If you want to increase your online visibility, it’s time to start working on your SEO. You’ve probably known this for a long time. You may have worked on it a few times before. However, the SEO Checklist is about consistency. Continue doing it, make it a part of your routine, and it will over time increase organic search engine traffic to your website, producing excellent results without the need to pay for online ads.

So, what exactly should you work on? New blog posts? Updates to existing articles? Images? Headings? Are you getting that little green square in Yoast? And how about broken links? Do they matter? How exactly do you find them? What you need is an SEO checklist, which is a collection of processes and tactics you may use to give your calendar more direction and clarity for the hours you’ve set aside to “do SEO.”

This SEO checklist outlines what you should be doing for effective search engine optimization. Some tasks can be completed once or twice a year. Other elements are ongoing—things you should perform regularly to create the most effective, traffic-generating content on your website. So let’s get to it. Here’s the definitive SEO checklist for ecommerce stores, online businesses, blogs, and any other websites looking to increase organic traffic.

We’ve divided this into three categories so you can find the ones you need to address first.

Basics for websites with little SEO efforts, including product pages suited for ecommerce.
Advanced recommendations for websites that have the fundamentals down but want to increase traffic and conversions.
Local SEO checklist tips for stores that target a local audience.

Table of Contents

1 The SEO Checklist is Necessary – What to Do First
2 Read More SEO Relevant Articles
3 The Final Line

The SEO Checklist is Necessary – What to Do First

Whether you’ve recently started a new website or have been at it for a while but ignored this aspect of your marketing, apply the first set of activities on our SEO checklist to begin increasing your organic traffic.

1. Maintain an Active List of Keywords

SEO starts with keywords. People who use Google and other search engines for answers can only be directed to websites that include the keywords they enter into the search field. If your website lacks material related to the terms that your intended customers and leads are likely to use, they will be unable to find it through search.

Engines try to match search intent with the right web page that best meets the need. This is the purpose of keyword research: to identify which target keywords your target audience uses so that you can generate content that fulfils the demand driving the search.

Where Can You Find Keywords?

There are many places to start when creating a keyword list, especially if you have a Google Ads account and access to Google Keyword Planner. Even without that, here are some ways to get started.

Use Your Creativity

You already have a thorough understanding of your website’s products, services, and content. You also know who visits your website. Don’t underestimate the power of an idea. You can certainly come up with a significant starting list of keywords. What are the most common searches related to your website?

Here’s the most important thing create first. Even if you just come up with five terms, you’ll be able to use them as a foundation to develop many more using the other keyword research tactics.

Look at The Autofill Responses

Have you ever noticed how when you type something into a search engine, it “guesses” what term you are thinking of? This autofill tool is more than just a random list of terms. These autofill choices are based on what previous users have searched for. If you see a term in the autofill, it signifies that enough people have searched for it, so Google considers it a possibility for what you are looking for as well.

So, enter your initial list of terms into a search engine. See what other terms show in the autofill and write them down. This will most likely result in some valid keywords, which you can accomplish in around five minutes.

Note Related Search Terms

Next, when you search for a term and the results show up, scroll down the search results page and you’ll frequently come across a section of related search words.’ Similar to autofill, these are terms that other people have searched for and that are related to the keyword you just entered. Choose a couple of them that are different from your other keywords and related to your website, and include them in your list.

2. Set up Google Search Console

This SEO tool is less well-known than others, such as Google Analytics, yet it is significantly more useful in terms of SEO checklist. First, Google Search Console allows you to observe how people locate your website and how much traffic each page receives. With this data, you’ll be able to see which sites aren’t functioning as well as you’d like. Then you can work on boosting the SEO for such pages.

Google Search Console displays search results performance. You can also check how your keywords rank in comparison to other sites, as well as your typical position in Google search results. This is useful since you’ll know how distant your pages are from generating significant traffic.

