We\u2019ve put together the ultimate SEO checklist to help you increase your site\u2019s organic traffic and boost your rankings.<\/p>\n
The checklist includes 41 best practices and tasks you need to complete.<\/p>\n
Tip<\/strong>:\u00a0Create a free Semrush account<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(no credit card needed) so you can follow the steps in this guide.<\/em><\/p>\n Download a\u00a0copy of the checklist here<\/a>.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve broken this checklist down into sections that cover the main focus areas of SEO:<\/p>\n You\u2019ll need to focus on all of the above for a holistic SEO strategy. Make your way through our checklist to follow\u00a0SEO best practices<\/a>.<\/p>\n Access Everything You Need<\/p>\n in One Platform with Semrush<\/p>\n<\/div>\n To see SEO success, you need to have the basics covered. Fail to do so, and your site may struggle to rank.<\/p>\n The following tips are basic SEO tasks but serve as the foundation of a successful SEO strategy.<\/p>\n Google Search Console (GSC)<\/a>\u00a0is a tool that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site\u2019s performance in Google search results.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of the best tools to better understand how Google sees your website.<\/p>\n Read our\u00a0definitive GSC guide<\/a>\u00a0to learn how to set up your account and leverage its different features.<\/p>\n Bing Webmaster Tools<\/a>, on the other hand, is the equivalent platform. But for the Bing search engine.<\/p>\n Both these tools allow you to see which keywords users are searching for to find your site, identify crawl errors, and lots more.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t have these set up, we highly recommend you do so.<\/p>\n Google Analytics<\/a>\u00a0is a free web (and app) analytics tool. It helps track and report how much traffic you\u2019re getting, where it\u2019s coming from, and what your users are doing.<\/p>\n Its helpful features include:<\/p>\n Read our\u00a0Google Analytics guide<\/a>\u00a0to learn how to set up your account and get the most out of it.<\/p>\n Pro tip<\/strong>: Connect your GSC to Google Analytics to see helpful SEO information inside of your Google Analytics account.<\/p>\n If you use WordPress, you should install and configure an SEO plugin.<\/p>\n It\u2019ll make it really easy to optimize your site for search engines. And help you with technical SEO aspects, like implementing robots.txt and XML sitemaps.<\/p>\n The most popular options include:<\/p>\n For example, this is what the SEO Writing Assistant looks like within WordPress:<\/p>\n You can use this plugin to optimize your web copy and content for SEO.<\/p>\n Note<\/strong>: If you\u2019re using a different CMS (content management system), check if you need to install a dedicated SEO plugin. The features you need may already be included.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Get Writing Recommendations<\/p>\n with the SEO Writing Assistant<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A sitemap is a file that helps search engines find,\u00a0crawl, and index<\/a>\u00a0all of your website\u2019s content.<\/p>\n It highlights which pages and files you think are important and provides valuable information about them.<\/p>\n Find and Fix Sitemap Issues<\/p>\n with the Site Audit Tool<\/p>\n<\/div>\n For example, when the page was last updated. Or if a page has any alternate language versions.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what the sitemap looks like for our blog:<\/p>\n If you\u2019re using WordPress, the sitemap will be automatically created.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re not, creating one is relatively straightforward if you use a\u00a0sitemap generator tool<\/a>.<\/p>\n Once you have your sitemap, submit it to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.<\/p>\n Like this:<\/p>\n And you can use\u00a0Semrush\u2019s Site Audit<\/a>\u00a0tool to find and fix issues that affect your sitemap and more.<\/p>\n Robots.txt is a file that tells search engines which pages and files they should or shouldn\u2019t crawl.<\/p>\n This is what it can look like:<\/p>\n And they\u2019re really important. They coordinate how web crawlers access and index your site and show your content to searchers.<\/p>\n You can see your robots.txt file by typing your homepage URL and adding \/robots.txt.<\/p>\n For example, https:\/\/semrush.com\/robots.txt.