2018 SEO CHECKLIST. Use this checklist to ensure that you are optimizing your website by following these best practices.

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Randell Curtis
5 years ago
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1 2018 SEO CHECKLIST Your website should be optimized to serve your users. This checklist gives you the best practices for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) whether you are a freelancer, small business, SEO expert, or webmaster. Anyone who is a stakeholder in a website can become familiar with the best way to optimize your website for the user experience. Search Engine Optimization will help search engines understand and present your content. We are here to help you improve the quality of your website and the internet as well. Use this checklist to ensure that you are optimizing your website by following these best practices. BEST PRACTICES Ensure that your site is connected to Google s index HOW Complete a site search for your site s URL, if you see results you are connected and in the index. Ensure that you are serving high quality content on your site to users. Check to see that your website shows up in local business search Oh Pro Social can help you research, create and implement your content strategy for growth and inbound marketing. Ensure that your content is displaying fast and is responsive on all devices. Ensure that your website is secure PageSpeed Insights s/ Be sure you are using an SSL

2 Be sure that if you hire an SEO, you watch this video first. Conduct an SEO Audit and define your sitemap How to Hire an SEO by Google Webmasters A sitemap is a file where you can list the web pages of your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your site content. Search engine web crawlers like Googlebot read this file to more intelligently crawl your site. hl=en&ref_topic= Ensure you block unwanted crawling Make sure that Googlebot can crawl your JavaScript, CSS and image files Check and test your robots.txt to ensure it is allowing crawling of JavaScript, CSS and image files. If you have pages that may not be useful in a search result you may want to prevent them from appearing with a robots.txt file Use the Fetch as Google tool to see exactly how Googlebot sees and renders your content, and it will help you identify and fix a number of indexing issues on your site. Use the Google Search Console Create accurate and unique page titles Each page should have a unique title that is placed within the <title> tag which is within the <head> element of the HTML document. Choose a title that reads naturally and effectively communicates the content of the page. Avoid using Untitled or Page 1 Avoid using a title that does not reflect the content on that page. Avoid using the same title across all of your site s pages Titles can be brief Avoid lengthy titles that are not helpful Avoid any unnecessary keywords in your title tag.

3 Use a description meta tag for your page Can be one three sentences or a short paragraph. Google Search Console can tell you where you can improve your descriptions. Like the <title> tag the description meta tag is placed in the <head> element of your HTML document. Avoid a description that is not relevant to the content on the page. Avoid using generic descriptions like Page about landscaping or This is a web page Avoid using only keywords. Avoid copying the entire content of the page into the description meta tag. Avoid using the same description meta tag on multiple pages. Use heading tags to emphasize text Similar to writing an outline, think about main points and subpoints and use heading tags proportionately. Avoid using too many heading tags on a page. Avoid long headings. Use structured data markup to describe your content on each page. Avoid using heading tags for styling. They should be used for presenting the structured points. Add markup to the HTML code to your page directly or use a tool like You can markup business-relevant elements such as: Products you're selling Business location Videos about your products or business Opening hours Events listings Recipes

4 Your company logo, and many more! Use Data Highlighter Navigation is crucial for search engines If you want to try structured markup language without modifying the source code of your site, you can use Data Highlighter. Plan your navigation based on your home / root page. Categorize topics with specific subtopics. Keep your users in mind and make navigation simple by creating a natural hierarchy. Avoid overdoing it with categories, topics and subtopics. Avoid complex navigation links and linking every page to ever other page. Avoid navigation base only on images or animations. Avoid using scripts or plug-in for event handling navigation. Create a navigation page for users and a sitemap for search engines. Keep them updates and monitor for broken links. Keep your navigational page organized. Use breadcrumb lists Use words in URLs Create custom branded 404 page that links back to your root page Use breadcrumbs at the top or bottom of the page for visitors to navigate back to a previous section quickly URLs with words that are relevant to your site's content and structure are friendlier for visitors navigating your site. Avoid using lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs. Avoid generic page names like "page1.html". Avoid using excessive keywords like "baseball-cardsbaseball-cards-baseballcards.htm".

5 Create a simple directory structure Try using your directory structure to indicate the type of content found at that URL. Optimize your content Understand your audience and give them what they want Create wonderful and valuable content that will influence your website visitors. Users will gravitate to your content and will likely share with others. Organic shareable wordof-mouth virality is what will help your site build reputation. Use Google AdWords which has a Keyword Planner that helps you discover new keyword variations and see the approximate search volume for each keyword. Also, Google Search Console provides you with the top search queries your site appears for and the ones that led the most users to your site in the Search Analytics Report. Thanks for downloading our SEO Checklist! Talk to us if you have any questions about your inbound digital marketing strategy. We are Inbound Certified and have a passion for helping businesses grow! Call us today to discuss your Digital Marketing

SEO According to Google

SEO According to Google An On-Page Optimization Presentation By Rachel Halfhill Lead Copywriter at CDI Agenda Overview Keywords Page Titles URLs Descriptions Heading Tags Anchor Text Alt Text Resources