Ultimate SEO Checklist 2022 – Get #1 Ranking

Are you looking for a comprehensive SEO checklist that will become helpful for your website to increase organic traffic and get a better ranking? If yes, then you have landed on the right page. Today we will find out in detail about the search engine optimization checklist that can be beneficial in 2022 to achieve your marketing goals. 

Here, we have created the ultimate checklist you need to improve your website’s SEO. A few best practice points and tasks can help you in your particular endeavor. The guide will be an excellent reference for your marketing goals, as it includes the basics of search engine optimization to some of the must-knows while analyzing the off-page signals.

SEO Basic Checklist 

Are you still lacking behind and looking forward to knowing what SEO is? If you have still not covered the basics of search engine optimization, your website will always struggle to rank higher in the most competitive keywords. So, the following points can be extremely effective and help your SEO strategy. Make sure to implement them properly to enjoy success.

Use Bing Webmaster Tools and Google search console

Google search console is an essential tool that gives you a comprehensive insight into the performance of your website. Apart from this, you will also find a wealth of data that one can use on your website to improve its traffic and visibility. Similarly, the Bing Webmaster tool is another platform that provides insights and data for search engines.

These are the crucial tools that will help you to check the keywords and search terms that users mostly look for in a website. You can also identify crawling errors, submit sitemaps, and do much more with these tools.

Create Google Analytics 

When you get the right data, you will be able to make correct decisions. Google Analytics is a free marketing tool that provides you the opportunity to check the insights and data about the number of people visiting your website, how they are getting engaged with your website and who they are in specific.

However, to acquire the details, you must set up Google Analytics with your website. Remember, only when you set it up can you find robust and comprehensive information that can help you make an informed decision for your website. If you find it challenging, looking for an experienced SEO expert is always advisable. 

Install SEO plug-in for WordPress website 

If you have a WordPress website, there are numerous chances to improve your marketing goals. You can simply install an SEO plug-in and configure them to use the features and functionality that are required for site optimization.

You will find a vast checklist of WordPress SEO plug-ins that you can choose according to your personal preferences. Plug-ins are a great option as they can improve your marketing approach and ensure your website gets the best ranking in SERPs.

Generate sitemap and submit it 

A sitemap is imperative for any website in its SEO approach. The significant purpose is to guide search engines to decide on the page that they must crawl. It is a canonical version of each page. It contains a list of URLs that shows the main content of your website to ensure that it gets indexed and crawled by Google.

Create robots.txt file

There is a need to create a robots.txt file. It will suggest search engine crawlers crawl the files and pages. It guides the web crawler by telling them the pages they can or can’t crawl. Most importantly, it is used to prevent some sections from the website from crawling and stop them from showing in Google searches.

Many WordPress SEO plug-ins will help users to edit and create the robots.txt file. However, if you’re using another CMS, you might require creating the file manually by making use of a text editor and then uploading it to your domain. It can be challenging for new owners, so experts can be a good solution. 

Check the search console for other actions

In some rare times, you will find that the website has been affected negatively by manual action. These are typically done to manipulate or violate Google’s Webmaster guidelines. It generally includes things like spam, natural links, structured data issues, hidden text, think content and others that Google does not choose.

Most of the websites will not be affected by manual action. Now that being said, you can check the manual action tab available in the Google search console. You will instantly be notified when there is any manual action being done. 

Ensure that Google can index your site 

One of the major aspects of ensuring that the SEO basics are covered is to make sure that Google can easily index the website. This is not uncommon as you might think that Google will not index a website. Instead, you will be surprised to know how often de-indexing is accidentally cost by developers.

You can implement a site audit tool to ensure that the website can be easily indexed and crawled. Make sure you run the audit to navigate the crawlability report to find valuable insights.

Keyword Research Checklist 

Unless you have done solid keyword research, it is impossible to rank for the correct terms. Keywords play an imperative role in search engine optimization. If you don’t rank for the correct terms, even when you get traffic on your website, it will not convert at a good rate.

So to help you get comprehensive knowledge about keyword research, here are the essential tasks you need to do to ensure success in your SEO efforts.

Identifying your competitors

One of the fastest ways to start your SEO effort is by conducting comprehensive keyword research. It will help to find out the terms that your competitors are working with and getting success. If you don’t spend time on competitor analysis, you’re actually wasting time.

So, use the domain overview tool to check your domain and find the key competitors. You will quickly be shown with the major competitors in the same space and provide other necessary details. It is a highly effective method.

