SEO Audit Checklist For New Websites

Learn the ins-and-outs of SEO for your new website:

Worrying about a website’s ranking on SERPs is only natural. A well-optimized and technically sound website can help you rank higher in searches and attract your target audience organically. SEO optimization is a fairly easy concept if you know what factors to bank on and which metrics to manipulate to achieve your desired rank.

An SEO audit checklist explains the metrics essential to boosting your website’s search engine rankings. Consider them guidelines helping you launch yourself, your business, or services on steady grounds. Most operational websites have their unique SEO audit checklist tailored to their requirements. Once seasoned, you can also prioritize certain aspects of your website over others for a competitive advantage.

SEO Audit Checklist For New Websites

Search engines judge your website on certain standards and look for specific protocols while indexing your websites. You can audit your website via a tailored checklist to meet those standards.

The SEO audit checklist for a new website is divided into three categories:  

  1. Technical SEO Audit Checklist
  2. On-Page SEO Audit Checklist
  3. Off-Page SEO Audit Checklist
SEO Audit Checklist For New Websites - SEO Audit Checklist,SEO Audit Checklist for New Websites

1.      Technical SEO Audit Checklist

This checklist covers the technical aspect of your website:

  • Optimized URLs: Your URL is the address Google crawlers investigate to know what your site is all about. It is divided into protocol, subdomain, domain, top-level domain, subfolder, and slug and should include the keywords in your content. You can use a hyphen (-) to separate the keywords but avoid any symbols or special characters. Additionally, ensure that all versions of the URL lead to your website and there are no duplicates involved. You can run 301 redirects to solve duplicity problems.
  • SSL Certification: Google’s crawlers prioritize websites with SSL Certification over those without it. It secures your website against malware and hackers and adds credibility to its name.
  • Mobile-Friendly: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and can be accessed through multiple means. Google knows that if a website works for mobile, it will always be available for desktop users, so it uses a mobile index to streamline its search.
  • URL Indexed: Google uses the indexed URL data to provide results for a web search. You need to ensure that your website is crawled and indexed for a chance to be ranked for a relevant query. Websites that don’t get crawled and indexed often fail to return a 200 code response or are blocked by the robots.txt. file.
  • Sitemap Files Listed & Recognized: Your website’s URL should be listed in the XML sitemap files, allowing search engines other than Google to pin you down. For improved accessibility, mention the sitemap file location in the robots.txt file. The file is then submitted to search engines.
  • Loading Speed: Keeping visitors on your website as long as possible is critical, but when it takes forever to load, they are bound to go elsewhere to find answers. To combat this, you can reduce the size of your JavaScript and CSS files and use cache plugins to unburden the connection.
  • Google Search Console Submission: You can help Google crawl and index your website by submitting it to the Google Search Console. Its diagnostic features allow you to gain insights into content errors and keyword research. It also enables you to submit your sitemap files to Google directly.
  • Google My Business Submission: Your website is your marketing tool as much as a venue for your online presence. Registering with Google My Business makes it easy for your target audience to find you, resulting in improved search engine rankings for your website.

2.      On-Page SEO Audit Checklist

The content on your website should include the following metrics to help search engine crawlers to index your content:

  • Meta Details (Content & Image): Each page on your website must have relevant metadata attached, allowing a peek at its content. All pages on your websites should have a meta title of 60 or fewer characters and a meta description ranging from 140 to 160 characters. Similarly, images on your website should have an image title, alt-text, image description, and image source if you do not own them. Also, primary and secondary keywords are an essential part of all meta details.
  • Content Formatting: Although the structure of your content can influence a visitor’s opinion about your website, search engines don’t pay attention to them. As long as you follow the approved HTML hierarchy and categorize content based on relevance, your website should be able to rank. Format the title of your page in H1 or Title style, the main headings in H2 style, and the subheadings in H3 style. You can further highlight the important parts in bolds and italics.
  • Link-Building: Link-building influences your website’s SEO rank by increasing its visibility and credibility. Choose appropriate anchor text to include external and internal links that are functional and free of malware.
seo-audit-checklist
  • Keyword Research & Density: Each page on your website should include keywords in the page title, main headings, subheadings, and body text. The density of the keywords depends on the length of your content. Conversely, images and videos on the website should have separate SEO meta details. The content on your website should be original, free of plagiarism and key stuffing, and relevant to your industry.


3.      Off-Page SEO Audit Checklist

Off-page SEO audit is not as elaborate as an on-page audit, but it plays a key role in helping you rank on SERPs. Here’s the checklist to audit your Off-page metrics:

  • Broken Backlinks: All domains linking to your website should be relevant and functional. Ensure the incoming links are from trusted domains and legit websites because, like keyword stuffing, link stuffing also negatively affects your website’s SEO rank. So make sure to take corrective actions if you encounter broken backlinks and errors.
  • Keyword-Based Links: It’s better to include links whose domain aligns with keyword research. If not, opting for a minimum toxic score for each link is preferable. You can reach out to businesses with similar venues for a collaborative push in ranking.
  • Social Media: Aside from being an exceptional marketing tool, your social media helps create organic traffic and generate natural links. Ensure your website has links to your social media pages and vice versa. You also must ensure that the content is relevant, keyword-based, and accessible.

Bottom Line of the SEO Audit Checklist:

Without search engine optimization, your website will get lost in the endless abyss of the world wide web; therefore, you should keep up with Google’s new indexing and crawling policies and upload new content frequently. The purpose of your website is to introduce, market, and sell your merchandise; for that, you need to establish an online presence, which is only possible if you are ranked on SERPs. Learn more about ranking your new website from the CourseVector team. This extensive SEO audit checklist is extremely beneficial, but keep in mind every website is unique. You will need a creative plan formed by professionals to be most effective.

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