SEO checklist: always up to date

An SEO checklist is a list of best practices and pointers that will help you optimize a website to perform better in search engine rankings. Not making mistakes is an important first step in making the search engines, especially Google, reward your site in the rankings.

The Search engine optimization (SEO) is a constantly evolving discipline. It is based on both best practices and current strategies. That's why it's important to always have the latest information to hand when optimizing the content of your website so that it can be found in searches.

I first introduced an SEO checklist in my training and quickly realized how valuable it is for both new and experienced professionals. Today, this page is a popular resource that we update regularly.

We'll try to keep this checklist short so you can easily reference it. If you want to know more, check out the linked resources or our SEO guide to learn how to do search engine optimization.

A single checklist can't cover everything an individual business should do in terms of SEO and their website. But with over 40 SEO categories that improve the way customers and search engines find and use your website, this list comes pretty close.

I hope you find it a helpful reminder of the many points you should review in your SEO projects.

Content optimization

Many of us already knew it when Google confirmed it: content is one of the three most important Ranking-signals (out of hundreds). If you do nothing else, your Content strategy an essential part of your online success. We are of the opinion that a good SEO-Content strategy makes the difference between good content and eye-catching content. Do it right or don't bother.

1. target group research

This is an important point: know your target audience, their questions and their problems. If you know what questions they ask and what types of search queries they send to Google, you can optimize your Keyword-Research builds on this.

This in turn helps you to create content that answers these questions and solves the problems of the target group. (You use your chosen keywords as the basis for this content - one main topic per website - but more on that in a moment).

Understanding the intent of searchers is an important step in content creation. Answering typical questions that your target audience might have will also help your site to be found in voice search queries.

2. keyword strategy and research

The Keyword-Research needs to be a continuous process. It starts with identifying one or two keywords for the topic you want to write about (using the tools of your choice - there are dozens of good tools).

Once you've found a keyword for a page or section of your website, check it out in Google Search. Look at the top results, the "people also ask" questions and the rest of the Search Engine an. This search engine results page (SERP) gives you the best indication of searcher intent for that query. Make sure your content fulfills what searchers want when searching for that keyword, or look for a more appropriate keyword phrase.

I could write volumes on this subject; just know that the Keyword-research is part of any solid SEO checklist.

These first two points remind me of fishing. If you want to catch fish, you need to know two things ... what bait the fish are biting on and where the fish are swimming. Content and keywords play together to attract and convert your fish.

3. featured snippet options

If you have a Keyword-research, you may find that Google has a Featured Snippet (also known as the answer field) above the search results for your target keyword. This means that you have the option to add a Featured Snippet when you provide answers to question-like inquiries. This section of the SERP, known as Position Zero, has become an important SEO focus.

To create a Featured Snippet you need to structure the content according to the type of snippet (usually video, text, list or table). Optimize the answer and formatting, whether it's a table, bulleted list, ordered list, text question and answer, or something else. Using schema markup is also not required, but it can increase your chances of getting a Featured Snippet-space (see "Further Structured data" below).

When optimizing your text, you can also perform a competitor analysis to determine the typical length of Featured Snippets to determine. The average word count for a paragraph snippet, for example, is 40 to 60 words. Two popular tools that can help you search for Featured Snippets help are the Featured Snippets+ tool and inLinks.net (both are paid tools with some free options).

4. number of words

How much content you need on a website depends on the topic, the Keywordthe competition, and the intent of the search query. (See the table below for information on the three main intentions of search queries).

3 MAIN TYPES OF SEARCHES

Transactional

These searches occur when a user intends to buy something immediately. For example, searching for the exact brand and model of a product indicates an intention to buy.

Informative

These are research-oriented search queries. People often do research in advance of a future Transaction. For example, a search for "best electric toothbrushes" indicates that the searcher is likely to buy one in the near future.

Navigation requests

Navigation queries help the searcher to find their way around, whether online or in the real world. A search for the name of a restaurant, for example, should lead the user to the restaurant's website, telephone number and address.

How many words are enough? There is no black and white rule. To determine the approximate minimum length of a page, look at the URLs that rank best for the keyword you're searching for. How long are these pages?

The average of the top competitors gives you an indication of what a Search Engine is considered a normal word count for this topic. It is safe to say that informative websites almost always require more text.

High quality content is the be-all and end-all of any good SEO checklist. Google's algorithm recognizes low-quality content and ranks it in the Ranking down. So avoid thin content. Focus on solid coverage of your website topics to demonstrate your expertise and involve industry experts where possible. Find out more about what makes a good website here.