Find the monetizing keywords

You initially need to understand the main keywords that will provide money. If you haven’t guessed this, you will not drive leads, conversions and sales.

These are most commonly known as the high competition or high volume keywords that will be offered either in category level or topic. So, if you have a business that provides “Soccer jerseys,” the most competitive keywords would be “Soccer jerseys.” It will be considered as the head term.

Use the Keyword Overview tool to find out about the keywords associated with your services and products and the head term. It will provide you with comprehensive knowledge you can use in your further SEO strategy.

Look for Long Tail Variations

If your keyboard strategy does not have long tail keywords, it is actually not a strategy. Long tail keywords can offer an improved conversion rate even when they have lower volume than the head terms.

So, you need to ensure that the search engine optimization strategy you have created also targets the long tail keywords variants. There should be a mix of head terms and long tail keywords to help you reach several directions.

The best SEO approach will be to find your head term and then focus on long tail keywords to improve your conversion. You can simply use the keyword magic tool to choose long-tail keywords. It will have a variety of phrases or keywords that you can use in your strategy to improve your conversion.

Make Keyword Map 

Now that you have easily identified the targeted keywords, you can map or pair them with your website pages and identify if there is any gap. Creating a keyword map can help you to create a keyword framework for your site structure. It is mainly driven by research with the ultimate goal of optimizing keywords and attracting traffic.

Analyze page intent to rank

You have to ensure that your page’s content matches the search indent. It again means that you have to take time to analyze pages that will help to rank for the target terms. It will also ensure that the content aligns accordingly. Creating content according to the search intent is a must to ensure great ranking. 

For example, if you are choosing a term that you will target nationwide, you have to choose accordingly. You can look for the keyword difficulty and find out the high search volume, but apart from this, you also need to make sure that the terms match your intent.

When you can understand content intent that helps to rank in Google, you will be able to understand how it ranks. However, always make sure to pay comprehensive attention to the searcher’s intent before creating content for the website.

Find out the questions your targeted customers are asking 

You always have to know about the questions your audience is asking. It will help you to create content on your website and answer in a better manner. Using the keyword magic tool, you can choose all the associated questions for any keyword. Put any keyword and then filter questions to find out the results. It is a great way to start and will provide you with in-depth knowledge about the way to create content.

You can also use other tools like alsoasked.com, which finds out a lot of questions based on your keyword. From here, you can get multiple content ideas or find out the questions you can include in your content to make it likeable for your potential users.

Understanding the difficulty of ranking the targeted keywords 

If you have a brand-new website, you might struggle to rank on the most competitive keywords. Remember that it requires building authority to get the best ranking. This is why you need to find the keyword difficulty you plan to target. It can help manage your expectations while beginning the SEO strategy.

You can use a great tool like Keyword Overview Tool to find out details about the keyword and the difficulty. Only you need to input the targeted keywords to find out how hard it will be for a new website to rank on the first page.

Technical SEO Checklist 

Technical SEO is another significant inclusion that can help to make a solid foundation. It is a must for every website owner to focus on technical SEO to ensure that the site becomes crawlable and gets indexed by Google. Following are the most common technical best practices you must remember to achieve your marketing goals.

Make sure you use HTTPS 

As a marketer, you must know that HTTPS has been a common ranking factor since 2014. You cannot find any good reason for not using HTTPS encryption on the website. If You’re still running your website on HTTP, you can certainly not leverage the many advantages. So, it is high time to migrate.

You will quickly be able to confirm whether your website is on HTTPS just by looking at the URL of your website. In case you find a padlock created on the left side of the website URL, it means that you are encrypted. In case there is no padlock, you need to take faster action. 

Look for duplicate versions of your website

You must allow Google to index a single version of your website. There are different versions of your site, and all should point to a single one. Whether you have chosen the WWW or non-WWW version, it must land on your website.

The other website version should have 301 redirects to the primary website. You must check this by manually entering everywhere and into the browser. In case you still find that you are being able to access different versions, it is time that you immediately implement redirects.

Identify and fix the crawling errors

You will quickly be able to identify if any crawling errors exist on your website by the use of the Google search console. Check the coverage report, and you will see both excluded and error pages. Apart from this, you can also find warnings and pages that are valid.

You need to take time to resolve the errors that you might find and explore the many causes of excluding URLs in detail. Some of the most common issues like 404 errors and incorrect canonicalized pages will show on this platform. These problems will have a severe impact on the website’s performance.

Improve Site Speed 

Slow websites will often provide a poor user experience. In fact, in 2021, Google has confirmed that page experience will become a huge ranking factor. So, it is a need for any business to ensure that the website loads faster so that users can stay for a more extended period. Remember that no one will wait for your slow website to load.

