Your Foundational SEO Checklist

Introducing our brand new series all about SEO! You'll learn foundational things that you can easily implement in your business even if you're a complete beginner. We brought in SEO expert, Mariah, to break things down for you.

Checklist of foundational things

I mentioned before that SEO is layered. It’s nuanced. So how do we set ourselves up for success? What are the foundational things that we should have in place to get the best possible results? I got you.

• Set up analytics tracking (You can use Google Analytics or another analytics platform like Fathom)
  
  
• Why this is important: Google judges your website on 200+ factors and a lot of them are user experience things. By having analytics set up, you’re able to learn how people are using your website which can allow you to learn & improve it accordingly
• 👉 How to Sign up for Google Analytics YouTube Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPuWgkd3RCs 

• Set up Google Search Console (this is a MUST). 
  
  
• Why this is important: Google Search Console is how GOOGLE sees your website. It’s free and easy to set up. It will allow you to see if your website has any Google errors along with what SEO keywords your website is already being found for.
• 👉 How to Sign up for Google Search Console YouTube Tutorial: https://youtu.be/t1ZQUVnXEqA?si=RlXrm8U6e0zrcw4G

• Submit your website’s sitemap to Google via Google Search Console
  
  
  • Why this is important: Your sitemap is essentially the roadmap of your website that Google bots can easily read. When you submit this, Google can more easily understand your website. (You can show up in search WITHOUT doing this, but it can sometimes take longer, and search bots might not find other pages on your website without this)
  • MemberVault automatically created a sitemap for you. It can be found @ yourdomainname.com/sitemap.xml
  • 👉How to Find & Submit Your Sitemap to Google: https://youtu.be/_t0DKOypLio?si=7SCCxsBE9TNdIEMT  

• Run a broken link check on your website
  
  
• Why this is important: Having too many broken links on your website can be bad for your SEO because it provides a bad user experience on your website
• You can use this free tool to run a broken link check: https://brokenlinkcheck.com/ 
• Easy-to-follow tutorial: https://youtu.be/kqU4QvLyAH0?si=6TjMGNbyiSl57abh 

• Do SEO keyword research – think about what your target audience would be typing into Google in order to find the different pages or products on your website.

• • Why this is important: Keywords are THE piece of the puzzle that connects YOUR website to search engine results. If you don’t get keyword research right, you’re not going to get the results you want from SEO efforts.
  • Few tools for helping with keyword research:

• Use Google to get on Google. Google your keywords. See what shows up. Does your content/website align with it?
  
  
• Ubersuggest: If you sign up for a free account you can get up to 3 searches a day.
• Easy-to-follow tutorial: https://youtu.be/Urr5IRyd9Ss?si=nFD7Iuq_QdGLPcLc 
• Keysearch: Cost-effective option that a LOT of bloggers love
• *https://mariahmagazine.com/keysearch (affiliate link but only bc I love them)
• SEMRUSH is my personal go-to favorite. 
• Get a free 14-day pro trial here:https://mariahmagazine.com/semrush (affiliate link but only bc I love them)
• Easy-to-follow tutorial: https://youtu.be/AgznORjWPRU?si=FMI86lraVtM8Z5PQ 
• Answer the Public: Helpful if you need help brainstorming
• https://answerthepublic.com/ 
• Easy to follow tutorial: https://youtu.be/NVDepXO4jwY?si=Err9RPkDxIKOFisC 
• Want to learn more about doing SEO keyword research? Use code MEMBERVAULT to get 20% off the SEO Keyword Research Workshop: https://www.mariahmagazine.com/seo-keywords-workshop/ 
  
  
• Want a have a place to better organize your keywords & plan your SEO strategy with them? Use code MEMBERVAULT to get 20% off the SEO Keyword Planner: https://www.mariahmagazine.com/seo-keyword-planner/  

• Customize your SEO titles & meta descriptions for the pages that would show up on Google, starting with your HOME PAGE (and then work on the other standard pages like: about page, services pages, sales pages, etc. No need to do this for internal pages)
  
  
• Why this is important: Your SEO title & meta description are pieces of metadata that show up in Google search results. It’s one of the only things that entice people to click on YOUR website/page in search results over the other options.
• If you have a target keyword for that specific page, try to infuse your target keyword inside the SEO title and the meta description.

• Infuse your keywords into your pages – this is how we start giving “context clues” to the search bots so they can better understand your pages, and therefore put them in the right section of the “filing cabinet”

• • WHERE should you put your target keyword though?
    
    
    • H1 heading (automatically the blog post title when writing blogs, and for pages in Membervault, it’s usually the page title or product name)
      • Also, keep in mind there should only be ONE H1 heading per page/post so don’t use any other H1 headings within the content itself.
    • First 100 words on the page
    • H2 or H3 headings throughout the page (not in every single one though, that’s over-optimizing and would read super spammy)
    • Throughout the page content itself, which should happen naturally
    • Page URL (Good example = “/affordable-online-yoga-classes” vs. not so good example = “/classes”)
    • Image alt text (IF we can naturally get it in there)
      • Learn more about Image ALT text here: https://youtu.be/7bt7obudNzM?si=DyJ_oO6ACr6DWpeV 

Want to see how this all comes together? Check out this tutorial where I walk you through every step with examples: https://youtu.be/IRLwBK7p_ow?si=jlD_Rq3NaKhEjq6j 

***

Love this? Continue with the rest of the SEO Series below!

What is SEO and Why It's Important for Your Business

Glossary of Common SEO Terms

How MemberVault Stacks Up with SEO

How to Know if Your SEO Strategy is Working

Ways to Continue to Optimize Your SEO

***

This SEO article series is written by SEO expert, Mariah. Want to learn more? Check out the additional resources below!

⚡️ Mariah's YouTube channel has a ton of free tutorials: https://youtube.com/@MariahMagazine 

⚡️ Free SEO Tools Masterlist: https://mariahmagazine.com/seo-tools (If you want an inside look at the SEO tools that I use on the regular)

⚡️ Free Blog post SEO checklist: https://www.mariahmagazine.com/seo-checklist-for-blog-posts/ (If you’re creating blog posts for SEO)

⚡️ Blogging for SEO? Snag this workshop replay + template (Use code MEMBERVAULT for 20% off!): https://www.mariahmagazine.com/blogging-for-seo-workshop/