For the last three months I have been hard at work learning SEO by optimizing a local small business website. The business is called Giggly Wiggly Preschool and is located in the Seattle suburb Issaquah, Washington. This Issaquah Preschool was the preschool I attended many years ago, so I am happy I was given the chance to give back to it. Optimizing for local search is a great way to learn SEO because there is less competition and it is easier to maintain a small and focused scope. It has been a slow process but has taught me a lot. The following is a checklist of all the tasks that have been necessary for me to generate great results. My hope is that this list can be used by inexperienced SEOs who are looking to learn the trade. (As a bonus, I have included checkboxes so you can print this and complete it in your spare time.)
Research
Before you do any SEO you need to research the part of the web you will be trying to change. Many people believe this is the most important step in the SEO process. No skipping!
Complete the The Beginner's Checklist for Learning SEO - Completing all the tasks on this list will give you all the skills necessary to complete this checklist.
Write down your goal - Why are you doing this? Why do you want people to find your client's site? Is simply viewing your client's site not enough? My goal was “I want local parents to find my client's website and be persuaded to register their children.”
Brainstorm and write down search queries - What words might people type into the search engines to look for your client's company? For my example, I came up with “Issaquah Preschool,” “Issaquah Daycare,” “Sammamish Preschool,” (a neighboring suburb) “Preschool Summer Camp,” and “Creative Preschool.” Your list should be longer.
Research your chosen keywords - Sign up for Google Adwords and learn how to use the provided “keyword tool” and “ad text ideas” generator. Learn how to use Wordtracker (paid) and/or the Keyword Difficulty tool (free).
Using what you learned from keyword research, record what you believe to be the best keywords - For my project, I used “Issaquah Preschool,” “Issaquah Early Childhood,” “Preschool Summer Camp,” and about five others.
Analyze the current Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for your keywords - Who is ranking? What are they doing effectively and ineffectively? Investigate and get to know your competition.
Create a list of your competition - Use the information from the previous step to create a list of competitors. You will use this to figure out how other sites were able to get into your targeted SERPs.
Use Yahoo Site Explorer to find the sources of your competitor's links - Record the sources of links your competitors have and save them for later.
Search for your client's site - Use the site command on Google, Bing and Yahoo to see if your client's site is indexed. Ex. “site:www.gigglywigglypreschool.com.” If your client's site is not indexed, you need to figure out what is preventing the search engines from crawling it. Be sure to also search the title tags of your client's most important pages to see where/if they rank. Record your results.
Onsite
Sign up and verify with Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, and Bing Webmaster Center - This is an important step that will become necessary later.
Let Google Analytics run for two weeks before doing any SEO - This allows analytics to collect data and provides you with a baseline. I recommend you screen capture the relevant pages so you can show your client how your work has positively affected their site.
Evaluate the visual design of your client's site - If the site drives people away, no amount of SEO efforts will help. If the site looks terrible, find well designed sites in your client's niche.
Check compatibility between browsers - Visit your client's site using Mozilla Firefox 2.x and Internet Explorer 6 and 7 and Safari 3.x. Remember to do this on both a Mac and a PC. You want to make sure your client's website renders correctly and won't drive away users.
Create a new e-mail address specific to the site you are working on - Use this address for all e-mails pertaining to your project. This is especially important for link building.
Look at your HTML code and optimize all of the SEO related tags - If you are unsure what these are, reread the Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Primary objective should be accomplishable from the homepage
- Keyword in title tag (unique for each page, include keywords)
- Keyword in H1 on each page
- Keyword in text
- Optimize URL architecture (www.website.com/birds/eagle instead of www.website.com/allanimals/?type=bird&species=eagle). Use 301 redirects if you rename pages
- Information architecture - as few clicks as possible
- On relevant images include keywords in alt tags and in filenames
- Nofollow appropriate links
Decide if you need a meta description - Modern search engines are great at scanning the text of websites and displacing applicable snippets based on user queries. You need to decide if you want to rely on the algorithm or create your own description. I suggest making your own meta description for your homepage and letting the engines figure out the rest. Remember the purpose of making your description is to convince potential customers to click on your link in the SERPs. Make it convincing and use your keywords.
Add company address and phone number - Be sure to do this on every page. The search engines are smart enough to detect address and phone number formats. This data is essential to local search. I recommend adding the the following formatted data (example is for an American company) to the footer of all of your client's pages:
1111 11th Pl NE
City, State Zip
(555) 555-5555
Add a robots.txt - This is important for a couple reasons. First, it allows you to specify exactly what pages major search engines can crawl. Second, including a robots.txt makes tracking search engines easier because they always download the file before navigating your client's site. This characteristic differentiates the SEs from normal human visitors.
Offsite
Add your client's business and website to the major search engine's local listings - This is paramount as local search is likely to drive the majority of your traffic. These are the most important places to submit:
- Yahoo Local
- Google Local
- Bing Local
- Ask City
- CitySearch (data on this site feeds Ask.com and Bing)
- Yelp (data on this site feeds Bing and Yahoo)
Add your client's website to industry specific directories - To find the relevant directories, use the list of link sources you created earlier. Also, you can try searching for “(your client's local city name) business directory” and “(your client's industry) directory.” For example, I would search “Issaquah business directory” and “preschool directory.” Be sure to record which directories you add your client's site to and the usernames and passwords you use. You should use the e-mail address you created earlier for directory registrations. You should also make sure to use different passwords for different logins. You should always be thinking about maintaining your client's security.
Try to get the links your competition already has gotten - Use the list of link sources you generated from Yahoo Site Explorer and try to acquire links from those sources. This may be as simple as submitting a form or as cumbersome as e-mailing webmasters to find out their link addition policies. Always try to get your keywords in your link anchor text.
Get more links - Scour the internet and find other sites that might want to link to your client's site (site:website.com "submit a link"). Remember the importance of the source of your links and the anchor text used. 100,000 links from spammy sites with bad anchor text will help you less than a single link with excellent keyword anchor text from a super authoritative site. A good place to start is to use the Juicy Link Finder. You should also consider your local chamber of commerce, local networking groups, and local complimentary businesses. Search engines like to see local links pointing at locally targeted websites.
