Basic SEO Checklist
Install Google Analytics
Analytics help you gain an insight into your visitor demographics and understand your marketing better.
Add Website to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
These tools analyze many factors that affect your search traffic. It’s a must have.
Check Site Page Speed at Google Page Speed Insights
A score of around 85/100 is considered good for both mobile and desktop. Remember, if your site takes more than 2 to 4 seconds to load, your visitor will move on.
Ensure Your CMS is Equipped
Make sure your Content Management System is equipped with an SEO plugin that allows you to write the title, description, image tags, h-tags (headers), and page tags. It should also allow you to format your article (bold, italics, spell-check). I suggest Yoast SEO for WordPress.
Make Your Site Responsive
It should deliver a great user experience across all devices.
Check Broken Links
Use Xenu’s Link Sleuth, which is a free and helpful tool.
Validate Your HTML and CSS
Validate your HTML and CSS coding at W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) using HTML validator, CSS validator, and mobile code validator.
Create and Upload a Sitemap.xml
Position pages with maximum potential at the top. Here’s a dynamic sitemap.xml generator (free for up to 500 pages).
Submit the sitemap link (yoursite.com/sitemap.xml) to Google and Bing using appropriate sections located in the Google Search Console/Bing Webmaster Tools.
Create and Upload a Robots.txt File
The Robots file instructs search engines about pages to crawl, and pages to leave alone (admin area, restricted areas, etc.).
Install Google Analytics
Analytics help you gain an insight into your visitor demographics and understand your marketing better.
Add Website to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
These tools analyze many factors that affect your search traffic. It’s a must have.
Check Site Page Speed at Google Page Speed Insights
A score of around 85/100 is considered good for both mobile and desktop. Remember, if your site takes more than 2 to 4 seconds to load, your visitor will move on.
Ensure Your CMS is Equipped
Make sure your Content Management System is equipped with an SEO plugin that allows you to write the title, description, image tags, h-tags (headers), and page tags. It should also allow you to format your article (bold, italics, spell-check). I suggest Yoast SEO for WordPress.
Make Your Site Responsive
It should deliver a great user experience across all devices.
Check Broken Links
Use Xenu’s Link Sleuth, which is a free and helpful tool.
Validate Your HTML and CSS
Validate your HTML and CSS coding at W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) using HTML validator, CSS validator, and mobile code validator.
Create and Upload a Sitemap.xml
Position pages with maximum potential at the top. Here’s a dynamic sitemap.xml generator (free for up to 500 pages).
Submit the sitemap link (yoursite.com/sitemap.xml) to Google and Bing using appropriate sections located in the Google Search Console/Bing Webmaster Tools.
Create and Upload a Robots.txt File
The Robots file instructs search engines about pages to crawl, and pages to leave alone (admin area, restricted areas, etc.).
More info on Search Engine Journal
