Google serves trillions of searches every year, and when you rank well, you’re almost guaranteed to attract qualified traffic. Here’s the thing — Google’s guidelines and updates are long and tricky, especially if you’re learning about search engine optimization (SEO) for the first time. That’s why you need an SEO checklist to make sure you’re giving your site the best chance at ranking #1!
Our free SEO checklist will cover nine different topics and break down the steps to complete each aspect of SEO. Get started on optimizing your website (and earning those top rankings) with the 56-point website optimization checklist below:
Countless website optimization tools are out there to help you with your SEO. That’s why any SEO checklist for new websites (and existing ones) should include the basic setup of must-use tools, like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Search Console.
Follow along with this website SEO checklist to get your accounts started and linked to your site!
SEO Basics Checklist
Set up your GA4 account
Set up Google Search Console
Set up Bing Webmaster Tools
Install an SEO plug-in (if using WordPress)
Submit a sitemap to search engines
1. Set up your GA4 account
GA4 is a powerhouse tool when it comes to website analytics and SEO.
“GA4 is essential for getting started with SEO — with it, you can measure your performance, from traffic to conversions, and demonstrate SEO’s impact on your bottom line. Combine it with Google Search Console and its crawling, indexing, and ranking data, and you’ll have a great starting point for measuring and improving your SEO performance.”
With GA4, you can see:
How much traffic comes to your site from Google, social networks, other sites, and more
Which pages feature a high bounce rate, time on site, conversion rate, and more
How long it takes users to convert after finding your site
And more!
GA4 also connects with several other platforms, including:
Like GA4, Google Search Console is a free tool. It’s also a powerful one, providing your business with immense insight into how your website performs in search results. Google Search Console highlights how people find your site in organic search results:
Like Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools helps your business see how your website and pages perform in search results — but on Bing.
A few features worth taking advantage of in Bing Webmaster Tools include:
Uploading and submitting your sitemap
Viewing your biweekly SEO Report
Using the SEO Analyzer tool to check your site
4. Install an SEO plug-in (if using WordPress)
Have you got a WordPress site? Then, you want to make setting up Yoast SEO a part of your SEO audit checklist.
Yoast SEO, a free plugin with paid options, helps your business optimize your site for SEO. In addition to the basic version, your company can use specific versions for local SEO, video SEO, news SEO, and even WooCommerce SEO.
The final step for basic setup is creating a sitemap and submitting it to Google, or another search engine. This page breaks down how to create an XML sitemap so you can check off this task.
A sitemap is what it sounds like — a map of all the pages on your site, including how they stack and connect together.
There are two types of sitemaps:
HTML: A list of pages with links that users can find and access.
XML: A file that you submit to Google to help with indexing and crawlability.
You must create an XML sitemap to help Google find and pull your pages in search results.
Keyword research
In this SEO checklist, we’ll touch on each step of keyword research generally – but if you want to learn more, we delve into this concept more thoroughly in our beginner’s guide to keyword research.
For now, we’ll start with this SEO checklist for new websites.
Keyword Research Checklist
Identify core and related keywords
Assess keyword value and rankings
Analyze search intent
Check for keyword cannibalization
Build a keyword map
6. Identify core and related keywords
No one knows your business better than you do. That’s why keyword research always starts with a brainstorming session to create a seed list of potential keywords.
This list should include any terms you know are relevant to your business. Anything referring to your specific company, industry, or even headquarters is a smart start to keyword research.
For example, a local thrift store could start with keywords like “vintage t-shirts in [city]” or “thrift shop [city].”
Similarly, an electrician could use keywords like “electricians in [city].” They could also target more general searches, like “how to wire a dimmer switch” or informational queries along those lines.
While your company will differ from these examples, the principle is the same — think of keywords your customers probably search for naturally and go from there.
No matter what keywords you choose, make sure you research their search volume, cost-per-click (CPC), and competition. Following this part of this website optimization checklist will benefit your SEO strategy by helping you target the most valuable keywords.
The most valuable information is search volume, or how often people search for a keyword in a month. That’ll give you an idea of how many new visitors you could potentially attract to your website and convert into customers.
Keywords with lots of searches aren’t always the best choices, though. Those searched more often have more companies trying to rank for them. That translates to more competition for you.
