Search Engine Optimization Checklist 2020

 Search Engine Optimization Checklist 2020

No doubt till today Search Engine Optimization is a major player in the world of online marketing. SEO is a process of making website rank in search engine results for certain keywords. For example, if you are in the business of selling herbal remedies online then you may want to rank high for keywords like “buy herbal remedies online”.  Though SEO is a bit slow in getting results, it can bring great ROI as compared to other Digital Marketing channels like, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Optimization and Affiliate Marketing. 

You must have heard SEOs bragging about how change is the only thing that is consistent in SEO and may be that is the only true statement you ever heard from SEOs. What was working for SEOs 3 years ago may not work today. 

but Why? …. Because Search Engines are getting smarter!

Yes! Over the time search engines have to evolve and get smarter in order to get rid of results ranking because of search engine manipulations. For years SEOs and Search engines are in war with each other just to outsmart each other. SEOs try to take advantage of SEO techniques to gain quick results by manipulating the website and search engine fixes issues and impose penalties. 

White Hat Vs Black Hat SEO

SEO activities can be classified as White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO activities. Black hat SEO activities are the activities that are applied on the website in order to manipulate search ,engine results. As soon as search engine optimization appeared on the horizon, SEOs understood that they can manipulate search engines in order to gain quick results. By overusing SEO techniques one can achieve quick results for certain keywords. 

For example:

Fact: As we all know that textual content is one of the most important keyword ranking factors in SEO. By maintaining the right amount of keyword density you can achieve top rankings for your keywords. 

Manipulation: In order to achieve top rankings quickly SEOs used content wildly. SEO just wanted to stuff keywords in text content; as much as possible. 

Search Engine Fix: In order to counter Black hat SEOs, search engines become smarter! Instead of indexing and storing text content now search engines started to read and analyze the content using machine learning technology. 

Of Course success is not easy in SEOs but using white hat SEO can ensure the same in the long run.  A lot has changed in SEO over the last few years. Hence what was cool in 2018-19 may not be applicable in 2020. Hence you need an updated SEO checklist to run a SEO campaign successfully in 2020. 

SEO Checklist 2020

My SEO checklist consists of On-Page and Off-Page SEO activities and they are as follows: 

On-Page Activities

• Metadata Optimization
  Meta titles and descriptions are still the most crucial factors in SEO. Webpage titles and descriptions are the first things that people are going to notice after performing the search. Catchy and informative Meta titles and descriptions can make searchers click the website link (like they say increase the CTR). Make sure that your web pages have keyword rich Meta titles and descriptions. Keep the Meta titles and descriptions length upto 65 characters and 150 characters respectively. Keep the targeted keywords in the beginning. 
  
  

• Header Tag Optimization
  Header tags are one of the most overlooked SEO factors. Header tags are a great way of inserting keywords in a web page. There is a hierarchy of header tags like, h1, h2, h3…., h6. Use keywords in header tags as per the relevance and nicheness of the content.
  
  

• Image Optimization
  Images are one of the important parts of the website content. An image can say a thousand words. Right type of image can make the website visitors stay longer on the webpage. However there are few things that need to be taken care of with images when including them in a web page. 

• Oversize Images:
  High quality images are ideal for showcasing your business, products and services. However such images are huge in size and can cause web page load slower. Slow loading web pages can cause people walking off your webpage resulting in higher bounce rate. Hence it is recommended to compress such heavy images using various tools available. TinyPNG is one example of an online tool that can be used for compressing images without compromising the quality of the images.
  
  

• ALT Text
  Image tags in HTML comes with an attribute called “ALT text” which helps search engine bots to know more about the image. ALT text is a great way of adding targeted keywords in the web page. Hence it is recommended to add a keyword rich ALT texts per image. Don’t be too spammy, use keywords creatively in ALT texts.
  