Decide if utilizing social media sites is advantageous - Is your client in an industry that could actively participate in social media? If so, be sure not to be spammy and to only contribute quality and appropriate content. It is much more expensive to fix a ruined online reputation for a business than it is for a standard user. You may also want to consider adding your client's business to professional networks such as Linkedin.
Create and submit sitemaps - Create a sitemap. Then login into Google Webmaster Central and Bing Search Webmaster Tools and submit it.
Optimize your client's site from Google's side - Login to Google Webmaster Tools and click on the tools menu. You will want to set the correct geographical target and preferred domain. In addition, you must also decide if you want to enable image search. It may drive you traffic but the traffic will unlikely be useful.
Track and Improve
Track progress - I recommend taking a monthly screenshot of all of the following SERPs. A screenshot is an easy way to gather a lot of information. The image files contain data on when they were taken so they are easy to organize. I recommend you do this for the following:
- Ask Local SERP
- Ask Main SERP
- Google Local SERP
- Google Main SERP
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Bing Maps SERP
- Bing Local SERP
- Bing Search Webmaster Central
- Yahoo Local SERP
- Yahoo Main SERP
- Yahoo Site Explorer
Create and maintain a spreadsheet of your rankings - This gives you a resource to prove to your client that your work is necessary. Be sure to keep it updated monthly so that you are always aware of how you rank.
Continue to make changes, build links, and record your results - This step will never be completed. You should strive to become number one on all your SERPs and get so far ahead that none of your competitors will be able to compete.
If you are an experienced SEO, feel free to share your opinions and expertise in the comments. This post is very much a work in progress. As always, feel free to e-mail me or send me a private message if you have any suggestions on how I can make my posts more useful. All of my contact information is available on my profile: Danny Thanks!
If you liked this, be sure to check out The Beginner's Checklist for Learning SEO and The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet
Danny,
There are a million different ways to fry the fish, so I'm sure each individual that reads through your list would probably add, subtract or modify an ingredient here or there.
I will simply say - outstanding contribution. Very well done. A great many people - SEO's, webmasters and site owners, will benefit from this principally sound and easy to follow guide.
Thanks for the encouragement. I hope that my way will work for beginners. Either way, I intend to implement all the changes left in the comments.
Nice post Danny, I have tried this a lot in India.
I want to share some of my efforts that brought amazing traffic to my client's website. I did:
I added location as keywords in Title and meta tags.
I linked my website to particular sites or directories that have local IP address.
I posted local Classifieds.
Great read. I would also like to refer to the Small Business SEO Primer on Bruce Clay's blog. Between both articles, the Google SEO Starter guide, and Matt Cutts' recent site review video I think many small business owners can start doing SEO on their own site without having any negative consequences.
Yes, I agree on the Bruce Clay blog too. One of the challenges of our Pay-Per-Results SEO internet marketing is sometimes getting the smaller companies to understand what we do. These articles help them understand and, the more they understand how much work is involved and how complicated SEO is, the happier they are to pay on performance.
very nice!!!!!!!!
I would also suggest getting links from other LOCAL websites, chamber of commerce, local networking groups, complimentary businesses, etc. It enforces the local connection.
Interesting. Do you think that local links are weighted higher than other links? (assuming everything else is equal) Either way, these are great sources for links. Thanks for your input.
Two Reasons: One, anecdotal evidence - I've been doing it and getting good results. Two, you can get more listings than just your website on page one. So if someone does a search for your keyword phrase(s) with a local modifier, the SERP will display your website AND the local websites you've gotten links from. So it is harder for people to not visit your website. This patent application and Bill's thoughts on it is also a related good read.
hi i want learn seo
hi ... try beginners guide to SEO from SEOMOZ.. I am also a beginner and i really understand what is actually SEO from this article ..also you can try google's SEO starter guide. Happy learning:)
Danny,
Terrific post. Your emphasis research first (particularly the keyword selection process and competitive research) is often the difference between successful SEO and successful business results. Nicely done.
What a fantastic post. After doing a lot of studying, and trying things under other names, I finally talked my way into doing this for a couple local clients (with several others actually lined up). This exact checklist was what I had the barebones outline of, and my exact approach, but so much better composed and organized than I could have done.
One thing you kind of touched on, but that I'm going into a lot deeper, though, is really examining your client's competitor's sites. I pulled up some of the top ones under several keywords (at least the ones that were obviously influenced by SEO techniques), and am targetting everything that they do, period, with the intent on doing it better.
If I do everything better than every competitor, I figure it's the best way to get to number one in the rankings for not just the keywords I'm specifically targetting, but other, incidental, ones as well.
I'm not really sure on whether or not it's overkill, or really worth the effort, but my client's eyes really lit up when I was showing him how his site had been, how his competitors are done, and how his is now.
I'm also trying to get him to commit to maintaining a mailing list, as well as periodic updates to keep him ahead of the game (and to give me monthly semi-passive income), and that's helping a lot, since all of his decent competitors have lists. That's been much more of a help than anything else I was able to tell him - simply showing him the other sites and their lists.
Danny, a very good post indeed. Great that you mentioned research of competitor's link sources - many SEO beginners overlook this chance to do a better job without "try and error". We've all got a problem here though - when we're checking links with Yahoo Site Explorer we only see links that Yahoo! sees (and often these are only part of the links Yahoo really knows). And Google for instance often sees much more links than Yahoo and if you want to rank high in Google (or even if you're just concerned about your Google PageRank) it's good and much more effective to know which links of your competition Google sees. (The same works for other search engines.) I've been using software for a couple of years to research backlinks in search engines other than Yahoo!
I've got a paid enterprise version, but this one is also available for free, though they call it "trial" but it has no time limitations. Check: SEO SpyGlass
Hi Lena,
Do you (or anyone else reading this) actually use SEOSpyglass Enterprise Version, and if so, do you recommend it? I looked at their sales letter, and it was so poorly written that I would ordinarily discount the alleged capability of the program.
Many thanks.
I think this process can be done by checking backlinks of your compitetors website and You can easily analyse what the strategy all about..... isn't it?
