SEO checklist for new website owners: A quick guide to starting off with SEO

When it comes to optimising a website for improved performance in search engine rankings, an SEO checklist is a set of best practices and reminders that may be used to assist in the process. If you want search engines, particularly Google, to reward your website in ranks, the first step that you should do is to ensure that you do not make any blunders.

Not understanding search engine optimisation (SEO) before you really perform it is a typical error. It is absolutely necessary for you to have a fair understanding of what it is. Having reached this point, you are prepared to read and, more importantly, comprehend the task that is being requested of you.

The field of search engine optimisation (SEO) is one that is constantly developing. The foundation is based on both established best practices and emerging strategies. This is the reason why it is essential to have the most recent information available when you are optimising the content of your website to be seen in search results.

When it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO) and its website, a single checklist cannot possibly cover all that a single company ought to perform. During the course of your SEO efforts, we hope that you will find it to be a useful reminder of the numerous things that need to be checked. This list is there for you to understand what you need to start with. Of course, it goes without saying that even if you are starting off after having a new website, that is maybe on a good shared hosting, these pointers will help you gain traction.

Optimisation of the Content

The fact that content is one of the top three ranking signals (out of hundreds) was probably something that many of us already understood by the time Google announced it. To put it simply, your content strategy is the single most important factor in determining your level of success on the internet. We are of the opinion that a comprehensive SEO content strategy is what differentiates good content from material that gets noticed as being good. Do it correctly, or you won’t have to bother.

1. Research on the Intended Audience

This is a deal-breaker: You should be familiar with your target audience, the queries they have, and the problems they face. When conducting keyword research, it is helpful to have an understanding of the questions that people ask and the kinds of queries that they could ask Google.

The result of this is that you will be able to provide material that provides solutions to their problems and answers the questions they have. (You will utilise the keywords that you choose as a foundation for this material; each webpage will have one primary keyword issue, but more on that will be discussed in a moment.)

Creating content requires a number of steps, one of which is to comprehend the searcher’s goal. Providing responses to questions that are commonly asked by your target audience may have also assisted in the discovery of your website through voice search searches.

2. Research on Keywords and Keyword Strategy

Continuous keyword research is a procedure that must be carried out. The first step is to determine one or two focus phrases that are relevant to the subject matter that you intend to write about. You may accomplish this by utilising the tools that you like; there are plenty of good ones available.

It is a good idea to check Google search for a keyword phrase if you have a page or portion of your website in mind that you want to emphasise. Take a look at the most popular results, the queries that are categorised as “People also ask,” and the remaining search engine results. Your finest clues about the searcher’s intent for this query may be found on this search engine results page, an acronym for search engine results page. Make sure that the material you provide satisfies the requirement that searchers have when they are seeking for this particular keyword or searching for a more suitable keyword phrase.

I could write volumes on this subject; nevertheless, you should be aware that an essential component of any effective SEO checklist is keyword research. A free version of the SEOToolSet Keyword Suggestion tool is included with our SEO Guide, which will help you get started with search engine optimisation.

Taking into consideration the first two components, it makes me think of fishing. There are two things that you need to know in order to be successful in fishing: the bait that the fish are biting on and the location where the fish are swimming. Your fish will be attracted to and converted by the combination of your content and keywords.

3. Opportunities to appear in featured snippets

While you are conducting research on keywords, you could discover that Google presents a highlighted snippet, also known as an answer box, above the search results for the keyword you are most interested in. This indicates that you have the potential to claim a featured snippet if you offer responses to inquiries that are of in the form of questions. This section of the search engine results page, which is referred to as Position Zero, has become an important target for search engine optimisation.

In order to be eligible for featured snippets, you will need to organise the information in a manner that is appropriate for the kind of snippet, which is often a video, text, list, or table. Your answer and its layout should be optimised, regardless of whether it is a table, bulleted list, sorted list, text question-and-answer style, or something else. You are not needed to use schema markup, although doing so may improve your chances of landing a featured snippet placement (for more information on this topic, see the section below under “More Structured Data”).

It is also possible to perform research on competitors in order to determine the normal length of highlighted snippets if you are engaging in text optimisation. For instance, the typical word count for a snippet that is in the form of a paragraph is between forty and sixty words. The Featured Snippets+ Tool and inLinks.net are two products that we recommend with the purpose of assisting you in targeting featured snippets. Both of these programmes are paid; however they do provide some free choices.

4. CTA stands for “call to action.”

Ask yourself, for each of your pages, what the user would require or want to do from this section of the website. Then make it simple to carry out!

One of the fundamental actions that a visitor may perform after seeing your essential pages should be made very obvious.

It is important that the call to action (CTA) which is shown on a product page (for instance, “add to cart” or “start a free trial”) will be easily visible.

On a page that describes a service, the call to action (CTA) may be anything like “get a quote” or “call us.” Ensure that the call to action is unambiguous and simple to choose.

Give the visitor the assistance they need to go on to the next stage of your conversion funnel on the site.

Active language, often in the form of an imperative verb, should be used in a call to action (CTA). The visitor’s attention ought to be drawn to the call to action (CTA) by its location and appearance. Test out several variants to determine which one works best for you.

It is not necessary for a page to be transactional in nature in order for it to be worthy of a call to action. If a page that contains information is a high-performing traffic driver, such as a blog post (like this one) that provides an answer to a frequently asked topic or a page that has frequently asked questions, the call to action may urge the visitor to “find out more” and enter the conversion funnel, or it may encourage them to tell two friends about the page.

As an example, you ought to be doing this right now:

Please save this SEO checklist to your bookmarks for future reference. In addition, if you find it useful, please think about sharing it with others.

5. Freshness of the Content

Your content, which includes your webpages and blog entries, should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that the information inside is accurate.

Take, for instance, the fact that we routinely update this particular checklist. The best practices for search engine optimisation (SEO) need to grow in tandem with the standards and technology of search engines. It is imperative that your content is able to keep pace with the rapid pace of your business.

According to the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines (PDF) published by Google:

“… websites that are not maintained or abandoned, or websites that are not maintained and contain content that is inaccurate or misleading, are a reason for a low E-E-A-T rating, which stands for experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness.”

Conclusion

You will be well-equipped to optimise your website effectively utilising the SEO checklist if you follow these steps with great attention to detail. You will also be able to confidently boost your search engine rankings from this point on. Hoping you have understood this article. Please share your comments or feedback any in the section below.