The Ultimate SEO Checklist for 2023

The introduction of search engines was a game changer for the internet. That singular act has led to the evolution of the entire field of search engine optimization as websites try to jostle for spaces in search engine results to queries.

In 2023, it is only smart to wonder how much things have changed. But it is also important to look forward at what the most relevant strategies would be beyond now. That’s why we have written this article.

It contains everything you need to know about optimizing your site for search engines in 2023. Paying attention to the tips provided would take you a long way in your SEO journey. This was written ideally for the SEO beginner, but even the expert might find something with which they could refresh their methods.

A. SEO Basics Checklist

You won’t be successful in the more advanced aspects of SEO if you don’t have the basics covered at first.

1. Start by setting up Google Search Console, Google’s free tool for webmasters. Through this tool, you can submit sitemaps, request that the search engine bot recrawls your website, and so on. Google also sends information about website issues or manual penalties through the Search Console.
2. Google Analytics is another free tool from Google that helps you track your site’s traffic, conversions, and revenue from organic search. It will help you link your SEO efforts to your bottom line and measure your ROI.
3. Adding other SEO tools does not hurt either. They help you to focus on specific areas of SEO. Subscribe to the Eye10 SEO suite to access data related to competitor research, site performance, ranking, keyword performance, industry analysis, and more.

B. Technical SEO Checklist

Technical SEO refers to the optimization of your site’s structure, speed, performance, and accessibility for both users and search engines. It affects your site’s crawlability, indexability, usability, and ranking potential.

1. Install SSL and make your site secure. Having SSL and HTTPS on your site will secure your site, protect your visitors’ privacy, and boost your rankings, as Google considers HTTPS a ranking signal.
2. Your robots.txt file is a text file that tells search engines which pages or parts of your site they can or cannot crawl or index. Use this file to control how search engines access your site and prevent them from crawling or indexing unwanted pages such as duplicate content, admin pages, etc.
3. Your menu and site structure should be clear, logical, and easy for users and search engines to navigate. Use descriptive and relevant menu items and categories that match your site’s content and keywords.
4. Add structured data markup to your pages. It enhances your site’s appearance on SERPs and increases your chances of getting featured snippets, rich results, or knowledge panels. Depending on your content type, various structured data markups include product, review, article, event, recipe, etc.
5. Error 404 pages are shown when users try to access a page that does not exist on your site. Optimize error pages by adding a clear message that explains what went wrong, a search box or a list of popular pages that users can visit instead, and a link to your homepage or contact page.
6. Check and improve the loading speed of your website using tools like Eye10 Pagespeed checker, which integrates data from Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix.

C. On-Page SEO Checklist

On-page SEO refers to optimizing your page’s content, keywords, and user intent. On-page SEO can affect your relevance, quality, and authority for your target keywords and topics.

1. Optimize page titles by using your target keyword and ensuring that the titles are descriptive. Also, keep each title within 60 characters to avoid any part being cut off when displayed.
2. As you are optimizing your page titles, also optimize the meta description. It is meant to be a summary of the page and should be limited to 160 characters. You must use target keywords and add an element of curiosity or intrigue to the page to improve your click-through rates.
3. Use the correct heading tags for all your pages, from H1 to H6. Each tag should be adequately descriptive as it helps to improve readability, user experience, and keyword optimization. Also, do not forget to use relevant keywords.
4. Ensure you use the correct alt tags for images and descriptive file names for all media. Also, for any visual media, ensure that the file size is compressed enough while retaining the quality not to slow down the webpage.
5. Employ internal linking to improve your website’s navigation and reduce the bounce rate by offering users more interesting web pages to visit. Ensure they are not excessive or irrelevant, and focus on providing value to the reader.

D. Keyword Research Checklist

Keyword research can help you optimize your content, keywords, and user intent by providing valuable insights into what your audience wants, needs, and expects from your site.

1. Understand the different types of SEO keywords and when and how to use them. For instance, there are long-tail keywords, short-tail keywords, etc. Also, the value of keywords varies by the search volume, competition, difficulty, etc.; pay attention to these differences.
2. Discover the search intent behind keywords to determine which is relevant to your business purposes and which isn’t. There is always a search intent behind every keyword, which could be transactional, commercial, navigational, or informational.
3. Learn how to conduct keyword research to identify relevant and profitable keywords to optimize your content. The Eye10 Keyword Planner helps you achieve this seamlessly by providing you with different keyword ideas and suggestions based on your ranking.

E. Off-Page SEO Checklist

Off-page SEO, which focuses mostly on link-building, affects your trustworthiness, credibility, and rankings by influencing how users and search engines perceive your site.

1. Acquire high-quality backlinks from relevant and authoritative websites. They help you improve your reputation, authority, and rankings by giving search engines strong signals of trust, relevance, and popularity.
2. Avoid poor link-building practices such as purchasing backlinks or engaging in link spam. Besides affecting your website’s rankings, it could also get you penalized by search engines, and your site could be removed from the index.
3. Another key part of off-page SEO involves monitoring your competitors’ tactics to get ahead and learning from their strengths and weaknesses. The Eye10 Competitor Research and Industry Checker tools are dedicated to ensuring that you can see the keywords they are ranking for and what they are doing differently from you.

F. Content Creation Checklist

Content creation is a strategic process focused on providing the audience with engaging, informative, and helpful answers to their questions and problems. It is not as simple as just uploading stuff unto the internet. Take note of these:

1. Ensure that your content is engaging and aims to capture your audience’s attention, hold their interest, and trigger their emotions. This will enhance user experience, retention, and conversions by providing memorable content that meets their needs and expectations.
2. Suppose you write for healthcare, finance, etc. (the YMYL topics – Your Money or Your Life). In that case, you can’t afford to ignore the EAT factors: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
3. Make your content easy to read by using appropriate formatting and styling techniques. This includes using white space, relevant headings, subheadings, bullet points, tables, images, videos, etc. Also, ensure you use visually-appealing combinations of colors, fonts, highlights, etc.
4. Optimize your content for voice search and conversational queries, which are becoming more popular in 2023 due to the rise of smart speakers, voice assistants, and mobile devices.

Conclusion

SEO is an ever-evolving field that requires constant monitoring, analysis, and improvement. To succeed at SEO in 2023, you must keep up with the latest SEO trends and best practices and adapt your strategy accordingly.

Also, compared to other SEO tools that require upwards of $99 for a subscription, access to all tools in the Eye10 SEO suite starts from $39 and provides immense value. You can use all the tools for three days at only $3 if you now sign up for the free trial.