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SEO Checklist for 2020 – An Ultimate SEO Guide

Technical SEO Checklist

Optimize Robots.txt file

Robots.txt file is important as it has a series of instructions that tells search engine crawlers which page to crawl to index on SERPs.

Each website has a crawler budget, so make sure that your Robots.txt should include every important page you want to index. Verify your robots.txt file and ensure it to be easy to find and error-free to avoid SEO technical issues.

Optimize Site Structure

A good site structure and easy to navigate menu has a positive impact on user experience. Hence, it improves sites ranking.

Apart from better UX, an optimized site’s structure helps web crawlers to easily crawl through your site that results in faster indexing.

For a better optimized site’s structure, consider the following practices

        Make sure to use SEO friendly URLs

        Run User testing for a better user experience

        Ensure the responsiveness of your website on different devices

        Avoid duplicate content

Optimize Site Speed

Site speed is crucial in determining your site’s bounce rate. The longer a site takes to load, the more will be the bounce rate.

There are plenty of tools available that can help you to improve your site’s speed. Load time of site should be 1-2 seconds and not take more than three seconds.

Following optimization practices can work well to improve site’s speed

        Implement lazy-load

        Image format’s optimization for browser

        Javascript Optimization

Optimize your XML sitemap

    XML sitemap explains your site structure as well as tells search engines what to index in search results.

XML sitemap optimization practices include

         Information about any new content either post or page added to your site

          Should have 200-status URL

          Because of the crawler budget, you should not have more than 50,000 URLs

Make sure Correct Structured URLs

For better relevance to user’s search queries, URL optimization is essential for technical SEO. Make sure to use readable URLs by avoiding the use of special characters that can help search engines and visitors better understand what your site is about.

Ensure the use of readable, informative, and accurate URLs on your website.

On-Page SEO Checklist

Optimize your Page Title

Page titles are important for both SEO and social sharing. So, Page Title optimization is a crucial SEO factor. To improve your ranking, you need to optimize your title well for relevant keywords. Make an accurate and concise page title that should not only be a list of keywords.

Page title optimization checklist includes the following practices,

Each page of your site should have a unique title

Title Length limit should be 60 characters

Make sure to use target keyword in or near the beginning of the title

Use Title Tag modifiers to rank for long-tail keywords

Meta Description Optimization

Meta Description is important and helps to improve Click through rate of a site. SEO meta description tags are an advertising opportunity to drive visitors from SERPs. Consider your description as paid Ad and add targeted information that can tell visitors what to expect on your site.

Consider the following practices to optimize Meta Description

Limit your Meta Description length to 275 characters

Use targeted Keywords in description

Write meta description differently for every page (Don’t duplicate)

Avoid the use of double quotation mark

          Compelling Meta Description can maximize CTR on search engine result pages.

Website Optimization for Google Sitelinks

Site links are as important and appear on SERP for brand searches. It gives more opportunities to get more visitors via search results.

Although, you can not directly control which site links to show but, following best practices can help you,

Using internal links, Give a clear and accurate structure to your website.

Allow Google crawler to crawl through your site to index more pages in your site

Set “noindex” for irrelevant pages

Make sure to choose the informative and correct anchor text

Use Google webmaster tool to control over pages to appear on site links

H1 Heading Tag Optimization for all Pages

On a website’s page, the H1 tag is the most important tag that explains what your page is about. SEO studies revealed the correlation of higher ranking with heading tags. Search engine’s crawler crawl through your site and analyze which content is in the heading tag. So, help search engines in understanding your page content and quick indexing.

Following are the H1 Tag Optimization best practices

Your h1 tag and page title should be the same or slightly different

Use your targeted keywords in H1

Make sure that H1 heading should be different from the rest headings on the page

Maintain the hierarchical structure of headings

There should be only one H1 tag on the specific page

Don’t use long headings

Optimize Other Page Headings

Apart from h1 tag, you need to optimize other page headings as well that include h2 and h3 tags.

Adding relevant keywords in heading tags can improve search engine visibility for those keywords

Avoid the use of multiple heading tags

Make sure the hierarchical structure, H1 first, H2, H3, and so on

Add targeted keyword in the beginning

Don’t overuse headings on a specific page and maintain balance

Optimize Site’s Images

           Image SEO has become an important part of the 2020-2021 SEO checklist. Search engines like Google acknowledge Images as a crucial part of blogs, and articles.

