SEO Checklist

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In the age of social media, content marketing is a crucial component of any business. However, it can be challenging to find what works for your brand, and it’s essential to keep an eye on the metrics before posting anything.

The Moz SEO checklist lists things to think about before publishing your next post.

Do you know where the majority of your blog’s traffic comes from? It’s not because of social media or direct traffic. It is, in fact, Google. And if it isn’t, it indicates you haven’t given your SEO enough consideration. So, other than downloading the Yoast SEO plugin, how can you guarantee that your blog is optimized for search engines?

Questions before your next post:

Keywords

It would be best to never cram keywords into your blog articles; instead, use them when it makes sense and seems natural. Here are some keyword-related questions you should consider:

  1. Have you done keyword research to determine which keywords are popular and relevant to the article you’re writing? If you don’t know how to conduct keyword research, this article will show you how.
  2. Have you written a headline that includes keywords? Your title should be appealing and include words people may type into Google while looking for anything.
  3. Do you use headers in the body of your blog posts? Have you put any keywords inside those headings? Google gives keywords with a larger font size more weight.
  4. Keyword stuffing – are you doing it? If you are, you may notice that your blog articles do not rank as well as they would if you wrote them with your audience in mind.
  5. Is the rest of your blog post’s content relevant to your primary keywords? Google works like a dictionary, looking for keywords and synonyms to help it figure out what your blog article is about. Just be sure you’re not attempting to deceive Google. When writing for people, it’s natural to include terms linked to your primary keywords.
  6. Do you utilize keywords in the first 100 words of your essay? Then, the words and phrases that appear towards the top of the page are given higher weight by Google.

Links throughout the site

Links are a simple method to manage how PageRank is passed from one blog post to the next. A single internal link may significantly impact your search engine results. Here are some questions to consider when it comes to links:

  1. Have you used cross-linking to point to other relevant blog articles you’ve published in the past? You’ll assist improve the ranks of your previous posts by doing so.
  2. Have you gone back through your previous blog articles and added links to your freshly published ones? Because your older pieces tend to have more authority than your current ones, you should do this every month. Make sure you don’t overuse this strategy and only use it appropriately.
  3. Are you using too much anchor text in your internal links? If you pack too many keywords into your internal links, your rankings will hurt. Make sure the anchor text includes natural-flowing language rather than simply keywords.

Links to other websites

Did you know that connecting to other websites may boost your search engine rankings? When it comes to external connections, here are some questions to consider:

  1. Are you connecting to additional relevant resources in your article from other blogs? This assists Google in determining which blogs are related to yours and what keywords you should rank for.
  2. Emails – are you sending out emails to each web admin to let them know you’ve connected to them? This is a quick and easy method to encourage other bloggers to share their articles on social media and maybe get a few new backlinks.

Content

Content is king, as the adage goes. And the language you use in your postings impacts what you rank for and what you don’t. So here are some questions to ponder about the content:

  1. Material duplication – did you use any content from another source? If you did, be sure to provide a link to it. Avoid having a large proportion of the same material in your blog article since this may result in a Panda penalty.
  2. Is your blog post thin and substandard because of narrow content? Writing blog articles only for SEO is a specific method to get a Panda penalty. Concentrate on the quality of your material rather than the quantity.
  3. Is the length of your blog article sufficient? The size of your piece has a direct relationship with its rating. The bulk of websites that appear on Google’s first page have at least 2,000 words.

URLs

You may improve your chances of ranking for particular words by establishing unique URLs. Here are some URL-related questions to ponder:

  1. Is your URL concise and to the point? Shorter, keyword-rich URLs tend to perform better than lengthier ones.
  2. Keywords – do you have any keywords in your URL? You’ll receive a slight boost in ranks by adding a few keywords to your URL.
  3. Numbers – does your URL include at least three different numbers? Your URLs must have three consecutive digits that are unique to be featured in Google news.

Images

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, you’ll probably include a couple in your article. Make careful you ask yourself the following questions while using images:

  1. Is the file name of your picture filled with keywords? Your picture file names will rank higher in Google image search if they are more descriptive.
  2. Did you use an alt tag for each picture that was descriptive? You may help your photos rank better in image searches by adding alt tags to each of them.
  3. Dimensions – does your picture have ample width and height? The more measurements you have, the higher your ranks will be.
  4. Are your pictures as compact as feasible in terms of file size? Images that are compressed yet still have a good quality tend to rank higher.
  5. Have you included an embed code with your images? People will want to incorporate your distinctive pictures, such as infographics, on their websites if you offer them. In addition, you’ll get more backlinks to your blog if you use an embed code, which will improve your rankings over time.
  6. Are your picture’s original and one-of-a-kind? If you have the time to shoot your photos (or hire someone to do it for you) and include them in your articles, you’ll find that they rank higher in image searches than stock photography pictures.

Load time

Rankings are influenced by speed. Therefore, the faster your blog loads, the better your search engine ranks will be. To increase your load time, ask yourself the following questions:

  1. Have you optimized any of the media you’re using in your post? It’s a good idea to use media like pictures, movies, or audio files, but they must be optimized for load speed. Google PageSpeed may assist you in optimizing your media.
  2. Are you using any other javascript in your blog post? Reduce the number of external scripts you use since they slow down the loading process.

Conclusion

Before you publish a new blog article, ask yourself the 25 questions above to ensure you’re setting yourself up for SEO success. Asking yourself these questions will take you no more than 5 to 10 minutes, and the answers may be fantastic. For years, I’ve been asking myself the questions above, and it’s helped me attract over 100,000 monthly search engine visits to each of my sites.