When I optimize my business website, I’ll give more importance to optimizing the content. Because the content has a huge role in Google ranking. Once the content is optimized, I perform other on-page optimizations. This gave better results for my site.

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As a great SEO expert my main concern is to cover all basis of SEO’s and I do this by checking on page and off page check lists, I have done many different projects a local SEO site was also something I have done, and with that check list I have achieved good results.

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This is an amazing checklist Bruce. This is all one need to optimize a new website or even to analyze a website that needs complete optimization.

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This is the best and ideal checklist for SEO. Bruce Clay, absolutely thanks.

I agree with all points but probably just to emphasize the first point which I think is the most important. Your content must, above all, be useful and relevant to your readers. In addition it must also be written in engaging style and get to the point quickly because most online readers today have the attention span of a spaniel.

Thanks for sharing the article!

Great Job Bruce

I cant agree more on Mobile & Voice Search role, it needs to be highlighted with all SEO professionals.

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Off to share this post right now!

Hello,
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Great article! In my opinion keyword research and content is important for SEO.

Try to include some additional checklist to enhance your article, Differentiate the category based on the nature of end goal

Nice article I’m sure that following this checklist can help any one to rank higher

Thanks Bruce for the informative article

Thanx for sharing the SEO checklist keep updating it because we don’t know when search engine update their norms

I have never seen like this post about Keyword Research. I really needed something like this. Keyword research play a very important role in SEO and it will really helpful for SEO. Thankyou for sharing like this comment.

Thank you for sharing the SEO checklist.

Thank You for sharing this Useful content with us…..

Dude
I agree after reading this the blog posts designed to help you execute a comprehensive SEO audit on any site. The checklist also ensure that your images have accurate alt text that, if appropriate, includes a keyword for the page .Anyway thanks for sharing the topics . Keep rocking always

SEO checklist 100% correct. On-page seo is most important to the website.

Great, the above all checklists are seo on-page technics. Good post.

knowledgeable content

yes image optimization is one of the good thing to our website, but we want to use almost same size of the images but while using AMP our website is looking totally different in AMP version,
AMP version is not calculating in technical SEO its showing a lower ranking
but this a good checklist

Very informative article. This is a great checklist! Very helpful

As new businesses open up every day, the competition for the reader’s attention grows. You’ll be able to meet the specific criteria that search engines use to rank websites if you keep up with the latest SEO trends. Google makes hundreds of changes to its search algorithms every year. While the majority of the changes are minor, they could affect your search ranking.

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social media. Social media can also uncover long-term trends and shifts in audience preferences

A single checklist cannot cover all a company should do in terms of SEO and its website. However, this one comes close with over 40 SEO categories that will enhance how clients and search engines locate and utilize your site.

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This checklist is definitely used on my website, thanks.

Awesome post! – cheers Bruce !

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SEO is like a backbone for any business and I am glad you have cleared so many things quite efficiently.

Clear-cut explanation!
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Need to include Website’s SEO audit too. Its very important while doing SEO. Informative blog.

Seo is a practice to show websites on google SERP. Many tactics we are used to ranking higher in google search results. Unique content is always a king of natural work. With the help of content, we can boost our top pages through internal linking on keywords. Use a variation of keywords in content or web blogs for better search. Sometimes our website pages couldn’t rank higher but our blog shows in SERP. People do not use a specific query. They always search for different topics or phrases. Google is also a select your content according to a user search query. That’s why we use variation in content.

where i can see the main aspects of seo optimization?
like table

Robert Stefanski

Hi bachelorarbeit,

If you’re looking for information on main SEO topics, check out our free SEO Guide: https://www.bruceclay.com/seo/search-engine-optimization/

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Web optimization stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it describes the logic behind the placement of websites when you conduct a search on a specific internet search engine (like Google).

Thanks for sharing the checklist! Keep doing great work.

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Glad to come across this website. You have shared very useful checklist as you have covered all necessary points.

Great Checklist. Thanks for sharing. Will help me in my On-Page SEO.

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Hey Bruce! awesome content. It’s a great asset for us.

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Awesome guide yet again Bruce! Thanks.

Absolutely awesome checklist. Pretty much covers everything that one should look at for any website they are building.

Hey Bruce,

This is one comprehensive list. Thank you.

Content is king. Keywords are like the heart of any SEO strategy. Also, link building is very important and can help increase the juice of your website. The content is spot on and well delivered.

This is an awesome and comprehensive checklist. This is an important reminder for anyone when they review their strategies at any time.

As I am one of SEO beginner & this blog post really help me a lot in terms of SEO. which I include in my task. Great one

Nice post, many of important points you discuss in this post about the whole process of SEO.

Thank you so much for guiding us about SEO checklist. It will help a lot while performing any online content writing task. I don’t know about others but it is very helpful for me because provide Business Plan Writing Services UK. And it is very important to write a business plan according to SEO point of view. So that it will help the owner to rank better and quick.

Wow! I love your posts so greatly. You know how to excavate those hidden treasures in SEO.
The UI of the website is also very different and amazing for me.
I Really Enjoy it.

This is awesome. Bruce. Well put together and outlines everything that is needed for proper SEO.

Website optimization agenda that you imparted to us is truly sufficient and without a doubt assist us with excursion in SEO review. Keep it up!! also, much obliged for sharing.

This information was very useful and have a unique concept.Thanks for sharing this post with us.

This is the best information about SEO that I have came through. This post is very helpful for us, thanks for providing.

Great information shared. Thanks.

This is a comprehensive and exhaustive SEO checklist. I’m still on the fence about having duplicate content. Best list ever.

Hey!
This is good information

Thanks so much for sharing this checklist. This is very useful.

