search engine optimisation

SEO checklist to increase rankings

Last updated on August 2nd, 2022 at 11:44 am

SEO Checklist

SEO is constantly changing and it is important to keep up to date with the latest changes in search engine algorithms.

This checklist is designed for people who have a website, but would like to improve their Search Engine Optimisation (eg Google rankings).

  • Use keywords and phrases that clearly describe the content and purpose of your website. There are tools available to help with choosing keywords, for example Google Autocomplete, AnswerthePublic, Ubersuggest, AlsoAsked, MOZ keyword explorer, Ahrefs keyword generator, and more.
keywords
  • Use the Page TITLE meta tag to create a separate meaningful descriptive title for each page. Title tags are displayed on search engine results pages as the clickable headline for a given result, and are important for SEO. Include your keywords near the beginning of the meta TITLE tag.
  • Use the meta DESCRIPTION tags on each page – search engines display this information in their results lists. This is your chance to entice people to click on your webpage. Also, it is good to include your keywords in your meta description because Google will highlight the search term in bold in their search results.
meta titles and descriptions
  • Use keywords and phrases several times, near to the top of each page. The first paragraph of your pages is the most important. It is always best to add your keywords within the first paragraph if possible – Google crawls content from top to bottom, and if it finds your keywords there it will help improve your search results position for this topic. Similarly, include your important information near the top of the home or landing page.
  • Place your keywords and phrases between Header Tags (H1, H2 or H3). Headings and subheadings help users and search engines understand the structure of your content, and make it easier for readers to skim through your content and find the most valuable sections based on their interests.
HTML heading tags
  • Make navigation easy for users on every page so that they don’t need to click several times to get to the information they need. Details such as contact information and social media profile links should be easy to find.
  • If you use a left navigation bar, the search engine will read it before the body of your page – so make sure you include your most important keywords there, too.
  • For page names use descriptive keywords that people are likely to use when they are searching such as “Childrens Beds” rather than “Beds”.
  • Rename images with descriptive names such as “wooden-bedstead.jpg” instead of “image1.jpg” before uploading them to your website. Always-use-hyphens-in-urls. Never_use_underscores_in_urls.
  • Use the image ‘ALT’ tag to describe images (for example, alt=”Wooden Bedstead”). This is especially important if the image contains text in graphical format. As well as being important for SEO purposes, the ALT tag is used by screen readers used by blind and visually impaired people to tell them what the image is about.
image ALT tags
  • Avoid describing all your products or services in one page. Instead, create different pages, each with its own differently optimised content and key phrases.
  • Create a sitemap. A sitemap gives details of all the pages in your site, and helps search engines to find and index all the pages in your site.
sitemap
  • Search engines trawl the web all the time looking for new content. However, if you notice that website content is not showing up in the search engine results listings you may want to manually submit your website or page to the most important search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.
  • Building links is important for SEO because links are a signal to Google that your site is a quality resource. Therefore, sites with more backlinks tend to earn higher rankings. Try to gain relevant links from quality websites and never buy links or your website may be penalised in the search results.
backlinks
  • To check how many of your pages Google has indexed, go to Google and type in the search box:

site: www.yourwebaddress.co.uk

I hope you found this article useful. Walker Websites is based in Highams Park, East London. Why not get in touch to see how we can help with your SEO needs? Call now – 0777 169 1194.

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