Technical SEO checklist

1. Give priority to voice search

   Alexa, Siri, Echo, Google Assistant.. You get the idea. Users are preferring voice search nowadays. Although voice searches have not yet fully grown, it is an extremely competitive market and to generate leads, you need to optimize voice strategy.

2. Featured snippets matter

   For getting your website content in the snippets, you need an optimized approach. Good news is that most of the companies are not paying attention to this. so this is the best time to take the lead, when the competition is still low.

3. Page loading speed issue

   As per Google guidelines, a webpage should not take more than 3 seconds to load.

   But many websites have a higher average waiting time(way above 3 secs) and this affects the rate of conversion. The problem of slow loading issues rises from the blend of slow hosting services, poor coding and overloaded servers with deteriorated internet connections.

   Steps for Speed page loading Action Plan:

   • Choose a good hosting service
   • Optimize web pages for better Speed.
   • Use CDNfor global visitors around the world.
   • Use caching for faster page loading and compress the files.
   • Minimize the server requests.
   • Optimize plugins, themes, and APIs.

4. Go for a mobile first Approach

   FYI: “Mobile first”, as the name suggests, means that we start the website design from the mobile end (which has more screen real estate restrictions), then expand its features to create a desktop or tablet version.

   Mobile internet usage has overtaken desktop usage way back in 2016 itself and People are spending more time on the internet uisng smart phones.

   If a website is responsive, it is expected to get more attention from the user.

   Google strictly suggests not keeping both “m” dot mobile pages and responsive desktop versions for the same web page, because this confuses the crawlers. If you are running a website with “m” dot prefix along with non-responsive version, and you are thinking of switching to m-dot website, Google recommends doing this before your website switches to mobile first indexing.

5. Earning links are more important than “building” links

   Backlinks are still an influential factor for securing the rank over the google searches.

   In 2019, earning links is essential than link “building”, which is kind of an artificial creation of backlinks. Links can be earned using good content ,which can be shared and linked by relevant and trustworthy websites.

6. Automating SEO tasks

   Internet marketers, in a rapidly changing SEO environment, are constantly facing workload. Automationcan relieve this workload to certain extent, because the brands which grab the opportunities and overcome the challenges are those which automate the tasks and put the energy in core business works.

   Understanding what should be automated, is itself a challenge but in general terms, the repetitive and formulaic tasks such as link audits, keyword researching, and report generation should be automated to save time and effort.

7. Create an XML sitemap

   Creating XML sitemap is really important for Google to understand and know the structure of your website.

   Along with the XML sitemap, the robots.txt is required to control the way search engine crawls your website. It can be set for differently for a different type of crawlers, changing the way how the website responds to search engines.

8. Remove Duplicate content

   Google penalizes websites for using duplicate content. You must use 301 redirects and rel=” canonical” for fixing the issue of duplicate content and saving your website from being penalized.

9. Fix broken links and identify the crawling errors

   Large websites often face the issue with broken links and crawling errors which makes search engine unable to find your content. Find out broken links and fix it. Also Google Search console can show you crawl errors and you can fix it.

   In some cases you may have to use redirects to fix crawling issues.

   301 redirect vs 320 redirect:
   Make use of 301 redirect for permanent redirects, which passes all the old page SEO value to the new one, Whereas 302 redirect is temporary redirect which is used for site maintenance and promotions. This does not pass the SEO value to the new page.

   On-page Seo checklist for wordpress development

10. Optimize the meta description tag

    The meta description appears in SERP, therefore it must be under 230 characters anda really catchy one. The meta description is the way to give an overview of the web page, which must contain the targeted keyword in beginning. The meta tag must talk about the unique features as well.

11. Use your main keyword in your title tag

    The title tag is a very powerful one and can significantly improve your click through rate. It needs to be compelling and must contain the keywords at the beginning.

12. Title tag modifiers

    Title tag modifiers are a good way for ranking not only for keywords but also for the keywords with modifiers.

13. URL with keywords

    Using targeted keywords in URL allows Google to understand the purpose of the page. The permalinks must be of short length, contain the targeted keywords and easy to remember.

