The COMPLETE SEO Checklist for 2023 + FREE Download ⏬
– In this video, I'm gonna give
you a step by step checklist that's gonna walk you through
everything you need to do to get traffic on Google. These are the same techniques
that got me to the top of Google for keywords
like SEO Crash Course, which is what this jam packed
video is about to deliver. My name is Matt Diggity and I'm the founder of SEO
Businesses, Lead Spring, the Search Initiative, Authority Builders, The Affiliate Lab and the
Chang Mai SEO Conference.
CMO of Ahrefs, Tim Soulo, said, "If I were to build an SEO site empire, Matt would be one of the very
few people I'd go for advice." So here we go. Here's my latest and greatest SEO advice in the form of a checklist. What I like about checklists is that they keep you organized. And effective checklists
have simple yet potent steps that get results. One thing to note is that the
techniques I'm about to share are accessible to everyone.
You don't need to be an influencer or have a huge team to be
able to carry this stuff out, and everything I'm about to share with you is a hundred percent for you to do. Anyone can do this no
matter what level you're at. So let's get started. But before we get started,
I'd like to invite you to join my free SEO Training masterclass. It goes into everything I'm doing today from A to Z to get sites
to the top of Google. Just sign up using the
link in the pin comment. Now onto the checklist. I divided this checklist into sub lists to help organize it better. The first sub list is the setup checklist, one of the first things you
need to set up on your website, before you do anything else. Let's assume that you already
have WordPress installed. The first item on your checklist
is to install an SEO plugin and for that I recommend Rank Math. Rank Math is a freemium all-in-one plugin that covers a wide range of essential SEO optimization tasks.
And according to a poll
in my Facebook group, Rank Math is by far the
preferred SEO plugin option. It'll allow you to do
stuff like creating titles, descriptions, and schema markup. It also helps you to create a site map which is the next item on your checklist. A site map is a table of
contents for your website. Without it, Google is
up to their own devices to find your content, so why not make things easy for them? You can check to make
sure you have a site map by going to yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Next on the list is to
create a robots.txt file. This file is used to tell Google where they can and cannot go. For example, it's common to block Google from accessing your
WordPress installation files. So make sure to check for
this line in your robots.txt. You can find your robots.txt
at yourdomain.com/robots.txt. After that, you wanna set
up Google Search Console or GSC for your website. GSC is a free tool which
acts as a health dashboard for your site.
It checks for common but
important SEO issues, such as Google manual action penalties, index coverage issues, 404
errors and website speed issues. We'll get to all this stuff later in the critical technical SEO section at the end of the video. In addition, Google Search
Console will also keep track of which keywords you're ranking for. This will let you know
when you're making progress on your site as you go
through this checklist. After that, you wanna start
tracking your traffic, and the best tool for that
is Google's own free tool, Google Analytics. Install Analytics by going
to analytics.google.com and following the steps to
connect it to your site. You'll then get a deep dive
into all your traffic stats so you can make sure the
actions you're taking are getting you to the top of Google. By the way, I created a PDF
version of this checklist which you can download for free by using the link in the description. The next category checklist
is keyword research. Before you start producing content, you need to figure out
what to write about. Consider this your map of your niche.
Now the key to keyword
research, no pun intended, is to find low competition keywords that you can actually rank for. Here's a bunch of free-to-use strategies that'll dig these up. – [Movie Character]
Sheriff, he's over here. (static) – [Matt] The first is to use the free tool answerthepublic.com. Type your main topic into the field here. This is gonna bring up a
list of common questions that should be addressed in your content, such as what gardening tools do I need and why gardening is
good for mental health. Click the export CSV button
to download these keywords. Next, you're gonna leverage
Google itself to find keywords, starting with the auto complete
function, Google Suggest. Type your main topic into
the Google search bar and see which keywords Google thinks are highly related to your topic. Next, you're gonna scroll
down on the search page and check the 'people also ask' section.
If you click on any of the results, Google will display a short
answer to the question, along with the list of
additional related questions that people also ask. Keep clicking to go down
a rabbit hole of topics. I highly recommend using a
free tool like SEO Minion that's gonna automatically download hundreds of these
questions to an Excel file in a single shot. Next, go to the bottom of the search page to the related searches section, and once again click around
and another rabbit hole of great keyword ideas awaits. The last step in the
keyword research checklist is to browse online hangouts to find out what are the hot topics in a given niche. My personal favorite is Quora, which is a vault of great topics. Google your main topic plus Quora. Then click the 'more
results from Quora' link to expand out the results. Scan down this page to pick
up your final set of keywords before it's time to
start producing content. Now onto the content creation checklist. A good piece of content always starts out with a strong introduction paragraph. When readers stay on your content and don't bounce back
to the search result, that's a good indication to Google that your content is good, so you need to hook your reader right away in the first few sentences.
