The Complete SEO Checklist for 2020

Search engine optimization became important in marketing industry. 

Are you looking for complete SEO checklist to rank in google higher?. 

Trying something new, for this year

Find complete SEO Checklist 2020, that helps to drive more traffic and improves keyword ranking.

Let’s drive in…

List of Checklist:

• SEO Basics Checklist
• On-Page SEO Checklist
• Technical SEO Checklist
• Keyword Research Checklist
• Content Checklist

SEO Basics Checklist:

Let’s check about fundamental tools and plugins need to rank in search engines.

1. Google Search Console

The tool helps you to track your site performance, traffic from google search.

Keywords and pages which gives more traffic
Submit a sitemap
Fix website crawl errors and warnings

2. Google Analytics

The best tool to check your organic and paid traffic details, ROI, social media advertising and web traffic analysis.

Let you know traffic details from google
Identify bounce rate, page views and time on site
Find out pages which bring you lots of traffic
Identify Social media traffic and traffic from other websites

3. Google Tag Manager

Here you can easily deploy code at one place for your site.

Select the type of code which want to add
Add code details (Tracking Id)
Choose where to trigger code

On-Page SEO Checklist:

1. Include Keyword in URL

Google sees URL first, it helps to understand what is a page about. Including the target keyword in URL passes the great signal to google about a page.

Keyword Rich URL helps to improve your CTR and Keep your URL Short & Crises.

Note ; Avoid stuffing more keywords in your URL.

2. Keyword in Meta Title Tag

Still, title tags place an important element of on-page SEO. That’s why include target keyword in your meta title tag.

Title tag appears on google search, Help to identify about page for users.

3. Optimize Title for your page

Use long tail keywords to optimize your page title, which help to increase organic CTR.

Note – Title tag should be eye catching and induce users to click on it.

Some practice ideas;

Use an active voice tone
Use trigger words like Free, Discussed, Comparison
Use numbers, brackets
Include year or month or date

4. Include a keyword in Meta Description Tag

However meta description tags isn’t a ranking factor, but crafting compelling content along with target keywords for meta description it can improve CTR.

Google highlights the keywords which user searched for and if it’s included in meta description.

5. Add Keywords in Header Tags

Make sure to add keywords in your header tags (H1, H2, H3,… H6)  but not more than one keyword.

Its good idea to include primary or focus keyword in your H1 Tag and make sure there’s only one H1 tag throughout the page.

6. Include a keyword in body content

Try to include search intent keywords for at least 3 times in the body of your page and don’t forget to include the keyword at first 100 – 150 words of a page.

Google crawls more weight for the first 150 words of a page, try to include keyword once there.

7. Optimize your Images

Google understand images by Image using ALT tags. Image speaks alot about content.

While you save the image, use a proper filename that describes what is an image about.

Note – image-optimization-2020.png (Give proper image name)

8. Use LSI Keywords in content

Google is too smart, search engines can understand the human language. This means you can use natural tone and relevant keywords for the content.

Use LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords which are related to primary keywords, so search engines can understand the content of the page.

LSI Graph is a great free tool to find these keywords.

9. Internal Linking

Internal link building strategy can boost your SEO and it helps to spread link equity.

If you link from page A to another page on your site (Internal Link), some of the page authority passes from page A to page B.

10. Build External Links

Link building is process of getting external links to link to a page on your website and it is one of the main tactics.

Benefits of link Building:

• Helps to build a relationship to other relevant websites or blog based on industry
• Drive referral traffic to website
• Helps to build your brand and enrich your authority

Technical SEO Checklist:

Technical SEO checklist to solve the errors and improve your website ranking.

1. Identify Crawl Errors

Website crawl errors – Google has trouble viewing a page. It makes drops keyword ranking.

Fix all crawl errors at Google search console.

2. Mobile-Friendly Check

Google launched a  mobile-first index.

If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, it wont rank well on search engines.

You can use Google Mobile-Friendly Test tool to check your site.

3. Fix Broken Links

Broken link really hurt your SEO.

Do regular website scan to keep broken link free website.

Tools to check – drlinkcheck, screaming frog.

4. Switch to HTTPs

Secure your site with HTTPs and google confirmed it a ranking signal for a site.

Note – If you’re planning to start a new site, you should use HTTPs right away and save from further troubles or errors.

5. Avoid Duplicate Content

If your site has duplicate content issue, its negative impact for your SEO. Duplicate content issues happens when 2 or more URLs on your site are identical or similar.

Use 301 redirects, canonical tags to fix duplicate content errors by using search console.

6. Boost Your Website Speed

Page speed measure how fast content of the page loads.

You can evaluate your website page speed using Google Page Speed Insights.

A slow-loading site reduces page ranking and increases bounce rate.

7. Create Sitemap and Robots.txt file

An XML sitemap helps to understand search engines about website structure and helps to index all the pages.

Create XML sitemap and submit in Google Search Console

Robots.txt file is a text file webmaster create to instruct robots, to crawl and index web pages.

Keyword Research Checklist:

It’s important to do keyword research helps to improve pages SEO and increase keyword ranking for a page. Keyword research is a starting point of SEO.

1. Discover Long Tail Keywords

Head your content with long-tail keywords. Long term keywords have low search volume and easier to rank.

Consider google suggest keywords, they are great keywords to optimize a page.

Keywordtool.io is the best tool to scrape google suggest keywords.

2. Use Google Keyword Planner

Google keyword planner is a free keyword research tool. It helps to figure out search volumes, competitor and keyword difficulty.

Content Checklist:

By publishing great and unique content on a page, it helps to rank better in google.

Content place a big part in modern strategy.

1.  Skyscraper Technique

The skyscraper technique is a powerful formula for publishing unique content, to build high-quality backlinks.

Skyscraper Technique:

Search and Get link-worthy content
Create something better
Target your audience

2. Make your Content readability

Optimize your content for voice search. Voice search is the most important tactics in digital marketing strategy.

• Identify 2 – 4 target keywords and use it
• Check most frequently asked questions and address topic based on that FAQs
• The average content length of the top position Google article contains 2,416 words
• Include relevant CTAs within the body of the content

Final Thoughts

We hope above SEO Checklist will help to improve your site ranking, content marketing efforts, ensure to reach the right target audience.

Check your web pages are fully optimized with high-quality content, which helps to rank well. Understand about the ranking factors and create content to boost traffic and revenue to your company.