Learned new SEO Checklist. Thank you Bruce Clay

Thanks Bruce,

Was searching for a checklist and found yours very useful.

Thanks for sharing the SEO checklist. This information is valuable for me.

By breaking down your strategy and thinking about SEO checklist, it will be much easier to organize and execute your optimization plans.

I am always looking for ways to improve my SEO game and I found this post very helpful. You covered a lot of ground in terms giving advice on how best approach the whole process, not just writing content or structuring an article with keywords sprinkled throughout but also including links from other sites that may have expertise relevant enough others will want it too!

Social media all the way. That is how I promote my business.
Thanks for the tips.

A great SEO Checklist. Thanks for this great checklist. Everyone must use this for their website.

I think I’d like to add that social media monitoring has become an increasingly important part of the checklist since you started writing it six years ago.

Now more than ever, brands shouldn’t just be reactive to social media mentions, or simply see it as a means of reputation management…but should structure their content strategy around addressing people’s pain points, which they air organically on social media. Social media can also uncover long-term trends and shifts in audience preferences – you just need to start gathering the data to form the insights.

A great post outlining the best ways to improve a website from a user experience perspective. Thank you.

SEO checklist that you shared with us is really up to the mark and surely help us out in SEO audit. Keep it up!! and thanks for sharing

Hey Bruce, Amazing! I am glad you shared this SEO checklist with us. It is great help for me. I always forget some or other thing while checking for SEO. Keep share this type of information, Thanks.

Great blog here! Also your web site loads up fast!
What host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host?
I wish my web site loaded up as quickly as yours lol

Robert Stefanski

Hi SEO Freelancer,

We host our website on WordPress. We make it a priority to ensure our site loads fast! You can optimize your website to load quickly too. Here’s a good place to start: How Fast Should My Webpage Be and Why Should I Care?

Wow, I’m impressed! You’ve created a great SEO checklist. Your writing explores each item in detail and is very helpful.

thanks for the valuable information.

Great post!! It’s helpful for me. These SEO strategies will really have an impact on our website. Thanks for sharing!!

This blog is beneficial as it has given me numerous ideas for my next blog, along with practical examples.

Wow! Great in depth guide with so many details. I love how you went into things step by step. Great piece.

Nice SEO Checklist. Will definitely add some new points to my SEO Checklist.

Thank you for sharing an article on the SEO checklist. It’s really helpful for doing my work efficiently.

SEO is one of the most important aspects of marketing strategy, but it can be confusing to know where to begin. But This article gave a great overview on what SEO is and how you can get started with implementing it for your business. Keep it up. Really loved it from top to the bottom.

Enjoyed reading the article above , really explains everything in detail, the article is very interesting and effective. Thank you and good luck for the upcoming articles. Content and keywords are bloodlines of any SEO strategy. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an evolving discipline. It’s rooted in both best practices and trending strategies. This is why having the latest information on hand is vital when you’re optimizing website content to be found in search. I think I’d like to add that social media monitoring has become an increasingly important part of the checklist since you started writing it six years ago.

Do we need to focus on ad instead on seo

Robert Stefanski

Hi Creative Solutions,

Your situation determines your approach on what to focus on. Ads provide a more instantaneous traffic source, can be targeted, and are generally expensive. They are great for launching a new product and for getting early conversion data by keyword. SEO is a better long-term strategy since the ongoing costs are much lower. In some cases, it may make sense to focus on both.

Thanks,

Great checklist helped me a lot … thank you for posting.

This is a great list and I found a lot of useful information. I believe as long as you are producing fresh and quality content and applying the right techniques, rankings are bound to happen.

Great information for experts in this field. But why they miss off page optimization in the checklist. Still many of the SME doing off page acitivity to build their backlinks

Thank you for sharing this informative post. This is very insightful. I can definitely use it for my website

Very useful and informative.. SEO has a very important facts on On-page. will follow this rules. Can you tell , which SEO tool is good and user-friendly.

Robert Stefanski

Hi Ashitha,

If you’re looking for SEO tools, we recommend starting with SEOTOOLSET®, our powerful suite of software tools. Learn more at https://www.seotoolset.com/tools/

Danke. Es ist wirklich hilfreich. Gibt es auch ein Blog über Lokales SEO?

Robert Stefanski

Hi wirschreiben,

Yes, we do have a blog post about Local SEO. Check out Bruce’s Checklist for Local SEO.

Great work! Thanks for sharing the top SEO checklist.

Finally found the best SEO checklist. Thanks for this in-depth guide. Appreciate the hard work.

This list is fantastic thank you. Some tips are obvious but some I never even thought of until I read this article. Plus the things I did know are missing a few finer details so appreciate the in-depth explanations.

Hey, thank you for this checklist. It works well for me.

This SEO Checklist is a collection of resources to help me to get my website onto the first page of Google.

The ultimate SEO checklist that will help me to drive more success in SEO. Thanks for covering best practice strategies and tasks that we need to know about SEO.

Hey bruce, nice article buddy. Having this kind of SEO checklist handy is very useful for newbies and intermediate bloggers. This would definitely help new seo learners like me..

Awesome Bruce! thanks for the checklist.

This is a comprehensive SEO checklist. Thanks.

Valuable and informative tips related to the SEO checklist. Well, I am also dealing with the SEO on regular basis. This is really an amazing list for me. Hope to use your list details :) Thanks

Great article, SEO has a very important facts on On-page.

A very helpful checklist for Search Engine Optimization, thanks for valuable stuff.

Great SEO checklist. Highly recommended for good SEO results.

Perfect SEO checklist. Thanks for this in-depth article. I will share it with my SEO team.

Thanks for giving a hint on SEO. Will try for my website.

This is really good advice. Do yo have a pdf with all this information ?

Robert Stefanski

Hello,

For now we have decided not to publish the SEO checklist in PDF format. Because SEO is always changing, the information must stay up to date and is reviewed/edited often. We recommend you bookmark this page and check back frequently for the latest information.

Thank you!

Thanks for sharing the top SEO checklist, I can definitely use in my website.

Its really a great post! Thanks for sharing

Best seo content company in delhi

Great Article. However you can add two more things in the local optimization section for SEO Checklist that is Guest Posting and Blog Commenting. Keep up the great work of providing valuable information to your readers.

Good article with in-depth knowledge! Thanks for updating the checklist in 2021.

Web optimization represents Search Engine Optimization, and it depicts the rationale behind the positioning of sites when you play out a hunt on a specific internet searcher (like Google).

So, SEO can be characterized as a computerized promoting methodology that helps increment the amount and nature of the traffic to your site.

The streamlining a piece of SEO involves a progression of steps that you can take to rank higher on Google and hence get free natural traffic.

What a fabulous article on SEO checklist. Short and precise. I especially loved the insider tips! Very helpful.

Substance and watchwords are bloodlines of any SEO technique. I for one accept that presently interfaces game has gotten debilitate now and as of now putting quality substance and keeping social signals solid so your substance gets viral and it begins building normal connections.

It is really a very good article. SEO requires a best foundation without knowing we can’t be in Google.

I want to say wow to your blog. This is a high standard SEO checklist. You have explained each part precisely and to the point. I appreciate your step-by-step approach. Your explanation makes this material accessible for a wide audience. Your blog helped me to improve myself in many ways thanks for sharing. I have bookmarked more article from this website. Such a nice blog you are providing.

Please update me about new blogs.

Must-have check list
Thanks for sharing this wonderful article, Bruce

Your articles are always awesome. Your SEO tricks and checklists are really great for me.
I like your SEO strategy.

The website loading speed is amazing. It sort of feels that you’re doing any distinctive trick. Moreover, The contents are masterwork. you have performed a excellent activity in this matter!

I think I’d like to add that social media monitoring has become an increasingly important part of the checklist since you started writing it six years ago.

Paula Allen

Birds: Making sure your content can be easily shared in social media is on our SEO checklist as social sharing can amplify your reach.

Great points you have mentioned, and I personally do feel Header tags are very important in SEO.

Thanks Bruce,
why didn’t I see this before ;(

Thanks Bruce,

I cant agree more, especially point 24. Mobile and Voice-Related Keywords, I found it’s being ignored by many SEO expert

Schema markup is important in nowadays and others seo tactics will helps to improve website rankings

Your checklist is very informative. All the points you mention are important, but in my opinion keyword strategy is the most important of all of them.

This huge for me, grateful to you!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is truly a great and useful piece of info. I am glad that you simply shared this useful information with us.
Please keep us informed like this. Thanks for sharing.

Great post. Thanks for sharing SEO checklist with us. It is very useful for us.

informative, great content, designing is an art, narrating that process is good and healthy, this checklist is helpful when designing all

Great points and checklist. Thanks.

Thanks for sharing such an informative SEO checklist with us. Could you please help me in creating a knowledge graph for my companies.

Yup. Mobile is the new leader and it will continue to take ground. We can’t ignore the realities of mobile. you wrote a great article, it’s a good one!

SEO is not so easy these days. Need to put in a lot of hard work.

It is really a very good article. SEO requires a best foundation without knowing we can’t be in google.

This is the best checklist for SEO

I mainly forget image optimization. Now with this checklist, I believe I will work perfectly.

A well-defined SEO checklist that everyone should have.

A very well refined SEO article! Excellent tips. Highly recommend this article to SEO students and owners of small businesses looking to optimise their website.

Really useful food for thought. Thanks so much Bruce

Thanks for the info, Bruce! Your SEO Checklist is awesome.

Good post with in-depth knowledge!
Thanks for updating the checklist in 2021.

your blogs always helpful. Thanks for providing this check list.

Thanks for the evergreen SEO checklist which definitely helps beginners like me to optimize the post pages according to On-page SEO.

This is nice information for SEO like on-page optimization, off-page optimization, and go to SEO for over a website

Great information shared by you on SEO Checklist which is very important. Thank you for it.

The main goal of content optimization is to make the content as useful as possible to the readers. And in the process, turn it more enticing to the search engines. By focusing on content optimization, you’re also giving Google the data it needs to learn more about your content. When Google can determine what your content is about, it will be easy for it to gather more information about your business.

It’s a great SEO checklist. Very useful for people like me who always love to do things their own. Looking forward to upcoming updates.

Search Engine Optimization is a great way to get website to rank on google search engine on specific keywords so that you can be relevant to your niche keywords. Nowadays Google is much interested in content, back then only back-links were enough to get your website ranked but now, you have to post some great quality content, like blogs articles or even web 2.0 submission. Unique content will be encourages by Google and your ranking will be promoted by submitting unique quality content.

In On-page SEO Checklist, we can also add these points

1. Include Your Keyword In Your URL: Your URL helps Google understand what your page is all about. And a keyword-rich URL can improve your organic CTR.

2. Use Short URLs: A recent analysis of 11.8 million Google search results found that short URLs rank best in Google.

3. Front-Load Your Keyword In Your Title Tag

Best checklist to follow
Thanks mate for this awesome post

This is such a great post.

Because i always work on checklist. Once my article ready. I found a some new point. Which i never see before.

Thank’s for article. Now i will always focus on all the SEO checklist

Thanks for sharing these wonderful SEO tips! Only a SEO professional can handle all the SEO checklist before any new website goes live. Make sure you choose the right company! Thanks again for this blog!!!

