SEO Checklist: 110+ Actionable Steps
To Success in 2024 (Updated)

Struggling to find the perfect mix of SEO tactics for your company? You’re not alone.

With so many factors to consider, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and waste your precious time.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach while planning Website SEO strategy.

How do you decide which Google ranking factors to prioritize? What should you focus on to get consistent results?

We’ve got the answers to your questions! We’ve created a comprehensive 110+ On-Page SEO checklist and Off-Page SEO techniques, along with our most popular WordPress Checklist, that we follow for our clients, which if incorporated correctly, can get your site to rank consistently well on search engines.

And if you’re still feeling confused, don’t worry. At Capsicum Mediaworks, an SEO company in Mumbai, we can help you implement these SEO techniques and strategies with our monthly plans. Our team specializes in delivering effective SEO strategies tailored to your needs. Get in touch with us today to learn more!

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To sort out all your problems regarding SEO, we have accumulated 110+ search engine optimization techniques for you to rank high in the search engines.

Basic SEO Checklist

If you want to see your SEO succeed, it is important to have your basics covered. Below are the basic SEO checklist that a business should follow in order to rank higher.

Create a New Brand with a Unique Domain Name

It is advisable to have unique and undefined domain names for websites, as observed in the case of big brands like Quicksprout and Backlinko.

Country TLD Extension for Better Local Search Ranking

Country TLD extension (.in, co.uk) is useful if you want to rank higher in a specific country. However, while it helps you to boost your local search ranking, it may limit the global ranking of your website. You can read more about it here.. [2015 link for Local SEO.]

Stick to Any one Domain Version www or non-www

Being consistent in search engines is important. So, pick either www or non-www version, and 301 redirect the other one. For further details and code, go here.

Optimize Your Site With WP SEO Plugin

Implementing a proper SEO strategy becomes a thousand times easier if your website is powered by WordPress. Here is a list of some of the best WordPress SEO plugins to help you optimize your site.

Install SEO Plugin’s

Yoast Plugin: One of the must-have WordPress plugins for SEO, Yoast SEO is a great tool that helps you to optimize your website for search engines. From search engine snippet preview for meta tags to analysis of content readability to SEO analysis (keywords, links, etc), this tool helps you to optimize your posts/pages before publishing them. Read this beginners guide to Yoast SEO to learn more.

Install Rank Math Plugin: One of the most effective SEO plugins, the Rank Math SEO plugin, is an additional resource that websites can use to boost their ranking on search engines. Rank Math delivers powerful features such as the advanced SEO analytics module, Google Index Status, Website Rank tracker, and Content AI. Read this Rank Math Setup guide to get started.

Set-up Search Console (Webmaster Tools) Account

Google Search Console gives you insights into which keywords are popular on your site, what web pages have been indexed, and a list of external & internal links, and more.

Check & Review Google Analytics Account

Regular reviewing of your Google Analytics Account will give you an insight into which SEO techniques are working and which are not. In other words, it offers an in-depth analytical insight into your website’s traffic and performance.

Set Up Google Analytics

Similarly, setting up Google Analytics is important to understand your site's SEO, to track eCommerce metrics, to improve your content, which will help you to enhance the user experience, etc. For more insights, you may refer to this detailed Google Analytics Guide.

Exclude Internal Traffic From Google Analytics

To exclude internal traffic from Google Analytics, create a filter to ignore visits from your office IP address. This ensures your data reflects real user behavior, providing more accurate insights into your website's performance.

Install Bing Webmaster Tools

While not as popular as Google, there is still a considerable amount of searches done on it, so ensure that you set up Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing Webmaster also has some great features like keyword research tool, reporting tool, etc.

Check For Noindexing and Nofollow

The noindex tag indicates to search engines not to index your pages, so they don't show up on the search result. The nofollow tag, on the other hand, restricts search engines from passing PageRank to pages.

Once you go live with your site, use a crawler to check if any page has a nofollow tag, which should only be used for duplicate content. Simultaneously, ensure that no pages and links are nofollowed. Read more here .

Domain Age Is More Important For Rankings

An established (older) Domain earns a significant level of trust from Google than a newer domain. However, it's not extremely essential for better ranking on search engines.

Therefore, having a new domain is not such a major concern, as at some point it will become more established and older. Having a long-established domain name is mainly beneficial in getting backlinks. You can read more on domain age here.

Set-Up Google Tag Manager

With Google Tag manager, you can set up all your code snippets or tags in one place. These tags include Google Analytics, Google Ads, Floodlight, and 3rd party tags that help in tracking data fed into the SEO campaign.

Set-up Ahrefs Webmaster Tools

One of the industry’s leading SEO Tools, Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is a free tool for website owners. It can aid websites in their goal to attract more organic traffic, thereby improving their SEO performance. Website owners can easily set it up by verifying their website ownership.

You’ve Finally Found the Right SEO Agency!

Capsicum has the SEO solutions you’ve been searching for. Don’t let another day go by where your competitors are looking down on you! It’s time to be discovered!

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Keyword Research Checklist

Keyword research is the process of finding all possible queries that might be relevant to you and your target audience.  It includes finding the right keywords, sorting and using them according to your needs. We have curated a keyword research checklist along with a few keyword research tools that you can use to increase your ranking.

Use Keyword Research tools such as Google Keyword Planner To Find Untapped Keywords

Keyword Planner Tool provides you with all the necessary information needed to conduct keyword research. Apart from Google Ads’ Keyword Planner, website owners can also use tools such as KWFinder, Keywordtool.io, Ahref’s Keywords Explorer, and SEMRush.