             To help you to improve Image optimization, I have mentioned some important and simple practices

 Add Unique yet page relevant images

  Make sure the use of proper image file

  Add Alt text and Caption in images

  Reduced file size with correct file type

  Add Images to the sitemap

               Optimizing your images well can help you to boost your SEO ranking and visually attract visitors as well.

Use Target Keyword in Opening Paragraph (In 150 words)

            Focus keyword or keyphrase helps you to rank on search engines. It’s important to know where to use and place your targeted keyword in content.

According to the study, Google search engine gives more weight to the first 150-200 words in your content. Adding targeted keywords in 150 words is considered to be a  good optimization practice.

Create Perfect URL for SEO – URL Optimization

For SEO, make sure your website should have SEO friendly URLs. Your URL or permalinks let search engines know about your page. So, it influences SEO ranking. Keyword’s Optimized URLs for a specific search query improve click-through-rate.

     To make your URL SEO friendly, the following practices should be followed

              Use short, yet descriptive URLs

              Include targeted keywords in URL

              Avoid the use of special characters

              Use hyphens to remove words

Reinforce Internal Linking Strategy

          Internal Linking – A simple and important SEO practice. Internal linking helps in connecting your web page to the website and developing a hierarchy. Add 2-5 internal links to your newly published page.

A page having more internal links identified as an important page by search engine. It helps Google crawler in rendering and indexing your page.

Want higher ranking?

     Reinforce your internal linking strategy with keyword-rich anchor text.

Use External Linking Strategy

External linking is a top powering ranking factor. Links coming from authoritative sites relevant to your site’s content can help in improving your site’s ranking as well as influence authority.

Make sure to use at least 5-8 outbound or external links on your page in your SEO checklist. Quality outbound links further improve your site’s credibility for search engines, and it seems your site is sharing valuable information.

Along with this, an external link is a simple yet free way to drive traffic to your website.

Off-Page SEO Checklist

Analyze and Measure your Backlink Profile

Consider checking your backlink profile as the foremost step in optimizing off-page SEO. There are different tools available like Google search console, Ahref Backlink Checker, and Moz link explorer that can help you to analyze your backlink profile.

To evaluate your backlink profile, you need to check the following

Number of links coming to your site

Number of root domain link to your site

Authority of linking sites

Anchor texts in site

Analyze your Competitor’s Backlink Profile

Strengthen your backlink profile by evaluating a competitor’s backlink profile. Running competitor’s analysis can improve the chances of your success on Google search results.

Use tools like Ahref or SEMush to find competing domains, do an in-depth analysis to evaluate the quality of links a site is getting, and analyze which links are performing well. Compare your backlink profile with competing sites and replicate backlink by getting those high performing links for your site.

Make Sure to Fix 404 Errors

          Search Engines like Google always focus on user experience and 404 errors can affect user experience as well as your site’s ranking.

Finding and fixing 404 errors is a crucial part of your off-page SEO checklist. Broken links can be a reason for error 404 that lead users nowhere and red flag for search engine’s crawler. That’s why it’s required to fix such broken links and errors.

Guest Blogging to Generate Backlinks

Guest posting aka guest blogging is an effective way to get valuable backlinks as well as helps in creating brand awareness.

Well written and SEO optimized guest blogs can help you to gain credibility and high authority for your website and end up building trustworthiness. Search websites with good domain authority, pitch via email, write for the topic of your choice, and get a natural backlink as many as you can.

Use Social Media to Promote Content

Nowadays, social media platforms are a powerful and free avenue to share your content and help in driving traffic to your website.

Use Facebook, Linkedin, and Instagram to advertise your content, it can build your strong link profile and more online following.

Content Promotion through Paid Ads

Advertising on Google Ads and Facebook can help you to drive more links to your site. Paid advertisement can be an effective off-page SEO checklist if monitored and optimized well.

Launch your compelling Ad campaign, share quality content, and monitor it continuously to build a strong linking profile. Platforms Google Ads, Facebook, Microsoft Advertising, Instagram, and Twitter can help you to share your content.