The best keywords often follow this pattern:
Long (3+ words)
Specific
10+ monthly searches
Low competition
High relevance
These keywords are called long-tail keywords. They may only bring a few people to your site individually, but you can target a lot of them to earn easy, steady traffic. As you target more of these keywords, your brand will grow online since you rank for many different searches.
And once you have that foundation for your website, you can move into more general keywords. However, targeting longer, more specific keywords is best for almost all businesses.
As a bonus, specific keywords also correlate to buyer intent. For example, you can bet someone looking for “men’s size seven running shoes” is much more likely to become a customer than someone looking for “shoes.”
Once you establish the most valuable keywords, you can target those primarily while adding in secondary ones naturally.
8. Analyze search intent
Search intent is the reason that people search the terms they do. Understanding search intent is crucial for adding keywords to your pages and ranking for them.
As you build out your keyword list, take time to search the words and see what the top results are. In order to rank and compete with those pages, you have to have similar content (without copying them, of course.)
For example, someone searching “red dress” might just be shopping in general or looking for outfit inspiration. However, if someone searches “long sleeve red dress under $50,” they are likely about to purchase. Your content and keyword targeting will look different based on that distinction.
The goal should be to know the intent of each keyword to make sure your content matches that intent.
9. Check for keyword cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization is an SEO issue that occurs when multiple pages on a website target similar keywords, causing the pages to compete for the same SERPs.
You can use Google Search Console to help you find and fix the pages targeting the same keyword:
Sign in and go to “Search results” in the “Performance” menu. Then, you can scroll through a list of keywords your site has earned impressions and clicks from.
Click a keyword you want to check to apply a “Query:” filter. You can also click “+ New” then “Query…” to enter a manual filter and check for more than one keyword at once.
Under the “PAGES” tab, you’ll see which URL ranks for this query. If more than one page appears, this could be a cannibalization error. Evaluate the pages manually and see what the appropriate repsonse is!
This issue can hurt your website as a whole and individual pages, since Google can’t tell which content to rank higher. You want each page to be unique, so creating content surrounding specific keywords is a must.
10. Build a keyword map
A keyword map is what it sounds like — an outline of all the keywords you target on your site and their respective pages. With keyword mapping, you create an outline of all your keywords and the pages they correspond to, so you can track your web content easily.
Keyword mapping helps you make sure you are targeting all necessary keywords. It also helps with duplicate content and content gaps on your site.
Here is how to build a basic keyword map:
Begin with a single query on Google to find related keywords
Combine keywords that answer the same question
Create topic groups based on your list of keywords
Outline pages and URLs to address topic groups
Technical SEO
A technical SEO checklist can seem intimidating, especially if the technical side of SEO is new territory for you or your team. Technical SEO, however, is essential. That’s why we created this basic SEO checklist for technical SEO.
Technical SEO Checklist
Make sure your website is crawlable
Make sure your website is indexable
Fix broken links or 404 errors
Implement responsive web design to ensure your site is mobile-friendly
Make sure your website is secure (HTTPS)
Check your site speed
Evaluate your page experience
Outline your site architecture
Evaluate your internal linking
Find manual actions in Google Search Console
Mend any duplicate, missing, and lengthy title tags
11. Make sure your website is crawlable
Remember Google Search Console? It’s not just for keywords. You can also use it to find and fix crawl errors.
A crawl error means that Google can’t read or view your page, which poses a problem. If Google doesn’t understand what your page is about, it will not rank it for the term you want. That means less traffic for you.
Find and fix crawl errors in Google Search Console with these steps:
Log into Google Search Console
Click “Coverage” under the “Index” menu
View any crawl errors
For each crawl error, Google will provide additional information. If you click “Learn More,” you can learn more about the problem and how to fix it. Once you repair the error, you can validate the fix by returning to the error and clicking “Validate Fix.”
12. Make sure your website is indexable
Only indexable pages are going to show up in search results. If you submitted your sitemap as we outlined above, you can check to make sure that Google is indexing it properly.
While it’s helpful to look at Google as another user, Google (and its bots) can’t see your website the way most users do. Since Google doesn’t always see your site the way you do, it’s helpful to use the “URL Inspection” tool.
This tool will help you see how Google is indexing your site, so you can make changes if needed:
Log into Google Search Console
Select “URL Inspection” or enter your URL in the search menu
Click “Test Live URL”
Choose “View Tested Page”
Select “Screenshot”
View a snapshot of your page from Google’s perspective
Once you see how Google sees your page, you can make any necessary updates or changes.
