This is the Only Completed SEO Checklist for 2021 on the Internet. Do you know what is the best thing about this? All the things that I mention in the checklist are working great right now. So if you follow this then you can easily rank your site.
How to Properly Use this SEO Checklist?
This is an exact checklist that our company uses for SEO. It helps us to improve our ranking gradually, and it will help you also.
The most important thing here is, you don’t need to implement everything on this checklist.
But the most you implement, the most benefit you will get.
SEO Basics Checklist
This is the basic SEO Checklist and it is very important that before going to the advanced checklist you must have your basics clear.
In this you have to deal with some important tools and plugins.
1. Setup the Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a very powerful, useful tool. And the best part of this is, it is free from Google.
Search Console helps to monitor your site performance and check if there is any error and solve it.
And not only that it has very useful features like
- Check Keywords on which your site is ranking
- Submit a sitemap of your site
- Check crawling errors of your site
- Fix website errors
- Check mobile usability
- And lots more…
Note: If you really want to take your site on the first page of Google then it is very important you set up a Google search console.
2. Install Bing Webmaster Tools
Next part of the basic SEO Checklist is to set up Bing webmaster tool.
Bing is not as much popular as Google but 1/3rd of the searches are done on Bing, so it is helpful to utilize that also.
And instead of that Bing webmaster tool also provide some good features like keyword research tool etc.
3. Setup Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the another Best and Free tool from Google side and also very useful.
You can track your site performance and the visitors with the help of Google Analytics.
it’s many helpful features include:
- Check the traffic you are getting
- Check the real-time traffic also
- Find the pages that are generating you most of the traffic
- Identify the source of traffic
- Check the average bounce rate, page views, and dwell time
4. Install Yoast SEO plugin on your WordPress site
Yoast is a popular and useful SEO plugin. There are other SEO plugins also available like RankMath etc, but Yoast is most popular and easy.
It becomes very easy with Yoast SEO to optimize your site for Search Engines.
It also provide extra features like robots.txt, sitemap generation, schema etc.
Keyword Research Checklist
This is the second part of the SEO Checklist. In this we discuss about the Keyword Research Checklist.
And this is also a very important checklist. Because if you don’t know how to find the best keywords then you can’t rank your site fast.
1. Discover Long Tail keywords using Google Autosuggest
Using Google Autosuggest is the first part of the Keyword Research Checklist.
Let’s see how it works:
First, go and type the keyword you have in mind, on the google search box. But don’t press the enter or the Google search button.
When you type your keyword then google will suggest some more long-tail keywords that people are searching for.
These are known as “Google Suggest” Keywords. These keywords are very useful because people are searching for them.
2. Find Best Keywords with the use of Google Keyword Planner
It’s an official keyword research tool provided by Google. This tool is available with Google AdWords but you can also use it without spending on ads.
Since it is a Google tool so all the data provided by this are super accurate.
3. Use Ubersuggest Google Chrome Extension
Ubersuggest chrome extension is a very powerful tool of UberSuggest Company.
After Neil Patel makes their service of Ubersuggest paid then this is the only way to find the best keywords for your site.
You can’t find the keywords with this, but you can check the searches and difficulty of that keyword.
Using of this tool is very easy. Just install the extension and search for any keyword on Google and you will see the result in the search bar.
4. Find Questions Keyword with Answer the Public
Answer the Public is the best tool to find keywords or topics for blogs. You can easily find the questions keyword with this.
It will suggest you lots of question regarding your keyword. But, these keywords have some searches is not sure.
You have to check the searches and the difficulty of the keywords with other tools.
On-Page SEO Checklist
On-page SEO checklist is the most important part of SEO Checklist that you can’t miss.
These On-page SEO techniques are very important to rank your site on Google or any other search engine.
1. Include your keyword in the Permalink
Permalink means the URL of your site or pages. Permalink helps Google to understand what your page is all about.
Adding a keyword on your permalink is very helpful for SEO of your site.
For example, my target keyword for this page is SEO Checklist.
So the permalink can be like- coteriesoft.com/blog/seo-checklist-for-2021
So Simple! Right?
2. Size of Permalink
Your permalink should not be too long or too short. It must have 4-5 words in it after your site URL.
