Here at Cadence Labs, this summer has been chock-full of launching new WordPress sites.
Many small businesses have turned to us to help them improve their appearance online. To accomplish this, we’ve helped move sites like Old Dominion Home Care to WordPress (they were using Drupal previously) for others like Mell’s Cheese we’ve made a brand new site from scratch. In each of these scenarios it’s been helpful to have a quick SEO checklist to run through before launch. This way our team can make sure we’re launching new sites with all the best practices in place before Google has a chance to index them. After all, avoiding problems up front saves a lot of time and heartache later on!
SEO Checklist for WordPress:
1. Did you install and configure Yoast SEO?
a. Did you write custom Meta Titles and Descriptions for each page?
2. Did you update the Permalink Settings to include names and not id numbers?
3. Have you included a variety of h1, h2 and h3 tags throughout the site?
4. Have you included Alt Text for all your images?
5. Did you add Google Analytics tracking code?
6. Have you verified the site with Google Webmaster Tools?
a. Have you tested and submitted a working sitemap?
b. Have you run the Mobile Friendly Test?
c. Have you checked the robots.txt tester?
d. Have your run the PageSpeed Insights tool?
7. Have you verified and setup Bing’s Webmaster Tools?
8. Have you compressed your images for web? (try using Compressor.io)
9. Have you set up all your 301s?
10. Have you checked the “Search Engine Visibility” setting under Settings -> Reading?
That’s it!