Also, show your expertise in the topic to let the reader know
they're in the right place. And lastly, do not fluff around. If someone searches for something like essential gardening tools, don't bore them with some spiel about why gardening is so great. Just get to the damn tools. – They do not care about your feelings. (static) – [Matt] I ran an experiment
where I adjusted the intro on some subpar content, and was able to increase engagement by 8%. That's huge in the world of SEO. In the description below,
I've left a link to a video that gives you a full playbook on how to write introduction paragraphs, so make sure to watch it
after you finish this video. Next, you wanna be able
to fully cover your topic.
Answer the search query completely. One way to do this is
to google the keyboard you're writing about and
open up the first result. Pay attention to the subheadings. By looking at the content
that Google obviously likes because it's ranked number one on Google, we can see that gloves,
pruning shears and loppers are all essential gardening tools that need to be covered in your content. Next, make sure to add
rich media to your content. Your page should be
visual as well as textual, so add images, tables, videos and graphs to compliment your text
with visual eye candy and supporting aids. After that, make sure you link out to authoritative resources on your topic to further enrich your content, especially if you're referencing
any facts in your content. It's good to cite where
your data came from. This isn't just a good idea
to do for your readers, Google loves it too. In this number one article
on gardening statistics, they have a references
section here at the bottom citing where they got their research from. This experiment from Reboot showed that the content with
external links in blue outperform the content
without links in orange.
Next, make sure your content is broken up into readable short paragraph chunks. No one wants to read an article
that's a huge wall of text. Your eyes hurt even looking at it. Instead, make your paragraphs
one to three sentences long. It's friendly for the eye and doesn't look nearly
as intimidating to read. Next, make sure that the
content you write is accessible to a wide range of reading levels. The Center for Plain Language found that the average Americans reading level falls between seventh to eighth grade. You can use this free
Flesch-Kincaid reading tool to analyze your content
to see where you're at.
Your next checklist is all
about keyword optimization. It's not called search engine
optimization for nothing. Content needs to be refined
to be search engine friendly. Make sure your main
target keyword is present in the first a hundred words of content. I rank number one in the
organic results for the keyword 'learn affiliate marketing,'
and you can bet your buns that I have the main keyword
in the first a hundred words. Next, you wanna optimize your title tag.
Your title tag is the
clickable link that comes up for your article when it's shown at the Google search results. The general rule of thumb is
to move your keyword phrase to the front of the title,
like what I've done here. We made this adjustment
for one of our client pages and we shot up from
five to two immediately. – Wow, that's awesome. (static) – [Matt] After that, you want to create an
optimized URL for your article. The rules here are simple. Keep the URL short at a
maximum of three words, and don't forget to include your keywords. Like here with my learn
affiliate marketing article diggitymarketing.com/learn-affiliate-marketing. Next up, place keywords in your headings. Google likes your content
to follow an outline.
Your main topic is the H1 here at the top, and that main topic is
broken down into H2s which are the subtopics,
and those subtopics are broken down into H3s,
which are the sub-subtopics. Sprinkle keywords into these spots. It's a major ranking factor. Speaking of sprinkling, you
also want to add related words to your paragraph content. If you're writing content about gardening, Google is expecting to see
related words like plants, soil and seeds in your content, so make sure you got this checked off. You can use the free LSI Keyword Generator from keysearch.co to get
a list of related words. Your next checklist focuses
on internal linking. That is creating links
between your articles on your own site. First, you wanna interlink
relevant pages together. There's three rules of thumb when it comes to internal linking. First, you only wanna link
pages that are relevant to each other.
An article on gardening shears should not be linked to an
article on patio furniture, but definitely link your shear article to an article on garden shovels as they're both tools and very relevant. Second, you only wanna link
to pages you wanna rank. Don't send that SEO love
to unimportant pages. And lastly, link more to pages
that you really wanna rank. A pillar page that is highly monetized should receive more internal
links than a filler article. Your next check is to make sure you don't have any orphan pages. Every page should have at least one internal link going to it. If a page doesn't have an internal link, then it's on an island of its own. It's orphaned and it's
inaccessible by Google which is a no-no.
