[your business name]
SEO Implementation Checklist
[your logo here]
SEO Implementation Master Checklist
[your business name here] Professional SEOPrepared by [your name here]
[clients business name here]
The purpose of this document is to provide a step by step workflow strategy that can be followed methodically during the lifecycle of any client campaign. This ensures each step is completed accurately, from start to finish without being missed or overlooked. This list may be edited as required to suit your business needs or requirements.
This document is comprised of the following parts.
· Purpose of document
· Domain name
· Keyword related
· Content development
· Meta tags
· Site navigation
· URL elements
· Search engine submission
· Sitemaps
· Analytics
· Headers and redirects
· Imagery
· RSS feeds
· Social widgets
· Directory submissions
· Article marketing
· Press releases
· Multimedia publishing
· Social bookmarking
· Web 2.0 sites
· Comment posting
Registered domain has been carefully selected using brand or keywords and resolves correctly to www (or no www) version.
Domain checklist
Mark off each section as performed/completed.
Keyword rich domain name registered / in use
Domain name does not contain hyphens, numbers or mispellings
Domain is not due to expire
Content has been written with targeted keywords used intelligently throughout the appropriate pages.
Keyword checklist
Comprehensive keyword research performed
Competition / expected traffic assessed
Primary and secondary keywords selected
Keywords documented / approved by client
Keywords grouped per category / site structure determined based upon keywords
Content Checklist
Content type determined / approved by client
Content creation assigned to designated person(s)
Content development commenced based upon keyword research
Content received and approved for use
Content published
Each page contains its own unique title, meta description, and main heading (H1).
Meta tags checklist
Keyword rich/relevant title tags, keywords close to beginning of title tags
Title tags 10 – 60 characters, no special characters
Keyword rich/relevant description tags
Description tags less than 200 characters.
Keyword rich/relevant keyword tags
Keyword tags less than 10 specific keywords / keywords not stuffed
No keyword meta tag duplicates
Keyword rich/relevant header tags, H1, H2, H3
Site navigation is clearly marked using plain text links. Flash, JavaScript, or form-based navigation, if used, has a plain text alternative.
Site navigation checklist
Most relevant navigational links most prominent onsite (header, sidemenu etc)
Secondary site navigational links within site footer (privacy, disclaimer etc)
Text based navigation replacing any image or flash based navigation
Site pages or filenames “linked to” contain relevant keywords/phrases
All internal onsite links are valid / no broken links
Site consists of efficient, tree like, category based structure
No more than 2 clicks to any page sitewide
Intra site linking
Implementation of breadcrumb navigation
Keyword relevant mouseover text across all links
Removal of any links pointing to external spam, porn, gambling etc related sites
All external links valid and working
URLs contain targeted keywords, are short, contain no query strings or session IDs, and are correctly referenced by the appropriate rel=canonical link element.
URL Checklist
Keyword rich/relevant URLs/pagenames
Removal of non descriptive URLs
Implementation of category based URL structure (www.domain.com/category/page.html)
Implementation of hyphenated URLs
Removal of overly long page names
Site has been registered with and submitted to Google and/or Bing webmaster tools with correct settings.
Search engine submission checklist
Submission to Google
Submission to Yahoo
Submission to Bing
Submission to any other desired search engines
Both an HTML and an XML sitemap have been created for the site. The XML sitemap has been correctly submitted to Google and/or Bing webmaster tools.
Sitemap checklist
Creation of HTML sitemap
Creation of XML sitemap
Check and validate XML sitemap
Submission of XML sitemap to Google webmaster tools
Analytics software is correctly implemented on every page and tracking is active.
Analytics software checklist
Creation of Google Analytics (or other tracking software) account
Creation of tracking code
Implementation of analytical code onsite
Confirmation of correctly installed and actively tracking code
All redirections correctly use a 301 header response. Page not found is correctly set up to return a 404 header response.
Redirects and header response checklist
Update htaccess file with appropriate redirects if required (301)
Create custom 404 error file
Test both 301 redirects and 404 error files
Images have been reduced in size to prevent slow loading times which can hamper rankings.
Image manipulation checklist
All images have descriptive/keyword rich file names
All images have appropriate ALT tag information
Images load quickly without delay
RSS feeds have been created and published onsite. Feedburner account created, all RSS feeds pinged.
RSS feeds checklist
Creation of RSS feeds (eg feedburner.com)
Implementation of RSS feeds onsite
Submission of RSS feeds to external websites
RSS feeds pinged
Implementation of social widgets on all pages site wide. Share this buttons and link to us pages created.
Widgets checklist
Implementation of ‘share this’ social widgets onsite
‘Link to us’ page created
Testing of social widget functionality
Site has been submitted to both free and paid directories, including Yahoo and DMOZ. Descriptive text used throughout submissions.
Directory submission checklist
Submission of site to free directories
Submission of site to paid directories
Submission of site to Yahoo directory
Submission of site to DMOZ
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