3. Submit an XML Sitemap

A sitemap is a specific document that Google uses to scan your website, understand its structure, and find your content. Here’s some useful information on how to design a sitemap. When Google can more quickly identify and understand your website, your pages have a better chance of appearing in search results. This is another incentive to set up Google Search Console. Because after you’ve produced your sitemap, you may send it straight to the search engine.

5. Install an SSL Certificate

An SSL certificate protects data moved by visitors and customers through your website, including personal information submitted via forms and Checkout pages. This is a definite must-have in terms of security, and Google penalizes websites that lack it when choosing search results.

SSL certificate displayed on the WooCommerce.com website.
The good news is that this is a straightforward one-time remedy. Learn more about SSL certificates for ecommerce websites. This should be a fast effort to finish your SEO checklist, but it will result in important outcomes.

Product Page SEO Checklist for Ecommerce Sites

For ecommerce stores and other websites that offer things, you should focus on a few components of the SEO checklist. This builds on the per-page SEO method we just covered, but it is limited to product pages. On product pages, the primary keyword is usually the product’s name or category.

It could incorporate your brand name, but in numerous cases, it is unimportant, especially if your brand is not well-known. Your goal is to generate traffic and then convert it into sales through your product pages.

1. Put the Product Name in H1

When people come to a page, they want fast confirmation that they are in the proper place. Your main H1 is the finest spot to address this topic for your visitors. And you respond by including your keyword near the top of the page.

A product listing for an insulated tumbler with the term in the H1. In addition to the SEO checklist benefits of using your major keyword in your headline, you will improve the quality of your page and encourage more visitors to stay.

2. Put the Product Name in The URL

The product name should appear in the URL just as it does in the headers. The URL text is not discussed as often as the on-page information, yet it is essentially the “name” of this page. The greatest URLs are brief because they indicate that this page serves a clear and uncluttered function. If your products come in multiple models or variants, you may want to include model numbers in the URL.

3. Write a META Title

The title tag, frequently referred to as the page title or meta title, is the blue, bold text that appears in search results. That title can, and should, be different from the H1 headline you use on the actual page. An H1 headline’s objective is to attract visitors to stay on your page and engage with your content.

However, the goal of the title tag is to attract the reader to click through from the search results and visit your website. The meta title is the first thing people see to determine whether a result is what they’re looking for.

4. Write a META Description

60 characters is not much. The good news is that you can create a meta description just below the page title. This is the black text that appears directly beneath the blue title text. You have around 145 characters to offer more information than what the title allows for. And the same recommendations apply as before.

In your meta description, you can incorporate coupon codes, dates, calls to action, emotions, perks, and other information. The number of characters displayed by search engines for meta descriptions has varied over time, similar to meta titles. So make sure to include the most relevant information at the beginning.

Advanced SEO Checklist Tasks

Once you understand the foundations of SEO, you will be well on your way. Though it may appear frightening from the outside, the majority of SEO is pretty basic. It’s a huge advantage if you consistently create and publish high-quality, SEO-optimized content.

If you’ve completed the majority of the tasks thus far, you should be proud of yourself. Next, you can begin to work on some more complex chores that will help your SEO checklist go from decent to amazing. Some of these criteria might appear on a technical SEO checklist.

1. Add Schema Markup for Each Page

Are you dissatisfied that you have to rely just on meta tags to attract search engine clicks? With schema markup, you may improve the appearance of your search engine results by including information other than the meta title and meta description.

You can include facts such as star ratings, shipping information, product specifications, and more. Google likes to recommend websites with these characteristics since they care about the customer experience on their platform. So, schema markup can help your website rank higher in search results.

2. Use Anchor Text for Internal Links

Anchor text is any text you use to link to another page. And, while you can use any text to link to other pages, you’ll perform better in the SEO checklist if you choose carefully the phrases you use for anchor text, especially for internal links.

The ideal SEO checklist approach for internal linking is to include keywords related to the material being linked to in the anchor text. This sends another signal to search engines that the page you’re linked to is concerning that phrase. This is more difficult than you may imagine, and part of the reason is due to how we’ve been taught to interact with websites.