Open site explorer is way better than SEO Spyglass, its faster, has more data and doesnt consume a lot of bandwidth.Id highly recommend using this tool.
Open site explorer is way better than SEO Spyglass, its faster, has more data and doesnt consume a lot of bandwidth.Id highly recommend using this tool.
Hey Danny --
I think the biggest question with local SEO is whether or not being the king of that particular city is worth the work. For instance, maybe all the people in Issaquah found the preschool, but what if that doesn't create enough traffic? I am a beginner, and this seems to be a tough decision for me. Any thoughts?
Thanks Danny. It's a great post for local businesses that care about internet marketing. It's a long and a very useful read. Again, thank you for your time taken to write this :)
Danny,
I tend to read posts that relate to this topic since I'm trying to learn all I can about how SEO works. This was an awesome post and very helpful.
I sent the link to my son who is studying marketing in college, but has been too busy (studying;) to visit SEOmoz lately, I know it will benefit him threefold!!
This is a great starting checklist. I think it is important to have a well thought out protocol on how to begin your approach for each of your internet marketing campaigns. This checklist provides a quality foundation for any seo specialist or webmaster. After getting through this checklist it will then come down to quality link building strategies and utilization of google analytics to further develop traffic to your website.
This post tends to be one of the most useful ones I've read in SEOmoz! Great work, Danny & thanks for sharing :)
Would benefit from an update.
I rarely comment here, but I have to say that was a really well thought out post. I think many of the members here will find it to be a great resource.
One comment though: Meta Descriptions are kind of counterproductive today IMO. You can get a great snippet by writing good copy and you can definitely get a better description if a page is ranked for mutliple unrelated phrases. I recently removed them from our site and saw a measurable (though small) increase in traffic from our most popular pages. I also note that seomoz doesn't use them so I was scratching my head on this one.
My bad. Seomoz does use them on the homepage but not on the blog. This is probably a good measured approach. The description for the homepage is for branding purposes, but on the blog w/ varied content you go for the snippet.
I struggled over that one for a little while. There are pros and cons to both options. As a compromise I will change the list to include both options.
Thanks
Definitely a great place to start and give a good foundation on what to do. Obviously some people might disagree here and there and in what order, but this is definitely comprehensive list of what to do at one point.
I need to teach that to my clients right now. The waiting thing is what usually kills them. :) Great job yet again Danny.
I though this was one of the most important points in the article as well - question though: do you really think there will be much change in traffic showing in Analytics within the first 2 weeks of working on a client's site? I tend to think not, or at least not much.
The point and the principle is sound though - you want to establish a baseline, not just to demonstrate to your client that the SEO initiative is paying off, but also to find areas that are paying off with great traffic to focus more effort there.
I like the screenshot idea, but Analytics allows you to revisit old date ranges at any time to review what the traffic used to be like way back when...so seems unnecesary to save them over time.
Great article. Will be referring back to it often!
This is actually an extremely comprehensive guide, the only problem is that it doesn't adequately address off site SEO or offer a solution for small businesses to manage their off site SEO. The reality is many small business owners don't have time to go around forming link partnerships, writing articles, or making sure their site is linked to. Sure we could go the "Google" way and wait for people to naturally build links, but in reality we all know that 99.99% of the time that isn't enough to rank on page 1 unless its a super low competition niche or a small local niche.
Unfortunately because of this lack of time many small businesses turn to "spammy" techniques or low cost SEO providers that spam the internet to try and build links. Time is so precious to small business owners and I really feel they need some option for off site SEO that they can easily manage (although I'm not saying I have that answer, just trying to open a discussion on it).
While I agree with nearly all of the points mentiond in this post, it's important for small business owners to understand that these aspects will dramatically help them find keywords and improve their on site SEO, but in my opinion off site SEO is still 70% of the overall ranking equation, and that's going to involve some form of link building activities, whether blog posting, article writing, personally forming linking relationships, etc. which comes down to spending a lot of time.
There's a great resource here on SEOMOZ pertaining to off site SEO and link building that I feel every small business owner should also read: https://www.seomoz.org/article/the-professional-guide-to-link-building-2011
Aside from that, great job on the article it is an excellent beginners checklist for small business SEO and actually probably the most comprehensive beginner checklist that I've come across yet. Great work!
-Brendan Egan, Simple SEO Group
Hi Danny, I've purchased your book and read most of it. Its freakin' awesome!! I was wondering if this list is still accurate with all the zoo animal updates from Google etc.. Does this list still hold strong for the most parts or is some of it now out of date? It's now 2013 and I'm wondering if some of the points you made might end up being counter productive.
Outstanding work my man!!
Alex
I've been trying to do SEO for our small business for a few weeks now and am really overwhelmed. I've been reading a lot everywhere (maybe that's part of the problem) but there seems to be a lot of different information.I have two questions pertaining to this article as well as 2 other articles I've read:First of all, is there such thing as making a website too optimized for SEO? And if yes, how do we know that limit?And secondly, I read two articles:https://searchengineland.com/12-steps-to-optimize-a-webpage-for-organic-keywords-108846https://www.simpleseogroup.com/seo-in-2012-vs-2011/Both of which seem to suggest that the website content is the most important thing in SEO now, is this true and if so should I be focusing on the things in this article or on writing new web content?
For me as a beginner, this checklist is very helpfull. Thanks a lot
Thanks Danny! It's a really helpful post to us small business owners! :)
Danny,
PLEASE CONTINUE YOUR WORK!!!! LOVE IT!!! For a beginner like me, your BEGINNER SERIES blogs are invaluable. PLEASE KEEP THEM COMING!!!!
I appreciate it friend. More to come!
This is great information but I'm finding it difficult to find a link on Yahoo local for the uk, I can find the local search but not for submission? Does anyone have a direct link for the UK?
Hi Danny,
I am indeed new to SEO (about 3 months). I was effectively forced to do my own SEO after having a website redesigned by a supposed professional. Being a little unsuspecting (and extremely rushed off my feet at the time), I got this company to do the redesign thinking that they would optimise my website (www.spiritconsulting.co.uk) as a matter of course.
Big assumption on my part! Not only was it not optimised, it was built with tables and missing key tags and not well enough designed in general and so on and so on. When it was uploaded, the traffic to the site (compared to the previous one I built myself) completely fell away.
I ended up taking it on myself and have slowly been building up my knowledge of SEO. There are some really great people out there who offer some great advice (conflicting on occasion which is not ideal and can be confusing).
So, to find a little gem of support like your checklist is a god send. The value to me is that it puts lot of information about seo in one place. I know that people will have their own views on what should and shouldn't appear in the checklist but even if newbies like me apply 75% of the advice, it'll make a positive difference.
Thanks again for a really invaluable support for people like me.
Andy [email protected] www.pageoneofgoogle.co.uk
Happy to have made an impact. Expect more advanced articles in the future :-)
Wow, this is a great article.
I've been going through it and using it on my hardwood floor refinishing Vancouver website. I really appreciate the time and effort that went into writing this... and then giving it away for free!
Think I'll have to join to see what the paid stuff is like :o)
Lots of work to do but I'm looking forward to seeing the results. I'm up to the offsite parts now.
Cheers.
This is one of the most useful things I've read for local business SEO, and it's free!
Thank you very much!
About "Add company address and phone number"This step is easy after google add support a Microformats and RDF.
I was kinda hoping that there wasn't going to be that much work involved. I'm working on a site for a friend of mine for nothing .....hhhmmm....maybe not anymore. His site is crap: garage doors, I think I need to be paid!
Great list. I use a similar one, but will start using this instead. Thanks!
Great SEO guide line post for beginners, Truly nice.
I like too much, Thank you !!
You might want to update this article if you are going to headline it under your "learn SEO tab". Even though this article was only written 4 years ago, it is outdated for today's SEO.
This has helped me a lot... currently working through the list now :) Thank you.
Danny,
I've just only started reading the Beginner's Checklist for Learning SEO, but thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. I have just started my journey into the world of SEO for Local Businesses, and the resources are so numerous I wouldn't have know where to begin... before I came accross your post ;) Guess what I'll learn here should please my customers when I start offering them services based on such sound advice.
Best,
- Jean-Marie
[link removed]
Hi Danny. I am responding to your comment last month about separate email addresses.
Of course access to a client's GWMT & GA accounts must be protected! (90% of my clients do not have GWMT or even GA installed when they hire me) My question about separate emails refers to all the IYP registry efforts that have to occur. In my experience, it is much easier, when registering clients on Google Maps/Yahoo/Bing Local, Yelp, Citysearch, localize, Brownbook, Kudzu, avvo, etc to use as few emails as possible, as it is often necessary to go back & update your listings or check that they are verified, duplicates are removed, etc etc over & over. Having all under one email is helpful, I have found, especially when paying outsourcers to do the registrations for you.
I've been doing local SEO quite a lot for the last 4 months and am finding it more challenging than I thought it would be. The primary constraint is client's budgets, as most small businesses simply can not invest a lot for in-depth linkbuilding strategies. I have found that simply registering local bizs in the top 20 IYPs (as well as fixing the inevitable on-page issues) is NOT enough to consistently get clients to rank in Google Maps in competitive areas like Seattle or Tacoma.
Anyone else out there interested in discussing these sorts of issue in person? Some friends & I have set up a local get-together:
https://biznik.com/groups/seattle-seos
And don't for get about the KML and GEO-Sitemap files. My client's local listing went from the "G" to the "A" position aftet I uploaded these files to his server.
Very well written .. step by step. Currently i am doing SEO for my site which is under construction .this check list will help me a lot ,already taken a printout of it.
Thanks For the good post.
Thanks for de checklist, it´s realy useful for i teach my programmer.
I didn't realize how important having a street address is for local websites. My website is a local carpet cleaning website in Tulsa, OK: www.tulsacarpetcleaningpro.com. I am doing all of the SEO myself. There is so much to learn. I am still a little confused on the description section. Do the search engines use this to rank the website or is it purely for the humans?
It's both.
Search engines use it, and it is, by default, the extract they see in the search engine results page. Put your most critical keywords first, make sure it reads well, and remember the first 150 characters are shown.
It's a good thing for search engines to use, and obviously spammy Descriptions will generally be ignored, and Google click rate tracking will drop them down the results page.
Jonathane
Way Designs - Web Development, SEO,PPC
https://www.eWayDesigns.com
While Google may use the description meta tag as the snippet that is displayed, it should be noted that it has NO effect on rankings as quoted by Matt Cutts at Google Webmaster Central.
Matt Cutts - "Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don't use the description meta tag in our ranking."
The description should be written to appeal to the searcher and entice a click.
Even if you provide a meta description, Google may still use a snippet of the content from the page if they think it is a more appropriate representation of the content.
New to the site, and new to SEO. This will be a great resource, I can tell. Awesome post.
Nice work - it is great to be able to refer people to an easy comprehensive list, to help thme get started.
Really great check list for the smaller company side of SEO.
Nice post! Sometimes it's nice to look back (and forward) to be reminded what we may be missing
Cheers
David
Very good post, following the former on on that matter. I believe you go thru the main points someone should do, while setting an SEO strategy and improving a website. Thanks again !
I find this article as well as "the Beginner's checkl for Learning SEO" quite useful for a beginner. Thanks!
Great job! I have found from extensive research on the matter that your almost dead on...although there are many ways to grease the goose my friend. We should meet up and talk because I think we could learn a great deal from each other! Keep up the good work!
Issaquah Preschool????? Stevens Elemetary represented. w00t
Danny, great post. This follows very closely with methods I have been excercising for several years now. This is a great start for the beginners out there.
Danny,
As everyone has said - nice post. Although we rarely work with businesses at this basic level (since we specialize in link building, by the time they contact us, they are rarely novices), we do have a few clients that could use a checklist like this. It helps in making sure you don't miss an important step along the way. Printing it out right now!
Great list. Yeah, i'd change a few things slightly, well, more add a few extra items to the list.
I am sending the URL for this post on to a few beginners so they can read it, and I will check that they did read it.
Could you share your suggestions with the class? (well the just the people who read the comments)
It's the stuff that many people miss, canonicalisation, internal linking, etc.