  

• Descriptive Filename
  Often images are taken from cameras and stored in computers without paying too much attention to the filename. They are DSC10054.JPG or something like that. Images are included in the web page with <img> tag and if the image has a keyword rich filename It will increase the keyword density in the web page. Hence instead of auto-generated filename, it is recommended to have a keyword rich and descriptive filenames.
  
  

• Structured Data
  Structured Data is the Bomb! Structured data is a way of providing exclusive information to search engine bots so that one could have specialized listings in search engine result pages.
  (Image of Structured Data).
  There are various types of structured data available to use. Learn more about structured data in our structured data guide.
  
  

• Optimize for the Sound Search
  More and more people are using smart-phones everyday to browse the internet. It is convenient to use voice search instead of typing the query. A gartner study predicts that 30% of all browsing sessions will include voice search by 2020. Optimize your website for voice search along with traditional SEO.
  
  

• Content Optimization
  Content is still the most important part in an SEO in 2020. Content not only provides a chance to add targeted keywords in a web page but also provides information about your business, products and services. Don’t just look content as textual content. Content can be text, infographics and videos. Text content can be boring if it is lengthy. Clever use of images and videos are recommended in order to keep the website visitor interested. Read more about Content Marketing and how to use it properly here.
  
  

• Page Load Speed Optimization
  Imagine, you searched something on Google and reached to search engine result pages with links to 10 websites with relevant information. Then you click one of the results and hope to find what you were looking for. But that page takes longer to load. Then what will you do? Would you hang around or go back and check another result?
  
  Page load speed is the time a web page takes to load into your browser completely. Ideally a web page that loads faster is not only preferred by visitors but also by search engines. Use Google’s Page Speed Insight for checking web page load speed. This tool also provides recommendations for optimizing web page load speed.
  
  

Off-Page Optimization
I am not going to talk about traditional link building techniques. We all know about them and understand the pros and cons of each and every one of them. Still if you want to know more about traditional link building techniques check out our “Old School Link Building” post here. 

For this post we are going to discuss some of the unorthodox methods I’ve learned over the time. Today we are going to talk about link building techniques that are just awesome! (Wooohhh! )

• Unlinked Brand Mentions
  If you are a popular or not so popular brand it is possible that something, somewhere written about your brand in third party sources. Most of the time the brand name is not linked and it's a great opportunity for getting your website link added to that source.
  
  You just need to contact the webmaster with a decent email and ask them about if they ‘d like to link back to your website from the Brand Name. 

How can you find Unlinked Brand Mentions?

(*Coalition technologies is a CA based Digital Marketing Agency where I used to work and learned this great method.)

• Regain Backlink
  This one is also a very interesting method of gaining quality backlinks and Yes... I have learned this method in “Coalition Technologies”. How do we do it?

• Make a set of targeted keywords. 

• Search them on the internet with exact search.
  For e.g. If you are targeting the keyword “buy herbal remedies” with specialised Google Syntax (Read more about different Google Syntax for SEOs here), then search as shown below:
  
  
  

• Make a list of sources where links are added through your targeted keyword. 

• Extract sources where links from (your) targeted keywords are pointing to dead pages, ie to 4XX error pages. 

• Contact the webmasters of those external sources and let them know about those dead inklinks on their website and also offer a link to replace the broken link. 

• Don’t be too pushy, be reasonable with your email and there you go.

• .edu links
  Anyone who has been in SEO for a while, would tell you that it is really hard to get a .edu or .gov links. Since .edu or .gov websites have higher authority and don’t link back to other websites easily. But there is a way you can get .edu links. This is how it goes.
  Almost every university has their website with .edu domain. If there is an alumni section on the website where aluminess can create their profiles. In those profiles, profile owners can add their details like name, description and links to social media profiles.
  
  If you and your employees can create profiles on respective university websites, you can add links to websites in such profiles.
  
  

Try with the university that you went to. 

That’s all folks! These are few tips and I know there are more. If you know more tricks and tips please share with us!