3. Remove Duplicate Content

Duplicate content can be harmful to your website since it indicates to search engines that you are not providing unique and original information on all of your pages. It could indicate a lack of general professionalism in site management. Duplicate content has an aura of keyword stuffing, a discredited keyword tactic used by disreputable websites to trick the system and gain a lot of traffic without working for it. It also denotes plagiarism.

Google has pushed down on such methods, and even the most trustworthy websites might occasionally lose ranking due to duplicate material. The difficulty for some reputable websites is that you may have accidentally created duplicate information without realizing it.

4. Remove or Disavow ‘Toxic Links’

This one is advanced, only for individuals who want to look into what we may term the SEO checklist. The topic here is backlinks. A backlink occurs when another website links to yours. In general, backlinks are beneficial. They are a vote of confidence from other sites, which increases site authority and contributes to how Google ranks websites. However, not all backlinks are helpful. They may be nasty, spammy, or manipulative.

Some poisonous links will not impact your search engine rankings, but some will. It is partially determined by the reason for the link’s creation. If you wish to keep unwanted connections off your website, you can disavow them.

5. Optimize Your Site Speed

All other factors being equal, a slow site will not rank higher than a faster site. This is because slower websites provide a lower-quality user experience. Is your website slow? How do you know? To find out, use one of the many free internet programs that assess the speed of your website. Page Speed Insights is an excellent tool to use. Simply enter your domain name in the bar, and it will examine your website. Then it will report on your site’s speed and make ideas for how you may improve it.

Image-related problems are among the most common causes of site slowness. Too many or too large photos can significantly slow down a page. There are very simple solutions to problems like these, and Page Speed Insights provides rather comprehensive and clear descriptions of what you can do. Other problems may necessitate more work and expertise to address. However, you will now have a list of jobs that you can complete or delegate to a developer.

6. Fix Broken Links

Another purpose of Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools is to detect broken links. A broken connection can happen for a variety of reasons. You may decide to tweak a page’s URL to focus more on the target term. Maybe you no longer offer a specific service or product.

There are many valid reasons to update a URL. The trouble is, that any links to that page will now be broken. Whatever the cause, broken links will occur, and anyone attempting to access that website will see the dreaded 404 error notice.

7. Write Guest Posts

Backlinks are important, and one of the more known methods of link building is through guest posting. Look for websites that aren’t competitors but instead operate in similar or supporting businesses. Identify a topic within your area of expertise that their target audience will enjoy, and offer to write a free blog post about it in exchange for a connection to your website.

Most website owners want more material because they understand its importance, so it should be easy to locate one who would agree. A smart technique to evaluate possible link-building chances is to look at what other sites have already posted.

It Is Time to Start

This is a long checklist, but remember that your SEO efforts will be continuing. You are never “done” with the SEO checklist. It is part of continuing digital marketing. However, certain SEO chores only need to be completed once or monitored regularly. With tools like Google Search Console and the ones listed here, you’ll be able to stay up to date on your website’s traffic, target keywords, and other information, allowing you to continue optimizing your SEO checklist and competing for traffic that is relevant to your website’s purpose and goals.

It is time to construct a content calendar. Include the SEO checklist in your monthly schedule. Plan the things you wish to complete and begin drawing more web traffic. You have got this!

The Final Line

In summary, implementing a complete SEO checklist is important for the success of both ecommerce business and blogs. Focusing on keyword research, on-page optimization, a technical SEO checklist, and high-quality written material will help you improve your search engine ranks and generate more organic traffic.

Regularly upgrading and analyzing your SEO checklist tactics helps you stay ahead of the competition and react to changing search engine algorithms. To construct a strong and long-lasting online presence, focus on user experience, mobile optimization, and effective link-building. By implementing these best practices, you may improve your visibility, increase conversions, and ultimately reach your business objectives.

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SEO Checklist for Ecommerce Businesses and Blogs