Understand User Search Intent

Google has always focused on providing users with the most relevant results for their search queries. By understanding the search intent of users,as a business you can create your content accordingly which addresses the user's query. This in return will help boost ranking as well as traffic. Check this blog to know more.

Use The Right Mix of High & Low Volume Keywords

Most marketers ignore keywords with low volume searches, however, these might actually lead to conversions. More often than not, low volume searches are specific search phrases that customers are looking for. Thus, ensure you have the right balance of high, medium, and low volume keywords that fit into your sales funnel. In addition, you should also focus on finding high-volume and low-competition keywords. The combination of high-volume and low-competition keywords works brilliantly for new websites or shorter campaigns. These low-competition keywords don’t require much effort and are easier to rank.

Understand Keyword Search Volume

Depending on the keyword research tool you are using, the search volume for specific keywords may differ. These tools help you identify the monthly search volume (the number of searches for a given keyword in a particular month).

Thus, though an important metric that helps you to strategize your content and SEO campaign, it is important that you don't build your campaign/content based solely on this factor.

Understand Keyword Difficulty

In SEO, some keywords are more difficult to rank for than others. The keyword research tool you are using will provide you with this metric. Thus, if you are targeting high competition keywords, then to rank higher than your competitors in the search result, you need to create better content, building more links, etc.

Head Terms vs Long Tail Keywords

Head terms are generally high search volume keywords that are competitive. Whereas, long-tail keywords have a low search volume and are easier to rank. Long-tail keywords are more search specific, so even though you receive a low amount of traffic, the chances of conversion are higher. While head terms may bring in more traffic, the visitors you receive on your site may/may not be looking for the services or products you are offering.

Delve Deeper Into the Questions People Are Asking

Search engines are constantly trying to find ways through which they can offer their customers a better search experience. 'People Also Ask' boxes is another feature that it has introduced, which provides related Q&A to the original search query. This will help you understand what consumers are searching for, and by providing answers to these questions, you can boost your site's organic traffic and build your site's authority.

Read here for more information.

Try Out Online Communities For Keyword Ideas

Another untapped source that can aid in keyword research is online communities like Quora, Reddit, and other niche-specific forums. They can help you understand what your target audience is searching for and help you discover amazing blog topics that can drive traffic to your website. Check out this article for keyword ideas inspiration.

Use ATP Tool To Find 'Question Keywords'

Most people are looking for answers online. However, how do you find the questions they are searching for? Here is a tool that can help you! AnswerThePublic (ATP) is a visual keyword research tool that helps you to find out the questions and queries your consumers are searching for in Google. This is in line with understanding the User Search Intent, which will help you to improve your conversions.

Pick One Keyword Per Page

This helps you to avoid double targeting of keywords, ensuring that no two web pages of your website are competing for the same spot in the search result.

Use The Right Mix of High & Low Volume Keywords

In addition, you should also focus on finding high-volume and low-competition keywords. The combination of high-volume and low-competition keywords works brilliantly for new websites or shorter campaigns. These low-competition keywords don’t require much effort and are easier to rank.

On-page SEO Checklist

Without useful information and a great on-page experience, your website will struggle to gain traction causing a lower ranking. Keep in mind, that you are creating content for users and not search engines! Below is the on-page SEO checklist that you should go through to gain more organic traffic.

Linking Out To Relevant & Authority Sites

Linking out to relevant & high authority sites helps you to boost your search engine ranking and improves your site’s visibility. But make sure you only include sites with high page and domain authorities. You can check their Domain & Page Authority using the Moz Open Site Explorer.

Link Out To Diverse Sources

One of the basic points on-page checklist is linking multiple sources.  By linking out to diverse sources you not only make your content appear more natural but also get more link juice from varied sources.

Add Modifiers to Title

More often than not, users tend to include modifiers such as ‘2020’, ‘best’, ‘review’, ‘top’, ‘guide’, when searching for a product or a service online. By adding modifiers to your title, you are ensuring your site shows up in SERPs for these searches. Additionally, it improves users experience, as it gives the user quick information regarding what a particular web page is about.

Take a look at this modifier list to boosts your SEO.

Submit a XML Sitemap To Speed Up Indexing

A sitemap not only speeds up search engine indexing, but it also informs Google quickly about any changes on your site. Thus, you must create an XML sitemap and submit its URL to your Google Search Console. Also, apart from sitemaps for posts and pages, create separate sitemaps for your images and videos as well, this will definitely benefit your website. You can also make use of the Yoast SEO plugin to create a sitemap.

Use Optimized Robots.txt

Don’t want certain Pages Folders or Files to show up on Google? Create a Robots.txt file in the root, to prevent search engine robots from crawling and indexing specific areas of your website. You can even get a code for the same here. If you wish to read more about Robots.txt, head over to TorqueMag.

Optimize Your Images For Better Rankings

If you are downloading images/photos from free stock images sites, then optimizing these images before using them on your website is important. Optimizing images helps in reducing bounce rate, improves your site's page speed & performance, and generates more traffic from image-based search engines such as Google Image Search & others. Plugins like TinyPNG plugin for WordPress does a great job of optimizing images.

Keep Outbound Links To Minimum

The quality of the outbound links matters, not the quantity. Thus, avoid having too many outbound links, and only keep those, which have high page and domain authorities.

Also Create an HTML Sitemap

While an XML Sitemap makes it simpler for search engines to index your site, an HTML sitemap makes the navigation of your site easier. This helps enhance the user experience and improves your SEO campaign. It also helps pass link equity around your site and is an alternative for search engines to find and index your website.

Optimize Social Share Image Settings With Yoast SEO

Improve your site’s organic search ranking by optimizing your social share images with Yoast SEO. Here is a detailed guide on how to set-up the Yoast SEO Plugin to optimize social sharing images.

Use Alt Tags Intelligently To Optimize Images

Search engine robots can’t see images, hence they can’t index them. By adding an Alt tag, you help search engine robots to read the text which is associated with those images, thereby facilitating faster & accurate indexing. This, in turn, improves the accessibility of your site on search engines.

Keyword at the Beginning of URL

Adding your target keyword to a URL helps to improve your site’s click-through-rate. It also helps to describe what a particular URL is about, which makes it easier for search engines as well as users to identify a web page just by examining its URL.

Use Quality Page Meta Title & Descriptions

A cleverly composed page meta title (max 60 chars) and description (max 155 chars) can improve the quality and quantity of your search traffic. It also helps search engines & users to know what your page content is about. Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress is the best tool for this.

Use Heading Tags (H Tags) To Get More Traffic

Heading Tags or h tags, help search engine robots to establish the relevancy of your content by providing a basic description of the content, thereby maximizing your content’s visibility on search engines. It begins with the H1 tag (the title of the post/page), followed by H2 tags (for main headings), and for sub-headings, other tags can be used – from H3 to H6. Go here to learn more about the importance of H tags.

Internal Contextual Linking On Long Tail Keywords

Internal contextual linking helps you to establish SEO-friendly site architecture, which helps search engine robots to index web pages more efficiently. Also, it helps to promote older content & it improves your site’s ranking for specific keywords. So, whenever you produce a new blog post, scan through the older posts and other web pages, and contextually optimize the structure internally.

No-index or Remove Thin Pages

Thin or low-quality pages add little or no value to your site. By implementing a no-index tag on these pages, you tell search engine robots not to index them. In other words, to maintain a standard for your website, it is best to get rid of low quality, thin content.

Use Rel Canonical Tag To Improve Ranking

Rel canonical tag helps you to eliminate duplicate URLs, thus facilitating faster and effective indexing, which results in improved Page Ranking. You can use the Yoast plugin to enable or disable this for your website.

Add BreadCrumbs To Improve Navigation

Breadcrumbs make your site more accessible to search engine robots. Plus, they help users to navigate your site better, which results in reduced bounce rate, leading to better search engine rankings. In other words, Breadcrumbs facilitate a better presentation of your URLs. Here are some instructions on how you can enable Breadcrumbs using Yoast SEO plugin.

Use Meta Keywords To Rank Well On All Search Engines

The common misconception is that meta keywords are no longer an important ranking factor. While this may be true for Google, it is not the case of other search engines like Yahoo, Bing, etc. So, to rank well on all search engines, it is essential to use meta keywords.

Use 301 Redirects Effectively

301 Redirect helps you to preserve the SEO value of a web page by transferring page rank, domain authority, etc to a new page, thereby preserving your ranking in SERPs. Use the User Redirection plugin for WordPress to manage your 301 redirects.

Publish The Usual Static Pages

By publishing the usually static Privacy, Contact Us, About Us pages, you can improve your site’s visibility and rank higher in search engine result pages.

Keep Your URLs Short (SEO Friendly)

To make your URLs SEO-friendly, keep it short yet descriptive. Short URLs are also quick to type and well-liked by search engine crawlers.

Keyword Placement Matters, Not Frequency

When it comes to keywords, the placement is more important than how many you use. Put keywords in the spotlight like titles, headers, and first paragraphs to boost SEO. Remember it is always quality over quantity.

Keyword In H tags, Description & Title

For best SEO results and improved ranking, you must place your page's best keywords in H tags, description & title, to let search engines know what the page is all about. However, make sure you do not spam or over-optimize these areas by stuffing keywords in them. Also, ensure that the H1 heading tag appears before any other heading tags on your webpage, so it's easier for the crawlers to automatically detect the heading of your webpage.

Create Search Engine & User-Friendly Pages

To enhance user experience and improve website performance. For this, buy landing pages that are user and search engine friendly.

Optimize Your Site for Organic Click-Through-Rate

A higher click-through-rate (CTR) signals to Google your content is well-liked, which helps boost its ranking on the SERP. You can optimize your site's CTR by writing descriptive meta tags, using long-tail keywords, implementing structured data, etc. Read this for more details.

Delete 'Dead Weight' Pages

Dead weight pages include outdated/low-quality blog posts, thin content, archive pages, duplicate content, among others. These add little value to your site, plus they affect your SEO efforts. Thus, to improve your site's performance, it is recommended to delete 'dead weight' pages.

Improve Your Site's Dwell Time

The longer people stay on your page/post, the better your site's dwell time becomes, which is a ranking factor that signals to Google that visitors like your site. You can improve your site's dwell time by increasing your site's speed, creating relevant and informative content, making your site mobile-friendly, and much much more. Here's all you need to know about how to increase dwell time.

Use Different Types of Schema Markup

Schema markup is structured data that helps search engines better understand the content published on websites. With Schema Markup, websites can appear in the rich results in key placements. Schema Markups also improve targeting, increase CTR, and boost brand exposure. Schema markup guides offer website owners a variety of options to optimize their content. With over 100 schema types available, you can leverage specific markups for elements like your organization, local business information, product pages, job listings, how-to guides, FAQs, articles, breadcrumbs, recipes, and even videos.

Use External and Internal Links

External links, by definitions, point from the owner’s website to other websites. Adding links to authority websites tells google that your content is trustworthy. In contrast, Internal links are links to web pages within the same site. Linking to at least 2-3 web pages within the websites makes it easier for the search bots to efficiently crawl and index your website.

Local SEO Checklist

Local SEO helps your business attract customers searching for products or services nearby. Here’s a quick checklist to get you started:

Target Local Keywords

Sprinkle location-based keywords throughout your website content, like “best plumbers in Mumbai” or “dentistry services near me.” This increases your website’s relevance in local searches.

Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile (GBP). Fill out all details including accurate business description, high-quality photos, and opening hours. A well-maintained GBP is crucial for high local search rankings.

Build Local Citations

Citations are online mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) across various directories. Claim listings on relevant industry directories and local business websites. Local SEO services can help you identify and manage citations effectively.

Get More Reviews & Respond

One of the most efficient to-dos among multiple local SEO tips is getting positive reviews. They build trust and improve local search ranking. Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on Google My Business and other platforms. Respond promptly to all reviews, thanking customers for positive feedback and addressing concerns.

Consistent NAP Everywhere

Ensure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) is consistent across your website, social media profiles, online directories, and anywhere your business is listed online. Inconsistencies can confuse search engines and hurt your local SEO.

For a comprehensive Local SEO strategy, consider professional Local SEO Services. They can help you with in-depth keyword research, competitor analysis, and ongoing local citation management.

Book a Free Consultation!

Reach out to us to discuss how we can help you achieve your goals.

Off-page SEO Checklist

You might think of off-page SEO simply as link building, but there is more to it. off-page helps improve your site’s ranking by focusing on activities outside your website. It includes building quality backlinks, engaging on social media, and getting positive reviews. Follow our off-page SEO checklist to boost your site’s authority and visibility.

Submit to Google Local Listing

Submit your site’s local listing on Google My Business to boost your local SEO and improve your site’s visibility.

Be Active On Quora To Improve Ranking

Respond to questions on Quora, and if there is a specific article on your site that helps reinforce your answer, you can link to it.

Make Use Of Local Citations

The citation is an online reference to your business’s name, address and phone number on other web pages. Using local citation helps you to improve your local ranking and creates more brand awareness.

Create Social Brand Pages To Boost Ranking

Get more organic search traffic and rank well in SERPs by creating a profile for your business on popular social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Replicate Your Competitor's Links

Did you know you can build quality links for your site by replicating your competitor's links? That's right! There is a high chance of a site, which is linking to your competitors, linking to you as well. Thus, make use of the Ahrefs' Link Intersect tool, which will help you to find websites linking to your competitors. Also, the easiest links to replicate are those from guest posts, directories, link roundups, etc.

Provide Testimonials for Your Favourite Tools, Services, or Companies

If you are using specific tools, then writing a testimonial can help you to get a backlink from them. Here's an example of how Capsicum Mediaworks acquired a link from a popular project management tool that we use. You can use the same strategy to get a link from the services you use or companies that you collaborate with. This will help boosts your domain authority.

Competitor Link Profile Analysis

Review important link metrics of your competitors with the help of Moz Open Site Explorer. It shows you important data such as page authority, domain authority, backlinks, anchor text, etc. This will help you to understand your competitors link building strategy.

Reach Out to Friends/Colleagues

With several people creating websites and blogs, reaching out to friends, business associates, and colleagues in the same industry can help you earn relevant links for your website.

Use Google Business Reviews

Google loves displaying reviews in search results. Also, positive reviews of your brand help increase user trust, resulting in higher CTRs & conversions.

Use Social Bookmarking To Boost Page Rank

Social bookmarking is an excellent way through which you can generate quality backlinks and get more targeted traffic for your site.

Importance of Dofollow vs NoFollow Links

There are two types of links in SEO; do-follow links and no-follow links. Dofollow links help pass link juice between internal pages as well as external authority sites. Nofollow links, on the other hand, restrict the link juice from being shared. Dofollow links help you to build authority, whereas no-follow links can help you drive traffic to your website, even if they don't pass any link juice. Thus, when building links for your website, having a mix of do-follow and no-follow links is important.

Blog Commenting

Another common off-page SEO technique is blog commenting. By commenting on relevant and niche-specific blogs, you can easily get a link for your website as well as drive traffic. To ensure your comments get approved, you must write genuine and descriptive comments, which doesn't look/feel spammy. Here's everything you need to know about blog commenting.

Business/Profile Creation

This is a white-hat off-page SEO strategy that can help you acquire high domain authority (DA) do-follow links. Profile creation for business or individual can help you to establish your brand's identity and boosts trust among users. It also allows you to add a snippet of all the services you are offering. Thus, sign up today with high DA do-follow profile creation sites that are relevant to your business.

Web 2.0 Creation

As free blogging platforms, Web 2.0s provide you with the blog creation feature. By creating unique content and sharing it on these high domain authority content-sharing sites, you can gain a quality backlink for your website. Furthermore, they can also help you generate relevant traffic. Check out this article to learn more.

Set Up Link Monitoring

If you are using different tactics to build links for your website, then setting up link monitoring can help you to easily track them. Also, by monitoring links, you can easily replace them if they turn out to be dead/outdated in the future.

