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Best Helpful and Essential WordPress SEO Checklist

November 24, 2017

Running a digital marketing campaign can be frustrating when things don’t go your way. But have you stopped to think why your SEO campaign might not be working? Implementing a link building strategy without getting the web design basics right first, is like building a home on foundations that aren’t set properly.

In the end, things are going to come crashing down around you.

If your website is built using WordPress though, it’s easier than you might think to solidify the foundations of your SEO campaign. As a digital agency, we follow a strict SEO checklist before launching and new client website.

We’re going to share a checklist with you. By following this checklist, you will be able to lay the foundations of a robust digital marketing campaign, and ensure that your business website stands the best chance of ranking well in the SERPs.

#Meta Data

  • Is Yoast SEO plugin installed?
  • Are there unique titles on every page?
  • Has a unique Meta description been added to each page?
  • Have ALT tags been added to images?

Meta data is the ‘hidden’ information, purely for the benefit of the search engines and the basis of any solid digital marketing campaign. By installing a free SEO plugin – we would recommend Yoast SEO – you can quickly and easily add everything from SEO titles to meta descriptions to every page and post.

#Search Engine Friendly Web Design

  • Are permalinks set to /%postname%/?
  • Have 301 redirects been used properly?
  • Have all canonical issues been resolved?
  • Has a robots.txt file been created, does it work correctly?
  • Are privacy settings set to ‘allow search engines’?

Web design should always be the first stop in any SEO campaign. When it comes to checking the status of your website, these simple checks could make all the difference. To change your permalink structure, head to Settings ->Postname and select /%postname%/ from the drop down.

One of the best things about WordPress is that you don’t need to be a web developer to make certain changes. For instance, you can manage your 301 redirects using a plugin – we would recommend Safe Redirect Manager.

Finally, it’s vital you check that search engines can actually crawl your website. Go to Settings -> Reading -> Allow Search Engines to View to make sure your website is visible to search engine spiders.

#Sitemaps and Google Webmaster Tools

  • Is an HTML sitemap present?
  • Have we created an XML sitemap with Yoast?
  • Has the XML sitemap been submitted to Google Webmaster Tools?

The aim of this section is to make it as easy as possible for search engines to crawl your website. HTML and XML sitemaps help both users and search engine crawlers navigate around your website, but don’t have to be complicated to create.

In fact, Yoast strikes again helping you to create an XML sitemap within the plugin. Once this is generated, simply submit it to Google Webmaster Tools. This sitemap will tell the search engines which pages to index, how many there are on your website, and other important information.

#Content

  • Is there a single H1 tag on each page?
  • Has a broken link check been performed?

The final part of this checklist focuses on the content of your pages and posts. H1 tags tell the search engines what the page is about, and highlight the most important content. More than one can cause potential issues at a later date.

Broken links not only give a negative customer experience, but they also have a negative impact on your SEO efforts. There are a number of SEO tools that can help you check for broken links, but we would recommend Xenu. A Xenu check will scour your website for broken links, and highlight them quickly and easily.

Once you’ve worked your way through this checklist, you’re ready to go.

With these foundations in place, you can build a solid and robust digital marketing plan. SEO is by no means an easy task; results don’t happen overnight. But by getting the basics right, you can begin implementing a campaign that is results driven and starting off on the right foot.

Author Bio :-Superdream is a digital agency based in the UK, specializing in building and marketing WordPress websites.