Thanks Danny, this list allows us to structure an SEO Plan in a more organized way, thanks for sharing it.
Another big THANK YOU! I am still working my way through your previous post of the "Beginner's Checklist of Learning SEO" and this new checklist is a great complement that that one. I am still struggling a bit with the new version of the site all in CSS but I am determined to work through the various issues and have something that looks better and is more search engine friendly. It is hard to leave my familar tables behind.
While the current project I am working on is not local, many projects I work on are so this post is very helpful. The advice to look at the competition and see what they are doing is very useful to all my sites. I have been doing that and see one competitor on all my keywords that appears to have a huge budget. Any ideas on how to compete against a competitor that can outspend you?
Thanks again!
I am so happy you decided to make the switch! Trust me, the engines, browsers and webmasters who come after you will really apprceciate your extra effort.
Let me know if there is a seo checklist idea you would find really useful.
Really nicely done Danny. It seems like very concise & useful check list. Thanks a lot !!
Hey Big D,
I'm impressed with a couple things.
1) Your list is great... as a few others may have mentioned in the previous posts.
2) That you actually created a game plan. When starting out it is so easy to get wrapped up in trying to apply every on/off page technique that many forget or stray from an original plan of attack and lose focus of what they are trying to accomplish. Keep up the good work.
~L
Thanks for this great list for SEO work. I found this is the best one in all i have read about seo on seomoz.org.
I would really like to se a 1-2 page SEO checklist to send the CMS provider to check if their solution is SEO friendly or not. I'm not looking for a guide, but a CLEAN checklist. Does anybody know where I might find this?
I guess I hadn't yet joined when you shared this gold.
Glad that you still have it for us "late to the party" newcomers.
Truly this is one of the great things about SEOmoz. There really is a large amount of info to digest.
As I have said on other comments, lists are my thing. (maybe 'cause pilot training beat it into me) Even when you know you know, if you want to make sure, you use the list.
Thanks Danny
Nice checklist. The checklist is more a refresher course for me; as I see it. This checklist will help me add more value and provide the extra edge to websites I develop for my clients at HackSprout. I have bookmarked this for later references.
- Best Regards
This is wonderful information. As a beginner working to learn the ins and outs of SEO, I've been doing a lot of research and most of what I've found isn't nearly this specific. In particular, a lot of sites talk of the value of link building without giving specific ideas on the kinds of sites and places to start working with. Thank you so much for helping outline a specific plan of action to work from!
tnx for great tips
Translated to persian with your premission
You've included everything that a small business needs for it's SEO. But why add Google Analytics? By adding google analytics, we are actually giving them away too much valuable business data.
I'd say that you need to make use of a third party software rather than something like Google Analytics.
Some great stuff despite being 3 years old! Is there an updated post similar to this one, as a kind of checklist for small businesses?
Many many thanks!
Thanks for this well thought out and comprehensive list! It's definitely a great resource to refer to.
Awesome material. Even though many of us know about it, it's really nice to have it organized like that.
I have a brother in law who is really big into business, and is in the process of trying to start his own. He has been looking into SEO to help promote his business and make it grow. This has some awesome insights that I think he would really enjoy looking at. I'm way stoked to share this with him when I go back home this weekend.
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That's awesome! You might also find the Beginner's Guide to SEO at https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo to be of interest. It gives some great information about how to use SEO to help promote your business, including good advice for building links.
Thank for this checklist...Its incredibly helpful..
Hello All,
As per mention in this post regarding business listing, I have mention same in my previous work, but not able to see my pages after typing my business name in Google. In Google after using keyword seo online solutions I am not getting my site home page which is https://www.seoonlinesolutions.com/. Instead of this I am getting another website on top. What I have to use in this case, coz I have already used same pattern mentioned in this post. If there is any seo expert then please help in this.
Amazing how much of this is still valid today, Danny is a legend!
Ive done about 60% of this checklist so ive still got a bit of work to be done, very nicely laid out and easy to follow many thanks
nice pdf for web developers based on seo friendly. thank you very much.
Hi Danny, Quite an invaluable guide - thank you! Is there any chance of updating this for 2011? For example, Yahoo and Bing return the same results now, so I imagine they don't need to be checked separately. Thank you.
Your guidance and advices are very helpful and we've seen steady growth of visitors to our website. Thanks man!
Great! This article is useful for my website. Thanks you so much.
excellent infromation about seo check list..
Does this list still apply in the 2011 SEO world? It was initially posted in 2008, and during a 3 year span, allot can change as far as how the bots read and rank. If it’s not obvious enough I am new to SEO :) and am looking for a starting place to get my feet wet. If this list is still applicable please let me know as it would be great help to me. Thanks, I am also open to other ideas on places to obtain SEO information.
Because it was designed to be the basics, and because the basics still apply, the answer is yes. For the most part.
If you follow the items on this list you will be well on your way to both understanding what SEO is all about AND being able to analyze areas that you need to improve.
Good luck
Hi, i have already followed most of the steps. but thanks for giving a step by step guidance. keep it up. Please visit my site at https://www.companyformations123.co.uk and give me some more advice about what else i may do. Take care.
Thank you for this well made and complete check list !
What about domaine name in the process. I registered several ad-hoc domains for my site.
What is the best way (regarding seo) to link the different domains to the site ?
Thanks for your thoughts !
have a nice day.
Dom
I used this checklist when I was just starting out
Thanks
hi.. Can anybody give tips and tricks for increasing no of clicks for our ads? I am Beginner ..
Great resource for the SEO knowledge. Excellent information for the SEO work. Thanks Danny.. Please do also post the tips for choosing final keyword list to initiate the SEO for the campaign.
Awesome article.
This is why I love MOZ.
Almost complete guide how to start journey in SEO. Very useful stuff. I like also read tips from the best SEO hackers in the World. One of them is of course Rand. Here what I found about lately - https://growthhacker.am/post/62325813004/5-seo-leaders-reveal-their-most-significant-seo-wins
I wouldn't be too concerned with checking your site in Firefox 3 just yet. It's not an official release so there's chances are any changes you make to affect display now might have to be changed when the full version is released. It's the same reason why you wouldn't bother changing pages after testing the new IE8 beta.
