Tackle your optimization problem through this complete SEO Checklist. It allows you to manage your SEO process and rank at the top of Search Engine Pages. This brief SEO checklist explains the best SEO practices, allowing you to know problems that require immediate attention and giving tips to resolve them. Below is our checklist that is equally advantageous for beginners and SEO experts.

Steps in the Complete SEO Checklists 

• Website Launch Checklist

• Keyword Research Checklist

• On-page and Content Optimization Checklist 

• Technical SEO Checklist 

• Link Building 

• PR outreach 

• Local SEO Checklist 

• SEO KPI tracking 

The above checklist is crucial to sort out your optimization problems. However, you also need to learn Google Ranking Factor 2022 to learn more about SEO and how you can rank your website with legal SEO practices. 

You also might need some tools to implement it effectively. Most of them are free of cost, such as

• Google Search Console 

• Google Analytics 

• Page Speed Insights 

• Mobile-Friendly Test 

As the SEO checklist is aimed at SEO power suite users. It will let you know how to perform all steps successfully. The SEO tools include are:

• Rank Tracker 

• Website Auditor 

• SEO Spyglass

• Link Assistant 

Take your time with each step and see the magic.

1. Website Launch Checklist

By paying attention to these SEO aspects from the outset, you will save yourself trouble as your site grows.

Use HTTPS Protocol 

One should use secure encryption for all websites, specifically for tracking transactions and gathering sensitive user data. Sometimes webmasters experience technical problems while switching their websites from HTTP to HTTPS. A common issue is the use of insecure HTTP content on secure HTTPS pages.

To check if there is any mixed content issue in your website open a website auditor and visit site Audit > Encoding and Technical factors section of WebSite Auditor.

Bonus Tool: A healthy SSL is a must to protect your user information from hackers and Google also recommends you to use a valid SSL certificate. You can use the SSL Checker Tool to validate your SSL certificate instantly. 

Set Your Domain Name as Canonical  

Google Considers www and non-www versions of the same website as two different pages, which can lead you to face the duplicate content problem. To avoid this issue, set the main domain version using the redirect method. However, make sure that the search engine shows your domain in the search results. Find the redirects section and verify if you have set up a redirect to the main version of the domain. For this purpose you can use ETTVI’s Canonical Tag Generator.

Select SEO friendly Content Management System 

A content management system (CMS) simplifies the way of building websites. Sometimes it can bring SEO challenges like auto duplicate content generation, major on-page elements customization, a limited set of functions, and BAD URLs. Therefore, make sure you are choosing a good CMS. 

Apply SEO Friendly URLs  

Your website’s URL is the first thing Googlebot crawls on a new page. At the same time, Bad, Clumsy URLs will embarrass you in front of users. Therefore, generating SEO-friendly URLs will be advantageous.

To make URLs SEO-friendly:

• Add keywords to URLs that will appear more relevant to both users and search engines

• Ensure that the URLs do not exceed 75 characters

• Avoid symbols in URLs, i.e., use static URLs. A dynamic URL poses a problem for users and search engines

To resolve the long and dynamic URL issue we recommend you to use URL Rewriter Tool. In this way you can convert your lengthy URL into an SEO  friendly URL. 

Set up Analytic Tools 

To keep track of your website’s visitors, add a tracking code of Google Analytics and cross-check your website in Google Search Console. Although you can use other traffic counters for the purpose, Google’s products are highly used and recommended.

Synchronize your SEO tools with Search Engine and Google Analytics 

Sync GA with SEO PowerSuite. Soon after the application extracts the data from Rank Tracker, Website Auditor, and SEO SpyGlass, you will see landing pages, Backlinks, and keywords stats.

Organize Your Website Structure

The hierarchy of website pages is important for the SEO ranking potential. The clearer the site structure you have, it will be easy for your visitors to navigate. Additionally, it assists crawlers in index pages quickly.

A good site structure is not deeper than three levels, and it provides easy access to all website links from the homepage within three clicks or less.

Your site structure needs to be revised at every stage of development and should be planned meaningfully. Be sure to follow these steps:

Use the Visual Sitemap

With WebSite Auditor, you'll find an integrated Visualization tool that will help you to see all your pages at a glance, identify the most prominent ones, and reconstruct your site accordingly.

