Professional SEO Checklist for Beginners

Your Domain

If you already have a domain set up, you can skip this.

The site I managed to rank so high years ago was “makemoneybloggingv.com”, which I sold years ago and doesn’t exist anymore, but want to use it as an example. I took the key phrase I wanted to target and added a “v” at the end, as the phrase url was already taken and the “v” really didn’t make a difference whether it had it or not, or any other letter or number for that matter.

So even though these types of urls aren’t NEARLY as effective as it was back then, it’s ALWAYS a good idea to get a keyword or two in when choosing your domain name.

If you want to sell golf equipment as an example, then look at getting something like “progolfequipment.com” or “golflikeapro.com”. Of course, these are probably already taken, but is just to give you an idea of where to get started.

As mentioned before, there isn’t THAT much value in these types of domain names, so if you already have a domain that contains zero keywords, worry not, it’s not the end of the world and you can still compete, and BEAT any of those keyword-rich domain names.

Here's what I’ve used for years and recommend, should you be looking to start from scratch and get a new domain:

• Hostgator

Let’s move on.

On-Page Optimization

• Keyword Research

Okay so now you have your website, what now. Well, first you want to create a list of keywords and phrases you’d like to rank for. Google has a great free tool you can use to see just how profitable a specific word or phrase is, as well as give you some extra one’s you might not think of.

Check it out here: Google Ads’ Keyword Planner

Keyword research also plays a huge part when creating content, so it’s definitely not something to take lightly or ignore.

What you’re looking for is keywords or phrases that have high search volumes, and low or even medium competition. Ignore high competition keywords with high search volumes as they’re near impossible to rank unless you have a big budget to compete with large companies with big pockets.

• Meta Information

This is without a doubt one of the most important parts of on-page optimization. The meta information is essentially what you see when you do any search on Google. The title link (blue) part is knows as your “meta title tag”, whereas the short description below is your “meta description tag”.

These are really the only two you need to worry about, as the old “keywords tag” serves absolutely no purpose anymore, gets ignored by search engines is just unnecessary and a waste of time and (coding) space.

So, meta title and description tags, how do you set that up? Here are two great articles that cover absolutely everything you need to know in order to set it up correctly worth checking out:

Title tags: https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag

Description tags: https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description

• XML Sitemap and Robots.txt

Another MUST is having a sitemap generated for your site. This is just so Google has a clear indication of your website’s structure. Luckily, it’s a lot less complicated than it sounds, but is something you absolutely shouldn’t skip. If you already have a website, just double check whether you have one.

How to set it up? Here’s Google with all you need to know about setting it up and submitting it to them, check it out: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183668?hl=en

The robots.txt isn’t too important, but it can help block unwanted bots and crawlers gathering data on your site. Here’s everything you need to know about setting that up: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062596?hl=en

• Secure your Website with SSL

Have you ever tried visiting a site only for Google (chrome) or Windows (IE) to pop up saying that the site is untrusted or not secure with big red signs all over? Of course you have, we’ve all seen this.

Don’t let that be your site. There’s nothing that scares a visitor (including myself) more than these “red flags”. If Google tells a visitor a site isn’t safe or unsecure, 99% of the time they’ll click the “back” button and never even make it to your site in the first place. And if they do decide to take a risk, chances of them buying anything from you is zero.

So what do these SSL certificates do? Firstly, when a customer sees the green “secured” sign next to your URL in the address bar, it establishes some form of trust immediately, so automatically you’re more likely to make a sale or commission.

What this also does is change your URL from an unsecure http:// site, to a secured https:// URL.

What that means to the visitor, is that it is safe to give credit card or other payment information to the site. That it can’t be intercepted by hackers and scammers, whereas a site WITHOUT an SSL certificate is very vulnerable to all sorts of attacks, including robbing your customers. You surely don’t want that.

So I HIGHLY recommend getting an SSL certificate if you haven’t done so already. Hostgator offer affordable, bullet-proof SSL certificates that will secure your site 100%.

• 404 Error Pages

This might not seem too important, but it is. Make sure you have your 404 error page set up, so that when there’s an issue with your site or a links, or the visitor simply enters a wrong URL that doesn’t exist that they end up on a 404 error page. Preferably with a search bar so they can find what they were looking for in the first place.

Believe it or not, but not having a 404 error page in place can actually harm your rankings as your site will be seen as “incomplete” in a sense, so get that up or just double check it.

• Google Local and Maps

If you have a local business and want clients to find you easier, having Google Local/Maps set up helps your rankings a ton. You might even end up on page 1 immediately without much effort depending on the amount of same businesses in your area. If there are only 2 or 3 doing what you do, congrats, you’ll likely be on page 1 by tomorrow.

Here’s exactly how it works and how to set it up from the big G themselves: https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en

• Mobile Friendly

This is also something I see many people ignore. Your site might look great on a browser, but how does it look on a mobile phone or tablet? Make sure your site is mobile friendly to avoid losing out on potential leads and sales.

• Website Loading Speed

Another HUGE factor in determining Google SERP rankings is how fast your website loads. Avoid excessive Java scripts and fancy graphics on your site, along with any unnecessary pieces of code or plugins if you use something like WordPress.

A slow website will never rank where you want it to be. Sure, fancy sliders and shader, things that pop up or fade away might look nice on the surface, but it’s actually hurting your rankings because Google sees it as “poor user experience”. Ideally you want your pages to load within 5 seconds, and definitely not more than 10.

Use GTMetrix to or Google Insights to check page speed.