Thanks for sharing this SEO checklist. All Sitemaps is also important SEO Part. Sitemaps tell search engines where to find the content on your site so they can easily crawl and index your pages.

This SEO checklist is really very helpful, it helped me a lot in gaining the traffic.

this is really perfect and up to the date points of the SEO checklist. We should always follow the SEO checklist during the starting of any SEO Campaign to avoid mistakes. We are a Mobile App Development Company and this checklist helps us a lot.

This is one of the best SEO checklists i have read in the past times.

Thanks bro
the no of 32 is very helpful for me .thanks again for sharing this

This content is very helpful for me .when I read it helped me to learn about SEO. thanks for sharing

Thankyou for Sharing this amazing content with us. keep sharing and posting. you are very good writer

I’ve read a lot of SEO guide and really spent a great amount of money, learning SEO basics. But this guide, really outrank them all. Keep sharing quality info.

You guys are doing a great job at keeping this SEO content up to date! Thank you.

This is a great checklist! While you’re right in saying that none of these could ever really be comprehensive, I think it’s an important reminder for anyone when they review their strategies at any time.

Hello Bruce Clay, Thank you so much for share the complete and detailed blog on the SEO checklist. I have definitely bookmarked this for future reading.

Thank you so much for the detailed information regarding SEO. I am sure this article will guide many of the beginners throughout their projects.

I dnt understand we consider Content freshness as what? While anything we are covering has already been covered. I think rather than fresh content we can work on the content presentation, how you present content. Look, 10 people trying to explain the same topic, but only 1 person will be able to convince a layman, why? How he is presenting and making it easy to understand makes the difference.

Content and keywords are bloodlines of any SEO strategy.

This is a very complete and detailed SEO checklist. The thing that makes it interesting is that you have categorized the checklist into multiple categories like on-page SEO, mobile SEO checklist, etc.

This checklist was straight fire! I have definitely book marked this for future reading and any updates you make. Thanks for the breakdown on the robot.tx file!

I really liked this detailed blog covering all aspects of SEO Checklist. It contributed a lot to my website’s mobile optimization process. Thanks a lot for sharing this to all :)

very good and helpful article

tanks dear bruce
Content and keywords are bloodlines of any SEO strategy.
I personally believe that now links game has gotten weaken now and currently putting quality content and keeping social signals very strong so that your content gets viral and it starts building natural links. very good

Mobile is the new leader and it will continue to take ground.

Thanks for this seo checklist

Thanks for sharing this informative post! i must say that A large number of online forums still allow do-follow links.

Hello Bruce, A good piece of SEO content. Having this checklist handy will be a great help so that I don’t miss any important points. Keep Posting Keep Inspiring!

A good piece of SEO content. I have bookmarked your site and will be using your checklist on my future SEO projects. Thank you.

This is a great checklist! While you’re right in saying that none of these could ever really be comprehensive, I think it’s an important reminder for anyone when they review their strategies at any time.

Hey Bruce, I am glad you shared this SEO checklist with us. It is great help for me. I always forget some or other thing while checking for SEO.

Much obliged for disclosing that you need to guarantee your site is upgraded for what your crowd is searching for.

Hello Bruce,

This is a great checklist!

I am glad you shared this SEO checklist with us. Having this checklist handy will be a great help so that I don’t miss any important points.

Thanks so much for the Checklist! I do my best to create unique and original content, and I hope to see it affecting my ranking. I’ll be sure to keep on top of all of your tips!

Thanks, Bruce, Sharing such a great SEO checklist with us, 24 and 25 is my favourite, always loves to consume your content.

This is an amazing post. It covers all the fundamental elements needed to rank well. Will be keeping these in mind when creating and reviewing content.

Thanks for the wonderful checklist.

Thank you sir for such a great article. Keep Posting Keep Inspiring!

Hi,
Your post is awe-inspiring. I must appreciate the writer’s reasonable effort to add all kinds of SEO checklist in one blog. It’s an ultimate list. You covered all SEO checklist new updates. No doubt, your blog is beneficial for SEO experts.
Thank You!

Amazing SEO checklist I seriously loved it.

As an SEO beginner myself, I found this content really insightful. I can tell from my experience that, SEO can be overwhelming at most times. Thank you Bruce Clay for sharing the content. Also, I would like to add one more important aspect to SEO which is “Readability”. I have found it to be very important too.

Great Post. practical and effective techniques for doing SEO. Thank you for sharing such valuable information.

Dear Bruce Clay,
Excellent article on the SEO checklist. I really appreciate you Thanks For sharing & Keep it up.

Thanks for the helpful article of SEO checklist, I can definitely use it in my website.

Great Checklist. What i believe if someone follow these tips, can achieve good ranking in the search engines.

Thanx for this great SEO checklist. Really good for both advance and beginner bloggers.

One of the main thing that I found most of the sites don’t optimize for their CTA buttons CTA buttons should be placed at the right place but with the right text and colour as well.

Couldn’t miss out accelerated mobile pages but difficult to manage them for ecommerce sites

Technical seo, authority and relevance are the key factor for ranking in search engine. These things will be the ranking factor until google remains.thank you bruce clay.

Thanks for this SEO Checklist Bruce! This is a great help for my seo agency.
-Little Big Marketing

Thanks for sharing this great check list. I must say that a large number of old time websites (early 2000s) still allow do-follow links. Although I believe that this will not be ranking factors in a recent future for Google or Bing. Great Article!

Thanks for Sharing this Awesome SEO Checklist

Wow, best SEO checklist. I have gotten a lot of knowledge about this article. Thanks for the share.