Just tried posting this from Opera and the comment WYSIWYG editor wouldn't wrap the tex. :?
Duly noted
Installing stable TinyMCE 3.x will resolve the issue. Somehow Tiny 2 on Opera decided that spaces are sometimes treated as and thus the textwrap breaks.
This is a great checklist for a beginner local SEO.
Here is another beginners local SEO guide that outlines a great start to finish process that would compliment this checklist well.
Awesome! It's really informative post for seo beginner step..
Hiya Danny, Great guide. Any plans to update this and your Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet in 2013?
wow. This is really informative post for seo beginner, who looking to learn about seo
This checklist is very important to rank well in search engines.. Thanks alot
Google Maps ( now places at google plus) works great for me :-)
LOVE these 'Checklists'!!! Thank you so much Danny, hope to see many more of these in the future....I realize this was posted in 2008, oldie...but a goodie!
Thanks for sharing such wonderful check list
Great advice and lots to learn. Its a shame its a bit USA centric, but its given me lots of work to do. thanks
Great post! Tips and trick that I definitely will be working on and hopefully be able to know at the drop of hat over time .
Tolani Moibi
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Informative guide, thanks a lot for share.
Another excellent checklist. Its a very useful read. Thanks for sharing.
Yes rajeev! it is really very informative !
Thanks Danny, I am a beginner in SEO and after reading the checklist I know I am definitely coming back to it while working. What I like best about it, is that it is not only a list but also gives explanations why to follow each step.
I have never submitted my sites to local directory of search engine and feeling ashamed ! But after reading all these stuffs here, going to re-SEO my sites again. Kudos for this article.
Thanks !!
wow danny , it's an honor to you that the school has chosen you to do soemthing for them. And it seems you have observed great understanding to create these beginners's checklist for any new Small business website and take advantages from this article! i heartily appreciate you
Really easy to follow and as the post (and very first comment) basically say "take the list and make it your own" ... Thank-you very much - consider it taken and used as a basis for reviewing my SME optimisation work-flow.
BTW - I think the principles of local search are going to be even more important now the Google Venice update has been released.
Is there an updated version of this lurking around somewhere?
Dear all, google,
I own a website www.touristtiger.com but when i search for touristtiger in google search its not diaplayed but instead if i search for touristiger ( singel T instead of double T) the results are diaplayed . Why? someone pls help me
Thanks for the post! I'm new to SEO and found it very helpful. However, I'm working across the sites for two larger companies - do the same basics still apply? Or is a different method I need to be aware of?
Hi there,
Just come to the page and it looks like you have a missing image (Yahoo Site Explorer)
Thank you so much for a great list, I have done all the things listed above..and I have seen good progress for my website www.wafika.com, It is a company that offer seo for small businesses. This article is my blue print.
Thank you for this Danny. I've been optimizing my own properties and some friends sites for almost 10 years now. Recently I've decided to put this accumulated knowledge to practical use and I am hanging out my SEO consultants shingle.This list, which closely follows my own method, will prove to be invaluable with clients in the coming months.
So, again, a big heartfelt THANK YOU.
Alas a simple step by step guide to SEO. Now the frustrations will be put back in the closet for many SEOers.
Wow!!! Thanks a lot for sharing great SEO resource for us. Its really very helpful.
An absolute fantastic tool for an SEO baby/newbie like me!! I recently completed an intership at a web marketing firm and they couldn't simplify the material for the interns. You did a fantastic job. Also, The Beginner's Guide to SEO is a must have for any one just getting started!!
I will admit, I was so intimidated about SEO and then...I found your site. Although I only know the basics from what I read in the beginner's guide, I will say that the fear and intimidation are now gone. Thank you!!!
Two thumbs up!!!
PS....Does SEOmoz offer any live training for absolute beginners?? Just curious.
Hello and welcome.
SEOmoz does have webinars and seminars. I strongly encourage both even for newbies (just my opinion). Even if you are in over your head you are going to meet and get to know great people and some of the absolute best in the business.
Read all the posts you can here and pay close attention to the comments after each. You'll be surprised how much more you learn from what comes after the post. Don't be afraid to ask questions.
Great news! Your coming year looks really great now that you found the MOZ.
I think it's excellent. Great basics with some gaps filled in with details.
I'm a beginner and I LOVED your post. It's very well organized and some links are pure gold.Thanks for the effort, really.
Glad to hear that, I look forward to sharing additional useful posts with you in the near future (next week) ;-)
Pretty good breakdown the basics steps. Definitely a good resource for beginners.
Gracias por compartir tus conocimientos, voy a tomar la lista para tener estos items como referencias futuras.
Thanks a lot for the list Danny! There definitely is a lot of work to do for newcomers like us so this list is heaven sent!!
This is an excellent list! I have just put together a blog post myself on this topic and now wish that I had read this first as it could definitely have enhanced my piece.
I approached it from a different angle and that was really aiming at small businesses to do nothing technical at all to their sites - more on the content and distribution side so still helpful for most I feel.
Anyway, great piece - much appreciated
This is great. Are you going to give a Month One update in a few weeks?
I have actually been adding to this list based on the comments almost daily. I think the update you would expect a month from now is already available.
Danny,
Defiitely seeing all the updates, thank you. I was wondering if you have seen ranking improvements or if the school has noticed any extra traffic.
Also, when you get a chance, could you talk a little about how you went about getting links for the school?
Thanks
Very hard workdone by you.Really your checklist is result of high level research that u have done.I will also try to follow this checklist to get some good results.I also provide Internet Marketing Services but not very successful it that
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Hey Danny. Fantastic resource! I will be looking for your book when it comes out. There is way too much info out there on all the different aspects of SEO so it is refreshingly useful to find someone who's provided a concise listing to make sense of all the jumble.
Question for you: Why did you recc a seperate email address for each link-building campaign?
Thanks again for the resource!
Carl
Seattle
Hi Carl,
I recommend seperate e-mail addresses so that if one account got compromised all of your clients wouldn't be in danger. Someone could potentially do a fair amount of damage if they got access to a clients webmaster tools.
I hope that help!
Danny
Great!