13. Fix broken links or 404 errors
A broken link, also known as a 404, doesn’t make Google or users happy. That’s why every website optimization checklist should include checking for 404s across your site — and fixing them as soon as possible.
There are a few causes for broken links, including:
The page no longer exists
The URL is linked incorrectly
The page you’re looking for has moved
You can find broken links on your site in a few ways, like with the following tools:
If you feature a smaller website, this step in your SEO checklist should only take a little time. In comparison, a larger site may require more time and resources for 404 fixes, especially if it hasn’t been checked in months or even years.
Either way, you want to find and fix broken links to prevent indexing and crawling issues. You can also encourage longer browsing times by keeping users on a seamless path.
14. Implement responsive web design to ensure your site is mobile-friendly
If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, make fixing it a priority.
You don’t want to lose a top spot in search results because your page wasn’t responsive.
15. Make sure your website is secure (HTTPS)
Like a mobile-friendly site, an HTTPS site is essential. Both search engines and users use HTTPS to validate a website’s security.
Google uses HTTPS as a ranking factor, too, which makes having HTTPS a must for any search engine optimization checklist. For reference, HTTPS describes a protocol that helps display and secure pages across the web.
You want to provide search engines and users with a secure online experience. Even if your company doesn’t process transactions online, HTTPS still matters. It’s a ranking factor and a trust signal for users.
Set aside some time and secure your website with the help of your development team.
16. Check your site speed
The next item on your technical SEO checklist is page speed.
Again, Google uses page speed as a ranking factor. If you don’t provide a fast experience, users will leave — and Google knows it. That’s why the search engine’s algorithm considers the speed of your page when ranking it in search results.
Check the speed of your pages with Google’s free PageSpeed Insights tool. You can enter the URL of any site and get instant information regarding your page speed:
Your report will provide your team with actionable advice. In some cases, the tips may seem confusing. That’s when you want to talk with your development team or think about page speed optimization services.
Core Web Vitals are another important set of data to measure. This set of metrics measures user experience (UX) for loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. You can also use Google Search Console to measure your vitals and see where you can improve.
17. Evaluate your page experience
Google’s page experience describes any interaction a user has with a page. Since page experience is a ranking factor, it’s important that users have a solid time interacting with any page on your site.
Many other technical elements we’ve discussed contribute to page experience. Some ranking factors for page experience we haven’t mentioned include:
Largest contentful paint (LCP): LCP measures how long it takes for the largest element on a page to load.
Cumulative layout shift (CLS): CLS measures how much page elements move while loading. More movement leads to a worse UX.
First input delay (FID): FID measures how quickly elements on the page respond to clicks. If users have to wait for links to load after clicking, for example, the FID will lower.
Intrusive interstitials: An intrusive interstitial is a pop-up or other content that appears over the content of a page on mobile devices. Having more intrusive interstitials will hurt your rankings since they impact the user’s experience.
Monitoring and helping with these factors can help improve your page experience and increase your rankings.
18. Outline your site architecture
Your site architecture is the hierarchy of your pages and information. It outlines how all the pages on your website relate to each other, from your product pages to blog posts and beyond.
Having a good site architecture can improve UX and help Google crawl your pages. It also shows how these pages relate naturally and encourage longer browsing times.
To work on your site structure, you should keep your URLs simple and build a navigation system for organizing your pages. Monitoring the pages you have (and new ones) can keep each one organized and ensure it has a place to go on your site.
19. Evaluate your internal linking
Our technical SEO checklist would be remiss to neglect internal linking. Building out your internal linking can help people spend more time on your site and show search engines how pages connect. It goes hand-in-hand with site architecture.
The basics of internal linking include establishing footer and navigation links, and ensuring URLs have internal backlinks to them.
Here are some tips for building out internal links:
Use descriptive anchor text
Link to new posts in old posts (and vice versa)
Direct users to relevant, related posts only
20. Find manual actions in Google Search Console
Any attempt to violate or manipulate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines leads to flags known as manual actions. If your site has a manual action, parts or all of it won’t appear in Google SERPs.
Some causes for manual actions include:
User-generated spam
Structured data issues
Unnatural or spammy links (to and from your site)
Thin content
Hidden text
To see if you have any manual actions on your site, scrool down the tool’s sidebar navigation until you find the “Security & Manual Actions” menu. Under that menu, click on “Manual actions.” From there, if you have any manual actions, they’ll appear here.