You can make use of the Pagespeed insight tool by Google to improve page performance and Core Web Vital statistics.

Fix broken outbound and internal links

Broken links on your website is another thing that can provide a poor user experience. No customer or reader will want to click a link and then find nothing on the page. It is a big no-no for any website. So, you must find the list of broken internal links and make sure to fix them or remove them.

Ensure a mobile-friendly website

The next most important thing is to pay attention to the mobile-friendliness of your website. Since Google already mentioned mobile-friendliness as one of their ranking factors, websites need to make sure they are mobile-friendly. If you do not serve an excellent mobile-friendly experience, you’re losing a large amount of visitors.

You can check out the mobile-friendliness of your website on the Mobile Friendly Test tool by Google. If it shows that your pages are mobile-friendly, you are good to go; however, if it isn’t, you have to take action immediately.

On-Page SEO & Content 

We will not be able to offer a great on-page experience unless you have included helpful content. Your site will keep struggling to get an organic ranking without proper content. So, you have to create website pages and blog posts. You can find several blog posts by your competitor which will provide you with knowledge about the necessity. It is a must to outrank your competitor using essential keywords.

So, make sure you read the following to find the basic on-page SEO and content details you need to fulfill.

Optimize Title Tags 

You have to pay attention to optimizing title tags as it is a crucial aspect of SEO. In fact, these are the first things that any expert would require to check if they want to run. Title tags are essential as they inform search engines about the page and impact whether users will find it informative. Make sure you’re not duplicating title tags as it won’t be user-specific.

You have to make sure that you avoid writing long title tags as they will not be shown on the search engine results pages. Make sure that they are not more than 70 characters.

Find Missing Meta Descriptions 

Even when meta descriptions are not the significant ranking factor, they generally appear below the title tags shown in the SERP. It helps users to understand what the page is all about. Simply put, the meta description will encourage users to click on your website over someone else. Based on your meta description, it can negatively or positively affect the click-through ratio of your website.

In case you don’t have a meta description, Google will only display a part of the page content. Also, remember that 70% of the time, Google rewrite meta description to provide the best search indent.

Fix H1 Tags

The H1 tag of the page is the main heading of the content. When you make the site audit, you will find the errors showing in it. The tools will be highly effective in finding out if any page has more than one H1 tag. If there is any, you need to take the time and resolve the matter.

Also, ensure that the primary H1 tag includes your website’s target keyword. It will be highly effective in improving the chances of getting ranked.

Improve Page Content

If you don’t optimize the pages properly with meta tags and page titles, you miss out on many opportunities to rank higher with the main keyword. So, it would help if you made sure to create the page content in a manner that includes the keywords along with the meta tags and title tag. However, simply adding the keywords would not help.

Try to use the additional keywords in the H2 or the sub-headings. It can further help to optimize your content and improve your ranking. These are the best practices that every website should take while creating content. Following the structure can enormously benefit your SEO efforts. 

Ensure ALT text

You should always pay additional attention to image optimization. Not only do you need to properly name the images with a proper file name by optimizing the quality and size, but also you have to pay attention to the SEO factors.

The very minimum thing you can do is to ensure that your website’s main image has the ALT tags. You have to properly describe the image to help search engines identify the image while the users do a similar search.

OFF-Page SEO 

You cannot take off-page SEO for granted if you want to stay on top. Remember that you might reach on top but to hold the position, you have to make a continuous approach through page SEO.

Find link-building process

You will need to find new link-building opportunities. Take time to explore and then act accordingly. It is crucial to create a link building profile if you want to improve your ranking. Remember that when Google finds many links coming to your website, it will help them understand the authoritative aspect of your website.

So, it will directly have an impact on the ranking. When your website gets more quality backlinks, it is one of the best ways to stay on top and enjoy a vast number of opportunities.

Setup your GMB Page

Off-page SEO is more than just links. If you have a local business, you must make sure it is listed on the Google business profile. If not done, you are actually not getting anything from your effort. It might be time-consuming, but it is an excellent choice for all brick-and-mortar businesses in the long run.

Conclusion

So now, after getting knowledge about the steps from the SEO checklist, hopefully, you have got the knowledge about it. However, it can be challenging initially, but when you choose an expert who has knowledge of both on-page and off-page SEO can provide the ultimate result. Digital Habibi is a name of a knowledgeable company with experienced SEO experts who can improve your performance through the trending marketing approach.

SEO Checklist FAQs