SEO On-Page Checklist

SEO is a science and takes a lot of intricate work and expert planning to execute properly. For someone initially getting into the SEO space, it can seem a bit overwhelming. For that reason, the Premier Marketing staff took the time to explain some of our expert-proven tactics and SEO strategies.

In this article, we walk you through SEO tips for beginners, provide you with a downloadable On-Page SEO Check List, and lastly some actionable steps that you can take to make your SEO campaign successful and lucrative! So let’s get started!

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10 SEO Tips for Beginners to Boost Site Traffic

These are all actions that you or your SEO team should be taking to help you boost your domain authority, keyword positioning, and organic search traffic!

1. Target Relevant Primary and Secondary Keywords
2. Write Quality and Original Content
3. Keep Users On Your Site Longer
4. Format Your Content for Search Engines & Target Featured Snippets
5. Optimize Your Page Title and Meta Description
6. Use Short, Descriptive URLs
7. Generate Backlinks from High Site Authority Websites
8. Remove Anything That Loads Slowly
9. Use a Mix of Internal and External Links
10. Optimize Your Graphics

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1. Target Relevant Primary and Secondary Keywords

An SEO strategy is nothing without targetable keywords. Many SEO ‘specialists’ will judge an SEO score for your page without realizing the target keyword.

So what is a target keyword?

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, a target keyword is the term that you want your site to propogate for when someone searches it. For example, if you want to pop up on Google searches for Charlotte Plumbing Services, ‘Charlotte Plumbing Services’ is your primary keyword. From there, we can start to unpack primary and secondary keywords.

What is a primary keyword?

Although populating for ‘Charlotte Plumbing Services’ sounds like a very promising investment, it is not that easy. SEO campaigns have been running on popular keywords for decades and positioning at this level is hard to crack into.

For websites barely starting SEO campaigns, your primary keyword should be the closest term to your keyword that still has an achievable keyword difficulty. For example, maybe ‘Charlotte Plumbing Services’ populates 200,000 results, but ‘South Charlotte Plumbing Services’ only populates 10,000 searches, ‘South Charlotte Plumbing Services’ should be your primary keyword, if it is worth the commute of course.

What is a secondary keyword?

Once we have targeted a primary keyword, we can begin to find related keywords that we can build off of, known as secondary keywords. For example ‘South Charlotte Plumbers’, ‘North Charlotte Plumbing Services’ can be some secondary keywords that you integrate as you develop the page.

2. Write Quality and Original Content

If you want to rank for any keyword, your content better be valuable and informational, or else you will join the low ranks of other failed SEO campaigns that try to spam a keyword.

3. Keep Users On Your Site Longer

The Google SEO algorithm rewards sites and pages that keep visitors on the site for long periods of time, that experience low bounce rates. An SEO Best Practice is to use convenient and efficient UX design to keep the user intrigued and wanting to engage more.

4. Format Your Content for Search Engines & Target Featured Snippets

If you are trying to write SEO-friendly actionable content, you need to format it in a way that works for Google Search Indexing SERP sections. A good way to accomplish this is writing articles in list form, as well as using featured images that communicate the message of the page well.

5. Optimize Your Page Title and Meta Description

Adding into formatting your article for peak performance, you need to do the same with the backend code of your page. Conveniently with modern website builders such as WordPress, this is an smooth implementation.

Specifically, you need to optimize your Page Title, Featured Image, and Meta Description for keyword ranking and SEO success. SEO optimization is a fine line between keyword fusion and actionable and efficient content.

For example, when writing your page title, you want to keep it between approximately 50 to 70 characters. For the meta description, 155-160 characters has been proven to work best.

When it comes to the featured image, you want the image to be captivating, self-explanatory, and optimized. In order to optimize the image, you need to compress the file size as well as choose a file name, alt tag, and caption that have primary and secondary keywords you are looking to position for.

6. Use Short, Descriptive URLs

When optimizing your page URL, you want to make sure it is short and descriptive. Although this may seem like a great opportunity to stuff some secondary keywords, your page will do best if you keep the URL slug short and simple.

7. Generate Backlinks from High Site Authority Websites

When you have created valuable and actionable content, you want to start to begin backlink outreach campaigns to help you generate backlinks from High Domain Authority Websites. This will immediately begin to boost your Domain Authority as well as keyword positioning. In addition, this is a great opportunity to start bringing more traffic to your site!

