Every company wanting to grow it’s business online starts with a website. It is not enough to just have a beautifully designed website. As a result of the pandemic, more companies going online in 2020, you need to follow the best SEO practices to be visible to your audiences. To rank higher in the search engine results page (SERP) and get better traffic on the website, a company needs to optimize its website for at least the basic requirements.
Checklist of the Top 10 SEO Essentials for 2020
Follow this list to ensure that your website is optimized for search engines.
Create an XML Sitemap
Allows you to track if all your websites can be indexed by search engines without any errors.
Create Robots.txt
Allow or Disallow any particular bot to crawl or avoid crawling any page in your website.
Short and Relevant URL Structure
Your URL provides information to both visitors and crawlers so keep it concise and precise.
Write a relevant Meta Title
The title tells a search engines what the primary topic of your webpage is. Keep it between 50 – 60 characters.
Write a compelling Meta Description
This is the content people see when they search, so keep it contextual and informative to increase your CTR.
Have one H1 tag
This header tag is the most important to search engine bots, avoid multiple H1 tags.
Alt tag for images
This is an alternate name for your images since bots can’t read graphics like images or videos.
Install Google Tag Manager code
Use Google Tag Manager (GTM) to manage multiple scripts on your website.
Connect Google Analytics with Google Tag Manager
You can easily connect Google Analytics with GTM using just your GA tracking id.
Create a Google My Business Account and add Location to website
Important step to improve your presence in local searches and in map packs.
Create an XML Sitemap
A Sitemap is a list of URLs that a search engine bot can go through to make its crawling and indexing easier. You can generally view a sitemap at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
Create Robots.txt
Robots.txt is a file that defines the access to the path the bots are allowed to crawl. You can view the robots file at yourdomain.com/robots.txt
Short and Relevant URL Structure
The URL of your page should be short and should easily identify the content on the webpage. Avoid using random text URLs. Writing a relevant URL will increase the organic CTR of your webpage. It is advisable to have a proper URL structure for all the pages on your website.
Write a relevant Meta Title
The webpage title is the first line of content that you see in the search results. Your primary targeted keyword must be present in the title tag. It is advisable to keep the title under 60 characters. The title tag is entered within the head tags of your HTML.
Write a compelling Meta Description
The meta description is the text that you see in the body of your search results. This description must briefly summarize the contents of the webpage and must also contain your targeted keywords. It is advisable to keep the title under 160 characters. The meta description tag <meta name=”description” content=”***”> is also entered within the head tags of your HTML.
Have one H1 tag
It is advisable to use one H1 tag in your webpage. This tag is usually used for the Headline of the content.
Alt tag for images
As the bots that crawl your website can’t read the images or videos (unstructured data), it is advisable to have an alt tag for these elements.
Install Google Tag Manager code
Google Tag Manager (GTM) simplifies the process of adding multiple codes such as those for Google Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook Pixel, etc. Just upload the GTM code in the head and body sections of your HTML for all the webpages on your website.
Connect Google Analytics with Google Tag Manager
Once your Google Analytics (GA) account is created, you can upload the GA tracking code on Google Tag Manager (GTM) and set it to trigger on all webpages. You can track hits on your website, event triggers, and conversions on your website through Google Analytics. Google Analytics also shows the types of audiences coming to your website and how they interact with it. Google Analytics is a free tracking solution for your website.
Create a Google My Business Account and add Location to website
It is advisable to create a Google My Business account to gain more local visibility for your business. You can also add your address on the website with an embedded Google Map showing your location.
In addition to this checklist, you should always keep doing your keyword research. Optimizing your website with higher volume keywords that are relevant to your business is key to improving the relevance of your site in the search engine results.
However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, a lot of businesses are moving their focus online. Therefore your website needs to follow these SEO practices to grow online.
Stay connected for more articles and for any business queries, feel free to contact me.