A great free site to test your site speed, as well as get recommendations on what to fix where in order to improve your website’s loading speed is GTMetrix. So make sure to tweak your site until you see good scores on there.

Okay, now that we’ve got your domain’s SEO covered, on to the content…

Blog Posts, Pages and other Articles

Here's the best tool for SEO articles by far: SurferSEO

Here's the best one for easy, fast video creation: Vidnami (RIP)

• Keyword Research and Meta Data

I’ve already covered this in the previous section, so won’t repeat any of that and bore you to death. Just know that before writing any article on your site, have a list of keywords you want to target and set up meta title and description tags for every single page/post.

• URL Structure and Header tags

Ensure that your URL slug contains your keyword or phrase. Don’t overdo it and keep it as short as possible. An example for a slug for a post on a golf equipment site would be www.yoursite.com/5-pro-golfing-tips. Short and sweet, and tells Google and the user exactly what they can expect when visiting your URL.

Header tags, H1, H2, H3 and so on are also very important. In your main header (H1), you want your toughest keyword or phrase. H2 and H3 you’ll want to use variations thereof (that you can find with SpyFu or Google’s Keyword tool.)

• Content

Okay now that you have your headers (or roughly an idea what you want them to be), time for the content itself.

When writing a blog post or article, you want to sprinkle variations of your main phrase all over, though don’t overdo it or it could be flagged for keyword stuffing and end up getting penalized.

Here’s one HUGE tip for you, when it comes to keyword placement in articles and blog posts, there are 2 areas apart from header tags that are MOST important for you to place keywords you want to rank. The first sentence after a header (especially the first sentence on a page), as well as in the very last paragraph of your page (either first or last sentence here).

Forget what others say, just do that and you’ll already be one step closer to better rankings. First sentence in first paragraph, and either first or last sentence in your very last sentence. That’s 2 secret little key areas you need to place a keyword or two.

• Inter-Linking

This is vital for creating a great user experience, and the one example I always use with students is Wikipedia. See how they link all their relevant content together? Mimic that strategy as best as you can. Link any relevant articles using anchor text hyperlinks. There’s no limit as to how many to link, as long as they’re RELEVANT to the current post in one way or another.

• Image Alt Tags (alternative text)

Before we get to ALT tags, I’m going to throw in a little tip for you since I’ve discovered that a lot of people don’t know this… When I started I didn’t either to be honest. What am I talking about? Well, the difference between .png and .jpeg images. Personally I always thought .png images were just better, period, and that’s a misconception many people share. SO, where am I going with this?

File size and loading speed. See where I’m going with this in regards to SEO? Good. You see, when you have a plain logo or image that doesn’t contain photorealistic images, then yes, .png will always be better quality along with smaller file sizes. Whereas .jpeg will look pretty much the same, but have a much bigger file size, making it take longer to load.

The same goes for images with a lot of fine detail, ie: photos. Saving a photo that contains a ton of pixels as a .png will have lower quality (although not really visible at a quick glance) and a massive file size, whereas saving detailed pictures/photos as .jpeg give you better quality and smaller file size. If you didn’t already, now you know J

Simple or flat designs like logos, cartoons, whiteboard type images = Save as .png

Photos and other detailed images = Save as .jpeg

Okay now ALT Tags!

What are they? Ever seen on Google the “Google Images” section? Well, when you search for an image on Google, it scans title and alt tags to return the results.

What an alt tag also does is help rank a post better. It gives you the opportunity to use your keywords to describe your image, and Google picks up on these keywords in your image alt tags, just giving you that extra bit of juice. There are also people making thousands of dollars by having their images show on top of image searches, believe it or not.

As for how to set it up, it’s really simple, check it out: https://moz.com/learn/seo/alt-text

• Categories and Post Tags

Although not much of an SEO factor these days anymore thanks to people misusing it in the past, it still serves a purpose when it comes to user experience. And as you know by now, a good user experience means good rankings. So there’s still value in categorizing your posts correctly.

As for tags, always try to insert 3-5 tags, but don’t spam all your keywords here as I’ve seen tons of sites do this. It doesn’t really have an effect on SEO anymore, but should a visitor search for something on your site, this simply helps them find relevant content if done correctly, increasing user experience (which is always great).

• Redirects

Redirects also play a huge part in on-page optimization, and not having the right redirects in the right places (or having none at all) can harm your search engine rankings.

So when do I use redirects and how do I know which ones to use?

The only time redirects are needed is if you either delete an old post, or want to redirect an existing post/page to a new, better one that’s relevant to the original. You don’t want to redirect a post about golf equipment to an internet marketing post as an example. Always redirect relevant posts to each other, or as close to being relevant as possible.

So you either redirect an old post to a new post that’s better, or if you deleted a page or post you need to redirect to a new post or page so your visitor doesn’t end up on an error page. This also helps search engine spiders crawl your site better, because if there’s no redirect for a deleted page it will pick up as a broken link, which hurts SEO.

There are 2 types of redirects you should know and use. Permanent and Temporary.

Temporary redirects you’ll use if it’s (you’ve guessed it,) temporary. Meaning that you might be busy editing your homepage or a certain post, and redirect it temporarily to another relevant page. These are known as 302 redirects, but you’ll hardly ever use it to be honest so I won’t go into too much detail. This is simply to tell search engine crawlers that the page isn’t gone or broken, but just temporarily down or moved.

The other one is a Permanent one known as a 301 redirect, which is what you’ll mainly use for old or deleted pages.

So how do you set these up? It’s relatively simple to be honest, but if you want to know more or don’t know how to set up redirects, here’s an in-depth post covering all you need to know:

https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection