2023 Ultimate SEO Checklist

ONBOARDING

Onboarding tasks ensure the most foundational first steps of your client’s local SEO campaign are addressed as prioirty. These tasks aid in conversion tracking and basic setup of technical requirements onsite that will apply as you move through optimization.

*Scroll to the right to navigate this table.

NAME OF TASK
BUCKET
DIFFICULTY
PRIORITY
FREQUENCY
HELPFUL TOOLS
TRAINING
HTML Sitemap
TECHNICAL
EASY
SETUP
ONCE
Setup Google Analytics
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
SETUP
ONCE
Setup Google Search Console
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
SETUP
ONCE
Robots.txt Optimization
TECHNICAL
HARD
SETUP
ONCE
Click to Call Setup Onpage
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
SETUP
ONCE

XML Sitemap Submitted

TECHNICAL
EASY
SETUP
ONCE

Conversion Tracking (Goal Setup in GA) per goal

TECHNICAL
MODERATE
SETUP
ONCE
Audit Schema & Setup
TECHNICAL
HARD
SETUP
ONCE
Reporting System Setup
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
SETUP
ONCE
NAP – Home, Contact, About
TECHNICAL
EASY
SETUP
ONCE
Technical Audit (Full Site)
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
SETUP
ONCE
Site Speed Evaluation
TECHNICAL
EASY
SETUP
ONCE
Keyword Research

CONTENT

MODERATE

SETUP

QUARTERLY

Install RankMath Plugin
TECHNICAL
EASY
SETUP
ONCE
Include Google Map on Contact Page or Footer
ONPAGE
MODERATE
SETUP
ONCE

LOCAL SEO

Local SEO is primarily focused on Google My Business. Think of this as a second point of offsite conversion and a powerful tool when it comes to local SEO. It can drive traffic to the site or be utilized on its own. The following tasks are should be revisted often and be used to build local visibility.

*Scroll to the right to navigate this table.

NAME OF TASK
BUCKET
DIFFICULTY
PRIORITY
FREQUENCY
HELPFUL TOOLS
TRAINING
Citation Submission, Optimization & Clean (Bright Local)
LOCAL
MODERATE
MEDIUM
MONTHLY
Google My Business Optimization
LOCAL
MODERATE
MEDIUM
MONTHLY
Google Post Add + Optimization (1 Post per week)
LOCAL
EASY
LOW
MONTHLY
Hyper Local Citations
LOCAL
MODERATE
MEDIUM
MONTHLY
Local Keyword Matrix
LOCAL
MODERATE
MEDIUM
QUARTERLY
Add Google Map to Page
LOCAL
MODERATE
MEDIUM
ONCE

Claim your Google My Business Listing
LOCAL
EASY
SETUP
ONCE
Claim Your Yelp Listing
LOCAL
EASY
SETUP
ONCE
Claim your Bing Places for Business Listing
LOCAL
EASY
SETUP
ONCE
Reply to Reviews
LOCAL
EASY
HIGH
MONTHLY

TECHNICAL SEO

Technical SEO is a mixture of creating a solid foundation with keywords then building upon that by way of schema markup or asset optimization which appeals to the spiders that crawl the site.

*Scroll to the right to navigate this table.

NAME OF TASK
BUCKET
DIFFICULTY
PRIORITY
FREQUENCY
HELPFUL TOOLS
TRAINING
Review Schema (per page)
TECHNICAL
HARD
HIGH
ONCE
Video Schema (per video)
TECHNICAL
HARD

HIGH

ONCE
All title tags contain target keyword(s)
TECHNICAL
EASY
SETUP
ANNUALLY
All title tags are unique (no duplicates)
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
SETUP
ONCE
All title tags have less than 65 characters
TECHNICAL
EASY
SETUP
ANNUALLY
All description tags include target keyword(s)
TECHNICAL
EASY
SETUP
ANNUALLY
All description tags are unique (no duplicates)
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
SETUP
ONCE
All description tags have less than 155 characters
TECHNICAL
EASY
SETUP
ANNUALLY
GA Audit
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
SETUP
MONTHLY
Backlink Audit
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
SETUP
MONTHLY
H Tag Optimization (per page)
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
MEDIUM
ONCE
Alt Tag Optimization (per image)
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
MEDIUM
ONCE
Advanced Schema Markup (per page)
TECHNICAL
HARD
HIGH
ONCE
Keyword Cannibalization Audit
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
MEDIUM
QUARTERLY
Check for https
TECHNICAL
EASY
HIGH
ONCE
Check for non-www vs www – 1 version
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
HIGH
ONCE
Broken Links Audit
TECHNICAL
EASY
MEDIUM
MONTHLY
Review site architecure for concise URLs
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
MEDIUM
ANNUALLY
Check that URLs have redirects to / or the canonical is set to /
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
MEDIUM
QUARTERLY
Check Redirect Chains
TECHNICAL
MODERATE
HIGH
QUARTERLY
Check for coverage issues in Google Search Console
TECHNICAL
EASY
HIGH
MONTHLY
Check for manual penalties in Google Search Console
TECHNICAL
EASY
HIGH
MONTHLY
Local Business Markup
TECHNICAL
HARD
HIGH
ONCE