I would want to get links from other link websites,but my website's pagerank is low .how to icrease in outgoing links?
DUDE!
What I love most about this list is that it's the exact same list I've been following for years.
In fact, some of the wording is also remarkably similar to my own. In fact, did you steal that sh*t from me?!?!
I'm going to check my stats now and look for you punk...
muahahaha
Good Gravy, this list is amazing. When you said you were making a list, I kinda chuckled....then I looked at your list and I'm not laughing any more. In fact, as a newbie, your list brought tears to my eyes! What in the world have I gotten myself into.
Thanks for sharing. I'm definitely printing this one off! Wait...do I have enough toner in the printer? I may need a couple of lists! =)
Thanks for sharing. Love your honesty, attention to detail and real life example.
Thank you for sharing your tips. I'll print this out and make sure I don't miss anything while working for my clients. I've done a similar SEO checklist for on-page stuff. Hope you find it useful too.
Very comprehensive post. I would add a twitter profile for the small business and encourage them to add regular updates on the same e.g, any events, coupons, updates etc
Great post, very comprehensive. I use screen captures and spreadsheets to organize my link campaigns and metrics as well. Another good tool is Microsoft One Note. It really has the potential to keep things from getting too cluttered. You can send emails from Outlook to the program, embed images, etc. Although helpful, it is by no means enough. Is anyone aware of a good program to help with SEO client administration?
Danny,
Thats a very nice post. I am a copywriter, I am looking forward to start a website to provide copywriting solutions. Currently I am persuing my MBA from Mumbai University and looking forward to become an onine marketer, as the internet market in India is growing and I see a good scope for it to grow further in the future.
I am from a commerce background and not much of a technical guy though I know about google anlytics and google trends, I have never tried using it in full.
My question was is it possible for me to grow from a copywriter to a online marketer, if yes what is that I should focus on currently, as there is a lot to learn; link building, social network marketing, search engine optimization and many more.
What is that I need to learn is it HTML, Java or all of it?
Once again thanks for such a knowledgable post.
Regards,
Utpal..
[email protected]
Utpal,
You have started in the right place. I recommend doing everything on this list and subscribing to as many popular blogs as you can keep up with on a daily basis. For starters I would subscribe to searchengineland, copyblogger, problogger, marketing pilgrim, and reading as many posts as you can.
This will give you a good idea of the writing styles of some of the best tech writers. Be sure to try to find patterns in what works and what doesn't. You can do this by watching social media (Digg, Stumbleupon reddit) and see what type of articles keeping making it big.
Lastly, the most important thing you can do is start blogging. You will need to learn by doing. Be active in as many communities as you can and start networking and drawing people to your blog. Don't spam but feel free to link to a post if it relevant.
I hope that helps,
Danny
Thanks a lot Danny thats a really useful information.. Keep in touch & keep smiling...
Hi Danny,
I've a site where I places google banner ads at the header section. Is that going to be the same as the immovable ads as well? When I use google keyword tool is used to check what google think my site is about... I had notice some keywords that I had not used in my pages or post at all. Misc keyword the I found include "jean" which is like very off topic. www.MinistryOfSocialMedia.com and I'm trying to assiciate the site with keywords around social media e.g. small business social media, social media marketing, applied social media and the like.
KC
Danny,
I just googled Issaquah Preschool and found:
Local business results for Preschool near Issaquah, WADidn't see gigglywigglypreschool.com in the local business results.
Any suggestions?
See the #1 result in the normal results (under the local results)
When I first wrote this post over a year ago, I made a big push to be number 1 for local results. Since then the rankings have fallen.
Normally, I would do another wave of SEO but that is not necessary as the preschool is full based solely off leads from non-local results.
Craziness
Hey...
Lots of regards to u man...
Again I am student and working on My first Project 4 SEO. It is a site of one Chemical Company.U made me so confident and made my way clear...
Thanx a lot for such a informative checKlist...
This type of article become TONIC for Bigginers like me...
Excellent Job...
Great article. It is particularly important for small businesses to leverage the local aspect. In this global economy and with the "world wide web", everyone wants to think they are a global player. But there is so much noise in the global market, and most small businesses do not stand a chance of being seen for the broad search terms, unless they add their location to the mix.
Pretty comprehensive. I've had a go at putting my own checklist together for those without much time! It's called Seven Simple Steps to Onsite Optimisation.
I like to use Google Analytics for Page Views and Time on Site. This tells me how loyal visitors are for pay-per-click.
Did you know that traffic sources at Analytics show 0 average time on a webpage when visitors visit only one page. This could also happen when the Analytic software is only installed on this page. The real time for these visitors cannot be determined because the software won't do it. I found this info at the Analytics groups.google.
Ever heard of the 17 Day SEO Checklist? I like the backlink techniques! Look at this webpage for ideas related to this list! It also shows how to get backlinks that your competion has.
Danny,
Thanks so much for this. It's a wonderful resource. One question, one comment:
Is it really so important to put the business address in the footer of each page? I see my highest-ranked competitors don't.
Also could you please add a note that Yahoo and Live Local (so far) don't allow non-US addresses to be listed. Very frustrating and took me a while to comprehend it couldn't be done. It seems so unlikely that they can't manage to cope with the rest of the world, that I spent quite some time trying to work it out.
Linda
good article, Danny
so can you tell me what's the SEO result of the site https://www.gigglywigglypreschool.com/ ?
I checked it myself. It seems not so impressive. Maybe you can share some comparison result?
Its actually ranking very well and has sold out consistently since I did this project.
Its not perfect, (as it was one of my first SEO attempts) but it has helped the business substantially.
Great post and comments. i've been doing local search SEO for about 6 months now and have a range of clients. It's great money and it's easy to do. I must say, I learned my skills elsewhere, but having read through your checklist, it's all there - and as a result I'll be checking back here to see what else you have to offer.
Thanks
Onsite #2 "...I recommend you screen capture the relevant pages..."
Since GoAn allows you to slice results by date ranges, and to export reports in PDF or XML formats, screenshots become a touch irrelevant.
