SEO (Search Engine Optimization) remains one of the most important tools for increasing visibility, driving traffic, and growing your business online. But with so many ranking factors and constant algorithm updates (thanks, Google!), it can be hard to know where to start.
We’ve combined and condensed the best advice from different SEO resources, conference takeaways, and our own research and experience into an easy-to-follow checklist. Learn how to make your website discoverable, user-friendly, and ready to rank– whether you’re starting a new website or fine-tuning a mature site.
TIP: For a more in-depth explanation of SEO and how to implement the actual steps of this checklist, take a look at our Beginner’s Guide to SEO!
SEO Tips for Creating a Brand New Website
Planning a new site? Start with these steps:
1. Choose Website Details Carefully
Choosing the right domain name is crucial for your website’s long-term success. Ideally, it should reflect what your business does, be easy to remember, and include a relevant keyword if possible. While using your actual business name is great, that’s not always available, so pick something descriptive and aligned with your services (ex: “bestseoagency.com” for an SEO firm). Keep it short and simple to avoid confusion.
2. Integrate SEO into the Design Phase
Before building a single page, map your site’s structure based on keyword research. This will establish a strong SEO foundation and avoid costly rework later.
If you want to learn more about keyword research, check out the second chapter of our SEO Guide.
3. Avoid Duplicate Content
Use canonical tags or noindex settings on duplicate or low-value pages. Google rewards original, high-quality content.
4. Choose SEO-Friendly CMS
Use a platform like WordPress with SEO plugins (Yoast, Rank Math). Avoid builders that restrict your control over metadata, URLs, and schema.
5. Set Up Google Analytics & Search Console
Install and set up Google Analytics 4, a free, powerful tool that shows who’s visiting your site, how they got there, and what they’re doing. But don’t just look at the data— use it. Identify what’s working (like pages with higher engagement) and apply those insights across your site.
The more you invest in smart SEO and tracking during the build phase, the better your long-term results will be. Track traffic, discover top-performing pages and content, and get alerts for indexing or crawl issues.
SEO Basics for All Websites
These steps and tips are critical for both new and established websites:
1. Do Your Keyword Research First
It’s important to make sure you’re putting out high-quality, error-free, well-written content on your website, but one of the most important things for SEO is to do your keyword research. Think about what you want your website to be found for on search engines. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, or Semrush to find terms your target audience is actually searching for.
You want to make sure to find a balance between the number of searches being completed for your keyword (volume) and how realistic it might be for you to rank for the keyword (KD% or keyword difficulty). Remember to also incorporate long-tail keywords that match user intent.
If you want to learn more about keyword research, check out the second chapter of our SEO Guide.
2. Keyword Optimization
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to simply do keyword research, but you need to make sure to optimize your content around your keywords, too! It is important to place your primary keyword in:
- The page title
- The URL
- The first 100 words (or introduction)
- Headers (especially H1 and H2)
- Image alt text
Don’t forget to incorporate your long-tail keywords within the body of your content, too. But don’t keyword stuff! Keep it natural and readable.
3. Optimize Meta Titles and Descriptions
Write unique meta titles (under 60 characters) and meta descriptions (under 160 characters) for every page. Think of them as your page’s elevator pitch— compelling and keyword-rich.
4. Structure Content with Header Hierarchy
If you’re just writing content in one giant blog post with no heading structure, you are stifling your SEO and user experience. Break up content using H1, H2, and H3 tags (H4 tags too if needed) to improve readability and help search engines understand your content hierarchy.
5. Use Internal Linking
These are links that connect internal pages on the same website. This is a good way to continue to lead people throughout your website. Link related blog posts and service pages together to guide users deeper into your site and spread SEO value (link equity).
Overall, the more links pointing to a specific page, the more important search engines deem that page.
To learn more about best practices and overall education on link building, check out the link-building chapter in our SEO Guide.