SEO Outreach for Powerful Backlinks

SEO outreach can help you to create valuable links back to your site. It can increase the success chances of your SEO strategy and organic ranking on SERPs.

Find potential sites and blogs, pitch through compelling email, and create valuable content that a reader of a blogger is looking for. Although, it’s time taking practice; but, one of the most powerful link building strategies.

Local SEO Checklist

Logo Optimization for Local SEO

Optimizing your logo can be helpful. Use ALT text that can provide information about your business e.g. Location.

Being a webmaster, you must be familiar with the importance of ALT text as it gives strong signals to search engines. Optimizing your ALT text for your brand name or location can help search engines to rank your company’s site.

Make sure to Add NAP Information on All Pages

Make sure that your important information like Name, Address and Phone number should be visible on your site.

Include NAP information in the top header as well as in the footer on your website. Be sure to use the same information on all platforms wherever your business is listed like Facebook and Google My Business.

Google Map on Contact Info Page

Google Maps on websites is a strong signal of your business location for search engines. Avoid using images of map locations, instead, embed Google maps using an iframe tag.

Make sure to have text content including your business name, address, and phone number information.

Company’s Listing in Google My Business

      Listing your business on Google My Business is an important SEO factor for Local SEO. Once you get approved for your business address, your business will appear on the map as well as on the local result box.

To improve your local ranking on Google,

Provide Correct NAP (Business Name, Address, and Phone Number)  Information

 Add Relevant Photos of your business  to  your Google Business My Page

  Correct, updated, and accurate opening hours of your business

Use Proper Schema’s

Schemas help crawlers better understand the context of your website. If you want to improve your local SEO ranking,  consider Schema’s as important in your Local SEO checklist.

Use appropriate and correct schemas based on your business type.

Encourage Online Reviews

Online Reviews are digital proof about your business. So, encourage users to give reviews on different channels as well as on Google My Business Page.

Try to reply to all reviews and incentivize your customer by sending personalized emails or SMS to seek reviews.

Site Submission in Local directories

Along with listing on Google My Business, try to add your site on other local directories listing that can be helpful in giving signals to search engines about your location.

Be consistent in providing your business information across all platforms and make sure to provide the same details.

Some of the local directories where you can register your site include

            Bing places for Businesses

            Local Business Page on Facebook

            Yelp Business Owners

            Foursquare for Business

Wrapping Up!

Whether you are experienced or new to SEO, this comprehensive checklist will help you to drive big results.

Make sure to follow the Do and Don’ts mentioned in the article. Covering almost every area, the checklist will help you to get a higher ranking and ultimately, help to drive more traffic to a website.

About Hamid:

Hamid Mahmood is a Digital Consultant, serving multiple business communities since 15 years, focusing on their growth & success via successful Digital Transformation. Making a name for himself in the Digital & IT community, Hamid is among the makers of brands i.e. HTML Pro, Shopify Pro, and Napollo Software Design, the World’s top 10 service providers in the Digital industry.

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10 E-Commerce Conversion tips to Boost Black Friday Sale in 2020

It’s time for online retailers to get ready, as the biggest sale events are on the way. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are important for retailers to increase their online sales. This year due to the global outbreak, we’ll witness some changes as many retailers decided to shift Black Friday Sale online. It means there will be an increase in traffic, conversions, and ultimately an increase in revenue for your business.

To beef up your Black Friday sale, you must come up with the right marketing strategy and plan to maximize your conversion rate. To help you to boost your conversion rate, we have enlisted important conversion tips that can convert your visitors to buyers.

1-  Perform Site Audit

Before preparing for the biggest sale event of the season, you must see whether your site is ready to join the party or not?

Ultimately your site performance plays a crucial role in driving conversions to your site. So, you must spend time auditing your site. Your eCommerce store’s reliability is the deciding metric to measure the success in sales.

Check your Site Speed

Your buyer is impatient to get hands on their favourite products and to avail exclusive discounts. But, every second your site takes to load, the higher the chances of bounce rate.

Page speed affects conversion rate; the slower an eCommerce site, the lower will be the chances to win the visitor. Likewise, high page speed can increase the conversion rate. Ensure your website optimization to perform well on the Black Friday Sale.