Content Checklist

Step up your game with our SEO checklist for content. Be it catchy headlines, engaging visuals, and easy-to-read format. Don't forget to make it easy to find and share so your audience can spread the word and help increase your engagement.

Check For Duplicate Content

Google doesn't like unoriginal content. Duplicate content makes search engines' task of indexing web pages, checking for relevancy, and assigning link metrics difficult. Thus, you must check for duplicate content and remove it to avoid losing search engine visibility. Duplicate content should not be more than 10% on the site. To check your website for duplicate content use Siteliner.

Create Long and Statistics Based Content to drive in more search traffic

Long content enriched with accurate statistical data converts better than short content. Moreover, it helps you to get more outbound links, and they do well on search engines, thereby improving your search traffic. Create power pages with 2000+ words content, which is epic and useful for your niche industry. Take a look at our article on How Long Should A Blog Post Be to learn more about the benefits of long form content.

Write Powerful and Captivating Headlines

Creating attention-grabbing headlines is where your focus should be, as it is the first impression of your article. When you write a headline, ask yourself, ‘Would this make me want to read on?’ Here is some useful information on writing powerful headlines from industry expert, Neil Patel.

Use Capital Letters To Highlight Keywords

Using capital letters for the first letter of each keyword is important. Since keywords are an important factor in SEO, highlighting them in CAPITAL will help draw the readers' attention to important information.

Write Benefit-Focused Content

An effective web copy is one that is benefit-focused. Does your article include something different, which is not shared by another writer? What benefit does your article offer to the reader? Does your article or blog solve the readers' problem? Does it offer them the solution they are looking for? Writing Benefit-focused content is highly dependent on understanding the search users intent. You can read more about some valuable SEO techniques and how to write benefit-focused content from Brian Dean.

Make Use Of Bullets & Numbers While Writing

Integrating numbers into your content’s headline makes it powerful and clickable. Whereas bullets help you to present multiple points in an easy to digest format and provide a visual break from the rest of your text.

Proofread The Content Before You Go Live

Proofread to eliminate typos, spelling mistakes, and check the grammar of the content, to ensure best quality content for viewers, and to improve search engine visibility.

Frequently Update Content/Blogs

Updating your site’s content and blogs frequently help you to gain more visibility on the search engine, which increases traffic and conversion.

Use Engaging Images and Videos

Show, don’t tell!

The best technique for viral marketing campaigns is to create a viral infographic or use ‘How To’ explainer videos for business. Making use of relevant images as part of the content is also the fastest way to attract a user’s attention and to speed-up conversion. This article by Codefuel tells you how images and multimedia can improve user engagement.

Start Blog Title With Keyword

One of the sure-fire ways to get a click on your article is to start your blog title with a keyword. A well-crafted blog title that includes a keyword will not only pique users interest, but will also earn you the desired relevant traffic.

Optimize Your Contact Us Page

Customize your Contact Form. Make it as attractive & user-friendly as possible to grow your customer base. For this, you need to take some time and learn about the art of optimizing your contact page.

Place Your Site’s Content Above The Fold

Google has recently decided to make some changes in its algorithm, which will give more value and importance to the content displayed above the fold. Since this is the first thing that grabs 80% of a user’s attention, it’s important that the above the fold portion of your site’s web page has relevant content rather than unnecessary ads.

Use Keyword Once In The First 150 Words

Also, to rank your blog post higher on the SERPs, make use of the target keyword at least once in the first 100-150 words.

Use 'The Skyscraper Technique'

Made popular by Brian Dean, with the Skyscraper technique, you can drive a huge amount of organic traffic to your website as well as earn quality backlinks. Working on the basic principle of improving existing content, this method includes researching about popular topics that has received a good amount of backlinks, and then creating an even better piece of (in-depth) content on the same topic, by adding content, latest statistics, images/screenshots, presenting it in an better way through new design, etc.

Once the new content is published on your site, reach out (through email) to bloggers/site owners who have already linked to similar content, giving them a heads-up on the new content that you have created, which will (hopefully) earn you a backlink.

Optimize the Readability of Your Content

When writing content, ensure that it is easy to read and understand, and avoid any unnecessary technical jargons. If you've already installed the Yoast SEO tool, you can make use of the readability analysis it offers. This tool provides the readability score as well as offer suggestions that can help you make content changes, which will help improve customer engagement.

Focus on Content Formats

The popular types of content formats commonly used are case studies, 'how-to' guides, eBooks, expert roundups, list posts, etc. Pick a content format that best suits your content writing needs. This will help boosts customer engagement. Read more about content formats here.

Implement LSI keywords To Boost SEO Traffic

Implementing LSI keywords helps you to optimize your article’s keyword density, and it helps Google to judge the relevancy of an article, thereby increasing your site’s chances of ranking higher in the search result. You may also use search engine optimization tools like Uber Suggest & LSI Graph to find LSI Keywords.

Featured Snippets

A summary of an answer to a user’s query, a Featured Snippet is mostly displayed on the top of the search result. By adding a featured snippet in your posts, you would be able to increase your site’s organic traffic, even if you don't rank on #1 in Google. Here's how you can get a featured snippet on Google.

Write a Compelling Introduction

The introduction of an article or blog is the hook that grabs the visitor’s attention. Writing a compelling introduction can help you connect with the reader, building trust and convincing them that they want to stick around to finish reading the entire piece.

Build content hierarchy with Headings

Consider this SEO Checklist, the content you are currently reading, as an example of this tip. We have used the H1 tag for the title, the H2 tag for the headings within the content, and the H3 tags for subsections within each heading. This has created a noticeable hierarchy, making the content much easier to understand.

