

Ask HN: SEO checklists and what to do next? - oldmanstan

I just finished reading the SEOmoz beginner guide. And it seems to me that everything I read could be summarized in a tidy checklist.<p>Are there SEO "to-do" checklists (starting from the lowest hanging fruit and increasing in complexity) online?<p>As well: I'm interesting in expanding my knowledge of SEO. What should I read and do next?
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patio11
I think a checklist gets you to C+ SEO at best. It will work for baseline on
page optimization, but after you have title tags and headers you have to start
asking information architecture, keyword selection, and strategy questions.
Those get tricky!

Checklist item: implement scalable method of link generation... sounds less
than actionable to me.

~~~
staunch
Scalable method of link generation that 99% of SEO-focused people never
implement: have a remarkable product.

~~~
patio11
Is that your PR strategy, too? It could use improvement. (And, regardless, it
isn't a checklist level item either way.)

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hoop
Did you see the SEOmoz beginner's-guide checklist?

[http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-beginners-checklist-for-
small...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-beginners-checklist-for-small-
business-seo)

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RealGeek
SEO keeps on evolving, the best way to learn is to keep a track on SEO trends.

There are two main aspects of SEO, on-site optimization and link building.

Read at about on-site optimization at:

[http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-
on-p...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-
optimization)

[http://www.searchenginejournal.com/12-basic-on-site-seo-
tact...](http://www.searchenginejournal.com/12-basic-on-site-seo-tactics-for-
optimized-results/5966/)

After you have an optimized website ready, you should go and get some links.
There are countless ways of building links. Let your imagination run wild and
be creative with the link building.

Some resources to get started with link building:

<http://www.linkbuildingwiki.com>

<http://www.seomoz.org/blog/link-building-from-a-to-z>

<http://www.seomoz.org/blog/category/6>

<http://searchenginewatch.com/2160301>

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rbeale
Start a Blog that resides on your website (either blog.YOURCOMPANY.com or
www.YOURCOMPANY.com/BLOG). Blogging is the easiest way to 1) add pages that
will be indexed by Google and the other engines and 2) act as "link bait"
where other bloggers will read your content, share it with friends and
colleagues and create content of their own and link back to your site.

on page seo is approx 25% or less of SEO - identifying keywords (search
queries) that you want to rank for, then using those words in the Title,
Permalinks, Headers, content. off page seo is appro 75% or more of ranking -
attracting QUALITY inbound links from other quality and relevant websites.

Simple way to start attacking on page and off page is to blog. :)

~~~
derefr
> either blog.YOURCOMPANY.com or www.YOURCOMPANY.com/BLOG

Most definitely the latter, actually. PageRank "juice" doesn't cross subdomain
boundaries.

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mattgratt
So, what you should do now, is run linkscape
(<http://www.seomoz.org/linkscape>) or another link intelligence tool of your
choice on a competitive website.

See those links to your competition? Figure out how to get them to link to
your site.

(This is where the glib, generic advice ends and the work starts. As you have
probably figured out, SEO is relatively simple to understand in theory, and
relatively difficult to actually do.)

If you share your site w/ us, I'll give you some suggestions.

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annajohnson
You'll benefit from familiarizing yourself with - and using - certain tools.
Here is a list of keyword tools:

[http://www.kikabink.com/news/7-top-keyword-research-tools-
fo...](http://www.kikabink.com/news/7-top-keyword-research-tools-for-seo-and-
sem/)

And here is a list of competitive analysis tools:

[http://www.kikabink.com/news/top-16-free-web-analytics-
tools...](http://www.kikabink.com/news/top-16-free-web-analytics-tools-for-
researching-competitors-traffic-backlinks-keywords-and-more/)

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bherms
If you use Firefox, I highly recommend the SenSEO plugin
(<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9403/>). This comes in handy
big time for me almost every day in addition to this SEO cheat sheet from
SEOmoz ([http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-web-developers-seo-cheat-
shee...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-web-developers-seo-cheat-sheet)).

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petewailes
If you want, I'll give your site a once over Tuesday evening. I've got some
time to kill. Send me a URL and I'll email you a report.

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ryankelly
Yes! Try <http://www.pearanalytics.com> \- the easiest tool you'll find.

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AjJi
I'm not sure if you can call it a checklist, but I find that the basics are
well covered (a bit old though) [http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-
engine-optimiza...](http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-
optimization-starter-guide.pdf)

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mikebridgman
Something you might like: WooRank.com will dynamically generate a (basic) SEO
checklist based on your site, including suggestions on how to improve certain
areas.