14. SEO friendly URLs

    What needs to be changed with the wordpress posts is the URL. Setting the permalink with the post name in place of the date or numeric make it more relevant and SEO friendly.

15. Use hyphen for separating the words

    Google treats underscore as the word joiner, whereas the hyphen as the word separator. You must always use a hyphen for separating the words.

16. Use targeted keywords in the H1 tag

    Google pays a lot of attention to the heading tags, especial;ly H1 tag.
    Using only one h1 tag per post increases the credibility of the content.

    Using the best keywords keywords in H1 tag and let the search engines understand the relevancy of your content along with other SEO optimizations.

17. Use the related keywords in H2 and H3

    You can use the related keywords in H2 and H3 tags for increasing the relevance for search engines.

18. First paragraph matters

    Google puts more attention over the first paragraph or say the first 100 words. Using targeted keywords in the first 100 words maximizes the relevance of your content.

19. Limit the use of focus keywords(targeted keywords)

    The repetitive use of main keywords in the page penalizes the site. The targeted keywords must not be included for more than 2-3 times per page, where you can use LSI for the rest of your content for avoiding the keyword stuffing.

20. LSI keywords

    Long Semantic Indexing keywords let google understand the relevancy of your page. For finding LSI keywords, you can take help of Google keyword tool.

21. Use Internal linking

    For increasing the worth of each blog post and connecting the relevant content together, you must use the internal links. Adding Internal links to relevant posts lets user direct access to the related content and thus improving traffic as well.

22. Linking out to authority websites

    When you linking out to relevant authority websites, you are telling google that you “belong” to the category of those high profile websites. Professionals do link out to their competitors who are already ranking above their content.

23. Keywords with anchor text

    Google pays more value to the linked text, as long as it not abused. Using an internal link with the keywords in anchor text strengthens the relevance of your text.

24. Use the Alt tag behind the images

    Images are not only the eye-catching component for holding the users but in fact, they are the most rapid and easiest way to communicate with the users. It is saoid that, Images speaks more than words(Seing is believing).

    It increases the dwell time and decreases the user’s bouncing rate. With images, it is essential to use the Alt text, which helps when the internet speed is low or the image is broken. Professionals use targeted keywords in image name and the alt text.

25. Use Ahrefs for analyzing the quality of backlinks:

    Ahrefs is a professional tool loved by SEO professionals and small businesses. It is worth every penny. You get answers and stats for all following questions.

    • What is your website’s domain score?
    • How many root domains you and your competitors are being pointed?
    • Is your website being targeted by the backlinks from relevant sites?
    • Does your website have normal anchor text distribution?

26. New Content: Force Crawl for quick Indexing

    Did you know that Google Search Console has a “Fetch as Google” feature?
    For new blog posts, Use this feature to get your article indexed faster.

    How to :
    From Google Search Console, click on the “Fetch as Google” option (under Crawl ) and enter your webpage URL and Click on “Fetch.”.
    Now click on “Request Indexing” and your URL will be instantly indexed into Google SERPs.

    Note, that Google doesn’t guarantee instant index. As long as your site loads fast and you do not have anything that blocks accees to Google Bot, you should be good.

27. Infographics: It is good for SEO!

    Creating high quality infographics is one of the best ways you can communicate with the customers. The user understands better what you are conveying. Visual information is more easy to understand. A good infographic increases the visitors, reduces the bouncing rates and most importantly “earns” quality backlinks.

28. Target backlinks from .edu and .gov

    Google still gives more value to links coming from the authenticated .gov or .edu websites. Also backlinks from informative websites like wikipedia ensures that your web page has something worth over. Getting a link from wikipedia does require some effort, you may be rewarded with better ranking.

29. Guest Blogging

    Guest blogging helps you in getting those important backlinks which is an important factor in 2019 for SERP. Here it is essential to choose the most relevant blogs to write as they need to be active in your specific niche.

30. Put some effort over social media

    Being active in the social media can result in a surge of traffic. The traffic may be temporary. But if you get lots of shares, that can result in good rankings both in Google as well as in Bing.