Tailor the content's reading level to your target audience

One of the most effective SEO tips is to write short sentences and paragraphs. Focus on writing short sentences and paragraphs that are easier to read. Unless you are writing a scholarly article or contributing to the scientific community, also avoid including complex words and jargon that do not fit into the regular vocabulary. Tailor the content to your audience and their readability level. Use tools such as the Hemingway app to identify the grade level of your content.

Add a table of contents

Adding a table of contents to a lengthy blog or article can help the readers easily navigate through it with the help of links, providing them with a good user experience which is an essential search engine ranking factor.

Write a Comprehensive Article or Blog

Comprehensive content that covers in-depth knowledge about a specific topic consistently ranks higher on search engines. Instead of giving your readers another generic topic, share a piece of content that covers everything about a specific topic. Our SEO Guide is the perfect example of comprehensive and in-depth content. Such authoritative content also generates a good amount of backlinks.

Add E-E-A-T signals to your Website

E-E-A-T, short for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, is a search engine ranking factor. It ensures that queries receive relevant and useful results. For website owners, it means building a content plan that enhances experience by delivering authoritative content written by experts, which builds trust. Adding Google's E-E-A-T signals such as Author Bio, References, Business details, and HTTPS can increase the credibility of your website, thereby increasing its value for search engines.

Featured Snippets

One of the best ways to get your content in front of your target audience includes having them displayed in the featured snippets. Feature snippets are quick answers to a query. They are small content excerpts appearing above the organic search results. Featured Snippets are known to improve CTR and website authority. Of the several types of snippets, Paragraphs snippets, tablet snippets, Lists snippets, and video snippets are the most commonly used.

Technical SEO Checklist

Technical SEO can make or break your ranking. It works behind the screen and boosts your organic growth, mobile optimisation, and page speed. Keep these practices in mind while conducting technical SEO, any technical issues and it can hamper your ranking and gaining organic traffic.

Make Your Website Responsive

Google loves responsive websites! Mainly because responsive sites are compatible with desktops, mobiles, and tabs. Thus, you must switch to responsive website, if you want to rank well on search engines, and to avoid Google’s Non-Responsive Website Penalty. To test how mobile-friendly your site is, you could use either of these tools – Google mobile-friendly test or TestmySite Tool.

We, Capsicum Mediaworks, a Web Development company in Mumbai, can help you convert your existing website or help you design & develop a new responsive website. Just get in touch with our team.

Use a Site Audit Tool to Double-Check Everything

Make use of an all-in-one site audit tool to double-check everything. Here, one of the best tools that you can use is Seobility, which allows you to perform a comprehensive on-site audit, along with backlink checker, rank tracking, etc. The reports generated by this tool are also easy to understand, which will help you to fix website issues immediately.

You can also opt for professional SEO audit Services in Mumbai.

Reduce PopUps or Distracting Ads

Irrelevant pop-up ads are not only annoying but also lead to an increase in bounce rate, resulting in traffic loss and low ranking in SERPs.

Avoid Downtime By Choosing Reliable Host

The right hosting can make all the difference between success & failure of your website. Thus, you must select an appropriate web host to avoid unwanted problems. Choose a suitable web host depending on your requirements – the host reviews at HostingClues is a good place to start. Some other popular options include BigRock | Bluehost | HostGator.

Check For Broken Links

Broken links halt search engine robots from indexing your web pages. Hence, you must fix this problem immediately, to avoid hurting your website’s rankings. You can check for broken links with the help of the Broken Link Checker Plugin for WordPress.

Use SSL Certificate To Boost Ranking

Google rewards sites that use SSL Certificate by boosting their rank on the search engine. Moreover, since you are providing a secure service, it helps to improve customer trust. You can find some of the cheapest SSL options, starting from $3.77/year.

Use Semantic Markup To Improve Ranking

Semantic markup helps you to tell search engine robots what your content is all about, thereby making it easier for them to index it, which results in improved search engine ranking. However, it does not necessarily have to be fancy. Read more about Semantic Markup here.

Use Social Sharing Buttons

Effective use of social sharing buttons is important for on-page optimization. It gives the users, the flexibility to share your site’s content with just one click, which, in turn, drives in more traffic to your site. You can optimize them using the Add To Any Share Buttons WordPress plugin.

Use Short And Descriptive URL Permalink

Do not use the default settings. Create simple and SEO friendly permalinks. Make sure that the URL is short yet descriptive and contains the target keywords. Here’s an example of how you can shorten your URL.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

Accelerated Mobile Pages is an open-source coding project that helps to improve the loading speed of web pages on mobile. By using AMP for your content, you can enhance the mobile browsing experience for users. Plus, since Google prefers AMP pages, implementing it can help improve your site’s ranking in mobile search results.

Read this guide to know more about Accelerated Mobile Pages. Also, if you have implemented AMP take this Google AMP Test to check if your AMP pages are valid or not.

Find Out How Google Views Your Pages

Make use of Google Search Console's 'Inspect URL' feature to see how Google views your pages. This tool provides information on crawl, index, and serving information about different pages (URLs) on your website. It also offers information on crawling or indexing errors, structured data errors, AMP errors, etc so you can fix them post-haste.

Use Pagination For Multi-page Posts

If you don't want your readers to scroll through long posts, then splitting a single post into multiple pages using the pagination plugin can help. It assists in improving user retention, plus it would do away with the issue of a cluttered look, offering your visitors better readability. Here are some efficient pagination plugins that you can use.