6. Optimize & Compress Images
One of the most overlooked SEO tips is optimizing image size. We often see images uploaded at 10x the necessary dimensions. There is no perfect formula for web image sizes, but a quick Google search can help you find ideal dimensions for different platforms.
You can also use tools like Canva to resize and export images properly. A blog’s in-text image doesn’t need to be the same size as a full-width header image. Also, opt for JPG files over PNG when transparency isn’t required to reduce file size.
Additionally, always compress your images before uploading. This way, large image files don’t slow down web pages. We like to use the tool TinyPNG (In the image above, this tool saved us 83% of space on 7 images).
7. Add Image Alt Text
Every image should have descriptive, keyword-friendly alt text. This improves accessibility and helps with image search rankings.
Technical SEO Essentials
Behind the scenes, these optimization improves how your site is crawled, indexed, and displayed in search results:
1. Ensure Mobile-Friendliness
Google uses mobile-first indexing, so your site must work seamlessly on smartphones and tablets. Use responsive design and test your site using Google Search Console’s mobile usability report, or whatever report is built for your web platform.
2. Check Page Speed (And Improve if Needed)
Fast-loading pages reduce bounce rates and improve user experience. Use tools like PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to identify issues like large images or unoptimized scripts.
3. Secure Your Site with HTTPS
Install an SSL (“secure sockets layer”) certificate to switch your site to HTTPS. This is a ranking factor and essential for building trust. Additionally, sites without SSL can be penalized.
4. Create a Clean URL Structure
URLs should be short, readable, and include your main keyword. Avoid random numbers or unnecessary parameters. The title of your website is usually going to be the name of your business or what your website is about. For example, the title of our website is simply “SocialSurge Marketing”. Most of the pages on your website will have your title, so try to keep this under 60 characters.
Additionally, you should create a custom 404 page that is on-brand with the rest of your website and will navigate website visitors who have run into a broken link back to popular parts of your website.
5. Submit a Sitemap and Use Robots.txt
Help search engines understand your site’s structure. Submit a sitemap to Google Search Console and ensure your robots.txt file isn’t blocking important pages.
Post-Website-Set-Up Tips
Once your core SEO is in place, continue to evaluate and update your site with these post-set-up tips.
1. Add Schema Markup
Implement structured data to enhance your listings with FAQs, reviews, and event info. This helps search engines understand what the info on a page (or a whole page) is so that they can “serve” it to the right users. It also helps rank for certain SERP features like people also ask, review widgets, and more.
2. Use Canonical Tags
Prevent duplicate content issues by signaling the preferred version of a page to search engines. This improves search engine “experience” and brings all authority/equity to the preferred page.
3. Perform Regular SEO Audits
Review your site quarterly to fix broken links, update content, and stay aligned with your SEO practices. As you continue to add new content, tools, and other pages, there might be issues that pop up or old content that develops issues over time. If you don’t stay on top of this, the work you’re doing now could be impacted by previous work you’re ignoring to check in on.
4. Begin a Backlink Strategy
Otherwise known as inbound links or external links, they are a hyperlinked section of content that points from one web page to another. You can think of backlinks as SEO word-of-mouth. Start building backlinks using guest blogging, digital PR, and local listings to build high-quality inbound links.
5. Avoid Heavy AI Use Across All Web Pages & Content
As helpful as it can be to use AI to create multiple pages of quick copy or have AI produce quick, information content, this can significantly hurt your SEO rankings in the long run. You want to be as human and as authentic as you can be, especially when showcasing your tone and brand. Additionally, Google rewards original content and pages.
SocialSurge Offers Top-Tier Web Design & SEO Services
SEO isn’t a one-and-done task; it is a long-term commitment that compounds benefits over time. Whether you’re launching a new site or optimizing an existing website, following this checklist ensures you’re covering all the bases that matter.
Need help with website design? Or are you looking for help implementing a sustainable SEO strategy? Book a FREE consultation with SocialSurge to start getting the visibility you deserve.