Blogging is the power today in online world, also freedom of expression. This is the future. Thanks for this useful information.

Nice Article with a great checklist for SEO. Thank you.

This is a great checklist! While you’re right in saying that none of these could ever really be comprehensive, I think it’s an important reminder for anyone when they review their strategies at any time. SEO Strategies along with google algorithm and the contents made the website each page for tough keywords rank easier. Thank you for sharing an important article.

Thanks for sharing the information on content optimization.

This is a great checklist! I think it’s an important reminder for anyone.

This is a great checklist! I am glad you shared this SEO checklist with us. To have this checklist handy will be great help so that I don’t miss any important point. By the way, we followed this checklist for our manila website.

Bruceclay! Thanks for this but i have the question that, Do you suggest same checklist for doing Local SEO, or do you have a separate Checklist for doing that?

Paula Allen

We sure do! You can find the checklist for local SEO here: https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/local-seo-search-ranking-factors/

I was struggling with my website SEO. Thank you so much for such a detailed blog.

“For example, we refresh this very checklist regularly.”

The irony! If you did I think this grammar would improve. lolsies

Paula Allen

Mike: We absolutely do refresh this very checklist often. (Note that saying “this very” is a way of emphasizing it as the one you’re talking about; it’s not a grammatical error.)

Solid post. I was looking for the SEO checklist that i can use for my website. This article Covers everything. Thanks for sharing this detailed and informative blog post.

Thank you for sharing this amazing checklist. It covers all the points for SEO people.

The way you explain SEO strategy especially keyword research strategy and duplicate content section is very helpful for me as I am a beginner in this field.

Robert

Hello!
A couple of things we haven’t focused on… but will now. Top notch work and insights. Bang on from our experience as well.

According to the study conducted by Moz, Google’s display titles max out (currently) at 600 pixels.

Google announced back in 2009 that meta titles do not impact search engine rankings and are therefore not considered an SEO ranking factor. And while meta titles do not have a direct impact on the way a website will rank, the contents of these titles can greatly influence user the click-through rate.

Use a tool like SERP Pure optimization tool or the WordPress Yoast to preview meta titles and meta descriptions and keep them under the limit.

Keep up the great work!

As I ‘m a SEO beginner and this post really help me a lot in terms of SEO, which I include in my task. Great one

I don’t think link building will ever go out of style. I think Google will crack down a bit more heavily on the quality of the link, but I think it will always be a major part of SEO. You just need to focus on quality versus quantity when it comes to trying to build links. Great post!

Perfect SEO Checklist

Great post! I shared this with one of my team member who’s a web copywriter and he said this post is really well researched. Keep up the good work.

Great blog with a well organized and detailed checklist. Thanks for sharing.

Great SEO info! Well written, fully agree with the points you have mentioned.

Will update my SEO practice after reading this post.

Good updates, it’s a useful list.

I couldn’t have agreed more. About the words count in content, there are many opinions to this. Some pro bloggers say at least 2000, and some say 1200 words and above. Their presentation has made blogging look too hard. But from your explanation, I think there is sense in it. In all this, I love your listed SEO checklist, as they are well explained.

i definitely need to bookmark the seo checklist

’ve read a lot of SEO guide and really spent a great amount of money, learning SEO basics. But this guide, really outrank them all. Keep sharing quality info.

Great blog with a well organized and detailed checklist. Thanks for sharing.

Great check list. However, can you add examples where you can?

This is a solid check list. The only think missing is an infographics and a video summary for it to rank higher on uncle G

Thanks for sharing, It is really helpful to understand basic concept of SEO.

I thoroughly concur with all, particularly that the title needs to catch the eye of the searcher and that the portrayal is your attempt to close the deal regarding why the page ought to be tapped on. Incorporate the advantage that the guest will get from tapping on the page and a source of inspiration if space permits.

This one article covers every important point of SEO and provides the perfect checklist. I will definitely use this list for SEO in future.

This is the ultimate and perfect checklist for SEO. Bruce Clay, thank you for sharing this list.

Complete SEO Checklist!
I appreciate your effort that you made this checklist and that is helping us.

I was struggling with my website SEO. Thank you so much for such a detailed checklist.

WOw thats an amazing checklist for seo

Wow, a perfect checklist for SEO. Thank you.

Extraordinary post! I am a steady guest to your site and perusing web journals is my leisure activity. Be that as it may, today I felt great as the blog has brought up some incredibly legitimate focuses and it will also help me to get more SEO friendly and optimized blogs.

A wonderful guide! thank you so much!

Firstly i want to thank you!! This is really wonderful article about SEO tips! All these are common that every expert should follow and these are standard tips that a professional should keep on a eye! A professional can handle to set right all these checklist for a website.. Make sure you choose a right company! Thanks again for this blog!!!

An extremely careful piece on SEO. I trust you referenced everything! Content freshness is regularly the key, alongside backlinks. These two structure the center, and different things grow up around them.

Alex F5 Studio

Thank you for the detailed information. Let me now make a few observations concerning the some points.
Heading tags not for SEO. You need to use H1, H2, H3 to make a webpage accessible to all users.
Keyword tag сan hurt SEO of page as J. Muller said.
“Google will search its index and find the page containing that string in its meta keywords tag. It’s also a good location for misspellings of your key terms.” Both points make no sense.

“Copied content from another source, that’s a low-quality signal to search engines” that’s not true. All big news sources use the copied content from small (or local) news sources. Google recommend to use cross-domain canonical but Google the first one to ignore this canonical tag.
If website, that use the copied content doesn’t violate DMCA, there won’t be a problem.

Thanks for the list, I thought that being an old post it wasn’t updated and I see that it is.
Thanks for the article.