You can check page speed using different tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix. You can also improve page speed by following the suggestions given there. Shopify Pro also offers eCommerce store optimization services that can help you to win this online game.

Optimize the Site for Mobile Phone

Make your site mobile phone ready to increase conversions on Black Friday sales. Many buyers love to shop from their mobile phones, so we can’t ignore this crucial step. Your site must cater buyers with flexible and seamless mobile shopping experience.

Optimizing the site for mobile phones allows you to drive more traffic, as there is a significant percentage of users who buy products from one click on a mobile phone device. Consider one thing that responsive design doesn’t mean your eCommerce store is well optimized for mobile phones. Mobile Phone optimization includes mobile speed, navigation, and one-click checkout process optimization. Similarly, design advertisements and banners according to mobile phones. Leverage mobile ads for social media platforms to drive more traffic. The better mobile version performance of your site can boost conversions.

Simplify Navigation

Better the onsite experience, an ultimate increase in conversions. Simple navigation can help customers in finding their products quickly. Serve your customers with an easy navigation menu, so your visitor can find what they are looking for online.

Add sub-navigation, products, and categories to your main menu so buyers can easily navigate to the product through the menu.

Fast and Easy Checkout System

Audit your site’s checkout system and provide them with easy and fast checkout during the Black Friday sale. Customers don’t have time to fill unnecessary fields, so make sure to give them an easy to navigate checkout page.

Show discounts on the checkout page, enable auto filler functionality and provide your customer with a smooth shopping experience.

Fast Shipping Process

Prepare your Black Friday shipping plan; free shipping can play well to increase your sales. Offer free shipping to all items in your store and extend this offer to Cyber Monday. Giving reliable, secure, and free shipping of products can build your trust in your frequent buyers.

2- Setup your Email Marketing Campaign

Undoubtedly, email marketing is the most effective way to engage your customers, and it performs better than other marketing channels. It directly interacts with your customers and helps you to direct traffic to your site and thus eventually generates leads.

As Black Friday is here, hit your email marketing campaign to drive sales. But how can we increase conversions and open rate? By launching a strategic email marketing campaign. The very first thing you need to do is – customer segmentation.

Create your Black Friday Sale segmentation list

– Regular shopper

– Infrequent Shopper

– Loyal customers

– VIP buyers

– Email subscriber but never bought anything

– Special sales shoppers

Setting up your targeted email marketing campaign for those who are your potential customers for the Black Friday sale can help you to increase conversions. As compared to the general newsletter, personalized email campaigns work more efficiently and generate a 20% increase in conversion rate.

Promote your popular products and offer gift vouchers as well as gift sets that can create urgency in customers to buy your products. Let your customers know what your trending product is and why everyone is after it.

3- Use Social Media to Increase Conversions

With over 2 billion users globally, Social Media has become one of the leading marketing channels to market your products. With proper implementation and proven marketing tactics, social media can help you to boost conversions.

To boost your campaign reach, you must hit every social media platform like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat ads. Engaging content, conversion ads, and videos can help you to drive traffic from social media platforms.

After email marketing, contacting people on social media messenger apps is another way to drive traffic. Through it, you can directly target your audience in their inbox. Eventually, it will increase your online sales. While targeting your audience via messenger, make sure to design your personalized Black Friday sale offer effectively that can boost conversions.

4- Retarget your Loyal Customers

This Black Friday celebrates your loyal customers, incentivizes them with some gifts set or special discounts, and encourages them to buy your products.

Although good services or products can bring your buyer again to your shop, if you don’t target your frequent shoppers, sooner or later, they will leave. The more you retarget, the more you retain your potential buyers. Don’t forget to reward your VIP or highest revenue customers on this sale and give them a reason to shop again.

5- Turn your Black Friday Sale to Cyber Monday

Extending your sale to the weekend or even to Cyber Monday is considered another effective conversion tip for eCommerce retailers.

Plan your post-black Friday sale promotion and marketing strategy to capture more customers. Extending the sale can help in gaining more customers but stay focused on the Black Friday sale because that needs your energy first. You can extend the sale or special discount on the most selling or popular items as well as offers exciting discounts.