In addition to detecting orphaned pages, it allows for checking which pages are getting the most page views, planning new pages, and recalculating PageRank flow. That leads to the next step.  

Bonus Tool:  A Visual Sitemap can help you to learn about your PageRank flow but XML Sitemap allows crawlers to understand website structure and ensure that all urls are discovered by crawler. XML Sitemap is more important than visual sitemap. You need a XML Sitemap Generator to ensure your website’s indexing.

Analyze the Click Depth of your pages 

You can view this factor in the google site map and try to ensure your important pages are only 2-3 clicks away from home pages. 

Optimize Internal linking 

Internal links are underestimated, but they are very crucial. They influence session time page views per session. Interlink helps improve the structure of websites. In addition to that, anchor text helps the search engine understand the page.

Furthermore, anchor texts give search engines another way to detect what the page is about by helping them better understand it. Generate anchor text with Anchor Text Generator. Watch your anchor diversity, link your pages, make suggestions at the end of your blog posts, and watch Google Analytics to see how your main metrics for user behaviour improve

You can not deny the importance of keyword research when it comes to SEO. They help you determine the rank of a website. Below is the list of universal steps regarding keyword research.

• Find high ranking keywords

• Know your Organic Competitors 

• Look for new keyword ideas 

• Select profitable keywords 

• Find long and short-tail keywords 

• Identify the keyword difficulty 

• Mind keyword intent 

• Map your keywords to the content 

Find High-Ranking Keywords

Keywords determine all of your website activities. To measure the success of your general SEO strategy, you should track organic rankings for your target keywords.

Identify Your Organic Competitor

Track down your organic competitor and comprehend their SEO strategies to work on your own. Your natural competitors are not genuine competitors that offer an item or services like yours. Organic competitors are those sites that rank for similar keywords and subjects as you do. You want to benchmark your competitor by major SEO markers, track their activities, and not let them beat you out of the SERP.

You can use different tools to search for your organic competitors. You can find your competitors by Keyword Competition checker tool available at  ETTVI’s Platform. The tools you are using will show you the common keywords in all the competitor sites. You can track and monitor their performance alongside your webpage. 

Look For New Keyword Ideas

By researching new keyword ideas, you expand your website to add more pages that will drive organic traffic from Google. Researching keywords involves thorough competitor analysis, which allows businesses to create their uni value propositions.

There are several places where you can find new keyword ideas, including Google Autocomplete, Google Ads Keyword Planner, and Bing Autocomplete. Manual keyword research may take a lot of time, so Rank Tracker combines 24 keyword research methods into one module, so you can discover keywords in a matter of minutes.

When you select the keyword suggestion wizard, you can choose a keyword research method to build up your keyword list. For instance, you can use the YouTube Keyword Suggestion tool, Amazon Autocomplete, etc., for optimizing different types of content. By adding a primary keyword, the tool will access a database of hundreds of terms and give you their statistics (search volumes, keyword difficulty, organic traffic estimates, CPC, and PPC costs) to determine their potential ranking.  

Select Profitable Keywords

When the tool collects all the new keywords for you, choose the most profitable keyword wisely from the suggested list. Some tools provide the option to filter your desired keywords. 

Find Long and Short-tail Keywords

The length of the keywords can be used to filter (although this may not be the only factor that differentiates long-tails from short-tails, but still). It is a good idea to include 2-4-word phrases in your keyword list. It's not uncommon for a single keyword to be too generic (e.g., "cars"); too long a phrase may not attract enough traffic (e.g., "where to find a red Ford with white doors in Seattle").  

Identify the Keyword Difficulty 

Knowing the ease or difficulty of ranking for a keyword will help you set realistic expectations and prioritize the opportunity.

For a rough estimation, use the Keyword Difficulty score in Keywords Explorer.

Do not rely entirely on this. Make sure you check the results for things that might indicate a hard keyword to crack, like:

• Backlinks from high-ranking pages

• Predominantly big brands in the top 10

• Sites with high topical relevance

Mind Keyword Intent 

For sure, keyword intent is one of the most important things in mapping keywords and creating different pages. Differentiate keyword intent as:

• Informational intent

• Investigational intent

• Transactional intent

• Navigational intent

Depending upon the intent behind your targeted keywords, you need to decide what kind of pages you want to create: Help Page, Product Page, Blog Page, Service Page, and White Page. 