Paula Allen

SEO Barcelona: Yes, we regularly update and republish this article to keep the checklist current. Thanks for reading!

informative SEO checklist, I’m wondering how to add structured data in WordPress without the plugin.

Really I liked this SEO checklist guide, you have covered all points clearly

Thanks for the list! I haven’t seen the privacy statement on other lists. Great tip.

Can’t agree more with this checklist, some times it can be about doing the basics right!

Your content and the keywords placed throughout them will make the difference when it comes to SEO, always remember that these aspects are the blood of the site.

This is a really useful list of regular checks that should be done, thanks for sharing

Links are still crucial with rankings, but now it is mostly relevant links that give you the rankings. You have to be careful with the anchor text, make sure you are starting out with branded links and diversify them. I believe a brand new site has the advantage because they can build the links the correct way.

On page has been effective since the beginning and its clear understanding by users. I fully agree with all the information.
Thank you for this post this is really great and helpful for me.

Thanks for explaining that you want to ensure your site is optimized for what your audience is looking for.

Awesome post. Really helpful for both beginners and experts in SEO. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for sharing amazing information about seo for onpage

A lot of thanks to sir, I regularly follow your articles. It is a lot of help to those who are hungry with learning digital marketing and unable to invest in courses. I appreciate your social nature. Thanks for sharing such great information, Hope you will publish more.

A great SEO Checklist. Thanks for this great checklist. Everyone must use this checklist for their website.

yes, its good to go with the WordPress recently I was working on the project and i am not a tech person but belive the WordPress is an open-source platform and a very big community so because of this I didn’t find any difficulty.

it’s clear that on-site SEO is very important for the website its look like that there were so small issue but that small issue will impact so much of the website so better resolved first your technical seo and after that will procced on off page.

One of the most dynamic article those who wants to to learn and get updated about digital marketing (SEO) trends. Content freshness, Pageload speed, localization plays crucial rule in SEO in 2020. And ofcourse, get ready to take advantage of Artificial Intelligence (Chatbots, Marketing Automation, etc…)

Thank You for the wonderful insights!

Great checklist there, I also like to make use of related keywords to mix things up and prepare more natural-looking content. Short tail, long tail and LSIs all three.

I totally agree with all, especially that the title needs to grab the attention of the searcher and that the description is your sales pitch as to why the page should be clicked on.

A great SEO Checklist. Thanks for this great checklist. Everyone must use this checklist for their website.

Definitely a great post. Thanks for sharing the updated SEO checklist.

thanks, bruce clay for the wonderful information about seo. It is a very useful topic nowadays.

how to create a sitemap for site

Paula Allen

Hi Riya – We have several articles with help for creating a sitemap. Start with this in our SEO Guide: https://www.bruceclay.com/seo/create-sitemap/

Thanks, Bruce for sharing your knowledge it will very helpful in 2020 also.

Hope you will Publish more content like this

Hey, this SEO checklist is really very helpful for my website. Kudos to the author for sharing such a blog

Great post of SEO content. I have bookmarked your site and will be using your checklist on my future SEO projects. Thank you for sharing.

This is great information on SEO for experts or beginners to get started. Thanks for putting together!

Such a valuable post. You have covered all the essential and recommend checklist items for the SEO perspective. It really helps.

I totally agree with that proper keyword research are the foundation of any business. Many say content is the king however they fail to realize that content with proper keyword research would not attract right audience. This blog post clarifies many doubts. And thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I totally agree with this all point you mention in SEO checklist, It really plays important role at the time of SEO

I totally agre with these blogpost and I totally agree with all, especially that the title needs to grab the attention of the searcher and that the description is your sales pitch as to why the page should be clicked on. Include the benefit that the visitor will get from clicking on the page and a call to action if space allows.

Hi,
Valuable discussion for me. I have understood the concept of local SEO that you must target your local audience/niche for ranking purpose on Google. In terms of hosting providing business online, you have a mass audience in the world that you have targeted or people are getting services from all over the world. What would be your point of view in this case?

Really helpful SEO checklist. But I think SEO will be tougher in the future.

Thanks this SEO checklist is really helpful for me. My website audit score is proving after implementing your checklist points on my websites

Extensive and useful seo checklist… Great work man

You got to respect so extensive and exhaustive work on the SEO topic.

I’ve read a lot of SEO guide and really spent a great amount of money, learning SEO basics. But this guide, really outrank them all. Keep sharing quality info.

We did an on-page and off-page seo side-by-side and that’s how we got the result. It’s easy to fix the site and the titles and keywords, but it’s harder to make a good off-page SEO without links. Tnx.

Thank you for this valuable information! Quality SEO is always a meeting point between content and technique.

amazing checklist. totally agree with your points and thanks for helping us with these type of amazing articles.

SEO-checklist is very helpful for me. I am using it step-by-step and get my expected results. Thanks for sharing such a needful post.

I liked the length and breadth this blog has covered for the much-awaited SEO-Checklist from BruceClay. It helped a lot in Mobile Optimization of my website.

On-page optimization is like a base and link building will be effective if the base is strong. I think you should have a strong base to do effective SEO of your website.

nice tips, i will use this SEO checklist.

What a fantastic SEO checklist, Bruce. SEO is essential to get top in SERP. You have covers.every important point of SEO. This is exactly what I was looking for.

Hi Author,

Such an great post regarding SEO checklist. Thanks for such an post. Please mention something about canonical tag in next post. By the way i am an seo expert and it is such an great post for the beginners and expert as well.

Great points structure is so important. Nice checklist, very informative this is a great page to share

Perfect SEO checklist!

