Blog / Free SEO Checklist to get your website higher in the rankings
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It's a process of optimizing a website to improve its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific keywords or phrases. The primary goal of SEO is to increase the quantity and quality of organic (non-paid) traffic to a website.
Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo use complex algorithms to determine which websites should appear at the top of search results for specific queries. SEO experts use a variety of techniques and strategies to help search engines understand what a website is about and determine whether it's relevant and useful for a particular search query.
In reality you do not need to be an expert to do SEO. You just need a checklist of how to do implement these things. Well you are in the right place as we are giving away our SEO checklist which helps all of our clients rank higher in Google and get more traffic each month.
Why do I need SEO on my website?
There are many benefits to using SEO on your website. Some of the most significant ones are listed below:
Improved visibility and traffic: SEO makes your website more visible and ranks higher for certain business-related keywords and phrases in search engine results pages. When more people view and click on the link to your website, this might enhance its visibility and traffic.
Improved user experience: SEO involves making adjustments to your website that will increase accessibility and user friendliness. This may involve enhancing your site's navigation, speed, and content arrangement, all of which can enhance user experience and make it more likely that visitors will stay on your page for an extended period of time.
Better conversion rates: SEO can draw people who are more likely to be interested in your products or services by focusing on relevant keywords and phrases for your business. Since these visitors are more likely to convert to customers or clients, this may result in greater conversion rates.
Cost-effectiveness: SEO targets customers who are already looking for items or services similar to yours, making it a cost-effective marketing method. This implies that you can reach your target market without spending money on advertising.
Competitive advantage: You can outperform rival companies in your field by putting into practise efficient SEO methods. By doing this, you'll be able to stand out from the competition and draw more visitors to your website.
What do I need to do to get my website to number 1 on Google?
For a small business it is highly unlikely you are going to just steal the top spot in google for high traffic keywords. This is because larger companies have built up Domain Authority over time which means Google will put their content higher than yours. What you want to focus on is the lower traffic keywords and building your own authority. SEO takes time but you need to start somewhere, focus on creating engaging web pages and blog content based around some smaller keywords and build on that.
As you start to rank in google, you will be able to manage your naturally ranking keywords in Google Search Console. We have a full blog post about How To Use Google Search Console For Free SEO Keyword Research. This will outline the key steps to helping you understand what keywords you are doing well on and where you need to improve.
SEO Checklist
Here is a list of things you want to master on each page of your website. Whether it is a simple contact page or a high word count blog post. By making sure these things are:
Keyword Research:
Conduct keyword research to identify the most relevant and high-volume keywords to target on your website. For smaller businesses you need to focus on your naturally ranking keywords and then slowly start targeting some of your higher search volume keywords as you build more Domain Authority.
On-Page Optimization:
Optimize your website's title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and content to include your target keywords. Make sure you use long tail and short tail keywords, This can appeal to more search terms such as a long-tail keyword could be something like: What is SEO? whereas as short term keyword could simply be SEO. By using them in different ways you can get more from your search results and increase your impressions.
URL Structure:
Your URLs need to be clean, structured and to the point. They must contain the use of your target keyword for the page and also show the complete navigation. For example this blog uses a url structure as shown below. The url contains our website: ajhmedia.co.uk which then has a parent url of /blog/ and then the actual page url which is the title of the blog containing the keywords: SEO Checklist. You will notice there are no spaces or special characters, this is because a url must not contain these.
ajhmedia.co.uk/blog/how-to-use-google-search-console-for-free-seo-keyword-research
Internal Linking:
Include internal links to relevant pages on your website to help search engines understand the structure of your site and improve user navigation. This will build your website structure and help people navigate around your site better.
Mobile-Friendly Design:
Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly and responsive to provide a good user experience on all devices. You need to ensure no matter what device or screen size your website is viewed on, that the user can always navigate and find what they are looking for. It also need to be engaging. We wrote a very useful blog post around how to master the design of your website. Have a read here.
Site Speed:
A fast interactive website it very important, it can be the difference between whether someone stays on your site or leaves. This is also called the Bounce Rate. The lower the Bounce Rate the better as this means people are staying on your website longer and reading / Interacting. The speed of your webpage can depend on many things such as which Web Hosting you use, image sizes and file types and CSS and Javascript. There are some free tools you can use which will show you your websites performance and how to improve. They are all based on Google Pagespeed Insights. You can use this free tool to see how well each page is performing and find out what is causing it to be slow. If you page is showing as green you are doing something right.
Image Optimization:
Optimize images on your website by compressing file sizes down. If your webpage is only showing your image at a maximum of 1000px X 500px then there is no need to use an image of 2000px x 1000px. You can use free tools online to help your compress images and make them smaller file sizes without loosing any Quality.
Also you need to ensure all of your images use alt tags. There are html code on your images and help you show on Google Image searches.
Schema Markup:
A type of structured data called Schema Markup gives search engines more details about a webpage's content. It employs a standardised language of tags or "schemas" to provide web content context and meaning, assisting search engines in comprehending the material's purpose and effectively displaying it in search results.
Schema Markup can be used to convey in-depth details about a variety of items, including goods, services, occasions, reviews, food, and more. For instance, if your website sells goods, you may use Schema Markup to list details like the item's name, brand, price, and availability.
Schema Markup can assist increase your website's exposure and search engine rating while also giving visitors a more useful and interesting browsing experience by giving search engines this extra information. Rich snippets or enhanced search results, which show photographs, ratings, and other pertinent data, can also make your content stand out on search engine results pages.
You can manually implement Schema Markup on your website, manually add the necessary HTML code, or utilise plugins or other tools to automate the process. Schema Markup should be used in conjunction with other optimization strategies to get the greatest results, as it is only one part of a full SEO plan.
Here is a free to use schema generator to help you get started: Learn more
Sitemap:
A sitemap is used by search engines to understand the structure of your website, It explains what pages you have and the navigation. It is important to make sure you have a sitemap in place to get Google or other search engines to crawl your website and rank your pages accordingly. You can create a sitemap by using the Google Search Console and then submiting it using the sitemap menu.
To generate a sitemap you can use a free tool here.
Monitor Performance:
Track your website's performance using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to identify areas for improvement and measure the success of your SEO efforts.
Remember, SEO is an ongoing process that requires consistent effort and monitoring to achieve long-term success. By following this checklist and continually optimizing your website, you can improve your search engine rankings and drive more organic traffic to your site.
Looking for someone to do your SEO for you?
SEO can be overwhelming to many people who just want to see results and are not very technical when it comes to website design. That is why we are here to help. We have over a decade of experience building websites which not only look amazing but perform well too. If you are looking to either build a brand new website or simple improve your current one then please get in touch and let's discuss how we can get you more traffic and sell more online.
