SEO specialists launch sites with glaring errors on them all the time, destroying their chances of ever getting ranked on search results. With all the different SEO elements to think about on a site, it’s easy for the odd mistake to slip through the net.
Things like going live with an unnecessary no-index tag can hurt your rankings and make your SEO efforts go completely unnoticed. A lot of development and IT teams are not well-versed in the details of SEO, so can often negatively affect some elements of a site.
So, what can you do to make sure you’re sticking to the basic rules of ranking on Google?
This is where the SEO checklist comes to save the day. Anyone from developers to SEOs to admin can go over it and check for the basics. It should be quick and simple once everyone knows how to do it, and it will save your team a lot of time and effort. This checklist will become a part of your team, letting the developers know exactly what they need to do without you having to tell them every time.
The main outline will involve listing the elements that need to be ticked off, as well as a short explanation detailing what, why, and how these things need to be done. Sticking to a quick and simple checklist will help everyone and get you better results at the same time!
Take a look at this brief example of a checklist that you can customise to fit in with your needs:
On-page Source Code:
1. Titles
- The title for every page should be no more than 50-60 characters, and not the same as any other page on your site.
2. Meta Descriptions
- The meta description for each page should be shorter than 160 characters, but not too short. This should also be unique to the other pages on the site.
3. Header Tags
- There should be only one <h1> tag on the page, preferably with your focus keyword in it
- The text should be helpful for the reader and accurately describe your page
4. Analytics tracking code
- The UA code from your Google analytics should be correct and the same as on the other pages of your site
Page Text:
- Ensure all links on the page are working and that they link to the right pages
- Make sure that all the buttons to share on social media are working correctly
- Check that all text on the page is spelt correctly and that there are no grammatical mistakes
Images and Video:
- The file name for any media files should say exactly what it is, they should be lower case, and separated by hyphens
- Every image should have alt text attributed to it, preferably including a keyword you want to rank for
URL:
- The URL should redirect to www.[yoursite].com if you enter [yoursite].com
- Descriptive of the content on the page, and short enough to read or type quickly
- It should be completely lowercase, and spaces or underscores should be replaced with hyphens
- Correct usage of https:// or http://
We recommend completing this checklist twice to make sure that no errors go unfound. Once by the development team to go over the work they do, then again by another person to double check that every rule has been adhered to.