21. Mend any duplicate, missing, and lengthy title tags
Checking for any duplicate, truncated, or missing title tags can make a difference in your SEO. As part of our on-page SEO checklist tips, we recommend finding any askew title tags and repairing them.
Tools like Semrush let you audit your site and check all the title tags at once. Or, you can evaluate your title tags in your website builder or HTML code.
Your goal should be to:
Have a catchy title tag for each page
Avoid duplicate or generic copy
Keep your title tag length between 140-160 characters
Content creation
Content is a general term that describes any element you add to your site, including text, video, audio, graphics, and more.
As content plays a core role in any SEO strategy, it deserves an SEO checklist of its own.
Content Creation Checklist
Use different content types on your website
Answer search intent immediately
Use headings to break up text
Add a table of contents for longer pieces with multiple headings
Integrate multimedia elements
Use shorter paragraphs and sentences to improve readability
Add internal links
Target helpful content/ E-E-A-T
Audit your site’s existing content
Find and fix orphan pages
Perform a competitor analysis
Evaluate your pages’ crawl depth
22. Use different content types on your website
There are several content types you can target to reach the widest audience:
Blogs
A blog is a section on your site that you can use to publish posts about timely events, industry news, or company information.
Blogs are great for discussing just about anything, and adding new posts to your site regularly helps Google read and undersotand your site better. That means you enjoy higher rankings, more traffic, and greater conversion rates.
Articles
Articles are similar to blogs — they’re text-based content covering topics relevant to your business. However, articles work best when they’re evergreen.
That often means using articles to talk about your products and services — especially why someone should choose you over your competitors.
Depending on the size of your business, you could easily end up with hundreds of article pages on your site that target particular keywords.
That’s both normal and a good sign. After all, the more keywords you target, the more customers you can earn!
Images
Images are great supplements to blog posts and articles because they give a visual element to text-based content.
While Google can’t “see” images like a human can, their algorithm can still appreciate that you have an image on a page that’s providing value to your reader. That tells Google that you’re creating content with your user in mind, and that’ll help you rank better in search results.
Infographics
Infographics are visual representations of data covering a specific topic, and they’re ideal for drawing traffic and links to your website.
They can also help you attract visitors if you share them on social media, especially if your followers share them with their friends.
That’s because most people can read and appreciate an infographic at a glance. Infographics are fundamentally different from blog posts and articles, which require visitors to read in-depth information to get the full impression of the content.
But for infographics, you want to use fewer words, more statistics, and lots of data visualization.
That’s a winning recipe for any infographic.
Videos
Videos are excellent standalone pieces of content and great for adding SEO value to a page.
With videos, you can summarize an entire article or blog in minutes. That means someone doesn’t have to read a whole page to understand what you’re saying — they can get it all in a minute or two!
That provides tremendous value to your users, which Google always likes to see.
So whether you’re posting a video as standalone content or supplementing a page, adding quality videos to your site is an effective strategy for any business.
Interactives
Interactives are content on your site that lets your users accomplish something by adjusting settings, inputting information, or changing other criteria. These items are even better at earning links than infographics and are more engaging than videos.
A good interactive will generate shares on social media, earn thousands of links, and climb the ranks of Google search results day after day. The catch is that interactives also take the most time for planning, creation, and testing.
But once you do that, you’ll have an online product that can pay dividends for years on end.
23. Answer search intent immediately
If people land on your page and don’t find the information they want immediately, they’ll bounce. To avoid that situation, you should answer search intent immediately. Doing so encourages the reader to read the rest of the page and gives them a better experience.
You can also use question headings as a way to appear in featured snippets:
If you are targeting a question keyword, include the answer immediately following the heading. This step will help with search intent and help your rankings.
24. Use headings to break up text
Headings are a great way to simplify content and make it easier to read. No one wants to scroll through endless paragraphs — it’s easy to get lost or distracted. Include headings in your content to help with UX and give your page a better chance at ranking:
Headings are also helpful for including relevant keywords, so take time to plan out your headings and page structure!
25. Add a table of contents for longer pieces with multiple headings
Have you added those headings to your page? Be sure to include a table of contents so users can click to the section they want to read the most:
26. Integrate multimedia elements
Any SEO content checklist will include multimedia, which is a crucial part of making your pages rank. Google prefers pages with rich content, and so do your users. You can add the following to help your content rank higher:
Videos
Infographics
Images
These features, combined with good copy, will improve UX and encourage links, all of which help your site rank higher and build authority.