Thanks for sharing the detailed post. Really, most of the web developers don’t cater these things while developing websites and thus they have to make changes in future which are recommended by marketing experts. Keep sharing.

Great checklist there, I also like to make use of related keywords to mix things up and prepare more natural-looking content. Short tail, long tail and LSIs all three.

I just want to say this is a worth checklist that helps every Seo to build their SEO strategies.

This seo check list is updated, and that is why I comment here, thanks

Paula Allen

Sadia: Yes, thanks for noticing that we keep this updated. That’s why bookmarking the page is probably a better idea than keeping a hard copy. Change is a constant in SEO!

All of these SEO points are still valid for 2019. In short, stick with On-page methods, it will keep your web page rank for more time.

This one article covers every important point of SEO and provides the perfect checklist

Hey.

Thanks this SEO checklist is really helpful for me. My website audit score is proving after implementing your checklist points on my websites

Wow, Bruce what a well-written post on the always up to date SEO checklist. I am glad that I got so many things to learn about SEO from this post. But I am having one question can you please elaborate the structured data markup more briefly as i am very new to SEO. Also, I would like to learn more things about it. Thank You for sharing such an informative and interesting blog. Keep the frequency so that I can learn more new things.

Great SEO info! Well written, fully agree with the points you have mentioned.

Video optimization is considerably a new thing in SEO but it can give additional benefits to your readers. Some user don’t like to read the whole content. Video blogs can provide additional assistance and thus the user engagement increases.

This is a really useful list of regular checks that should be done, thanks for sharing.

Why not post an article about the working off page SEO as in these days it is a headache to do quality off page SEO.

Yes, always go for on-page SEO! Thanks

Wow, perfect checklist. Thank you.

Are backlinks still important in 2019 for seo.

Paula Allen

Asif: They contribute to a site’s authority and trustworthiness, which Google considers as part of its E-A-T quality factors. But backlinks must appear natural and come from relevant sites. We have a number of articles on our site with ideas for earning these types of links in a search engine-friendly way.

Solid checklist Bruce! Something most beginners can reference back to when starting out. Most of SEO is pretty basic but people tend to over-complicate things in the beginning and end up over optimizing a site.

This article covers every impressive and important point of SEO and provides the perfect Knowledge detail information . I will definitely implement this list for SEO in future keep more update thanks

Two of my website got ranked just with on-page seo. If you do the content optimization and perform proper research, you can easily outperform your competition. Now i don’t recommend Off-page techniques. These are good if you want short term results, but for long term, i’ll always recommend On-Page tactics.

Valuable and informative tips related to the SEO checklist. Well, I am also dealing with the SEO on regular basis. This is really an amazing list for me. Hope to use your list details :) Thanks

This is really a solid list of impactful SEO activities. If a beginner applies a few per section, I honestly don’t think they would be going too far wrong…

A lot of SEO folks neglect structured data as a very integral SEO strategy. In the future, a lot of SEO is not going to be about links and long-winding content alone. It would be a culmination of the Trust and Authority Google has transferred to your domain. SEO is now more about online user behaviour. Google simulates this at best by crawling your structured data to understand the purpose of your website and see if your website actually adds value to an actual human.

What a great SEO checklist, Bruce!

I’ve bookmarked this webpage & I thank you very much :)

After reading your blog, I have decided that I will definitely follow your instructions regarding how to keep up dating SEO Checklist.

Awesome list – almost warrants a day spent using this guide as a reference and working though each step bit by bit. No, actually, this DOES warrant a day of checking and updating !!

Nice points to check each step before start marketing for your website.

As SEO keeps updating almost every day, the learning process never stops. You can get doomed even when you follow all the checklist. These tips and checklists are superb though for any website.

A really thorough piece on SEO. I believe you mentioned everything! Content freshness is often the key, along with backlinks. These two form the core, and other things sprout up around them.

This is really perfect and up to the date points of SEO checklist. We should always follow SEO checklist during the starting of any SEO Campaign to avoid mistakes.

Your checklist is very informative. All the points you mention are important but in my thinking Keyword strategy is the most important in all of them.

I’ve read other blogs that have the same topic as yours and I think you forgot to include the responsiveness of a website, though your list is almost complete. But still, your post is very informative and I learned something from it. Glad that you shared this.

Thanks Bruce, great SEO checklist. We enjoy reading your blogs.

This is a really useful list of regular checks that should be done, thanks for sharing.

Thank you Very much for SEO Checklist One of the Best post I’ve come across with. Unique Contents are critical for better SEO, and It is also very beneficial for potential websites to rank naturally. Thank you for explaining the whole process in a detailed manner. Learned new tips and also much obliged for this article.

Thank you Paula for the answer to the subject!

Perfect Checklist for my website. I focus on unique content but I do not see results. How Much Does Linking matter for SEO now? Thanks

Paula Allen

Sam: There are lots of factors contributing to ranking. Links are one important signal of valuable content, but they must be natural. Don’t be tempted by link scheme offers. We have many articles on our website with ideas for earning links. Two to start with: https://www.bruceclay.com/seo/link-building/ and https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/50-ways-get-quality-seo-links/. Thanks for commenting!

Always a handy GUIDE to check things out :-)

Venkatweetz

Perfect Checklist for on-page. During the URL optimization, should I keep my URL in 100 characters? is that mandatory rule follow?

Paula Allen

Venkatweetz: There’s no “rule” or maximum length of a URL. But keeping URLs a reasonable length might affect: 1) how tidy your page results look in Google desktop search and Bing searches on desktop and mobile; 2) user experience; 3) your own convenience maintaining your site.

Sometimes the newer google update makes it very difficult for ranking factors. One of my website de-ranked during the recent google update. But i’m still trying to improve my content and provide better user experience. What are your recommendation on Comments? Does they help build your website authority ?

