The SEO Checklist: Be the Best You Can Be

13 Oct The SEO Checklist: Be the Best You Can Be

In today’s digital world, your website is often times the first thing a potential customer sees before you ever connect with them. But in the myriad of search results online, how do you make sure that your agency’s website comes up when a consumer is looking for something related to home or auto insurance? That’s where SEO – Search Engine Optimization – comes into play.

Whether you’re just now working on SEO, or a seasoned pro, you’ll want to visit this checklist often to make sure everything is up-to-date on your site.

The SEO Checklist:

• Install Google Analytics and Google Search Console – The data you’ll gain from these two platforms will prove invaluable as you learn more about what’s driving people to your site, what pages resonate with them, how long they stay, and so much more.
• Make sure you’re mobile friendly – More and more users are searching for insurance information on their smartphones and not a traditional computer. This means your site should be optimized for mobile usage. You can run a Mobile Usability Report in Google Search Console.
  
• Optimize each and every page – It’s important to review each page of your website for a number of things, including that meta tags and descriptions are in order, title tags are nine words or less and include a keyword, description tags contain the most important information and aren’t too long (156 characters including spaces), and there’s a clear call-to-action.
• Don’t forget about your images – Often overlooked, images can also drive traffic to your website when they’re optimized properly. Make sure the file name is descriptive and includes a keyword (not just IMG_0001.jpg) and that you’re including alt text that describes the photo and any related keywords. Without doing this, search engines have no idea what the image is about since they can only scan words.
• Let URLs tell the story – In general, shorter URLs are preferable than long URLs, but it’s most important that your links are descriptive and contain keywords. Additionally, you’ll want to use dashes not underscores to separate words. When a search engine scans a URL, the dash indicates that each word is separate; however, an underscore will read as one long word and hinder your search results.
• Keep your content fresh – You’ll want to go back regularly and make sure all the content on your website is up-to-date and focused on specific keywords. Additionally, you’ll want to make sure you’re targeting blog posts around keywords as well. Keywords are not set in stone, though, and need to be evaluated regularly as industry search terms change. Data from Google Analytics and Google Search Console can help you keep track and update as needed.

While this list isn’t exhaustive, it’s a good place to start (or restart if you’re updating your SEO efforts). You should be treating SEO as a living, breathing part of your agency’s website that needs to be nurtured, checked, updated, and tweaked regularly to yield the best results.