Otherwise, l'Enfant Terrible strikes again! ;)
Great Tips,
You have covered every part of optimizing a local business for the Web. I like it when you said, "use social media sites if you think it is relevant to your business"
Here is a list of free local business listing directories
The checklist is awesome. This is the most invaluable tool and a great way of complementing human decision making or launching a small business.
Hi how you got this idea? i could not imagine like this before. I too going to my preschool .
These are great SEO tips. I'm not a beginner, but not super experienced either, and am an individual rather than a company. I have a site and write for some others. It seems that SEO is just a very continual process of learning.
You mention that the keyword difficulty tool is free. I see this post is old and that the tool is no longer free. As someone who cannot afford a pro membership, it's a bit frustrating that the tools are unavailable. Have you guys ever considered a lower level membership? Perhaps a SEOmoz Junior or Middleweight, something that enables access to tools between free and PRO.
Thanks!
I bought lots of domain names with the city and the business, or type of business if possible and then directed them to the site.
Does this actually work... I was wondering about this myself for a project that is coming up.
A company I've worked with does it a little different. Their headquarters are in Europe. They setup 'funnel' websites that all have unique content, pricing, and target demographics. They all have 1 link to his actual website, usually listed as a strategic partner. He uses URLs like chicago-webdesign-seo.com to target local markets and has been pretty successful. Is this tactic appropriate as well?
Hi / Thanks for useful information/discussion,
I tried sitemap writer pro for my website. It works and it works well! It is very useful tool for website owners. Satisfied with quality and price!!!
Thanks for wonderful post of seo checklist for small business . It is also the base of SEO .
__Umesh Yadav SEO
great post
as you said the only way to learn is by doing
i learned that the hard way especially here in Libya
thank you very much
What is the best way to comment on a blog post? Comments that are usually subject to moderation.
Excellent article and comments on SEO from a local business perspective. This could make a huge impact for businesses in medium to large metro areas. Great info for the businesses AND any SEO agencies out there! KUDOS!
I have read a lot of posts lately on webmasterworld that Google has made links from directories, article sites, press releases, reciprocals, etc of no value. They are saying about the only link that is relative is true news, reviews of sites, and third party articles.
I do agree with adding your company name, address and phone number possibly to every page you have.
Some things to pay attention to:
1. Make sure that this information is consistent and exactly the same with what you put in during local directory registrations.
2. When placing the information on the pages use the "hcard" microformat, specially on your contact page.
It appears that you were ahead of your time. With all the recent hub-bub on the topic of "offline marketing consulting" (i.e. helping traditional small businesses get found online), this post shows you were on top of it more than 2 years ago. Great advice! And certainly a lot cheaper than the multi-hundred and multi-thousand dollar courses that preach this basic info in an expanded fashion. Exceptional info!
First great article for newbie seo management (that would be me) especially considering its a 2yrs old blog thread...
My question is considering that it is 2yrs old is there any new info or regorgazation of current information that may have more effect today than that of 2008?
CJ
Great information as I'm going through this process now. Does anyone know if using a wordpress blog is okay or should I build the site from scratch to further optimize it? Great post!
What's the motivation to use Google sitemap?
If yuo can't get all your sites indexed without, then would I recommend to look into the internal linkstructure and not use Google sitemap.
This is probably obvious but would in it be safe to say to avoid taking on more than 2 clients that are in direct competition with each other?
This is a late reply but the visible dentist has a policy that they will only work with 2 (maybe 3 I can't remember)dentists in the same geographical location.
Since they state their policy up front it allows them to do exactly that. I wouldn't think your current clients would be very happy if you got one of their competitors ranked higher than them though... right? lol
This is a late reply but the visible dentist has a policy that they will only work with 2 (maybe 3 I can't remember)dentists in the same geographical location.
Since they state their policy up front it allows them to do exactly that. I wouldn't think your current clients would be very happy if you got one of their competitors ranked higher than them though... right? lol
I like lists. Thanks for one. :)
Hi,
I wanted to make an observation or more appropriately a contructive criticism. I don't know if you have actually printed the PDF "Beginners guide to SEO" and tried to read it. For me the font is so small, I just can't read it and that's a great pity. Another details, it has no page numbers. That is also quite impractical, unless you bind the document together right away.
The information you provide on your site is extremely valuable and that is greatly appreciated, thank you.
Boris.
Hi Danny,
Your focus on localising a business's website makes the blog a gem.
I really like your point about focusing on resources based locally. Too many web designers or webmasters for local businesses dedicate too much of their time on improving the look of the site, rather than optimising it for links in local areas which improve your local ranksings.
Linkedin is great. There are a couple of people whom I will contact for possible links.
Using Spreadsheets and records of results also plays a role in providing evidence to employers and bosses that my work, the webmaster or webmanager, is actually doing a proper job.
Thanks Again Danny
Too old post for Learn section
I have only just came across this post now. Great content and thank you sharing.
Thumbs Up
This is some amazing information. We use this all of the time on every web design project we have. Can you provide this in a PDF with check boxes? Or some sort of download. Coming back to this page each time is a bit of a hassle to be honest. Check our Miami Web Design Agency for more information on local SEO in the South Florida area.
Thank you for such a useful post! One of the best SEO guides i've ever seen :)
as seoer,really a lots of thing to do,Have to be cautious, and have patience.a lot of thing need to do.
Thank you so much for posting this exelent SEO guide. It give me help for improving my german seo.
Very interesting and very comprehensive. To recommend
Very comprhensive list. As I said in other post too, SEO requires patience. But the end results are very good because search engines love it. A good site providing Thousands of PLR articles free which can be used by bloggers and web site owners for their site are available at https://FreePlrToday.com. Good to download them free.
Useful guide. Thanks a lot.
Another excellent checklist and love how this is for small business SEO and is so very helpful. Thank you! LT
good article...
we need a new pic here :D
Hi, i am from Brazil, i want to say tanks, because here has a lot of interesting information, and i can learn.
I am so happy you decided to make the switch! Trust me, the engines, browsers and webmasters who come after you will really apprceciate your extra effort.
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Very good checklist. I wish I read it before I made my first steps in SEO. Now I'd doing optimization for a company dealing with legal service Ukraine.
I'm a regular reader of SEOMoz blog, you always have new valuable information to be aware of.