A holistic SEO checklist for 2022
SEO is far beyond just writing content with keywords we think our potential customers may fill in those little search bars in different search engines. It encompasses a whole range of different audits, analyses, and actionable plans. But not as complicated as it may sound, the process can be divided into 6 steps, each of which has a different set of checklists that we can easily follow. Ematic has compiled those checklists below for you to have a quick look at your current SEO. In each of the steps, we also note some of the things (if any) that we do differently compared to other SEO agencies in the market. You can also contact us so that we can guide you through our own steps in a more in-depth session. Download the checklist here. Competitor Review In fact, prior to this step, the first thing we need to do is to look at ourselves in general. Some questions we may ask include: what our strategy towards SEO is, what our target market is, how we are doing with our website, whether or not some of the popular keywords related to our products/services show up in search engines, etc… Although detailed analyses of our own SEO performance will be incorporated into later steps, this quick check will probably give us a rough idea of our current state and hopefully help us set some expectations for the project. There is an old saying that goes: “He who sees through life and death will meet most success.” Indeed, when we can identify our competitors, what they have been doing, and where they are standing right now in the market, we can choose to follow best practices or decide to go our own way for differentiation. Doing competitor analysis is one of the best ways to identify customer insights through keyword research. This also helps us figure out what functions on their websites may bring the most value to their (and our) customers. The more information we obtain, the more options we have when we think about our strategy to compete. All in all, there surely is a reason why our competitors showed up in the top search results, right? At Ematic, the first thing we do when it comes to SEO is to conduct thorough research on potential competitors. Below are some headings that you can choose to follow for your own quick competitor check. What to do Research product/service categories of the competitors Research competitors’ main keywords Identify their organic search volume in the latest months Identify their organic search volume growth history Research their customer insights Identify their useful website features Technical Audit A website is a place where we showcase our products/services, direct our customer journeys, pin featured offerings, display sale promotions, or collect customer info from sign-up forms. Needless to say, it is the single most important asset for those who rely on websites to sell. As a result, helping search engines understand our products/services and customers is crucial. Only then, search engines can know who our potential customers are and suggest our website to match with their searched keywords. The list below suggests several aspects you can look into when it comes to optimizing your website for better search engine optimization. What to do Consolidate duplicate URLs URL structure Breadcrumb XML sitemap Robots.txt Robots meta tags Page 404 error Schema YMYL & EAT Core web vitals – page speed score Keyword & Content Planning Search engines were born for users to get answers to various problems in their lives. Therefore, we need to figure out exactly what problems our target audience is currently having; from that, create content that helps them identify and solve their problems through using or buying our products or services. One important thing to note is that when building content, we must first focus on bringing the RIGHT and VALUABLE information to our customers, rather than the length of the article. Even though word count is one criterion Google uses to evaluate website content, this should be the last step for optimization and improvement to meet the guideline, rather than the initial focus when starting to draft our pieces of content. Also, tactics to fool Google’s algorithm may bring short-term success. However, in the long run in case Google updates or changes its evaluation criteria (which is the thing Google does quite often), content that lacks insights into helping customers solve their problems will surely become useless and fall out of the top positions. Besides the mentioned issues, below are the steps you can follow for your keyword & content planning phase: What to do Identify keywords gap with competitors Conduct content overview (pay attention to thin content and duplicate content) Prepare content guidelines & SERP insights Prepare keyword list & suggested topics Do content writing Conduct website content monitoring On-page Optimization “How much traffic does our website have?” – This is a very easy question since we can check it every day on Google Analytics. Now, let’s tweak it a little bit: “How many landing pages on our website bring in that amount of traffic?” – This is tough, right? On average, only 5% of the landing pages on our website bring in 80% of the total traffic. The other 20% is brought in through another 25% of the landing pages. This indicates that a noticeable number of landing pages (70%) contribute 0 traffic to the website! As a result, continuously conducting on-page optimization is a must to make sure we keep bringing a good amount of traffic to our ecosystem. The principle of this phase is, therefore, to identify potential keywords and populate them in relevant articles. At Ematic, we have a special approach in this step for better management and optimization, but you can take the checklist below as the starting point. What to do Optimize heading & outline Add keywords in the page title & meta description Add potential keywords & paragraph Add Internal links Add Images Off-page Optimization An