27. Use shorter paragraphs and sentences to improve readability
This step falls in line with the headings we mentioned above. Make sure your paragraphs are broken up, and try to keep them to 2-3 sentences a piece. They’ll be much easier on the eyes and help people follow along with the page.
28. Target helpful content/ E-E-A-T
Since the Helpful Content update, Google now prioritizes, well, helpful content. That is, content that serves the user’s best interest, not just the search engine algorithm.
Google search experts also use E-E-A-T to measure content. E-E-A-T stands for:
Experience
Expertise
Authoritativeness
Trustworthiness
While E-E-A-T isn’t an official ranking factor, pages that rank higher tend to follow the same pattern. So, showing your experience, authority, expertise, and trustworthiness can help you create helpful content that people want to read.
29. Audit your site’s existing content
A content audit refers to analyzing your existing content to find room for improvement. You can evaluate your content strategy to see which pages are perfroming well and which can be improved.
Running a content audit periodically will keep your content up to date and encourage growth.
30. Find and fix orphan pages
Orphan pages are pages without internal links to them. These pages have less value because search engines can only find them through crawling the sitemap or backlinks. And, visitors can only find the page by knowing the URL.
You can use tools like Ahrefs to check the backlink profile of any page. If you have no links coming from other pages on your site, you can search and add internal links to encourage rankings.
31. Perform a competitor analysis
Understanding what your competitors’ content strategies look like can improve yours. For content, you should be focusing on keywords and content organization to see how they are ranking. To perform a competitor analysis, you should:
Evaluate what keywords your competitors rank for
Analyze the keyword metrics
Use tools to identify keyword gaps
Look at the intent and ranking content in the SERPs
At the end of your analysis, you should have a few ways to improve your site based on who in your industry ranks currently.
32. Evaluate your pages’ crawl depth
Crawl depth represents the number of clicks between a page and the homepage. The fewer the steps, the easier it is for Google to crawl. Ideally, no page will be deeper than three clicks.
Again, you can use tools like Ahrefs to check for crawl depth and analyze how you can restructure your sitemap for less depth.
On-page optimization
On-page optimization is the process of streamlining the code and text on your site to make sure Google can read, understand, and rank it more easily.
The easier you make it for Google to do its job, the better you’ll rank overall.
For that to happen, you need to follow the on-page SEO points on this website optimization checklist. From optimizing your title tags to using your keywords, there are several points you want to check off to rank in search results.
On-Page Optimization Checklist
Create short URLs
Optimize title tags
Write effective meta descriptions
Check your on-page keyword usage
Add alt tags to images
Add schema markup
33. Create short URLs
The first on-page change to make is creating SEO-friendly URLs. A short, simple URL can help users see how they got to the page they’re on. It also looks cleaner and more authentic to use a short, simple URL.
This example from Lowe’s shows how electric stovetops relates to appliances, which you can find from the navigation bar:
Title tags act as the literal title of a page, which tells Google what to expect on it. Your title is also what shows up in search results, and can determine whether a user decides to click.
Title tags work best when you add some element that naturally attracts users’ attention. That element could be a numbered list, an eye-catching word (shocking, horrifying, etc.), or any other idea you have to draw someone’s attention in search results.
When you have a strong title for your page, you’ll naturally draw clicks that might otherwise go to your competitors.
35. Write effective meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are short summaries of your page that tell people what to expect if they click to your site.
Meta descriptions show up underneath your title tags in Google search results. They don’t directly contribute to your ranking in search results, but they’re helpful for convincing Google users to click.
36. Add alt tags to images
Alt tags are bits of code you use to tell Google what an image, video, or audio file depicts.
Remember how we said Google couldn’t “see” images earlier? This is how you solve that problem.
Alt tags should be short, three-or-four-word descriptions of a multimedia element. That lets Google understand what you’re showing your visitors so they can determine how good of an experience you offer.
Any time you use a multimedia file on a page, always use an alt tag with it. It may seem like a minor detail, but it can easily make a difference in search engine ranking with a tough competitor.
37. Check your on-page keyword usage
While Google has grown much more sophisticated over the past few decades, it’s still important to use your target keywords on each page.
This shouldn’t be a challenge since your keywords will be related to your title tags. That means all you have to do is write about your topic, and the keywords will flow on their own.
