1. Inform your content with social listening
2. Use the new Google Webmaster Tools search analytics tool/api
3. h2 or h3 tags can make up for lackluster h1 – Have a descriptive h2 (DO not duplicate)
4. Create shareable, stackable content – People have short attention spans – don’t write a novel
5. Make you site mobile-optimized (April 21st 2015 Mobilegeddan)
6. Don’t forget about meta descriptions – Make them appealing with relevant keywords (Unique meta descriptions for each page) – Increase CTR + Rankings
7. Audit your site annually – Discover new opportunities
8. Assess all of the search engine traffic sources for your site
9. Write Content for the person – Write user-friendly content (No keyword stuffing)
10. Blend all your tools’ organic data for a greater view of the audience – Google + Bing Webmaster Tools data exports and analysis
11. Take a look at competitors’ meta keywords
12. Create themes within your content – Create clear themes around your content using like-minded keywords
13. Check Ratio of Indexed Pages with your XML Sitemap
# of indexed pages > sitemap = thumbsup!
14. Keep up on the Google Algo Updates – Add annotations to your analytics to note when changes are occurring on algo’s
15. Don’t target multiple keyword sets on one page
16. Optimize for Universal Results – Search the entire SERP and what part of the real estate you take on (Paid, Answer, Maps) Search locales
17. Establish 301 Redirects before your site redesign launches – When updating site make sure to 301 redirect all updated URLS
18. Don’t buy links – Stop
19. Get an SSL – Update to HTTPS – Google will begin dinging organic results without SSL
20. Image Alt Txt – Add Alt text to all images! Search engines cannot index images (Yet!)
21. Use HREFLANG Tags for international/ multi-language pages 0 Tell search engines where alternate language pages are ( Can create duplicate content if you don’t add this )
22. Use intelligence alerts from your analytics tool – custom alerts for drops in traffic, irregular spam traffic, zero goal conversions
23. Page segmentation matters – Th e layout of your content can be just as important as the content itself – Put the content on parts of the page that convey its importance
24. Create new content often – Freshness is a big ranking factor
25. Use a crawling tool no matter the price tag – Screamingfrog, Xenu, deep crawl – Great to check on things to spot check
26. Don’t just generate – Disseminate – Making cool, relevant content is only half the battle.
27. Fix errors in your sitemap – If you send Google to crawl 404 pages, it will come back less often and devalue your site
28. Revamp your robots.txt – Disallow private pages – Your robots file can be outdated quickly and directly impact which pages are indexed in accordance with your sitemap
29. Look at your related terms – Look at your keywords lists and look to see if there are related terms that can get you qualified for broader subjects
30. Track more than you optimize for – If you track 3x more than you optimize for, you are 3x more educated to make decisions going forward.
31. Fail at stuff – The best way to learn and improve is to test, tweak and fail. From there you will get insights on what works.
32. Mobile site? REL ALTERNATE! – #1. Move to a website with responsive design #2 Implement rel = “alternate” tags on the mobile and desktop content so that search engines prioritize those versions for each device.
33. Invest for the long term – You will not get results overnight. SEO is a marathon not a sprint. Can become the most effective channel in your digital arsenal but will take time.
34. Markup your site – Structured data with Schema.org vocabulary is always expanding and it is the future of search engines identifying “entities” – Use the data highlighter when implementing on your own.
35. Google your keywords before you optimize for them – Make sure the landscape of the keywords you are targeting makes sense for your product or offering.
36. Mobile > Desktop – Searches with locaiton-specific phrases like “near me” or “closest” have grown 30%+ since 2011
37. Dashes; Not underscores – Use dashes as as they are the more accepted use.
38. Breakout (not provided) in Google Analytics – You can filter to break your (not provided) information in GA into landing pages that it is going to guess which keywords are going
39. Search like a human, not a robot – Conduct your own search query tests on various engines.
40. Consistent Messaging – Make sure you are consistent in how you describe yourself. The more consistent, the likelier you are for appearing for those relevant queries.
41. Avoid Truncation, Manage your character counts
42. User Natural language urls with unique target keywords – Put in relevant keywords within URLs and your information architecture is sound
43. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot – Before making any changes to your website, look at your analytics data. Don’t mess with top performing pages
44. Vet your SEO partner thoroughly
45. Map all your organic KPIs back to business goals – Prove the ROI
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