5. call to action (CTA)

On each of your pages, ask yourself what the user needs/wants to do on that page. Then make it easy for him to do that!

Your key pages should make it clear which main action a visitor can take next.

On a product page, the call to action (CTA) should be clearly visible (e.g. "Add to shopping cart" or "Start free trial").

On a service page, the CTA could be: "Call us" or "Get a quote". Make sure that the CTA is clear and easy to choose.

Help the visitor on the Homepageto take the next step in your conversion funnel.

The actual language of a CTA should be active (usually an imperative verb). The placement and design of the CTA should attract the visitor's attention. Test different variations to find out what works best for you.

A page does not necessarily have to include a transaction to warrant a call to action. If an information page contains a topTraffic-driver, such as a blog post (like this one) that answers a common question or a FAQ page, the call to action could encourage the visitor to "learn more" and enter the conversion funnel or tell two friends about it.

For example, you should do that now:

Bookmark this SEO checklist to read it in the future. And if you find it helpful, be sure to share it!

6. freshness of the contents

Check your content (web pages and blog posts) regularly to ensure that the information is up to date.

Among other things, we update this checklist regularly. SEO best practices need to evolve with search engine guidelines and technology. If your industry is also changing rapidly, your content needs to keep pace.

7. static content on the homepage

Yours Homepage acts as a central hub from which authority is passed to the most important pages on your website via internal links. It's also likely to be the place where people land most often when searching for your brand or key products/services.

It is important to be on the Homepage have a static text that talks about your brand and your main topic(s).

If you have a Homepage having content that is constantly changing, e.g. only headlines, can dilute the theme of your page. This leads to poor rankings for keywords. So try to keep sections with consistent text on the Homepage to be maintained.

8. duplicated content

Check whether your content already exists elsewhere on the Internet. You should CopyScape.com and use it regularly. If it appears that your website has copied content from another source, this is a bad signal for the search engines and can result in your website being ranked lower. Even if other websites have copied your content, this could be a problem from an SEO perspective.

If you have duplicate content on your site, for example, three URLs with the same content, a Search Engine filter out the duplicate content. Only one will show up in the results for relevant search queries - and the page Google selects may not be the page you want to rank. One option would be to use a "canonical tag" to tell the search engines which version should be indexed.

9. title tag

SEO has always emphasized the HTML title of a web page as an important tag that should contain the relevant keywords you want to rank for on that page.

As a rule, title tags should contain around 9 words (between 6 and 12). You should make sure that the meta title of each page is unique and describes the most important information about the page. Use the topKeyword before the cutoff in the SERPwhich is about 60-70 characters including spaces for Google. (Tip: You can use a title preview tool to estimate how much will be displayed).

Remember that the title tag is often the clickable title that searchers see in search results (however, Google reserves the right to choose a different title for your result). Both the title and the description text can influence the click-through rate to your website. So create meaningful tags. You want to get your best place in the SERP not waste it with boring texts.

10. description tag

Also the Meta descriptionstext should contain the most important information and keywords at the beginning. If the Search Engine your description text, it contains about 24 words or 160 characters with spaces.

Google states that it does not consider this tag to be an important Ranking-factor. Personally, I think that everything on a Google SERP-page appears is important. It definitely helps us get clicks - so act like it's important, because it is.

Keep in mind that Google reserves the right to replace your meta description text with a Google-generated search snippet, which is usually pulled from the content of the page. A search snippet (also called an auto-snippet) will appear in place of your Meta descriptionif Google considers the snippet to be more relevant for a specific search. This often happens if your description does not contain the search term. Not necessarily the biggest ranking factor, but still an important point on the SEO checklist for aesthetic reasons alone.

11. heading tags

Headings enable the reader to recognize the most important sections and points of a page. They provide visual clues as to how the content is structured. They also signal to search engines and readers which topics are covered on a page.

Make sure that the first heading tag within the text of a page is a <h1> is. (Note that in WordPress, the text box at the top of the editor that says "Add Title" is actually for Heading 1.) The following heading tags can be <h2>, <h3>, <h4> etc. and should be used like the table of contents of a page.

According to Google you are allowed more than one <h1> on a page, although in most cases we recommend only one. Be careful NOT to use heading tags to control font size, as this could confuse search engines. Instead, use CSS to control style and headings to describe the organization of the content.

Navigation elements and other global text should be designed with CSS and not with heading tags.