If you ever find yourself intentionally adding keywords to different places on a page, take a step back and consider whether that’s the best course of action.
Keyword stuffing is a major problem in Google’s eyes. So if your keywords disrupt the flow of your text, you’re probably adding too many.
Just write as you would speak, and you’ll use keywords as naturally on a page.
It helps you rank for related but untargeted keywords
It lets you write more conversationally, which is good for readers
Still, there’s a bit of a science to making LSI work for your pages. Generally, you can use the chart below to make sure a good page on your site will show up in similar searches.
With all of this done, you’ve al most entirely completed your on-page optimization.
LSI Keywords per Word Count
Word Count
LSI Keyword Count
300
1
600
2
900
3
1200
4
1500
5
Local SEO
Local SEO is the practice of listing your business with different directories online so you can promote your brand to local potential customers.
We’ll cover the best sources in this local SEO checklist, though there are tons of ways to optimize for local search.
Local SEO Checklist
Set up a Google Business Profile
Set up Bing Places for Business
Claim your listing on Yelp
Join Yellow Pages
Include website-based optimizations
39. Set up a Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile lets you add your name, address, phone number, and hours of operation to Google’s database of companies.
That lets you show up for searches related to your products, services, and location. That means you don’t always have to target a keyword to get listed in search results (although that helps) — you just need to join Google Business Profile.
We recommend starting with at least Google Business Profile. If you decide the other outlets aren’t worth your time, then you’ll still have a local Google listing on your side.
40. Set up Bing Places for Business
Bing Places for Business is the same concept as Google My Business, but it’s for the Bing search engine. It includes all of the same information and search benefits as Google, which makes it a great addition to any local SEO strategy.
41. Claim your listing on Yelp
Yelp is the world’s most popular review site. People can use it to discuss their experiences with your business in detail and rate you on a scale of one to five stars — even if you haven’t yet signed up for the site.
That means people could already be talking about your company without you overseeing the conversation. Anyone could be saying anything — and you’re not there to give your side of the story!
That’s why it’s so important to “claim” your listing on Yelp.
You can add your name, address, phone number, and other information to your listing. It’s also a place for people to see how reliable you are as a business.
Better yet, it lets you moderate the comments people leave about your business.
If you need to mitigate a negative review or thank someone for their business, you can do it all in one place.
42. Join Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages runs a physical and digital phone book of businesses around the United States.
You can join their digital product for free, and it gives you an extra listing online from a trusted source. More importantly, it lets you take advantage of any advertising options that Yellow Pages offers.
Even though they’re not 100% digital, they’re still one of the most trusted names in business. That can go a long way in exposing your brand to new customers and staying one step ahead of your competitors.
But local SEO is just the beginning. To really get your brand out to potential customers, you can also use social media to supplement and improve your marketing.
43. Include website-based optimizations
On top of signing up for all of these services, you can optimize your website to target local searches. Some ways to do that include:
Targeting local keywords in your content
Adding location pages if you have more than one location
Including your address, phone number, and service area on your website
The goal of on-site local optimization is to make it clear what your service area is and target searches related to that area.
Social media
If you want to reach out to customers, you should add a social media marketing plan to your SEO strategy. By using social media, you can reach your customers where they already spend their time online and encourage them to engage with, promote, and buy from your brand.
The best place to start is the most popular social network in the world.
Social Media Checklist
Identify the social platforms your audience is active on
Start generating content ideas
Research your competitors
44. Identify the social platforms your audience is active on
First up, you should select the platforms you want to create accounts on the social sites that your audience uses. In order to find and interact with prospects, you should meet them on the platforms they use naturally.
Below are a few popular platforms for social media SEO.
Facebook offers businesses free pages so they can add their name, address, phone number, and other important information. That also makes Facebook a great local SEO outlet, although it may not carry the same power potential as Google My Business or Yelp.
Still, it’s good to fill out as much information as you can so that users can find you on the platform. Then, you can use that page to promote content from your site and earn new followers. Join discussions with your followers, answer their questions, and offer solutions to their problems if they need any.
You don’t have to give away your services for free — it’s just good to show that you have a human side to your business. That makes your company more relatable, approachable, and trustworthy.
And while you may not be able to measure those ideas with numbers, you can see their results in your bottom line!
X (formerly Twitter)
X has 328 million active monthly users, and it’s packed to the brim with excited users constantly talking back and forth to one another.
