So you’ve started a blog and you want to know the ultimate SEO checklist for beginners. Well, there are certain SEO practices that will guarantee traffic to your blog.
Here are some of the basic SEO checklist for practices that will help grow organic traffic to your blog.
Search Console
Google Search Console is a must-have tool when you have a blog. It helps provide insight into your search performance and visibility. It allows you to identify which keywords you’re ranking for. Google search console is very essential on your SEO checklist.
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You can also use the search console to fix any coverage issues that your website may have.
SEO Plugin
If you are using WordPress you should always make sure that you have an SEO plugin. An SEO plugin ensures your site is fully optimized. If you’re using an HTML website you should liaise with your developer or hire an SEO expert. If you’re using other content management systems you can get SEO plugins.
Sitemap
Sitemaps should be high up on your SEO checklist. Make sure you submit a sitemap in your google search console. This will ensure your posts and pages are crawled and indexed. You can find out and generate your blog’s sitemap at https://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml. If you’re using an SEO plugin chances are it will automatically generate a sitemap for you. After generating your sitemap you can submit it to Google search console and bing.
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Robots.txt File
The Robots.txt file advises search engines which page to crawl and not to crawl on your site. It’s very essential when it comes to the privacy of your site as there are some pages that should not be crawled. If your site has an eCommerce store you need to prevent crawling of your cart and checkout page. You can generate your site’s robots.txt file at https://www.domain.com/robots.txt
Google Analytics
To be successful when it comes to blogging you need the right tools to help you make decisions and progress. Google Analytics is a free tool that allows you to access your data and get insights like the total number of people visiting your site, the best performing posts, and how people are engaging on your website.
Keywords research
SEO revolves around proper keyword research. In order to get any organic or direct traffic on your blog, you need to do keyword research. You need to understand what your audience wants.
In order to get traffic to your blog, you have to rank for certain keywords. And when I say rank, I’m talking about high-ranking. Searchers don’t get past by the 5th page of the search results (it’s a miracle if they get so far), so if your pages are not on the first results page don’t expect to get any traffic soon.
Indexing
Check whether your website can be indexed. Sometimes you can mark a post or a page as no index meaning the search engines will not find you. If you’re using an SEO tool you can use it to confirm all your pages are indexed. There are several tools that can help you analyze whether your site can be indexed.