Fix Any Missing or Duplicate Meta Tags

Meta Tags are an important call-to-action in the search result. Missing, duplicate or too long meta tags can affect your site's click-through-rate. To fix this issue, make use of the free version of Screaming Frog that helps you to analyse your URLs to identify too long, short, missing, or duplicated meta tags on your website.

Unblock JavaScript and CSS from Robots.txt File

According to the new Google update, disallowing search engine robots from accessing and indexing your JavaScript and CSS folders can affect your site’s ranking. While before some people did hide these folders for security purposes, you must unblock them now from your robots.txt file. This will help search engine robots index your site better, thus making your website more mobile-friendly.

For more information, check out this article by Moz on why unblocking JavaScript and CSS folders is necessary.

Use GTMetrix & Pingdom To Optimize Website Speed

A slow website will get you nowhere!

To retain your viewers, get more traffic and improve your site’s search engine ranking, you must optimize your website’s speed. You can easily check your website’s speed performance using search engine optimization tools like GTMetrix and Pingdom or Dotcom-Monitor.

Create Silos For Your Website

In simple term, ‘Silo’ is a technique of grouping related web pages on your website together in an organized manner. By siloing your website, either through links or by creating groups for the content, you are making search engines task of indexing your website easy. Additionally, it helps distribute link juice across various web pages, resulting in improved ranking on SERPs.

Reputation Management and Monitoring

Tracking what people say (good or negative) about you or your business is vital to maintain a good reputation online. Google Alerts is one tool that can help you with reputation management and monitoring. All you have to do is create an Alert for your brand, and you'll get email notifications if it's mentioned. Here are some other tools that can help you monitor your online reputation.

Redirect Attachment URLs To Parent Post

WordPress, by default, creates a single page for each attachment that you upload, which leads to the indexing of duplicate pages.

Thus, to ensure your web pages are appropriately indexed without duplication, you must create a redirect of your attachment pages with the help of Yoast, which will direct search engine robots to the correct (parent) page. Yoast plugin also has an option to enable or disable this feature on your website.

Use Google’s Disavow Tool To Improve Ranking

Google’s Disavow Tool helps you to remove spammy & unnatural links from your site, thereby improving your site’s ranking on the search engine.

Install CDN To Enhance Page Load Time

Content delivery network (CDN) not only improves the site’s page speed, but also helps enhance the user experience, by reducing the response time, thereby improving the site’s ranking. Our recommendation would be Max CDN or CloudFare. If you are using Total Cache Plugin for WordPress, then it has an option to setup CDN.

Do A Cross Browser Testing To Check Cross-Browser Compatibility

Test your website's browser compatibility to avoid losing search traffic. Use BrowserStack to check your website’s cross-browser compatibility.

Social Signals Impact Search Engine Rankings

According to Neil Patel, social signals impact search engine rankings. Therefore, it is advisable to be active on social sites as search engines use data from these sites to rank your website.

Fix Crawl Errors

Crawl errors are an indication that Google can’t view specific pages on your website. This affects the indexing process, hampering your site’s ranking on the SERPs. Thus, fixing this immediately is important.

Common crawl errors include 404: page not found, Broken internal links, bad redirects, and duplicate content. Google Search Console’s Coverage Report can help you eliminate a few errors with the Robot.txt.

Use Hyphens To Differentiate Words In URL

The structure of a URL matter. As such, keep your site’s URL as simple as possible and use hyphens to optimize it.

W3C Validator

A W3C validated markup code makes your site more search-engine friendly. This markup validates that you are using clean HTML codes on your site, which helps improve ranking as well as facilitate smoother indexing. To validate your website, test it on W3C Markup Validator.

Switch from HTTP to HTTPS

Switching from HTTP to HTTPS provides additional security to websites. Google prefers websites with HTTPS, and so do users. Websites with HTTPS come with a locked padlock which tells visitors that it is secure. Also, do not forget to set up proper redirects.

Fix Bad Redirects

Find and eliminate the bad redirect issues that spoil your website experience. Some of the bad redirect issues include the use of temporary redirects when they should be permanent redirects, long redirect chains, and never-ending redirect loops. Also, remember to keep track of the redirects.

Build a logical website structure for new Websites

Plan and build a logical website structure that can help people and search engines easily navigate your website. Follow the simple hierarchical structure, starting with the home page at the top. Below that should be primary service pages, blogs, shops, and the sub-services should be on the next level and so on.

Make your website accessible at only one location

When a website is accessible at multiple locations, it can not only cause security issues but also affect crawling and indexing, which will hamper its SEO.

Consider the following three URLs:

• http://domainname.com
• http://www.domainname.com
• https://domainname.com

Each of these URLs should redirect to the URL: https://www.domainname.com

If that’s not the case, then you need to set up a permanent redirect, 301 redirects.

Install an image compression plugin

WordPress users can install image compression plugins to compress images into smaller files that reduce the page load time, increasing the page loading speed. WordPress users can rely on plugins such as Smush, Tiny PNG, and Imagify.

Improve your webpage experience with Core Web Vitals

Google Core Web vitals include FID (First Input Delay), LCP (Largest COntent Paint), and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift). website owners can use Google’s Pagespeed Insights to find their values and identify the issues with them, fixing them to improve page experience. In addition, website owners can also optimize their websites for safe browsing, intrusive interstitials, and mobile-friendliness.

