The SEO Checklist

Write copy that focuses on how the products and services of your business will benefit the customer directly. Remember that the customer is the hero of the story, not you. Visit the Customer Focus Calculator to test your website’s copy.

Instead of customizing or editing core files of your WordPress site (like functions.php, header.php, or style.css), use a Child Theme to prevent conflicts within your code that may occur while updating to newer versions of your theme, WordPress, or plugins. A Child Theme uses duplicated files from your Parent Theme that don’t get overwritten during an update. This means that all of your hard work and customization won’t be lost.

Having the copyright year of your website updated is crucial to showing users that you own the material and that the site is

routinely updated. Make sure that the year is updated. If someone else does these tasks for you, reach out to them. It’s an easy, yet very important change to make.

This can, and should, be done automatically with a little bit of coding. I simply put “Copyright © <?php echo date(“Y”); ?>” into the footer.php to ensure that it will be changed every year without having to manually do it.

Ensure that you’re running the latest version of your CMS platform (i.e. WordPress). Updating from an outdated version may improve your site security and reduce any potential conflicts with plugins. Many platforms will notify you when a new version is available, so log into your dashboard and follow the prompts to update.

Note: Updating your platform may cause conflicts with any customized plugins or theme, so backup your website and database before updating.

WordPress – Read StudioPress’s Tutorial Joomla – Read Joomla’s Tutorial Open Cart – Read Open Cart’s Tutorial More coming soon.

Updating outdated plugins may improve your site security and reduce any potential conflicts with your platform or theme.

WordPress – Read WPBeginner’s Tutorial Joomla – Read DJ-Extensions’ Tutorial Open Cart – Coming Soon More coming soon.

I recommend using an automated site security tool like Sucuri’s Website Security Platform and Firewall. Their services will notify you sooner of security breaches and help remove malicious code.

Keeping the backend of your site clean makes it easier to manage and improves site speed, so schedule regular intervals to review and delete unused plugins and themes.

Sometimes an idea just doesn’t work out and you’re stuck with the remnants in the form of a draft. These can add up fast and may clutter the backend of your website. Go through your drafts, ensure you won’t want or need them in the future before deleting them. Who knows, maybe there’s a hidden gem in one of your drafts that you simply forgot about.

A high bounce rate on a page is a red flag that something may be wrong with how the page loads or that the content isn’t matching users’ expectations. I recommend visiting Google Analytics > Behavior > Overview > view full report to review your highest trafficked pages and compare their bounce rates to look for red flags.

Broken internal links are hyperlinks on your website that for whatever reason no longer correctly link to their intended page.

Often this happens when a page that is linked to gets deleted or the URL structure changes. I’m sure you understand why broken links are bad – they negatively affect both SEO and conversion rate. So, it’s best practices to regularly check for and fix broken internal links. This can be done manually, but I recommend using one of the many online broken link checkers like Atomseo’s Tool or Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider.

Assuming that you have a blog with a comment section, there’s a high chance that you’ll get spam comments. Review your articles’ comments and ensure that users aren’t just trying to drop a link to their site. Not all comments with links are spam, though. Use your best judgment to determine if the comment and link are on-topic and add value to your article.

Your database stores all of your website’s content, settings, form entries, and much more. Over time and after a lot of updates, your database can grow very large, causing detrimental effects on your website’s load time and overall performance. To combat this, constantly optimize your database to reduce the size and get rid of uneccessary content or settings.

Find all instances of 404 errors on your website and redirect those error pages to more appropriate landing pages (or to the homepage). I recommend using a product like Screaming Frog to download a report of your site’s 404’s, then edit your site’s .htaccess to add 301 redirects.

Continually check your website using Google’s Mobile Friendly Test. This is especially important whenever you make changes to your site. Set up a recurring reminder on your calendar to check the mobile friendliness of your site as well as checking after changes to ensure your users are seeing what you want them to see.

With so many different size phones and tablets out there, it can be difficult to ensure your website displays properly on all screens. I

recommend dragging the width of your browser to different sizes to quickly check responsiveness across different device widths.

Over time, you’ll change which widgets you actually use and want on the backend of your site. Simply keeping them visible causes a lot of clutter and can actually cause some loss in performance. It’s a good idea to go through periodically and delete the widgets that you don’t use anymore. We recommend using a plugin for WordPress like the Remove Inactive Widgets Plugin.