Creating an X account for your business isn’t so much joining a social network as it is jumping into an ongoing conversation.
As a result, you need to be prepared for X users to talk at or about you — a lot.
When you use X, you gain a new platform to promote your site’s content and earn new customers. You can even take out ads to reach users based on their interests.
And if your content gains a lot of attention, you’ll see it happen in real-time — not to mention in your website’s analytics.
Instagram
Instagram is one of the world’s most popular online photo-sharing networks.
It’s also owned by Facebook, which means you can administer Facebook and Instagram ads from the same interface.
Aside from that, Instagram is a phenomenal way to promote your brand through photos and short videos. These can be photos of your company, employees, products, results, and more. Text descriptions and hashtags help the photos get more exposure, which in turn helps you get more followers.
Those followers then become a consistent audience for your future updates. In other words, you have a group of regulars who you know are interested in your business.
TikTok
If you aren’t using TikTok marketing for your business, you are missing out on tons of content marketing opportunities. You can use TikTok to create videos, run ads, and build a following while sharing your content.
Many brands use TikTok to show off their products and get users to check out your site. TikTok is a great way to connect with younger audiences as well as older ones.
Pinterest
Pinterest is a popular image- and idea-sharing social network that focuses on visual engagement for its users.
It’s also popular with high-income households, which spells good news for any brands that use Pinterest to promote themselves.
Whether you’re posting photos of your company, leadership, products, services, site content, or anything else, Pinterest is a great place to promote those images in relation to your brand.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the world’s #1 social network for professionals, and when you create an account for your business, you can friend or follow business personalities ranging from local business owners to Fortune 500 CEOs.
You can also post content from your website, blog about your experience with your business, and attract new customers (or leads).
Best of all, you can create hyper-targeted, professionally-oriented ads that only display to LinkedIn users who fit specific criteria like job title, company, and more.
That means LinkedIn lets you appeal directly to professionals as they’re focused on business.
That’s especially valuable to B2B companies, but it’s also helpful for B2C. For example, office supply retailers can find especially lucrative success on LinkedIn by sharing the right content and promoting the right products.
45. Start generating content ideas
Once you decide what platforms you want to use, it’s time to start creating content to encourage interactions with your brand.
While social media doesn’t directly impact your rankings, it can influence other factors that do, like traffic, engagement, conversions, and more.
Some ideas for social media content include:
Photos of your business, work, or products
Question and answer videos
Videos on your industry
Giveaways or contests
Behind-the-scenes posts for your products or services
46. Research your competitors
Finally, if you want ideas for how to run your social media accounts, look to your competitions. What kind of content are they posting? How often do they post? What platforms do they use?
Look at what they do on social media and see what you can add to the platform. Use their content for inspiration and find ways to add your own twist.
Link Building
Link building is the process of getting other websites to link to yours. Links are the #1 most important SEO ranking factor, since Google views them as votes of confidence from one site to yours, which acts as a digital endorsement.
Quality outweighs quantity when it comes to links, though. So if you only have a handful of links coming from reputable sources, Google will still rank you higher than a competitor with 1000 links from spam sources.
The ideal position for any link-building strategy is a large quantity of high-quality links. That’s easier said than done — but that’s why it’s ideal!
So, how do you reach that ideal if it’s such a lofty goal? Below, we’ll talk about the most effective link-building methods.
Link Building Checklist
Reclaim lost links
Identify unlinked mentions
Guest blog
Promote content
Encourage natural acquisition
47. Reclaim lost links
Reclaiming links is the process of finding and fixing broken links pointed at your website, or replacing links that aren’t earning as much value as possible. This process helps you prevent lost traffic from moved pages, incorrect URLs, and more.
For example, say that one of your pages earned a few backlinks that drive a lot of traffic and value to that page. However, whenever you reworked your URLs and site architecture, that page moved. Now, the links to that page no longer work.
Tools like Ahrefs can help you find lost internal and backlinks to prevent lost traffic.
48. Identify unlinked mentions
What if people are discussing your content without tagging you? In that case, you want to reach out and ask them to link to your content!
You can use advanced modifiers in Google search to see if anyone has linked to your content without linking. You can also use Ahrefs by typing in your brand as a keyword and finding mentions that aren’t linked.
Once you find these mentions, you can contact businesses and ask them to refer to your content whenever they mention it!