Map your Keywords to the Content 

Once you identify your targeted keywords, the next step is to map or pair these keywords to the pages linked to your website and identify the gaps. 

The most important thing here is to make sure that you are targeting the right pages with the right keywords. The outlined process in this SEO checklist 2022 will help you to power your strategy. 

Ask any expert SEO, and he will tell you that one-page content is one of the promising factors for the high ranking of your website. Update your content regularly and Optimize CTRs, and you will find out a bird’s eye view of your content strategy.

Below is the holistic approach for you to work out.

• Rearrange longer and missing titles 

• Optimize meta descriptions 

• Diversify text-only content 

• Add structured data 

• Work on E-A-T of your website 

Rearrange Longer and Missing Titles 

Optimization of title tags is an important component of SEO. The title tags are the first thing that any SEO will consider while ranking your page. These title tags tell search engines what your page is about and impact whether the user is going to click on your page or not. 

Ideally, your website should not have and avoid duplicate content. Your title tags should be specific enough to explain to the user what kind of page or site they are going to land on. 

Avoid lengthy title tags, as they may be cut off in SERPs. Normally, title tags with more than 70 characters will be cut off. 

You need to make sure that the title tags are not missing. If you have any issues regarding title tags, fix them by updating your page’s title tags. 

Bonus Tool: As we know the importance of Meta Tags - You also need to ensure that you are using the right tag as we all make mistakes but this type of mistake can hurt SEO. So, it's better to use a tool to generate meta tags like ETTVI’s Meta Tags Generator.

Optimize Meta Descriptions 

While meta descriptions are not a ranking element, they show up under the title tag in the SERPs and assist clients with figuring out what's going on with your page.

Essentially, your meta depiction urges a user to tap on your listing over another person's and can either emphatically or adversely influence your organic click-through rate (CTR).

If you don't have a meta description set up, Google will show a piece of your page's substance, yet this could incorporate navigation text and different components and be nowhere near captivating. Assuming you have copies, there is a good opportunity that you are not introducing an extraordinary description that encourages clicks.

Bonus Tool: Once you have added the Meta Tags - It's also to test your meta tags. Use ETTVI’s Meta Tags Analyzer tool to test your site’s meta tags.

Diversify Text-only Content 

Use pictures and video to diversify your page content and get additional traffic from Google searches. With some extra multimedia, a page has opportunities to appear in rich outcomes like Google Images or Google Videos. Furthermore, visuals act as an explanatory medium, so most probably they will further develop user engagement with your content.

Meantime, mind that pictures ought to be optimized for organic search. Ensure images are switched over completely to a web-friendly format, load quickly, and aren't heavy

Add Structured Data 

You are more likely to get rich snippets and a few other SERP features when your data is structured. This will ensure that your page stands out from the crowd on the search results page. Search engines use schema markup to identify that a page contains information, such as about the author, the product, business, FAQ, and so on.

There are many tools to implement schema, for example, Google Structured Data Markup Helper. 

Work ON E-A-T of Your Website 

To evaluate search results, search engines employ independent raters who follow the guidelines set forth by the search raters. In such practices, algorithms are checked against Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness factors to ensure the most reliable results. The factor is especially relevant for YMYL (Your Money Your Life) websites, including those about news, health, and finance.

It means sticking to a regular content schedule over the long term. There are things you can do right now, such as adding E-A-T signals to your website, which will increase its credibility in the eyes of search engines and users, who will become loyal customers.

A content pruning campaign would be a smart idea in the long run. Added high-quality blog posts that provide value to users will make up for removing low-quality or outdated content.

4. Technical SEO Checklist

You might find SEO very tough; giving it a closer look, you will find out factors that are an integral part of research that are the same for all industries.

• Check indexing and crawlability 

• Identify technical errors 

• Find non-crawl able on-page elements

• Evaluate your website speed 

• Check mobile-friendliness 

Check Indexing and Crawlability 

The results of a search will not include content that is not accessible by search engines. What you can do is find out how search engines perceive your website.

You can consult with the Google Search Console (GSC). There you will find the crawlability and indexing issues in the coverage section.  You can also use Crawlability Checker to check the crawlability and indexing issue.