<\/p>\n Learn more about creating one, what the syntax (computer language) means, and best practices in our\u00a0robots.txt guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can use\u00a0Semrush\u2019s Site Audit<\/a>\u00a0tool to help you find and fix robots.txt issues, too.<\/p>\n A clear attempt to violate or manipulate\u00a0Google\u2019s Webmaster Guidelines<\/a>\u00a0causes manual actions.<\/p>\n And if your site has a manual action, some or all of it won\u2019t appear in Google search results.<\/p>\n Manual actions include user-generated spam, structured data issues, unnatural links (both to and from your site), thin content, hidden text, and more.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a good idea to check for any manual actions in\u00a0Google Search Console<\/a>.<\/p>\n To do that, scroll down the tool\u2019s sidebar navigation until you find the \u201cSecurity & Manual Actions<\/strong>\u201d menu section. Click on it. Then click on \u201cManual actions<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n That should pull up a report with detected issues. If any.<\/p>\n Google will notify you in a\u00a0GSC report<\/a>\u00a0if your site receives a manual action.<\/p>\n But if you\u2019re working on a new project or taking over a site, manual actions should be one of the first things you check.<\/p>\n Part of having your\u00a0SEO basics<\/a>\u00a0covered is making sure that Google can index your website.<\/p>\n Indexability is a search engine\u2019s ability to analyze and add a page to its index. So it can show up in search results.<\/p>\n To quickly make sure search engines can crawl and index your site, use our\u00a0Site Audit<\/a>\u00a0tool.<\/p>\n Start by entering your domain and creating a new project.<\/p>\n Then, select how many pages you want per audit and \u201cWebsite<\/strong>\u201d as the crawl source.<\/p>\n And click \u201cStart Site Audit<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n Look for the \u201cCrawlability\u201d report, and click \u201cView<\/strong>\u00a0details<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n Like so:<\/p>\n Then, double-check that your site\u2019s main pages that should be indexed are, in fact, indexed. This can save a lot of troubleshooting later on.<\/p>\n Find and Fix Sitemap Issues<\/p>\n with the Site Audit Tool<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Keyword research is the process of finding possible search queries that may be relevant to your business and your customers.<\/p>\n It includes finding, sorting, and prioritizing keywords. To then feed your\u00a0keyword strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here is a checklist of the essential keyword research tasks you need to cover for SEO success.<\/p>\n Tip<\/strong>: Remember to\u00a0create a free Semrush account<\/a>\u00a0(no credit card needed) so you can follow along.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Access Everything You Need<\/p>\n in One Platform with Semrush<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One of the most efficient ways to start with keyword research is to identify\u00a0competitor keywords<\/a>.<\/p>\n These are keywords your competitors are currently targeting to improve rankings and traffic.<\/p>\n If those keywords are working for them, they can work for you, too.<\/p>\n Start by opening up Semrush\u2019s\u00a0Keyword Gap<\/a>\u00a0tool. Then, enter your domain and up to four of your competitors\u2019 domains.<\/p>\n And click \u201cCompare<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n Scroll down to the table and focus on two labels, \u201cMissing<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cWeak<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cMissing<\/strong>\u201d label shows keywords your competitors are ranking for but you aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n The \u201cWeak<\/strong>\u201d label shows keywords you rank for lower than your competitors.<\/p>\n Use these keywords to plan a keyword strategy around these terms. And try to win back some traffic from your competitors.<\/p>\n Compare Your Keywords with Competitors\u2019<\/p>\n with the Keyword Gap Tool<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Your main \u201cmoney\u201d keywords are those that can drive leads, sales, and conversions.<\/p>\n Generally, these are high-volume, high-competition keywords that outline what you offer.<\/p>\n You will also find these referred to as\u00a0head terms<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0pillar page<\/a><\/strong>keywords.