In digital marketing, checklists are an important tool to organize the SEO step by step and put your website on top of search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.
The SEO checklist will help you get your house in order and increase your chances of being on the first page of searches. But, always remember that this will never happen overnight. Continuous and thorough work is required to improve the performance of your online store.
Tools by Google
You can use the free tools by Google to track and monitor your SEO activities. These tools are very important for the success of any SEO campaign.
- Open an account or access the Register of Google Analytics .
- Set up your Google Search Console .
Google Search Console
- Submit your sitemap to Google : sitemap is a file that lists all the pages that make up the site. This file literally serves as a map for Google and other search engines. To do this, use the account that you had previously used in Search Console.
- Check crawl errors with Search Console : If search engine engines find errors on your site, you will have trouble indexing it on the system. It is essential to find the mistakes beforehand to avoid flaws in your SEO strategy.
Keyword research
- Determine the search volume generated by the keywords you have chosen and take the opportunity to gain new insights: the search “volume” is nothing more than the number of times the word has been searched. Google’s Keyword Planner is a good tool for this task.
- Link keywords to specific types of content: choose different keywords to link your website pages (products, blog, homepage, etc.).
Page optimization
- Make sure to use only one H1 tag on your website pages: H1 tags are often used for headings or for the most important messages on a page. Therefore, they must contain the most relevant keywords in the displayed content.
- The page titles must have a maximum of 60 characters : otherwise, it will appear cut off in Google results. So, put your main keyword right at the beginning and create a headline that is able to catch the attention of customers.
- The meta description must have a maximum of 155 characters: try to put the main keywords right at the beginning of your page’s meta description. In addition, it needs to be engaging to induce the person to visit your website.
- Stay away from automatically created phrases and titles: be unique and stand out with a unique and authentic page title and meta description. Show the essence of your brand to really conquer your target audience.
- Include a keyword in the page URL: make the page title the URL to be used. A good idea is to try to reduce the text size and eliminate articles and prepositions, leaving only the words really relevant.
- Make sure to insert alt tags and file names in all the images you use: this is an important step for your store to also appear as a result in Google Images. To do this, name the image files descriptively (and not with names like 5845984.jpg) and write alt tags that explain what is in the image.
Links
- Establish a strategy for building links: search engines determine whether your site is reliable from the quality of the links on the page. A good solution for this is to establish partnerships with influencers and other brands.
- Analyze the links and mentions won by the competition: the Website Explorer , from the paid tool Ahrefs, is an interesting resource for this, as it allows you to analyze the sites that are redirecting visitors to the brands that compete for space directly with your store. Thus, you can evaluate the reasons why these sites chose a particular competitor.
Content
- Plan a content marketing strategy: this is a process that can take months, but you can do small exercises to boost the established strategy. Do a brainstorm to raise the most frequently asked questions of their clients; show other ways to enjoy the product.
- Informative pages and blog posts should be about 500 words long: the content needs to be clear and objective, in addition to having a minimum size to be considered valid on search engines.
- Write fun and original descriptions for your products: a good product description makes all the difference in attracting customers. They need to be original, with fun and light little texts, indicating the unique features and benefits of the product.
- Consider including customer reviews of products: they help you build a public store identity and also offer content related to product pages, which means an even greater chance of getting a ranking for longtail keywords.
- Use redirects whenever necessary: inactive pages can be used as a path to redirect and take visitors to another page. This process avoids the disappointment of customers with a broken or invalid link and also creates a new possibility of purchase.
Other factors for ranking
- Invest in responsive templates for your store: your e-commerce pages need to be compatible with cell phones and other mobile devices. Titles, images and texts need to be displayed correctly and if you find any errors, correct them as soon as possible.
- Check the loading time of the pages: this is a very important factor for the ranking of a website. To find out the actual load time for your store pages, use PageSpeed Insights .
