ON PAGE SEO CHECKLIST 2017

This on-page SEO checklist is useful when working with a new website audit, or auditing a page or site that you haven’t worked on recently.

No-Index Tag

•        Make sure our page isn’t no-indexed
•        Could ruin our day
•    Our webpage does not use the no index Meta tag.    
•    This means that our webpage will be read and indexed by search engines.

Title Tags

•       Proper HTML
•       No more than 512 pixels or about 70 characters
•        Does it make sense
•       Grammar / spelling check
•       Is it helpful to users?
•      Contains the keyword you wish to rank for

Meta Description

•         Proper HTML and no errors
•         Does it make sense?
•         Grammar / spelling check
•         Is it helpful to users?
•      512 pixels (x2) or about 140 characters
•         Contains keyword you wish to rank for

H Tags

•       H1 tag on every page containing target keyword
•       Proper HTML
•       Does it make sense?
•      Grammar / spelling check
•      Provides useful heading

LSI / Synonyms

•        Use synonyms for keyword
•        Use natural language, not robot speak

Rel=Canonical

•        Can combat duplicate content
•        Use only when necessary

Social Sharing Buttons

•        Can increase engagement
•        Might bring in some links

Outbound Links

•       Link to helpful websites within your niche
•       Link to authoritative sites within your niche

Internal Links

•        Link to helpful pages within your website
•       Link to most popular pages on your website

Website Speed

•        Website should load in under 2 seconds
•        Sub-pages should load in under 2 seconds

XML Sitemap

•        Helps Google Crawl
•        Necessary part of any website

Schema Markup

•        Use JSON-LD
•        Use our friendly JSON-LD generator
•        Use appropriate type of markup e.g. review, car dealership, book
•       Depends on type of page

Images

•        Make sure images are helpful
•        Do you own the images
•        Proper size in pixels
•        Proper size in file size
•        alt tags should properly describe the images

URL / permalink

•        Does URL make sense
•        Proper spelling and grammar
•        Don’t use words like “a” or “and”
•        Pretty URL’s such as http://www.example.com/my-website not             http://www.example.com/p=876

Responsive

•        Does page pass the mobile friendly test?
•        Does website and page look good on phone, tablet, etc?
•       Use Chrome dev tools to emulate devices like iPhone

Render Blocking Resources

•        Make sure JS and CSS not loading before DOM
•        Make sure allowed in robots.txt
•        Use Chrome / Firefox dev tools

SSL / HTTPS

•        Is it installed?
•        Is it installed correctly?

AMP

•        Is it installed?
•        Is it installed correctly?
•        Is it optimized?

Anchor Text

•        Beware of over optimization
•        Should be helpful cue
•        Contains keywords if possible

Site Structure

•        Plan site structure
•        Pages in hierarchy? 
•     e.g. /phones/cases/iphones vs iphone-cases/iphones

Panda Risk Assessment

•        Low quality content
•        Grammar / spelling
•       Outbound links

Advertisements

•        Placement of ads above fold?
•        Size of ads
•        Ads load time

Robots.txt

•        Block admin pages
•        Allow robots to crawl important pages
•        Dont block CSS or JavaScript

.htaccess

•        Pretty permalinks
•       Smart redirects if necessary

Modifiers in Title and Description

•        Use words like “top” “best” and “2017”
•        Score long tail keywords

Keyword Density

•        Use target keyword in first part of article
•        Not too dense

Word Count

•        Studies show longer content can sometimes rank better
•        Be aware of overall word count

Bounce Rate and Dwell Time

•        Keep visitors on site as long as possible
•        Use tricks like “similar posts”

Encourage Engagement

•        Blog comments may help with ranking
•        Signals like “like” “heart” and “upvote” might help

Content Freshness

•        If you update content, consider updating the date
•        Don’t post content just to post it
•        Google likes fresh websites

Privacy Policy

•        A good idea to have one anyway
•        Adds legitimacy to site

Main Navigation

•        Should link to most popular pages
•        Internal linking opportunity
•        Only link to most important pages

Side and Bottom Navigation

•       Internal linking opportunity
•       Link to most popular pages

Server Optimization

•        Check for 404s and other errors
•        Make sure old websites not indexed / present
•        Check for malware
•        Security check / scanning

Evergreen Content

•        Be sure to update for accuracy
•        Link to internally from website 

Hidden CSS or text?

•        Look for display:none
•       White text on white background for e.g.

Google Analytics installed and working

Google Search Console installed and verified