12. image optimization

Images add a lot of value to your pages. Content needs visual elements to break up the text and capture the reader's interest.

Images also provide additional Ranking-Chances in image search and mixed search results on the web.

Images can slow down the loading time of a page. To reduce the file size and increase the speed as much as possible, you should reduce the files to their display size instead of uploading the original file and using the Browser to make them smaller. Also add the width and height attributes to the image tags.

NOTE: We use a Pluginwhich automatically converts JPEG and PNG images to WebP image format for Browser that support this format, thus reducing the image size by around 50 %. This significantly improves search engine optimization by reducing the page size and speeding up page loading.

File names should describe the image and contain a keyword if possible. You can also optimize the caption and the text around the image to make it clear what the image is about.

13. alt attributes

Be sure to include an alt attribute with each image. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) states that a website should describe the image on a page for the visually impaired if the description contributes to an accurate understanding of the content. And please take this seriously; even if it's not mainstream SEO, non-compliance can result in serious fines and penalties.

Accessibility is important for users and for Google. According to Google, alt attributes are an important indicator that your website is accessible.

As an SEO checklist you should make sure that your images have a correct Alt text which may contain a keyword for the page. If an image is purely decorative, it should still have an empty alt attribute in the image tag. Alt attributes are required for validated HTML code (according to W3C standards).

14. video optimization

Videos are powerful objects that keep visitors on your site for longer. Videos are highly consumable content and offer you additional SEO benefits and social sharing opportunities. Also note that videos are one of the formats for Featured Snippets in the SERP are. I can even imagine that a big part of the search results (in the organic results section) will be videos. Start now - you can't say you weren't warned, because it was mentioned in this SEO checklist!

Optimize your videos to get them found in search. Offer video content Ranking-The videos have a good chance of appearing both in regular searches and in video-only search engines where they are uploaded, especially on YouTube.

Like images, embedded videos can slow down page loading. There are a number of best practices for optimizing YouTube, Vimeo, and other video hosting sites. Read our guide with 10 video SEO tips to improve the SERP-Position.

15. structured data markup with schema

Structured data clarify the Search Enginewhat the content of your page is about. If you mark up your HTML content according to the standards, the search engines can recognize what kind of information you are presenting.

For example, you could Structured data to highlight an upcoming event at your business by providing the date, time, location and other details. If Google knows what's on your website, additional information can show up in your search results.

There are dozens of schema types that can be applied to your website depending on the content. For example:

Structured data for HowTo articles - Use this to label HowTo articles.

FAQ Structured Data - If you tag a section with questions and answers with this schema, you might get a comprehensive Featured Snippet.

The Google guidelines allow three supported formats for tagging a website:

• JSON-LD (recommended)
• Microdata
• RDFa

This is one item on the technical SEO checklist: Google requires that your markup contains all the necessary properties of an object so that it appears in your SERP-list can be improved. To make sure you've done it right, check your page or code snippet with Google's Rich Results Testing Tool.

16. other structured data

In addition to the schema markup we just mentioned, there are other ways to structure your data to make it more digestible for search engines.

HTML tables

Enumeration lists

Ordered lists

Breadcrumb navigation

Table of contents at the beginning (especially with Anchor links)

Headings that contain a key term or question, followed by the answer in the body text

TL;DR ("too long, not read") Summary at the beginning of your article

All of these structural formats can help people read your content more easily. They also encourage Google to rank your content in the Featured Snippets as we have described above. Google provides more information about structured data in search results here.

17. social meta tags

Social markup or social meta tags are the code used to enhance content on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest. The content of these tags determines what image and text is displayed when someone posts a link to your content on a social network. Although it is not a link for SEO, it is believed that social mentions of your pages will at least temporarily boost the Ranking improve

By including social markup in your HTML code, you can make sure you look good on social media. Facebook Open Graph Tags, Twitter Card Markup and Pinterest Rich Pins are the most important social markup tags. Click through to find out more about the options for each platform:

Facebook Open Graph Tags

Twitter cards

Pinterest pins in different formats

LinkedIn shares

18. URL optimization

This point is included in almost every SEO checklist. A long time ago, URLs were heavily keyword stuffed, and it is believed that today they have little impact on the Ranking have. Nevertheless, a meaningful URL contribute to the users clicking on the page.

Use hyphens instead of underscores in page URLs. Underscores are alpha characters and do not separate words. Hyphens are word separators, but should not appear too often, otherwise it could look spammy. You can find more on this topic in this article by Matt Cutts from Google (old hat) and in ours, which explains what spam is.

