Having a checklist on place is important for your SEO activities. This will not only work as a blue-print, but also will give you an idea to do the practices in a proper step-by-step way. So in this article, we have decided to help you with a checklist which can make your website optimization journey a walk on the cake.

 1. Benchmarking and Setting-up Tools:

If you want to do it, better do it in the right fashion. So, first thing first, start with setting-up a Google Analytics and adding a tracking code to your website. You can do these by going through the help offered at Google Analytics Training Academy. Clicky, KISSmetrics, Piwik etc. are few alternative to GA. Overall, the point is to set-up an analytical  tool so that you can track the good.

 2. Small but Important Steps:

Next step would be to create a sitemap of your website and submitting it to  Google webmaster tool. Check the page load time, and run your website through any website audit tool (free or paid).

 3. Discovering the Keywords to work on:

Keyword research is the most important and most tedious task for an optimizer. And with all those search engines updates rolling the task has now become all the more tiresome. However, the best way to do it would be to create keyword list keeping your buyers in mind. If you have a snapshot in your mind, what exactly your client might look for which relates to your business; this can be a crucial step to build a solid keywords list to work on. Having a broad or master keyword is the best idea. You can broaden or narrow it down according to your requirement.

 4. Content Handling:

Why and how content is important for your search ranking - this is an already an enough discussed. You already know that you need to put a lot of attention to your content - offpage as well as onpage - both. The suggestions would be to create an editorial calendar, use trends to find new and compelling topics, use content syndication so that your content gets well populated and popular at the same time.

 5. Onpage & Offpage Optimization:

Once you have all of the above in place, you need to work on onpage as well as offpage strategies. for onpage you should work on title tags, meta description, permalinks and their structure, heading and image optimization, keyword semantics etc. While for offpage purpose you can do activities like competitor profile analysis, identify key influences, take part in discussions, disvow links that can be harmful etc.

 6. Being Socially Available:

Being available on social media is a must for any brand now - be it big, medium or small. You need to create relevant social profiles and setup social monitoring. You should be vigorously active on your social profiles, but make sure you don't indulge in spamming, rather share content that create a good image for your brand. Don't forget to follow influential personalities of your industry.