Too long URL does not look professional from any side and too short a URL can’t give clear instruction to Google about the page.
So always prefer the mid-size URL, minimum 3 words and maximum 5 words.
3. Use Keyword in Title Tag
This is not a big secret that you should use your main keyword in the title tag. But it the most important factor for SEO.
Even though people know they should use their main keyword in the title tag, lots of people don’t use it. And this can be beneficial for you.
But you get more benefit if you create catchy title with keywords. This will give you double benefit.
Keyword helps in ranking and catchy title increase the CTR.
4. Use Primary Keyword in First Paragraph
Google give more emphasis on first paragraph of your blog. And if it contains your main keyword then it will be beneficial in SEO.
So make sure you use your main keyword at least one time in your first paragraph.
As you can see I use the “SEO checklist”(Primary Keyword) in the first paragraph.
5. Use your keywords in Headings
Using your keywords in heading is also plays a very important role in ranking of site.
And make sure to use your keywords in at least H1, H2 and H3 tags.
You can see the example in this blog. As I added my main keyword “SEO Checklist” in the H2 heading of this blog.
I am not saying that doing this will increase your ranking suddenly. But when it comes to SEO every single tip matters.
6. Optimize your Images
Images play a very important role in website ranking. It tells Google about your content.
But Google can’t see the images as humans can see, so you need to add the alternate tag with the images. This will help Google to understand what your image is about.
Add keywords also in the alternate text of the images.
Pro Tip: Before upload, your image on your site, change the name of the image and use your main keyword in that image name.
7. Use Synonyms & LSI Keywords
Few years ago keyword stuffing technique works great. But now it’s not work anymore.
Google algorithm is very smart now and if you try to do the stuffing then Google will put you out of race.
So instead of using the same keywords 100 times and do the stuffing, use the synonyms of the keywords.
For example, suppose my keyword is “how to write a blog” then its synonyms of LSI keywords can be:
- How to start a blog
- How to launch a blog
- Starting a blog
- Blog setup on WordPress
So the best way to use this is, use your main keywords few times and then use LSI keywords in the middle of you blog, here and there.
8. Use External Links
External links not adding any direct SEO benefit to your site. But it helps indirectly. It shows Google that your site is well referenced, researched and trustworthy.
You should add at least 3-4 external links to your site. But don’t add any website link. Link popular site and great content page.
Note: Don’t forget to make external link no-follow, if you don’t want to give backlink to any site.
9. Use Internal Links
This is also a useful factor of On page SEO. Whenever you publish you new content then link that with 2-3 other blogs or pages of your site.
Use keyword rich anchor text in the internal links.
For example, my one blog is about backlinks and the keyword is “create do-follow backlinks” then the anchor text of another page will be like-
“Backlinks are important but do-follow backlinks are most important since it passes link juice to your site which helps to increase site authority.”
Technical SEO Checklist
Technical SEO is very-very important part of SEO and this Technical SEO Checklist will help you in this.
And the good things is that fixing technical SEO problems is not too difficult, especially when you follow this amazing SEO Checklist.
1. Identify Crawl Errors
Crawling error means Google is facing problem in accessing some your website pages.
And let me tell you this is not good at all.
If Google is not able to crawl that page, then forgets about the ranking of that page, even you don’t find that page anywhere on Google.
But wait, I have a Good News also. You can easily find the crawl issues of your site by the use of Google Search Console.
If you find that there are any pages on your site that Google is unable to crawl then fixed it.
2. Index your pages on Google
Normally Google takes time to index your page. But it provides an amazing tool that can help you to do this fast.
That tool is “URL Inspection” tool available in the Google Search Console.
Just enter the link to your page and click enter. If the page is indexed already then you will see the green tick.
But if the page is not indexed then you will see the red tick and you can request google to index by click on “Request Indexing”.
3. Make sure your site is Mobile Friendly
Google recently launched a new algorithm according to which if your site is not mobile-friendly then forget about the ranking.
You can easily check that all pages on your site are mobile-friendly or not by using the Google Search Console.
4. Fix Broken Links
Broken links leaves a very bad image of your site on Google and this can harm your ranking.
