Let’s start with the fundamentals. Here is the basic SEO checklist, These things need to be in place first when you are starting to perform SEO on any website.
- Setting up Google search console.
- Setting up Bing Webmaster tool
- Setting up Google Analytics
- Installing Yoast SEO Plugin
Let me explain each one of these in more detail.
Setting up Google search console.
It is a web service by Google. Webmasters use to check with the indexing and status of the website and webpages and also to optimize the website for better visibility in search engine results page (SERP)
Setting up Bing webmaster tool
It is the same tool as a google search console but it is for Bing search engine from Microsoft. Even though Bing is not as popular as Google, you need to optimize your website for it because it is the 2nd most popular search engine.
Also, Bing webmaster tools come with inbuilt keyword research features.
Setting up Google Analytics
It is a free web analytics tool provided by Google. It is used to track and record website traffic. SEO experts use this tool extensively.
It has many useful features like campaign measurement, goal tracking, audience reports, and also you can make your custom reports.
When you connect your Google Analytics account to your search console then you’ll be able to find some helpful SEO insights in your analytics account.
Installing Yoast SEO Plugin (For WordPress Users only)
Yoast SEO is the most popular choice among the SEO community. This SEO plugin has five million active installations and has been downloaded more than 202 million times.
Yoast SEO plugin will make your life much easier. It helps you optimize each page and each blog post as per the Google guidelines. Yoast also helps you with technical SEO such as sitemap, robots.txt, and also Yoast Yoast lets you automatically implement Schema.org markup on your page.
Where to go from here?
When you are just starting your new SEO project on any website the things that I have explained above need to be in place. These are the tools that help you kickstart your SEO journey.
Next, you would need to work on keywords. Here is my Keywords checklist post. Do check it out. In that post, you will come to know how easy it is to find the most performing low competition keywords.
Once you are done with the keywords it’s time to work on on-page SEO. You can find my on-page SEO checklist here
Check out my other blog post around SEO here