Identify Technical Errors 

The crawler may stop visiting a website if too many broken pages are found or if it is unable to crawl the resource. Find and fix the following issues on your site, if any:

• Long redirect chains and faulty redirects

• Broken links

• Duplicate content issues.

Broken links impair usability and cause traffic losses. When a page becomes obsolete, as a result of the removal of a product or the end of a sale, it is possible to redirect to another page that is related to that topic. It will be very difficult for a human to find all broken links manually but you can use a tool like Broken Link Finder that will instantly find all broken links that exist on your site and report back to you. Set 301 redirects for all broken links, and correct the invalid URLs. Although, too many redirects on a website will adversely affect the crawl budget.
Create a 404 page that is useful for your website visitors. There may be links to the most important pages of your website on the custom 404 page.

Find Non-crawlable On-page Elements

Although JavaScripts and frames are less of an issue nowadays, it's still problematic for search engines to properly index frames. Avoid using these elements on your website to avoid affecting search engine indexing.

Evaluate Your Website Speed and Page Load-time

Search engines use page load-time as one of the most important ranking factors. To improve your page load speed you should:

• use file compression (e.g. gzip)

• apply browser caching

• use externalized CSS/JavaScript code

• optimize graphics and video size

• put scripts at the bottom

• minimize the number of iframes

• use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Different pages may load at different speeds, depending on the speed of your Internet connection and other factors. In this case, the size of the page may be more important than load time. If a page is taking too long to load, look at the Too big pages factor in the Site Audit, under the Encoding and technical factors section.  

Check Mobile-friendliness 

Google's Page Experience Update in the summer of 2021 made mobile-friendliness a top priority for every website. As a minor point: mobile-friendliness signals will soon be excluded from desktop ranking factors. The Core Web Vitals thresholds will apply to desktop machines as well beginning in February 2022. Besides the penalties for intrusive interstitials, Google will keep all the previous usability requirements.

It's important to first consider whether you're providing the right experience for your mobile users. Take Google's free Mobile-Friendly Test to see if your site is mobile-friendly. You can gain a better understanding of your issues by tapping into the Search Console data under Experience > Mobile Usability.

You can also use WebSite Auditor's mobile bot crawler to see how Google is viewing your website on mobile devices.

5. Link Building and PR Outreach

Although backlinks are vital, you should know the importance of quality. Additionally, Off-page SEO is important for organic rankings. Therefore, keep your website profile healthy and improve backlinks quality. 

Below are important steps to improve link-building efficiency.

• Solve spam problems

• Re-check the origin of backlinks

• Focus on do-follow links 

• Include main keywords in the anchor text

• Erase high penalty backlinks 

• Increase backlinks

Solve Spam Problems

If search engines detect issues on your pages, they may penalize your site and it will lose ranking. These might be algorithmic penalties or manual actions handed down by google. So, you have to fix the link issues:

• Cloaking — Different content is displayed to the search engine spider and the user's browser

• Doorway  — is a page created to send visitors to a different page

• Link Farm — a group of websites that hyperlink to each other 

For this, check the link profile of your website and identify any suspicious links. To get started, you may want to review the resources list in WebSite Auditor.

Look for pages with too many links in the Site Audit (Links section). You may appear as a link farm or a spam site if you have too many links on your website, which can potentially harm your site's SEO. To get the best results, try to limit outgoing linking to 100 links per page or less, and link to relevant pages that are valuable to your visitors.

Re-check the Origin of Backlinks

Look at the Google PageRank, age, outbound links, and location of the linked page when choosing a link. In the Backlinks module of SEO SpyGlass, you can analyze the linking pages of your existing backlinks. The most common and popular matrix to measure the backlink strength is DA, PA and you can use a DA PA Checker Tool to measure the backlink authority.

Focus on Do-follow Links

It's also possible to see some of your incoming links have the nofollow tag in the Backlinks module. This means that the linked pages do not pass link juice to the linked pages. Therefore, you should concentrate on gaining more follow backlinks pointing to your website from relevant sources.

Include Main Keywords in the Anchor Text

You should optimize the anchor text (the visible text in a hyperlink) for your target keywords. A search engine uses this text to determine the relevance of the linked-to document.  The value of anchor texts like this, read more, and this page is low because they are not descriptive. You can view detailed anchor data by pressing the Statistics button in the Backlinks module.  

