January has a way of calling forth every lofty goal I’ve ever conceived and squeezing each one under the charming umbrella called “New Year’s Resolutions.” On January 1, I am simultaneously an eager reader and an aspiring author, learning to speak French, becoming a morning person, and trying to get Kelly Ripa’s arms on my body.

By January 15, I am lucky if I’ve read half of a single book.

Doing everything is attractive at first, but rarely attainable. It is often far more effective to instead prioritize small, significant tasks that contribute to the improvement of something you already have.

Examining and improving your site’s SEO is not only a realistic aspiration, but it is also one of the best new year’s resolutions you can make for your business.

Why? Let’s be honest, anything past page two of the search engine results is like the way back corner of my closet: alien territory. This is because we know the best real estate in the search engine results is awarded to sites that provide a great user experience, have established themselves as authorities in their field, and offer quality content to support what people are looking for. We naturally turn to these first page sites or to Google’s Knowledge Graph and look no further. These sites are optimized in four key areas:

  • Site Architecture and Technical Analysis
  • Content Marketing
  • Links
  • Social Planning

Step-by-Step SEO

If making sure your site is fully optimized for search is one of your business’ 2016 resolutions, start with the Site Architecture and Technical Analysis checklist below. This helpful guide methodically walks through technical SEO must-haves in four categories: Domain Management, Crawling/Indexation, Technical/Coding, and Content in Code & Tags.

When working through your website, it is most beneficial to use this checklist as a roadmap to examine first, plan second, and implement third:

  1. Examine what exactly needs to be fixed.
  2. Create a specific action plan for the fixes in each category that covers when and how each will be addressed.
  3. Implement the plan to tackle the action items one by one.

See how easily this checklist can be broken down into smaller, workable tasks? You’ll be reaching your goal and happily checking things off your list in no time.

Is your site optimized for search? We can help. Take a look at our SEO capabilities.