The Ultimate SEO Checklist for Beginners
The content you add to your site and how you present it plays a big role in how easily people are able to find you. To ensure your site is optimized for search engines and visitors alike, I recommend using this checklist!
What is SEO?
“Search Engine Optimization” (SEO) refers to techniques that help you achieve better rankings for your website in organic search results. Search Engine Optimization is all about making your website more visible to people who are using search engines to look for your product, brand, or services.
SEO Checklist
Optimize your title
Your title may be Indexed by search engines. Squarespace recommends you keep the title under 60 characters and include one or more keywords. Focus on 1–2 long-tail keywords that match the intent of your target reader. See below:
Long-tail keywords: "how to write a blog post"
Short-tail: blog post
Add SEO descriptions on every page
Ensure each page on your site has a unique SEO description. The text should be short and readable (50-300 characters), and describe the content of the page. You can also add SEO descriptions to individual blog posts, products, and events.
Use Alt attributes to optimize your images
Naming your images helps search engines find them since they can’t technically see and interpret images alone. This name helps the search engine know what it’s looking at so it can rank your site accordingly. File names like “IMG_465” don't tell search engines what’s in the image.
To name your images in Squarespace:
Find the image you want to name and click Edit.
Update the Filename field in the Content tab.
Click Apply.
Connect to social media
Set up social sharing to link to your social media profiles, push content as you publish it, and encourage people to share your pages.
Add a browser icon
Your site's browser icon or favicon gives visibility to your site's brand. The icon may appear in search results, browser tabs, and elsewhere on the web.
Do your own keyword search
Conducting keyword searches for your blog posts and website descriptions will help you to find out what’s important to your audience. There are plenty of SEO tools you can use to conduct a keyword analysis. One of my favorite SEO tools is Neil Patel’s Keyword search tool. And it’s 100% Free
Link your pages internally
Internal links are links on a certain website or blog post that links to another page on that same website. Websites that receive many inbound links can be more likely to rank higher in search engines.
Shorten your URLs
URL length does have an impact on user experience (which ultimately still affects your SEO). Shorter URLs are much easier to remember, easier to share on social media, and easier for advertising purposes.
