Technical SEO checklist intro
If you run a blog, you know that the technical SEO checklist (search engine optimization) game has become quite complex in recent years.
Beyond publishing new, high-quality content on your site and posting to social media, it’s hard to stay on top of all the technical aspects of your site that can affect its ranking in search engines like Google and Bing.
In this checklist, we’ll cover the most important technical factors to make sure your site will rank well with search engines. These are best practices that have been proven to work time and time again.
Title tags
As a blogger, it’s your responsibility to make sure your site is indexed properly by Google and other search engines.
You need to do this by checking off certain tasks on our technical SEO checklist for bloggers.
This includes tracking the number of links that point back to your blog, making sure your pages are optimized with keywords, and monitoring the activity around content from a technical standpoint.
If you use social media as part of your blogging efforts, be aware that updates can also have an impact on how high you rank on search engine results pages. Other items on the technical SEO checklist include page speed optimization, load time optimization, mobile responsiveness, and much more.
Read on to find out what else should be included on your technical SEO checklist. There are many parts of technical SEO that every blogger needs to know about if they want their site or blog to show up at the top of search engine results pages. What does your technical SEO checklist look like?
Meta description
A comprehensive technical SEO checklist to help bloggers optimize their blog posts and make them more accessible.
Here are 7 key areas of optimization to get you started on making your site search engine friendly.
1) Choose a Keyword with a Great Search Volume.
2) Optimize Headings and Text with Your Keyword.
3) Create Bold Titles and Subheadings that Highlight Important Points.
4) Include Internal Links in the Content.
5) Avoid Duplicate Content by Using Creative Widgets or Templates, or Repurposing Old Posts.
6) Ensure Images are Found on Google Image Searches by Adding Alternative Texts Tags to Every Image
7) Link Out to Relevant Webpages That Support Your Topic
Headings
A technical SEO checklist can help your blog rank better on Google by making sure the site is following best practices.
The first step is to figure out what the requirements are for the platform you’re publishing on.
For instance, WordPress has a list of things that need to be done before publishing content.
Other platforms might require different methods and practices, which may not be outlined below.
Now that you know what it takes to make your site run smoothly from a technical standpoint, there are two categories of things you’ll want to look into on-page and off-page optimization.
On-page means creating the correct metadata, writing great content with a focus on readability and information density, avoiding duplicate content, and adding social media sharing buttons and tags.
Off-page means building quality backlinks by generating fresh content like blog posts or articles and outreach with link-building tactics like guest blogging or submitting press releases or newsworthy announcements to blogs.
Your technical SEO checklist should include everything listed above as well as other items specific to your industry. One example would be checking for spelling errors in text or captions before uploading images.
Page speed
This technical SEO checklist is meant to help you start checking your website for potential things that could affect how search engines rank your website.
The first thing I always do is make sure the page speed is under three seconds.
Next, I review the Meta title tags to make sure they are unique, descriptive, and no more than fifty characters long.
The next thing I always do is check my Robots.txt file because there may be directives that search engines are picking up on and indexing pages accordingly.
If you have made any changes recently, be sure to double-check that 301 redirects have been set up if applicable or at least installed as part of a plugin such as Yoast Redirect Manager or Redirection Manager by Sellio Plugins.
Another important technical aspect is to make sure internal links are functional and will lead visitors directly to the intended destination.
One quick way to check this is by visiting Google Search Console > Links To Your Site > Internal Links (this link will only work once it has been verified) > Crawl Errors > URL Parameters.
You should see an area below where it says pages with crawl errors – these need to be fixed before moving on with your technical SEO checklist.
Finally, some websites might use pagination and their URLs might not include parameters such as &p=3 which would prevent access from being indexed properly, so it would need to change to something like &p=2 instead so Google can crawl those pages appropriately too.
Mobile-friendliness
Social media links, images, external links to blog posts, and Youtube videos: if these aren’t optimized for mobile devices your followers may not be able to see them.
If you’re blogging about this issue make sure that you have a technical SEO checklist in the back of your mind.
It is also important to ensure your website is easily navigable on smaller screens by using the appropriate navigation tabs such as a drop-down menu or sub-navigation tabs at the top of the page.
Make sure you’re providing social media share buttons that are easy to use on a mobile device too!
The last thing you want is for people trying to read one of your articles from their phone but can’t because they can’t click the button.
The technical SEO checklist doesn’t stop there – keywords are still a significant ranking factor in Google’s algorithm.
You need to optimize every piece of content on your site with high-quality keywords so it will rank well and increase traffic for those who land on it organically.
Don’t forget other elements like meta descriptions, meta tags, title tags, URLs, etc – they all need to match up well with what people are searching for when they come across your content online.
Images
Below is a technical SEO checklist for bloggers. This should be taken as an exhaustive list of everything to do with optimizing your blog for organic search visibility, not necessarily the order in which you should prioritize the items.
Update the information on your website:
Make sure that you have your correct contact details, phone number, and postal address.
This can mean that it’s time to update any contact information you’ve changed but haven’t yet updated on your site.
It can also mean that it’s time to update or create business profiles on social media sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter if you want them on your site or don’t already have them.
Your content calendar may also need updating so make sure that when looking at your schedule take note of future posts and then edit accordingly.
Be certain to set up all posts by either copying and pasting from drafts or uploading via WordPress (or other blogging platforms).
All this takes time! You need to keep updating what you post too! That’s why we’ve created our very own ‘technical SEO checklist’ – all in one place for easy reference!
Content quality
As a blogger, it’s your responsibility to create content that is both relevant and accessible. You’re not in this alone!
There are various tools out there that can help you optimize your blog so that it ranks higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
This technical SEO checklist will walk you through some of the most important items to keep in mind when creating and promoting your content.
If you follow these steps, the benefits will include more readers, more comments, better SERP rankings, and more traffic.
Keep reading for all of the details on optimizing your blog!
1) Keyword research is important because it provides insight into what users are looking for as well as keywords they might be using to find what they need.
For example, let’s say I’m researching technical SEO checklists. My research would return results like a technical SEO checklist for bloggers, technical SEO tips for bloggers, and the technical side of blogging.
These key phrases provide valuable information about my target audience and potential readers who may have similar needs or interests.
2) Once you’ve found a few good keywords, head over to Google Adwords or WordTracker (free keyword suggestion tools) to see how many people are searching those terms each month.
3) Consider long-tail keywords as well—these generally have less competition than their broad counterparts and often contain four or five words in total, rather than just one or two words combined with various modifiers.