URLs should also be descriptive and contain keywords without being spammy. And shorter URLs are preferable to long URLs.

19. fully qualified links

If you fully qualify your internal links, search engine spiders can, Browser etc. cannot find out where the file is located and what it is about. If your link looks like "../../pagename" (a relative link), it can cause problems with some search engines when searching for a file. Crawl lead.

Instead of relative URLs, use fully qualified links, i.e. they start with https:// (hopefully not https://). Note that your Sitemap should always contain fully qualified URLs. (You can read more about sitemaps below).

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20. make JavaScript and CSS external

To avoid unnecessary lines of code in your text, you should JavaScript- and CSS code that interferes with keyword-rich content. If you swap out large files, this can shorten the loading time of your page, which is a big advantage for Google's Ranking-algorithm plays a role.

However, there is a trade-off that you need to consider, especially with regards to the new Core Web Vitals. In some cases, Google recommends using smaller CSS or JavaScript-code elements inline in your HTML page to shorten the time the server needs to request the external resource.

Local optimization

Companies with a local presence or a local service area need to pay special attention to a number of SEO factors. Here are a few important points on the checklist for local SEO.

21. requesting a Google My Business listing

A Google My Business listing is free and an important first step for local businesses and businesses with service areas. A Google My Business listing allows your website to appear on Google Maps, in the Local Pack of Google search results and in the Knowledge Graph panels for your business. Since the goal of search engine optimization is to drive traffic from search engines to your website, these listings are important SEO elements.

Local search engine optimization encompasses much more, but when you submit your listing to Google My Business and Bing Places, you've made a start.

22. local scheme markup

Local businesses can benefit from on-page schema markup for their business. (You can view the available codes on schema.org). Especially important for all businesses is the NAP + W code, which gives the name, address, phone number and website of the business.

Check out my list of other ranking factors for local search. There are many factors that you haven't considered yet, but they are all important for SEO.

23 Local mentions and links

Local citations are usually found in directories that list multiple companies either by business type or by region. At a minimum, an online citation should include the name, address and phone number of the business (NAP) as well as the website address. Many directory websites also offer the option to provide additional company information.

Local links differ from citations in that they are not found in a directory, but on local websites, e.g. related businesses in the region or hyperlocal blogs about the region. Both citations and local links help to strengthen your local presence.

Mobile optimization

We live in a world where mobile takes center stage. Businesses need to ensure that their websites are suitable for mobile browsing. Google looks at the mobile version of your content when it comes to indexing and ranking. Ranking goes. Yes, maybe you're editing your pages on desktop for convenience, and maybe you only have a few mobile users on your site. But the Google spider is only interested in mobile formatting, and that's the way your site is viewed.

As an SEO checklist, you should make sure you're using a mobile-first strategy. I've listed a few details below.

24. mobile usability

Search engines are concerned with providing users with a good mobile experience. With the mobile usability report in the Google Search Console you can see how your website works on mobile devices.

This report shows you if your touch elements are too close to each other, if your content is on the Viewport whether you use Flash, how large the font is and much more.

You can also use the URL-Use the Google Search Console inspection tool to understand how Google displays a particular page on different mobile devices.

And finally, you can run important URLs through the Google Mobile-Friendly Test for Developers. Bing also offers a mobile friendliness test tool.

The loading speed of a page is also a ranking factor of our SEO checklist. Under Site Speed & Performance in this SEO checklist you will find the SEO tools that you can use to check the page speed.

25. mobile and language keywords

When was the last time you did a voice search for your keywords? Try to find your company and your competitors the way your customer would with a voice search. Think about it:

Are you being found for relevant search terms such as "[keyword] near me"?

Do you consider search queries in the form of questions or complete sentences? (These are becoming more common with the rise of voice search).

Also test whether your keywords are easy to pronounce. Do you have an exotic-sounding product or company name? How well are you currently performing in voice search? Are you in 1st place but not getting any mobile traffic? Traffic? Keyword recognition is an important part of a search query, and the wrong query will throw off SEO data.

26. accelerated mobile pages (AMP)

Accelerated Mobile PagesAMP for short, is an open source project that enables websites to load almost instantly for mobile users.

Due to the visibility of Google's AMP carousel, AMP pages can get more visibility in mobile search results. However, I recommend you avoid AMP at all costs unless your site is targeting users in low bandwidth regions. Google has recognized that AMP is needed in low bandwidth areas, and in much of the US, Google has begun to phase out the benefits of AMP.