49. Guest blog
Guest blogging is what it sounds like — writing for another company’s blog as a guest. Usually, companies will ask others in their industry to submit work to their site to help with their content schedule and strategy.
Finding guest blogging opportunities can indirectly help with SEO. You can potentially earn more traffic and links to your site, which can give your domain more authority. Plus, it builds your brand overall, and exposes readers to your writing indirectly.
50. Promote content
Promoting your content is essential for getting people to link to your site or posts. Here are a couple different ways to promote your content and earn more links:
Email outreach
Email outreach is the process of sending your site’s content to journalists, bloggers, and other influential people in your industry who are interested in the content’s topic.
This strategy is most effective when you pair outstanding content (like an infographic) with a short, effective message.
That lets someone quickly skim your email, navigate to your content, and decide whether they want to link to it from their site.
Overall, email is probably the most reliable way to earn new links. It works best when you can email a person directly, as opposed to using “info@” or “contact@” email addresses.
Social media outreach is the same idea as email outreach, except that you do it over X, Facebook or another social network.
Generally speaking, social media outreach isn’t as effective, convincing, or personal as an email. That’s why it’s best to use it only when you can’t find someone’s direct email address.
Still, it gets your content in the eyes of an influencer, and they might even share it with their followers.
Even if your ideal target doesn’t link to your site, you can still get residual links from people who saw your link, enjoyed it, and linked to it themselves.
51. Natural acquisition
Natural acquisition is based on a common business principle — good products practically sell themselves. With natural acquisition, the goal is always to make the best possible product so that it passively gets results without your guidance.
If you create something innovative, helpful, and enjoyable, you’ll naturally earn links as people discover and promote your content. This fact makes natural acquisition a self-perpetuating link strategy.
Some targeted ways to earn links naturally include:
Creating a tool
Completing and publishing original research
Compiling statistics on industry topics
The better your content, the more links you’ll earn online. The more links you earn online, the better your content ranks in search results. The better your content ranks in search results, the more people will discover it. Then, you earn more links, better ranks, and more traffic all over again.
Ongoing SEO
SEO isn’t a once-and-done journey — it’s an ongoing process. Fortunately, SEO is never as difficult as the first try. That means you’ll always find new ways to improve your SEO process until you’ve turned your site into a lean money-making machine!
Our ongoing SEO checklist will help you on your SEO journey.
Ongoing SEO Checklist
Run a regular website audit
Update content
Monitor links and traffic
Set continuous goals
52. Run a regular website audit
A regular website audit can help you find any lacking areas on your website as you progress with SEO. Annual or quarterly audits can help you keep all of your website up to date and make sure you aren’t neglecting certain areas of your website.
Create a quarterly schedule and plan your website audits in advance. Some factors to look for in an SEO audit include:
Linking
Keyword targeting and usage
Content (age, location, freshness)
Ideally, you should review most of the tactics on this SEO checklist periodically.
53. Update content
Updating content regularly is essential for helping it rank. Some pages might rank really well at first, but as they become outdated, their rankings will drop. Going back and updating those pages can give them an immediate spike in traffic.
Create a schedule for your pages, and write evergreen content where you can. Some pages, like statistics pages, should get updated quarterly. Other pages, like informational articles on industry topics, might only need revised annually.
54. Monitor links and traffic
Links and traffic can change over time. You should monitor the number of backlinks and traffic you get per page to determine its performance accurately.
If pages no longer rank well, you know those should be the first ones you update.
55. Set continuous goals
Finally, the last step of our ongoing SEO checklist is to make ongoing goals. If you don’t know what you want from SEO, creating effective campaigns is much harder. Outline monthly, quarterly, and annual goals to stay on track and keep up with your SEO.
56. Stay up to date on SEO trends and changes
If you want to make sure your SEO approach is current, you should evaluate the current trends regularly.
SEO changes pretty frequently, and people are constantly finding new ways to approach it. Not only that, but Google launches new updates regularly that can impact your previous SEO techniques.
Keep up with SEO news and trends to make sure your approach is consistent with the market.
[Bonus] SEO checklist infographic
If you’d like an actual SEO checklist, use this handy infographic:
This post and our downloadable SEO checklist can help your business get started with SEO.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy to implement on search engine optimization checklist on a site. It requires time, dedication, and some background SEO knowledge. At WebFX, our award-winning team can help you check-off every to-do on your checklist.