Erase High Penalty Backlinks

 A search engine's bot evaluates how natural your site's links are when they analyze the links. When a page looks spammy to Google, the Penalty Risk module in SEO SpyGlass gives clues as to why. Links with a high risk of penalizing your site are shown in red. To remove them if there are too many, contact webmasters of the linking websites and ask them to remove them, or use the Google Disavow tool to instruct search engines to ignore them.  

Increase Backlinks

Generally, the more backlinks you have, the better your ranking will be. You can use several techniques to increase backlinks. ETTVI offers a Backlink Maker Tool. Try this tool to make natural backlinks. The links that are generated from a similar niche are more credible. In this way people will make your content more engaging and interesting, they will get to know that the links are not manipulated or placed artificially. 

Location is the key factor that makes a difference in search engine optimization. Therefore, one should consider it as a separate topic as it is also important for the ranking of your site.

• Track organic search ranking by Geolocation 

• Fill out your Google business profile 

• Apply local schema markup 

• Build Local citations 

• Run advertisements 

• Optimize for relevant platforms

Track Organic Search Ranking by Geolocation 

Rank Tracker can work with search engines at any possible location up to a particular street address.

Fill Out Your Google Business Profile 

To enhance your visibility in the local search result and Google map, complete the Google profile listing. It offers helpful features for businesses along with a physical location. Interestingly, it is completely free. Thanks to Google my business tool as you can see reviews, location, availability, product availability, and crowdedness. 

Apply Local Schema Markup 

Structured data provides more information about your site to the search engine to enhance your visibility. Local schema markup is very important for your business. It provides NAP information: the business’s name and address, phone number, and website. 

Build Local Citations 

To find success financially, you must be available in the most impressive media channels of your place or local area. LinkAssistant will assist you with tracking down important professional resources, discussions, neighborhood media, public channels, and networks with whom to accomplice.

Run Advertisements 

Plan viable advertising campaigns by picking the best timing and platforms. You want to investigate the adequacy of your promoting channels and pick where to run your next advertising campaigns, be it Google advertisements, shows, or Facebook advertisements. Rank Tracker can help you by looking at CPC versus PPC expenses of your keywords.

Optimize for Relevant Platforms

E-commerce on different platforms needs some special knowledge. SEO optimization techniques for both YouTube and Amazon are different. 

7. SEO KPI Tracking

Always set your benchmarks to measure SEO website efficiency. Below are some common indicators in SEO, but, definitely they vary from company to company. 

SEO KPI tracking will help you to identify your current website rankings 

• Track your ranking for keywords

• Track SEO goals with Google Analytics

• Improve Behavior Signals 

• Publish Cookie Policy 

Track Your Ranking for Keywords

Ensure you track your web index rankings for keywords in Rank Tracker. You will be able to see your ongoing rankings and history and compare your rankings with competitors.

Check both regular organic results and Universal Search results (Images, Videos, Places). Rank Tracker will likewise show the different positions a ranking page has.

Track SEO Goals with Google Analytics

Using Google Analytics to its full potential can provide powerful insights. First, set up goals that are SEO-related, for instance, conversions on your landing pages. Combined with Google Analytics, Search Console provides more information about the most profitable keywords. To analyze keyword performance more thoroughly, you will need to consult the Console and Rank Tracker.

Make the most of your traffic and conversions by understanding which keywords bring you the most traffic and which landing pages convert the most. So, you can focus on that kind of keyword next time. 

Improve Behavior Signals 

Every factor will provide you with clues as to how to optimize your pages for growth and efficiency. Improve pages that are detracting from your average. Identify your audience's behavior and metrics such as bounce rate, page views per session, dwell time, etc.

Publish Cookie Policy 

The purpose of cookies is to describe what user data is tracked and how. Your cookie policy informs your users about the cookies you use on your website. Several laws (e.g., the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR) require websites to disclose the cookies they use to users since cookies may violate privacy (because cookies can track, store, and share user behavior). A user's consent to the processing of their data remains the core of the vast majority of data protection laws.

Conclusion

Checklists are a great way to improve your search engine optimization. The SEO checklist above covers almost all aspects of search engine optimization. Your website will be in good SEO shape if it meets all of the criteria outlined above, and this will eventually result in higher rankings and more traffic.