6- Offer Early Bird Discounts and Deals

An effective way to drive more customers to your online store is by offering exclusive and exciting early bird discounts.

Early bird discounts can cause eagerness and scarcity in customers, you can introduce exclusive discounts for first 40 buyers or less than of it. It helps in bringing more traffic and profit to your business. Design your early discount offers carefully and target your audience with engaging emails. As everyone is pampering themselves for black Friday discounts, your early bird discount offer can play well before sale day.

7- Automate your Black Friday Sale Process

To stand out of the competition, you must be a customer centric agency, and to give excellent customer support during the Black Friday sale, you must automate your sale process.

Automating your sale process can help to maximize your reach and give an instant response to your buyers. According to the studies, automation can increase conversion to 60% and allows you to target your potential buyers with real time response.  So, this Black Friday Sale, it’s time to embrace the automation process to drive leads and boost conversions.

8- Launch your black Friday Sale on your Landing Page

Launch your featured landing page for the Black Friday Sale featuring your exclusive discounts, offers, and flat sale. It is an effective way to increase conversions as many customers come to your site from emails. So, you must cater them with the perfect themed landing page.

Creating an explicit discount landing page for your online store can help shoppers in finding what they are looking for in the Black Friday Sale. Apart from exciting announcements, the landing page also helps you to engage with buyers. Create your email subscribers list and hit them with your black Friday offer emails.

9- Launch your Marketing Campaign

Create a master plan for your black Friday sale marketing campaign. An effective marketing campaign can boost up conversions and hence profit of the business. Consider the timing as a crucial part while planning your marketing strategies and campaign.

Focus on your services and strategies, analyze your competitors, and come up with unique selling value that can make you stand out of the crowd. Along with segmented email marketing and social media targeting, these are some of the important points you need to consider while launching your Black Friday Marketing Campaign.

Setup your ecommerce store’s black Friday sale theme

Attract and engage your customers with your customized black Friday themed website. Your buyer interacts with your website, and designing a usable and attractive shop can be effective tactics to increase engagements.

Set up a customized eCommerce website with the Black Friday theme, add banners and engaging posts on your site. Customizing an eCommerce store can be a laborious task, and it will take a lot of your time and energy. Shopify Pro is a leading eCommerce solution provider agency that can customize and develop your eCommerce website.

Add Countdown pop-ups

Create urgency in your buyers and let them join the party by giving an exciting countdown. A deadline or timer has a great influence on our mind. Knowing the fact that your favorite product or sale might end soon will create eagerness in customers to buy it.

Add countdown timer pop up to your landing page as well as send countdown emails to your buyers to let them know that time is running out.

Perfect your coupon code strategy and Free Shipping

According to Marketing Profs’ study, almost 57% of the customers said that they would not buy anything from the online store if they had not received any discount. Coupon codes can help you to attract buyers as well as it can trigger your potential customer to shop from you.

Coupons are considered to be an effective part of increasing conversions, so implementing a compelling coupon code strategy can increase conversions. Introduce different promo codes on your landing page and product pages and send personalized emails with promo codes to lead more conversions.  

One best thing about coupon codes is that it can turn your visitor into your buyer, so make them feel extra special by offering exclusive discounts on the right products. Increase urgency of the customer by displaying *Free Shipping* pop up with discount codes.

10- Discount Visibility on Product, Categories, and Cart Pages

A buyer comes to your site because he is looking for deals or discounts on particular products. So, from products to cart, your website should have discount visibility.

One way to boost your Black Friday sale is by showing what a customer can save by purchasing the product. Show Flat discount on your landing page that can attract and motivate your shopper to shop from you.

Design your banners with a discount offer, add discount filters on the product page and then let your customer know about the saved amount at the checkout page.

Conclusion

From marketing strategy to mobile friendly site, the article covered useful conversion tips that allow you to drive profit and revenue to all business sizes. Don’t only rely on discounts and offers, be customer-centric, and provide them with the best online shopping experience for what they are looking for.

Is your eCommerce website ready to boom in Black Friday sale? Before the big day, get tailored your eCommerce store from Shopify Pro, the company is providing customization and development services for different eCommerce platforms including Magneto, Shopify, and WordPress.