<\/p>\n To find your top organic keywords, or your competitor\u2019s, open\u00a0Domain Overview<\/a>\u00a0and enter your domain.<\/p>\n Scroll down to see your \u201cTop Organic Keywords<\/strong>\u201d and click on \u201cView details<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n These are the keywords that drive the most organic traffic to your site.<\/p>\n Tip<\/strong>: You can also use Google Search Console to find more keyword data for your own website.<\/em><\/p>\n Pay special attention to keywords with commercial and transactional intent. These tend to lead to more leads and conversions.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re ranking high, great. If you aren\u2019t, optimize and improve the content on these pages.<\/p>\n Get Insights into Competitors & Customers<\/p>\n with the Domain Overview Tool<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A\u00a0long-tail keyword<\/a>\u00a0is a specific search query with a relatively low search volume.<\/p>\n Users search for them less often. But they make up a large percentage of overall searches and have higher conversion rates.<\/p>\n Plus, they\u2019re usually easier to rank for.<\/p>\n Which means:<\/p>\n You need to ensure your SEO strategy targets long-tail keywords.<\/p>\n Start by defining the main keyword you want to target.<\/p>\n For example, using the graph above, suppose that keyword is \u201ctomato plant.\u201d<\/p>\n Go to Semrush\u2019s\u00a0Keyword Magic Tool<\/a>\u00a0and enter your keyword.<\/p>\n Make sure \u201cBroad<\/strong>\u00a0Match<\/strong>\u201d is selected. And use the search volume and keyword difficulty filters.<\/p>\n Also, check the \u201cQuestions<\/strong>\u201d filter. It often returns interesting long-tail keywords phrased as questions.<\/p>\n Like so:<\/p>\n Get Keyword Suggestions<\/p>\n with the Keyword Magic Tool, the Biggest Keyword Database on the Market<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Once you have identified your target keywords, you need to \u201cmap\u201d (assign) them to pages on your site.<\/p>\n Start by using one keyword to identify a larger set.<\/p>\n Open\u00a0Keyword Overview<\/a>, enter your keyword, and hit \u201cBuscar<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n What we\u2019re looking for are the \u201cRelated Keywords.\u201d<\/p>\n Export the keywords onto a spreadsheet and group keywords that answer the same question.<\/p>\n Then, you want to focus on using each set of keywords to visualize your site\u2019s structure and potential pages.<\/p>\n Your last step is to categorize keywords accordingly.<\/p>\n To learn how to map your keywords in just four steps, see our\u00a0keyword mapping guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n Pro tip<\/strong>: Organize your keywords by sending them to\u00a0Semrush\u2019s Keyword Manager<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Search intent<\/a>\u00a0is simply the reason behind a user\u2019s search.<\/p>\n There are four types of search intent:<\/p>\n And matching users\u2019 search intent is one of Google\u2019s main goals.<\/p>\n So, always make sure your page\u2019s content matches the searcher\u2019s intent for the keyword you\u2019re targeting.<\/p>\n To quickly find a keyword\u2019s intent, use our\u00a0Keyword Overview<\/a>\u00a0tool.<\/p>\n Enter your keyword, hit \u201cBuscar<\/strong>,\u201d and you\u2019ll see a box labeled \u201cIntent.\u201d<\/p>\n Like this:<\/p>\n If your content matches the search intent of the keyword, you\u2019ll likely see more traffic and higher rankings.<\/p>\n Run a Full Keyword Analysis<\/p>\n with the Keyword Overview Tool<\/p>\n<\/div>\nHow to Use This SEO Checklist<\/h2>\n
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SEO Basics Checklist<\/h2>\n
1. Set Up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools<\/h3>\n
2. Set Up Google Analytics<\/h3>\n
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3. Install and Configure an SEO Plugin (If You\u2019re Using WordPress)<\/h3>\n
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4. Create and Submit a Sitemap<\/h3>\n
5. Create a Robots.txt File<\/h3>\n
6. Check Search Console for Manual Actions<\/h3>\n
7. Make Sure Google Can Index Your Website<\/h3>\n
Keyword Research Checklist<\/h2>\n
8. Identify Your Competitors<\/h3>\n
9. Find Your Main \u2018Money\u2019 Keywords<\/h3>\n
10. Find Long-Tail Keyword Variations<\/h3>\n
11. Create a Keyword Map<\/h3>\n
12. Analyze the Intent of Pages That Rank<\/h3>\n
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