Server/HTML optimization

With the Google Page Experience update rolling out in mid-2021 and the introduction of Core Web Vitals, server-level optimization has become a priority. That's why I'm adding this new section to our SEO checklist to help you optimize your site experience at the server level.

27. HTTPS

For years, a secure website (HTTPS) has been an important Ranking-signal at Google, and now HTTPS is available as part of the Ranking-factor for the site experience is no longer optional. If your site is insecure (HTTP), users will likely see a warning in their Browserwhen they try to visit your website. So if you Traffic and rankings, you need a secure website.

Also consider bringing your website into the future with HTTP/3. This protocol allows websites to be better optimized for performance. Although it is still technically in the draft stage, it is supported by most browsers and Content-networks are already supported. It is on the rise.

28. no intrusive interstitials

Intrusive interstitials are Pop-upsthat get in the user's way by obscuring too much of the website shortly after the user has accessed it. This ban is on Google's page experience list. So make sure that your website doesn't obscure the content with a pop-up or at least waits until 20-30 seconds after the page is opened.

29. core web vitals

Three new metrics, called Google Core Web Vitals, now have some bearing on the Ranking-algorithm. This involves LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), FID (First Input Delay) and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift), which essentially measure how easily your website is displayed and how easily users can interact with it. Check your values per page with the Core Web Vitals Report in Search Console, among others.

30. server configuration and maintenance

Check your server regularly for 404 errors, invalid 301-redirects and other errors. The many diagnostic reports in the Google Search Console also indicate errors that need to be corrected.

The server configuration also affects the speed of the website. As speed is an important SEO issue, this is an important point on the checklist. Run the PageSpeed Insights tool from Google and pay attention to the recommended corrections.

Server maintenance, especially the maintenance of plug-ins, is important on many levels. For example, you could be the victim of a malware attack. In such cases, a hacker could have exploited a system weakness and inserted hidden links or transfers to other websites into your code without your knowledge. Such attacks harm your SEO efforts by poisoning your content and potentially harming visitors to your site. This makes safe browsing a priority, even though Google has decided to recognize it as a Ranking-signal for the side experience.

To better understand Google's new update, read our CMO's Overview of the Page Experience Update or download our complete guide to page experience.

31. website speed and performance

Check PageSpeed Insights in Google Search Console or use tools like GTmetrix.com to analyze and improve the performance of a website on desktop and mobile devices.

You can find more information on improving page speed in our overview of page speed issues for SEO.

Website-wide optimization

In Google's Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, the term E-A-T introduced in the SEO community. E-A-T is an abbreviation for expertise, authority and trustworthiness as the main indicators of a site's quality and is now a cornerstone of search engine optimization.

A website as a whole should signal expertise, authority and trust, while at the same time Topic relevance and is optimized for search engine accessibility. While your basic content strategy is a big part of this (see the Content Optimization section above), the following points will help, E-A-T to support and comply with the SEO checklist.

32. contact information

A clear E-A-T-Signal is that the company's contact information, such as a phone number and address, is clearly visible on the website. Search engines expect a trustworthy website to provide this information for users. Seriously, be easy to find.

33. testimonials

Testimonials on your website emphasize your trustworthiness as a company and your value to your customers. Testimonials are also a great way for your human visitors to signal your value!

Make sure that your testimonials and evaluations are also indexed can be searched. This means that you display them in text (and not just images) that is easy for search robots to digest. Schema markup can be used to display reviews, which increases SEO value and helps the Traffic increases.

34. data protection declaration

Another E-A-T-Signal: A privacy policy on your website creates trust. A privacy policy tells your website visitors what you do with the data you collect about them.

EVERY website should have a link in the footer that leads to the privacy policy page. You are welcome to copy our privacy policy from our website and modify it for your own purposes.

Offering a privacy policy not only builds trust in Google and Bing, but is also a best practice. Privacy laws such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) require many websites to clarify their privacy policies, require visitors to consent to data collection, and more. For those not dealing with Europe, there are equally stringent laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which is expected to go nationwide. Find out about the privacy laws in the countries where your visitors live and use the SEO checklist to make sure your website is compliant.

35. text navigation

Check whether there is text navigation on your website. Text links are more SEO-friendly than using images for menu items. Make sure you at least have text navigation at the bottom of the page if there are no crawlable navigation links in the top menu. This is an accessibility issue for search engines.