Paula Allen

Abdul: Focusing on improved content and UX is the best long-term approach. Bravo! As for comments, you have to weigh the pros and cons for your unique site. Relevant user-generated comments (such as these on our blog) can add depth to a site and increase its authority, especially if there’s two-way engagement. But you have to monitor and weed out the low-quality comments. You also need to make sure the extra content isn’t slowing down your page load speed too much. Hope that helps!

Hey! I’m Riddhi Shah and I have read your post about ‘the ultimate blog SEO checklist’ and found it really interesting. Building any website or blog takes research, hard work, and dedication. SEO plays a vital role to make a website stand out among the competition. Making an ultimate blog SEO checklist doesn’t mean to implement all ranking factors at once, but it means to implement all of the factors meant to help you gain traction in any niche, regardless of your skills. All the SEO checklist you have made up are amazing and informative. I have had a really good time reading this interesting post and would definitely like to read more such blog posts from your end in the future.

Amazing Checklist.
It covers all the fundamental elements needed to rank well.
I sure will be keeping these in mind when creating and reviewing content.

That is a really great post. I get many successful tips for optimization of my website.

But I have still confusion about page speed. Did page speed still a factor in search ranking on google?

Wow! tremendous Blog for those who want to make their carrier in SEO. This one article covers every important point of SEO

Thanks Bruce, great SEO checklist. We enjoy reading your blogs.

Thanks for providing the above information it was really helpful for us. I got to know that content optemisation helps in improving the ranking .

I’m not a pro on this …

That’s a lot of work … sob sob ….

Wow, is this ever a comprehensive and exhaustive SEO checklist. I’m still on the fence about having duplicate content. Obviously, stealing other people’s content is unethical and running location pages through a Find and Replace function to rank for specific local terms probably will catch up to you; however, from what I’ve read and watched, some Googlers and their support docs have expressed otherwise.

Great checklist for SEO. I definitely loved IT!!

Wow, the best list ever. Followed most of the points from cecklist. Thank you Bruce Clay

Thanks for updating the checklist in 2019. From my point of view better than backlinko site’s blog.

Thank you for the tips. Unfortunately, my site fell short after Google’s last update.

Perfect & complete list. I can’t remember a point which is not included in this list. In contrary, I learn something new

Insightful post. I appreciate your guidance on SEO. Keep posting so we remain updated. Thanks

Content is very important in SEO and SEO and provides the perfect checklist. Thanks for sharing this

Thanks for sharing this knowledgeable checklist with us.

You put a great effort to build a proper understanding of SEO checklist. It helps me to improve my website ranking and add something new in my knowledge.
Thanks!

Good updates, it’s a useful list.

This is a great checklist!
Keep up the great work!
Thanks.

looking good – thanks Bruce :-)

This is very comprehensive and no doubt super useful for reference anytime. Thank you so much!
Just a suggestion – It would be great if you can actually provide a condensed checklist format that fits in a single sheet like A4 that we can print it out and have it handy.

Hey!
Excellent article. Thanks so much for sharing this checklist. This is very useful.

This is worth checklist that every SEO enthusiast look into this and this might will help in their strategist

Paula Allen

Rick: It’s new! We’ve updated this article many times since the first version to keep it up to date. I haven’t wanted to remove all the comments, though, because they add so many readers’ perspectives to the conversation. Sorry for the confusion.

Yes, after the recent Mobile first update, website speed plays a huge role in your ranking. If you are unable to optimize your website for mobile, I recommend using AMP.

Regards

Great piece of SEO content. I have bookmarked your site and will be using your checklist on my future SEO projects. Thank you Bruce.

Hey!
Excellent article. Thanks so much for sharing this checklist. This is very useful.

We regularly miss out on a number of these checkpoints. Thanks for sharing and enabling us do the right job with our seo tasks.

SEO is most good technical way to promote your website in any search engine. Here you have shared excellent article and information about SEO checklist. This techniques should helpful for us to get rank first. Thanks for sharing.

Nice post, many of important points you discuss in this post about the whole process of SEO.

Hey Bruce, I am glad you shared this SEO checklist with us. It is great help for me. I always forget some or other thing while checking for SEO. To have this checklist handy will be great help so that I don’t miss any important point. I mainly forget image optimization. Now with this checklist, I believe I will work perfectly.

Thanks for sharing the top SEO checklist, I can definitely use in my website.

Thanks for sharing this informative post! i must say that A large number of online forums still allow do-follow links. We’ve detailed some of the key tactics involved in integrating SEO into your inbound marketing strategy from the start.

Thanks for helpful article!

Yup. Mobile is the new leader and it will continue to take ground. We can’t ignore the realities of mobile.

Appreciate this article, it’s a good one!

Thanks Bruce,

I cant agree more, specially point 24. Mobile and Voice-Related Keywords, I found it’s being ignored by many SEO expert

Content and keywords are bloodlines of any SEO strategy. I personally believe that now links game has gotten weaken now and currently putting quality content and keeping social signals very strong so that your content gets viral and it starts building natural links.

This is a great checklist! While you’re right in saying that none of these could ever really be comprehensive, I think it’s an important reminder for anyone when they review their strategies at any time.

I think I’d like to add that social media monitoring has become an increasingly important part of the checklist since you started writing it six years ago.

Now more than ever, brands shouldn’t just be reactive to social media mentions, or simply see it as a means of reputation management…but should structure their content strategy around addressing people’s pain points, which they air organically on social media. Social media can also uncover long-term trends and shifts in audience preferences – you just need to start gathering the data to form the insights.

Rhys McKay, Content Specialist – Zag.ai

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