You can use a free version of Screaming Frog to
check for orphan pages. The next checklist focuses
on external link building. Getting other websites on
the internet to link to you. Link building is still
one of the predominant ranking factors on Google. This study from Backlinko shows that sites with more links statistically
rank higher on Google. I ranked number one on Google
for Best Web Hosting for SEO, a very lucrative keyword,
and it's no surprise that this article has
plenty of links going to it. There's three fundamental
link building strategies that I feel that every
website needs to carry out. The first is guest posting,
where you offer to write content for another website, and in
that content you place a link back to your own website. For example, this guest
post I got from zapier.com, which is a super trustworthy
place to get a link from.
Here's an example email script that I use that performs very well. "Hey (first name), I'll cut to the chase. You have this article on
your site written in 2020 that used to perform well
in the search engines. It seems that your content has aged and a lot of the facts you have referenced have become outdated. I've just completed a round
a research on this topic and would like to write it for you. I've done this before for
(insert website name here) with (insert article name here). I'm available on your
reply. Regards, Matt." The next backlink technique
you wanna focus on is link insertions.
A link insertion is when someone updates an existing piece of content
on their site to link to you. The reason this works is because
you want links with power. – Power is power. (static) – [Matt] And if you do this right, you can get your link placed
in articles that already have links going to them
which provides more power in Google's algorithm. Here's an example link insertion
I got from hubspot.com, which has over a thousand
links going to it. There's actually a super
clever way to get these. When you're doing email
outreach for guest post, you're gonna get some no's.
After all, it's a hassle for
websites to edit your content and post it up on their
site, but not all is lost. You've already done the hardest step. You've got their attention. Switch gears and ask if
they can insert a link to one of your articles instead. It's a much easier ask and takes 20 seconds for them to do. Give it a shot. The third critical link building strategy is to utilize a free platform HARO, Help A Reporter Out. HARO is a website that allows
you to access journalists that are looking for expert
quotes to add to their articles. When they use your
quote, you'll get a link. The great thing is that these
journalists are often writing for huge trustworthy websites. Here's an example HARO
link I got from forbes.com.
HARO link building is
all about consistency. Every day you'll get emails with tons of expert quote opportunities. You wanna jump on them right away. Now we get into the
technical SEO checklist. Technical SEO is all
about making life easy for Google to access your website. And when you make life easy for Google, they make life easy for you. There's three primary technical SEO issues that you're very likely to face. The first is page speed. Google wants its users to be happy, and that means serving up
webpages that load quickly. A majority of search happens on mobile and that number grows over time, so it's even more important
that your website loads fast so you can make your mobile users happy.
Use a free tool like Pingdom
to check your load time. Faster is always better, but less than two seconds is the goal. Now, there's various best
practices you can use to improve page speed, such as getting on a fast hosting service. My recommendation is WPX Hosting. Coupon code Diggity90
will get you 90% off. Next, get a content delivery
network, also known as a CDN. The most popular is the
free version of Cloudflare. And also make sure to presize your images.
If you're using HD images on
your site, shrink them down before you upload them so
your users aren't loading gigantic files every time
they visit your site. In addition to being fast, you also wanna be mobile friendly. You can use Google's free
mobile friendly tester to make sure Google is okay
with the smartphone layout of your website, but also open
up your site on your phone and have a look yourself. You shouldn't have images
bleeding off the page, weird size fonts or the need
to side-scroll whatsoever. Next, check for crawl issues. Make sure that the pages
you want Google to access are accessible by Google. If you write a piece of content
and Google can't find it, it's all for waste. You can use a Google search console page indexing a report
to check up on this.
Next we move on to the advanced checklist, and I have four critical
strategies for you here. First, you wanna revisit
your content periodically and give it an update. The problem is that content ages. – Then you must be at least 60. You cannot be 80? (static) – [Matt] And over time, your content will eventually lose its spot at the top of the search results. Updating content is actually not that bad if you think about it. It's much easier to update
an existing piece of content than to write one all
the way from scratch. Next, some content will
just never do well, and in these cases it should be removed from
your website completely. The release notes from
Google's helpful content update explicitly say, "…removing
unhelpful content could help the rankings
of your other content." If a webpage has never had any traffic, never had any back links,
and is generally subpar compared to your current
content standards, consider cutting it out completely, or at the very least,
giving it or makeover.
Next, optimize for click through rate. One way to get more
traffic to your website is to make sure that your articles are more attractive to click
from the search results. You do that by optimizing
your titles and descriptions for clicks. This page on my site has the
highest click through rate out of all of them. Notice the click bait
at the end of the title and look at the keywords that
I get automatically bolded when placed in the meta description. My next and favorite item on the checklist is to subscribe for more
videos just like this one. Never miss out on any more
crucial SEO and marketing videos. Thanks for watching,
and I'll see you around..