8. Remove Anything That Loads Slowly

In modern search engine indexing, Google favors the fast. Slow loading sites have no chance at ranking on Google unless they already have an established Domain Authority. Take the time with your website development team to make sure that you remove anything that slows down the page and/or site.

9. Use a Mix of Internal and External Links

In your content, you want to present the user with links to additional information as well as keep them open to other aspects of your site. This helps keep the user informed, but also beings to boost your site SEO score.

10. Optimize Your Graphics

If you are going to include any graphics in your content, make sure it is optimized for readability and understanding. Valuable and powerful graphics on your site can boost your Domain Authority for years to come. This is due to the fact that future articles, blog posts, and social media outlets will link to your site.

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SEO On-Page Checklist

1. Targeting Keywords
2. Optimized Page
3. Meta Data
4. Backlinks
5. Valuable Content
6. Technical SEO

1. Targeting Keywords

As we mentioned earlier, make sure your page, content, and articles cleverly integrate primary and secondary keywords. Take the time to skim through your page and make sure the content is valuable, but that your keyword is the main topic of the page.

In addition, you can ‘ctrl+f’ (command + f for macOS users), a page and search for your keyword. With that, you can count how many times that your keyword shows up on your page.

2. Optimized Page

Make sure that that page is optimized for speed on mobile and desktop. Google only ranks sites that load fast, so take the time to make sure that your site pages are optimized for speed and SEO boosting!

3. Meta Data

Make sure the meta data of your site such as the Page Title, Page Description, and Featured Image alt tags all efficiently use relevant keywords.

4. Backlinks

Make sure that the backlinks to your site are reputable, non-toxic, and help you gather interested traffic!

5. Valuable Content

Make sure you do not waste the reader’s time with generic and vague content. Take the time to explain your points coherently and inform the reader with your expert-opinion.

6. Technical SEO

On the backend side, make sure everything is working and optimized as needed. This includes insuring that your site has been indexed, and that you have a relevant sitemap. You also need to make sure your page is optimized.

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9 Tactics to Implement in Your SEO Strategy

1. Write for humans first and search engines second
2. Use keywords in the right places
3. Focus on user experience (UX)
4. Format Content for Featured Snippets
5. Stay up to date with Google algorithm updates
6. Continue building on existing content.
7. Delete Zombie Pages
8. Study Your Industry
9. Build a following

1. Write for humans first and search engines second

When it comes to providing value to the readers, you need to make sure that your content is actionable, informative, and reads seamlessly. If a user is having a hard time following your reading, they will lose interest in your writing and checkout, hurting your site’s SEO stats.

2. Use keywords in the right places

Make sure you use the keywords plenty of times but also never spam the user with the keywords. Try to make the integration as smooth as possible.

3. Focus on user experience (UX)

More than anything, you want to make sure that your site is engaging and leaves a pleasant experience on the user. That is how you get repeat visitors and keep your bounce rate low.

4. Format Content for Featured Snippets

When your page is optimized for featured snippets, people will be more likely to share it on social media platforms. In addition, people on these platforms will be more likely to engage with the posts because of how optimized the featured snippet is.

5. Stay up to date with Google algorithm updates

The Google algorithm is constantly changing and evolving, make sure you are keeping up to date with what works well with search engines and what does not!

6. Continue building on existing content.

The great thing about hosting is your own blog is publishing is never final. You can keep adding to existing content to make it even better and more SEO-friendly!

7. Delete Zombie Pages

If a page has not had any visits in a while and does not add any value to your site, go ahead and trash it!

8. Study Your Industry

Each industry is different and has a unique path that works best for it. Study your industry and see how your contemporaries were able to boost their SEO!

9. Build a following

Use your following on other platforms to send these followers to your site! Try to build a following on any and all relevant platforms! If you notice your content doing better on one, shift your focus there!

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SEO Checklist Closing Points

SEO is a delicate science that involves technical proweress as well as industry expertise. Whether you or a dedicated SEO team write your content, make sure it is actionable, informative and SEO-friendly.

Don’t forget to download our On-Page SEO Checklist! Help optimize your site today!