By the way: I strongly recommend that you use the following on your entire website Breadcrumbs with their schema markup. Replace "Home" in the Breadcrumbs through a top-levelKeywordthat belongs to your Homepage fits (unless you sell houses). Internal links that lead upwards from subordinate pages are not only an SEO advantage, but also a user-friendliness factor.

36. site maps

Your website should have an HTMLSitemap have (see Google-Sitemap-information). Each page should refer to this Sitemap link, probably in the footer.

You should also create an XMLSitemap you submit to the search engines. If you already have a Sitemap check and update it regularly to ensure that it contains the pages that are currently active on your website.

37. robots.txt file

The robots.txt file tells the search engine spiders what they are not allowed to index. It is important that this file is present, even if it is blank is. Also make sure that the file does not inadvertently contain important files, Directories or excludes the entire website. (This can sometimes happen!)

38. linking strategy

This section deserves far more than just a few sentences, but it should be mentioned as part of the SEO checklist. Your internal linking structure is usually the result of your Siloing strategy, which is of crucial importance in order to Relevance for SEO.

In addition, your inbound and outbound links should be part of an organic, natural strategy that complies with search engine guidelines. You should regularly check your link profile as part of your website maintenance.

In any case, it is worth mentioning that the promotion of the PageRank Google turned the voluntary link into a saleable commodity. This created a big business in the sale of links. Google has long considered this to be spam, has imposed several penalties and has developed a variety of technologies to combat it. We can expect significant consequences for SEO consultants who still make money from creating and distributing such links.

39. static URLs

Complex, dynamic URLs can be a problem. If your website has any of the following issues, you should convert your URLs to static URLs:

More than two query string parameters

Dynamic pages that are not indexed

A lot of duplicate content that indexed become

You can also mod_rewrite or ISAPIUse _rewrite to simplify URLs. Rewritten URLs are displayed as static URLs. This is a lot of work, but it's a surefire way to solve this problem. You can also use the canonical tag to tell search engines which page is the canonical version of indexed should be.

40. no spam tactics

Make sure that your SEO strategy meets the Google Webmaster-guidelines and the Bing Webmaster-guidelines. If you're ever in doubt about any of your tactics, you can also check out what Google recommends for SEO if it hasn't already been mentioned in this SEO checklist.

Note that many websites simply have no idea why they are not ranking. They have used cheap SEO consultants who may have used cheap tricks, disregarding the SEO checklist, to fool the search engines into thinking that you have a good Ranking earn. Such deceptions are spam, they may have harmed your site, and until they are fixed, you won't rank. Don't buy cheap.

Webmaster Tools

What would SEO be without its tools that provide data for analysis? Don't forget that there's a difference between data and wisdom. SEO tools can help you figure out what's going on with your website, but to create an action plan, you need an understanding of SEO.

41. web analysis

No question - analytics data is important for SEO. Make sure your analytics are set up properly and check them regularly to see if the keywords that are driving the Traffic generate, in your Keyword-list and whether your website is optimized for them. A Ranking-monitor is also useful for tracking SEO changes in various search engines.

Admittedly, this is without specific Keyword-tracking data is more difficult. Google decided a long time ago to suppress this data for privacy reasons (but to keep it for PPC). Now this argument is invalid, but the data is still lost to the SEO community.

42. webmaster tools accounts

Webmaster-tools with different names for Google and Bing give website owners an insight into how search engines view their websites. These free tools collect data and provide important reports, such as which search queries Traffic to your website, about crawl errors that you need to fix, and about penalty notifications.

43. review of manual penalties

If a manual penalty has been imposed on you, Google will report it to you in Google Search Console. Check the manual action report and the Search Console message center. Read more about how to deal with manual penalties.

44. algorithm updates

If your website is using Google Analytics you can use the Panguin tool to compare your visitor numbers with known algorithm updates. If you notice a sharp drop or increase in search traffic that coincides with known algorithm updates, or if you receive a manual action notification from Google, you may be affected by a penalty. Read more about assessing penalties and how to fix them.

Google is constantly changing its algorithm, much to the chagrin of SEO consultants everywhere. Google results dances just aren't funny. RankBrain and machine learning - powered by artificial intelligence technology - are changing search results. Even though optimizing for AI is not as simple as checking for Traffic-you should familiarize yourself with the actual effects of RankBrain and my advice on how to shrink organic results in the Google SERPs.

Final recommendations

This is a summary of the things you should consider when optimizing your website for search engines. Many people only do what is convenient. Some work negligently and cheaply as possible and do everything wrong.

Bookmark this SEO checklist so that you always have it to hand. And if you find it helpful, please share it!