Droptop Design's Beginner SEO Guide

the top section is my base SEO checklist with added descriptions. I share a bare bones version with the client when we start and deliver a completed one with the wrapup. it's all very basic stuff you should do for every site 👀

2022 Basic SEO Checklist ->

Testing + Tools

• Google Search Console connecting the pages with basic analytics and sharing with the client so they are able to track their basic traffic

• Accessibility Review you will be penalized by search engines if your site is not optimized for accessibility. a number of site will allow you to plug in your URL and give feedback on where improvements can be made. here's one I use: wave.webaim.org

• Mobile Friendly Test the site should be optimized for mobile performance both in terms of legibility and UX as well as loading speeds and performance. similar testing sites will rank your performance on a variety of client devices. here's the basic google mobile friendly test :search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly this one gives you advanced feedback on optimizing your mobile speed sitechecker.pro/mobile-friendly-test here's the google basic speed test: pagespeed.web.dev

Content

• meta description-> what shows up under the website name in your google [+ other] search engines. about 150 characters is best
  <meta name="description" content="This is the site you should definitely click on">

• XML sitemap this is written in JSON and tells google which pages to crawl and with what priority. This will also get the search console to crawl your page more quickly if you do updates

• Open Graph info. This is a facebook developed format that many social media platforms will default to rather than grabbing a random image. Twitter is the exception here and req's a custom set of tags
  • og:title <meta property=”og:title” content=”My Page Title”/>
  • og:description <meta property=”og:description” content=”This description offers a preview of what this page is about.”/>
  • og:image <meta property=”og:image” content=”https://www.mydomain.com/example-image.jpg”/>
  • og:url <meta property=”og:url” content=”https://www.mydomain.com/example-page”/>

Rank Improvement + Domain Authority

• h1 headings should have your 'keywords' in them. in addition, it's super important to only have 1 <H1> per page. this helps with alternative screen viewing methods and accessibility, and therefore improves rank.
• embedded videos this works in two ways: first it helps your rank as embedded video [rather than iFrame hosted elsewhere] which indicates your site has rich and modern content, and second it increases dwell time which boosts domain authority
• backlinks this is the #1 strategy to improve your search ranking. getting a prominent backlink on a site with already high search ranking is like recursive proof that your site contains valuable information

Definitions

a little more detail about a few of the items on here + some definitions useful for SEO in 2022 -> i've removed quite a few that i don't actually use, and will add them back as my knowledge on this subject expands 🏗

keyword[s]

• this used to be a bigger deal than it is today!
• now used for generally targeting your language. no longer ok to just list massive amounts of keywords to spam search with meta keywords - you'll get penalized for this now. aim to embed these in pages as many times as you can in a natural way
• especially important to use keywords in headings <H1> tags. the h1 should encapsulate the whole value offered in one heading
• keywords remain useful as a metric for testing your reach against competition. it's easy to measure analytics of a specific search phrase your target audience may use
• tons of tools to help find these if you need them. but just start with 'people also searched for' at the bottom of your google results!

short tail keywords - 1 -2 words - common search terms

long tail keywords → 3-6 word phrase - more customized to your niche audience use synonyms if req'd to get better results. these are plain english phrases

backlinks → inbound links - any other site linking to you -> stronger than keyword hit

domain authority → how likely your page will come up in general searches - takes time to build up. backlinks really help here

page authority → how well page is positioned to rank in google

dwell time how long a visitor stays on your site -> helps with page authority