Use Our Comprehensive SEO Checklist to Ensure your Website Meets Google's SEO Guidelines
Want to boost your search engine result rankings?
You have to have a plan. You have to make sure that your plan is both systematic and methodical.
Otherwise, it's too easy to operate your website in a way that ensures you continue to struggle with search engine traffic.
If you want to make sure that your website has a fighting chance of ranking well on Google, Bing and other search engines, please follow the checklist below.
Did You Implement HTTPS for Maximum Site Security?
Did you know that Google actually gives you a ranking boost if your complete website uses the secure HTTPS protocol?
Not only does this benefit your website because it protects your visitors’ information; it also can give you a competitive edge in your search rankings.
It's fairly easy to implement. Just go to your host’s website and look up their HTPPS system to see how you can switch your website over to this security protocol.
Is Your Website Mobile-Friendly?
The Internet is swiftly moving over to mobile. In fact, more than 50% of people view websites through mobile devices like tablets and phones instead of their desktop or notebook computers. This is a massive change.
Unfortunately, websites that are optimized only for desktops often look lousy on mobile devices.
To help push online publishers to accommodate mobile traffic, Google is giving automatic search engine rank boosts to mobile-friendly websites.
This is a low-hanging SEO fruit that you shouldn't overlook. It's fairly easy to implement, and it helps you serve your customers better by sparing them the time of zooming in and tapping around your website.
Does Your Site Load Very Fast?
Google is aware of the fact that when most Internet users have to wait for a site load, most of them click the Back button. This makes the Google search experience more difficult.
It is no surprise that Google is effectively penalizing slow-loading sites by giving faster-loading competitors an advantage.
Test your website to make sure that all elements are optimized and make sure that your page loads as fast as possible regardless of the kind of browser or hardware your users use to visit your site.
Is Your Site Targeting the Right Keywords?
You have to make sure that your website appears on search engines for keywords that are actually used by your customers.
A lot of businesses struggle because they rank really well for keywords that nobody really uses. Those keywords are useless.
Make sure that you get your website in front of the right eyeballs by targeting the types of search terms your audience members actually use.
Is Your Site Structured around Your Keyword Targets?
Just because you have the right keyword targets doesn't mean that your website will rank for those keyword targets.
With everything else being equal, sites that are properly structured around the right keyword targets tend to have a competitive edge over websites that target the right words but are structured in a very sloppy way.
You want to make sure that Google not only indexes your website for the right target keywords; but it indexes as many of your pages as possible and ties them to the right set of keywords. This requires the right structure.
Do All Your Pages Maximize Your Search Engine Visibility?
It is not uncommon for large websites to optimize only a tiny fraction of their pages for search engine visibility.
The people behind these websites assume that these optimized pages are “entry” pages, which visitors would then click through to check out their other pages.
This is too much of an assumption to make. You’re leaving a lot of money on the table by optimizing only a small fraction of your total number of web pages.
Instead, maximize your traffic potential by optimizing all your pages.
Remember that people use a myriad of keywords to find your site. Use this golden opportunity presented by page-by-page optimization to maximize search engine visibility.
Do All Your Page Elements Target Your Keywords?
It's easy to optimize a page for certain keywords by using the right title, text, and meta description. However, you should go beyond these.
You should also pay attention to your tags, your categories, and your image tags.
Make sure every single element of each page in your website maximizes your search engine visibility.
Are All Your Site’s URLs Optimized for Search Engines?
In recent years, Google’s algorithm has changed quite a bit. As recently as five years ago, it was perfectly okay to load quite a number of words in a page’s file name. This is, of course, reflected in the URL of that page.
Google's recent changes favor shorter file names. You should do the same. Your title and your file name should be short, punchy, and mentions the top keyword for that page.
Do You Get Backlinks from Niche-Specific Sites?
It’s not enough for your website to get backlinks. You have to get backlinks from the right websites. The more niche-specific and authoritative these sites are, the higher you will rank.
Do You Link to Your Site the Right Way?
Avoid the tendency to get as many links as possible while using the same anchor text.
Evade the temptation of getting links from totally unrelated websites.
Instead, you should get links only from authoritative sites. You have to make sure that you link to your site in a variety of ways, not just using your target anchor text.
You also should link using authoritative content or guest posts.
Hire Us to Implement the SEO Checklist Above
We are a full-stack SEO company that uses the checklist and more to gain a competitive advantage for our customers. Not only do we use our own tools, but we build high-quality links the right way.
Contact us today so we can help you achieve your online visibility goals.