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Advanced Link Building Checklist

To increase your SEO game, consider an advanced link-building checklist. This includes guest posting, influencer collaborations, and finding resource page opportunities. These strategies can help boost your website’s authority and improve its ranking on search engines.

Create Infographics To Generate Backlinks

Infographics are one of the most popular methods to increase your site’s traffic with quality content, and to procure high-quality authority links. Here’s what you can do to create infographics that generate valuable backlinks.

Enhance Your Outreach Strategy

A good outreach strategy is one of the most effective ways of enhancing your SEO. Not only does it help you to get better & relevant links from quality sites, but it also helps you to develop strong connections with influential bloggers.

Effective Use Of Guest Blogging

Guest blogging helps you to boost your site’s organic search ranking by improving your site’s visibility on search engines.

Look for Broken Link Opportunities

Search for broken links on relevant websites and point out any existing ones to the website owner. Then, ask them if they want to replace it with a link to your related article, so you can get a quality backlink. Go here to read more about how to generate high-quality backlinks.

Search For Broken Link Building Opportunities On Wikipedia

Look for broken links on the relevant Wikipedia pages and replace them with yours. Getting a backlink from Wikipedia is very good for improving your website’s search engine visibility.

Unlinked Brand Mentions

If you are monitoring your brand online and come across any unlinked mentions of your brand, website, or company name (without your site's URL), then you must claim it by sending an email to the concerned author/website asking them for a link attribution. Here are some tools to help you find and turn unlinked brand mentions into links.

Resource Page Link Building

This is one of the other easiest ways to get a link. A resource page list downs helpful links about a particular topic (for e.g WordPress). If you feel your content is the right fit for a specific page, you need to pitch to the website owner, letting them know about your content. If the website owner finds your content to be highly informative, he would be more than happy to add your site's link to their resource list. Learn more on how to find resource pages here.

Get Media Mentions With HARO

HARO stands for 'Help A Reporter Out.' It is a platform where journalists look for sources by pitching to brand/marketers/reporters who are signed up with HARO. All you have to do is register with HARO, select topics you are interested in and you'll get 3 emails daily, with a list of queries from journalists writing/researching on a particular topic. Check out this post to know more about how to use HARO.

Here is an example;

Monitor and Reclaim Any Lost Backlinks

Over the years, you might lose some of the backlinks that you've built either because the author/website owner removes it from their page (post is outdated/thin page) or because the website/blog has shut-down. In the case of the former, you need to find out why the link was removed, and provide the author/website owner with a reason to restore it or offer them another relevant source. Go here to read more about link reclamation.

Build Contextual Backlinks With Link Roundups

One of the best ways to get powerful contextual backlinks for your website is through Link Roundups. Link roundups are blog posts that link to high-quality content. To earn a contextual backlink (a naturally placed link within the body of a page/post), you need to find link roundups within your niche and email your pitch to the author/website owner with a link to your post.

If the author/website owner feels your post is a good addition to their roundup, they'll add it to their post, which will earn you a backlink.

Become a Podcast Guest

You can also generate backlinks by becoming a Podcast Guest. Similar to guest blogging, you can drive organic & referral traffic, improve your site's ranking, and build links through this advanced link building tactic.

Mention Influencers In Your Blog Posts

You would have seen several mentions of Influencers like Brian Dean and Neil Patel in this post. This is one of the best ways to get the attention of top bloggers, who, if they are tracking mentions of their brand online, will receive a notification of the same.

You could also send them an email, letting them know you've mentioned them, which could either earn you a like or share or even better, a chance to pitch for guest posting on their website. This will help you earn the coveted backlink from a high DA site.

Sponsored Posts or Sponsored Content

The use of this link building technique should be done sparingly and with caution. Sponsored posts refer to 'promoted posts' wherein you find site's relevant to your niche and pitch them to either write a post or publish a post (written by you) for your company on their blog. These kinds of posts include recommendations, reviews about services or products etc with a link to a specific landing page. Here, it is important to publish a post which is informative and not overly promotional. Here is more about sponsored posts.

The Synonym Method

In this method, you need to search for websites/agencies similar to your niche, but not in the same geographical area.

For example, if you are a WordPress agency based in India, search for WordPress agencies in another city/state that are not in direct competition with you. You can begin your search for prospects by using search operators like; Keyword + city + blog or Intitle: blog city + keyword.

Once you collate a list of prospects, pitch them for guest blogging or link exchange. This will surely earn you some links.

Understand Authority Metrics

URL Rating and Domain Rating are the key authority metrics that help website owners, and digital marketers determine page rank. Search engines rely on these authority metrics to rank search results for each query. One of the leading factors determining website authority is the higher number of backlinks from authority sites.

Ask your Friends/Colleagues to add a link to your website

Reach out to your friends or colleagues who own websites. It is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get backlinks.

Write Authoritative Guest Post for Relevant Sites

An age-old SEO Tactic, Guest Posting has evolved from the spammy link-building technique to writing authoritative content for relevant websites. It is a good technique to earn links by adding them to guest post content.

Conclusion

Here it is, a complete checklist of 110+ actionable on-page & off-page SEO tactics, that will help you to boost your website's rankings. As one of the leading digital marketing agency in Mumbai, our advice to you is to combine them all and use them every time you publish a new blog post, and you would definitely see a rise in your search engine ranking and a steady increase in your website's traffic.

Also, if you need help with your site's SEO, then here is our SEO packages in Mumbai that you can checkout and pick one that best suits your need.

If you have any questions or have any additional SEO tactics that you want me to add to this list, let me know in the comments below!