Talk to any marketing company, and they will SAY that they “Do SEO”. But, the problem is that search engines are regularly changing their SEO algorithms
and few companies take the time keep up-to-date with the latest updates. One great example. A new client of PWI had spent tens of thousands of dollars and two years of time to “optimize” their very complex website based on a marketing consultant’s recommendation. The result was not only ineffective, but it would cause them to be penalized by the search engine algorithm. They were shocked.

Bottom-line: If you want to be “found”, you must be aware of some basic SEO elements to get the most from your website. In the following pages, we’ll give
you two checklists to help get on the right track when it comes to SEO.

WEBSITE SEO CHECKLIST

1. CREATE A UNIQUE TITLE TAG FOR EVERY PAGE.

• • • • These should be 64 characters. Use commonly searched words, with the most important word first.

2. CREATE A UNIQUE META TAG FOR EVERY PAGE. 

• • • • These should be 154 characters. Include the keywords that are also in the Title Tag.

3. OPTIMIZE ALL OF YOUR IMAGES. 

• • • • Each image name should be optimized for search engines, accurately describing what is in the picture.
      • The alt attribute should match the image name (with dashes in between each word).
      • Keep file sizes as small as possible for each image.

4. KEEP YOUR SITEMAP appropriately updated as you add new pages or delete old pages.

5. MAKE SURE YOUR ROBOTS.TXT LE IS UPDATED to allow search engines crawling access to all specified pages.

6. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE GOOGLE ANALYTICS, Google Webmaster Tools, and Bing Webmaster Tools installed to track your site’s data.

7. MAKE SURE 301 REDIRECTS are correctly placed on all old pages.

8. REDIRECT all http://url.com to http://www.url.com or vice versa.

9.  MAKE SURE YOUR SITE has an XML sitemap.

10. DON’T USE UNDERSCORES in your URLs.

11. HAVE A CUSTOM 404 PAGE. 

• • • • The 404 page should give people guestimated best next steps.

12. DECLARE THE LANGUAGE of the site as English.

13. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A FAVICON. 

• • • • This is the small image that appears at the top of the page tab.

INDIVIDUAL PAGE SEO CHECKLIST

1. USE A SPECIFIC KEYWORD (short tail) and specific grouping of keywords (long tail) in the Page Title, Meta Description, Header Tags, and Content on the page. Create a unique Meta Tag for every page.

2. CREATE A UNIQUE TITLE TAG for each page.

3. CREATE A UNIQUE META TAG that motivates people to click on the link.

• • • • Make each Meta Tag a clear call to action or clear description of what someone should expect when they click to your page.

4. DO NOT USE META Keywords.

5. USE ONLY ONE <H1> tag per page to denote the most important heading on that page.

• • • • If you think you need multiple large headers on one page, it’s better to split the content between two different pages on the site. This keeps readers and search engines from being confused.

6. IF APPLICABLE, CREATE SUB-HEADERS that sum up the content in each paragraph below the main <h1> header.

• • • • These can be labeled as <h2> or <h3> and should be bolded.

7. MAKE SURE THE URLS on each page are clean and easy to read.

• • • • There shouldn’t be any underscores in your URLs.

8. OPTIMIZE YOUR IMAGES. 

• • • • Each image name should be optimized for search engines, accurately describing what is in the picture.
      • The alt attribute should match the image name (with dashes in between each word).
      • Keep file sizes as small as possible for each image.

9. ENSURE THERE IS NO MISSPELLING or poor grammar on the page, as search engines will discount the credibility of your website if they find grammatical errors.

10. INCLUDE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL links where it makes sense.

• • • • However, don’t use too many links, especially if you already have a lot of drop down options in the navigation bar. The options in your navigation
        bar will still count as external/internal links on the page.

11. CREATE SHORT POSTS you want people to share via social media (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest).

• • • • Make those as the share option on every page.

Whether you are “found” or not depends on how effective you are at applying these SEO strategies. If we can help you out, we’d be glad to spend an hour with you and your team discussing the options—and what will help people find you better online.

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