The best thing is remove the broken links as soon as possible.
You can replace that broken link with the link of any other pages of your site.
5. Secure your Site with HTTPS
HTTPS is a direct Google ranking factor. If two sites are ranking on the same page then the site with HTTPS will get the priority and higher ranking.
So if your site is not on https then this is the right time to move to https.
If you don’t know how you can move from HTTP to HTTPS you can refer to this guide.
6. Check your Site’s loading speed
Site loading speed is one of the most important factor in this Technical SEO Checklist.
It affects your site ranking both directly and indirectly.
Just think about it do you want to stay on a site which take lots of time on loading. Definitely Not!
So, your users also don’t stay on your site if it takes lots of time to load. And due to this, your site bounce rate will increase and your site ranking will go down.
Because Bounce rate is one of the major factor for SEO.
Content Checklist
Everyone knows “Content is King”. And this is 100% true.
Until and unless you don’t have the content, you can’t create a website or blog.
But just creating any content is not important, creating a good content is also very important. And this Content SEO Checklist will help you in this.
1. Creating Amazing Content using “The Skyscraper Technique”
The Skyscraper Technique is the best way to creating amazing content. If you use it smartly then you can also increase your site traffic.
This technique is divided into three step process:
- Identify a piece of popular content in your industry.
- Next, create better content than that by adding more value to your content.
- Finally, promote your content on different platforms.
2. Use Small Paragraphs
Stop using big paragraphs. NO one like to read big paragraphs.
The time was gone when people read big paragraphs, now it’s time for short paras.
Create the paragraphs of 2-3 lines. As you can see in this blog, each para is around 1-2 lines.
This increase the readability of the content and decrease the bounce rate.
3. Cover the In-Depth knowledge about the topic you choose
Content that covers in-depth knowledge about the topic gets higher rankings in Google search engines.
Google always wants to deliver the best results to their customers, because they think from the customer’s perspective.
So, whenever you write a blog on any topic, try to deliver as much content as possible. But don’t write just anything to increase the content.
4. Use Schema Markup
Schema markup provides additional information about your content to the Google and help Google to understand better your content.
If you are using WordPress then you can use plugins for that.
5. Use Multimedia
Using multimedia in your content makes the content more interesting and engaging.
It not only helps the visitors to understand your content better but it also plays a crucial role in ranking of that blog, both directly and indirectly.
The Multimedia you may includes:
- Images
- Videos
- GIFs
- Infographics
- Charts
- Interactive Polls and Quizzes
Link Building Checklist
Whenever we talk about the SEO, the first thing we get in our mind is link building, because everyone know the importance of backlinks in SEO.
Even Google confirmed that backlinks are one of the top 3 ranking factors.
But the point is do you know how to create the quality ones?
1. Build Powerful Backlinks With Guest Posting
Guest posting is one of the best way to build backlinks.
And not only that, it also provides traffic to your site.
Note: While creating guest post, just don’t go on any site with “write for us” section and do guest post. First check their website authority and traffic.
Doing guest post on quality sites can provide you major benefits.
2. Reverse Your Competitor’s Backlinks
This is also one of the great strategy to create backlinks.
But for finding your competitor’s backlinks you need to buy some paid tools like semrush or ahrefs etc.
There are some free tools also available but they won’t provide you the full list.
But if your budget is low then you can go with the free tools.
Once you find your competitors backlinks, start creating your site backlinks on that.
3. Become a Podcast Guest
It is somewhere similar to a guest posting.
But in this you don’t need to post article on other site, but join their podcast as a guest.
And they will provide you the backlink by mentioning your site in their blog.
This backlink will also bring you some good amount of traffic.
4. Mention Influencers in Your Blog Post
This process is little bit difficult.
In this you have to mention influencers in your blog post by mentioning some of their product service or good thing.
Then you have to let them know that you mentioned them in your blog.
Then they will share your blog post and you will automatically start getting backlinks and traffic.
Conclusion
In this blog we share the complete SEO checklist. If you follow this, you never need to check any other site for reference.
If you like this post and find the content informative then must share this with others also.
We are the Coteriesoft- Digital marketing Company in Lucknow. If you want any type of digital marketing services then you can connect us at any time.