SEO Maintenance Checklist: What To Pay Attention To

SEO maintenance is an ongoing process of monitoring and improving a website’s search engine optimization efforts. It often involves regular content updates, checking technical SEO elements, and analyzing performance to ensure consistent ranking on search engines, especially Google. 

While many believe that SEO is a one-time effort and top positions are forever, without regular SEO maintenance, it won’t last for long. Those who are really dedicated to SEO on their website are also aware that regular checks, updates, and analyses keep them on the right track. But what do you need to monitor and analyze? 

Key Tasks in SEO Maintenance

There are a few general SEO tasks that apply to all websites, no matter the industry, like:

• Content Updates: Refreshing and optimizing existing content for relevance and keywords. Track the search engine updates to find a pattern and re-optimize the existing content, but never forget to plan a strategy for new content, too. 
• Technical Audits: Fixing issues like broken links, slow page speed, and mobile responsiveness enhance the performance. Ensure all technical aspects work fine because they contribute to the overall SEO strategy, too.
• Backlink Monitoring: Ensuring high-quality backlinks and removing toxic links is also essential. Toxic backlinks affect your SEO efforts negatively and may result in website penalizing and deindexing. 
• Keyword Analysis: Adjusting target keywords based on new trends or competition gives you fresh ideas for new content too. Repeat the keyword research every now and then to ensure consistent search intent and content value.
• Performance Tracking: Analyzing traffic, rankings, and conversions lets you refine the existing SEO strategies. This way, you don’t risk using outdated tactics that may harm your website. 

These are the general SEO maintenance checklist items, but we can go more in-depth and offer a more detailed list to keep track of. SEO maintenance ensures that a website stays competitive and visible in search engine results over time, no matter the search engine updates. The goal is to follow a consistent strategy that delivers helpful content published on a fast website that captures the true company values.

How to Create a Detailed SEO Maintenance Checklist?

Using a checklist for SEO maintenance is an excellent way to ensure you cover all essential details. But how to make sure you cover them all, or at least most of them? Here’s a comprehensive SEO maintenance checklist, the one that SmartClick’s SEO team uses:

1. Technical SEO Checklist

Ensuring all technical SEO challenges are fixed before completing a project is crucial. Here’s what to focus on:

• Check Site Speed: Measure the loading times to ensure there are no lags and delays. A fast website keeps the audience present, letting the on-page SEO do its magic.
• Mobile Optimization: Ensure your site is mobile-friendly and responsive. Optimize for a mobile-first approach, as a large portion of the traffic will come from mobile devices.
• Fix Broken Links: Use tools like Screaming Frog to identify and repair broken internal/external links. Remove them if they do more harm than good to your SEO efforts. 
• Crawl Errors: Regularly check Google Search Console for crawl issues and fix them. As earlier you detect the crawl issues, the easier it is to fix them, preventing performance disruptions.
• Sitemap and robots.txt: Ensure your XML sitemap is up-to-date and correctly indexed. Confirm that robots.txt is properly configured.
• SSL Certificate: Verify that your website has an active SSL certificate (HTTPS). Search engines prioritize websites with active SSL for better positioning. 

2. On-Page SEO Checklist

On-page SEO is probably the most important step to take when optimizing a website. Each page gets its value based on its purpose, keywords, usefulness, and conversion potential. To get the most out of the on-page elements, you need to pay attention to:

• Updating Meta Tags: Ensure all pages have relevant, keyword-optimized meta titles and descriptions. Feel free to use soft-CTA sentences to capture the audience’s attention.
• Header Tags (H1-H6): Each page must follow a pre-defined heading structure. Proper use of heading tags, structured around primary and secondary keywords, brings the most value to your page.
• Alt Text for Images: Add keyword-rich alt text to all images for better accessibility and image search optimization. Remember, search engines must understand what’s on the image by ‘reading’ the alt tag.
• Internal Linking: Strengthen the internal link structure by linking relevant pages and keeping anchor text optimized. The internal links shouldn’t be random but carefully chosen from the website.
• Content Freshness: Regularly update old content with new information, statistics, or media. Outdated content may hurt not only the ranking but also your industry authority and image.
• Keyword Optimization: Keywords were a huge ranking factor in the past, but now they’re more focused on intent and meaning. Analyze page keyword performance and adjust keyword targeting based on ranking results.

3. Off-Page SEO Checks

Off-page signals are equally important as the on-page and technical aspects. They contribute to your authority, boosting the awareness around your brand. But what to include in the SEO monitoring checklist?

• Monitor Backlinks: Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to check for new and lost backlinks. Disavow toxic links if necessary. Gain complete control over the backlink profile to avoid the risk of spammy links pointing to your site.
• Content Outreach: Continue building backlinks through guest posting, collaborations, and influencer outreach. Remember that brand mentions count, too, so don’t underestimate the power of brand promotion.
• Social Media Activity: Maintain an active presence on social media to increase site visibility and backlinks. Use LinkedIn for professional content, but don’t forget those on Instagram or TikTok who love entertaining videos. 

4. Local SEO (If Applicable)

If you act locally, it’s important to inform your audience about that. Local SEO is a strategy that allows you to build local authority and attract buyers to your store or office. To do that, you’ll have to update:

• Google Business Profile: Keep your Google Business Profile up-to-date with accurate information. Set your Google Maps location so people can easily find you.
• Local Citations: Ensure your business NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) is consistent across all directories.
• Online Reviews: Monitor and respond to customer reviews on platforms like Google and Yelp (or any other that operates in your area).

How to Ensure Consistent SEO Maintenance?

As in many other marketing activities, consistency is crucial in SEO, too. That means you need to take some time to analyze the results and see if they go the predicted way. Also, you can compare the performance and adjust the strategy, so it may bring more benefit to your clients or your personal brand and website. But what do you need to do?

Analytics and Reporting

Track keyword rankings using Google Search Console and/or some SEO tool like Ahrefs, SERanking, or SEMrush (or the one you prefer). Regularly check how your keywords are ranking and adjust strategies accordingly. Monitor the organic traffic, too, using Google Analytics to analyze trends and discover where most of the audience comes from. You can also track metrics like conversion rates, bounce rates, and user behavior to optimize the pages for engagement, not just for ranking.

Content Optimization

Perform periodic keyword research to find new opportunities or better align content with user intent. This will help you identify content gaps, i.e., the missing content that competitors are ranking for. Consider expanding shorter posts into more in-depth, comprehensive resources. Or you can even shorten the unnecessary long blogs into easily readable chunks that bring value to the page visitors.

Competitor Analysis

Compare your SEO efforts with competitors using tools like SERanking or Ahrefs (or the one you prefer). Try to figure out what strategies will work for your brand too. Don’t try to copy their approach, but use it as inspiration to do it better for your website or clients. You can even discover opportunities for guest posting and obtaining backlinks this way!

Final Thoughts

Maintaining strong SEO performance requires consistent attention and regular updates across multiple areas, including technical optimization, content updates, and backlink monitoring. By using a comprehensive checklist, you can ensure that no critical detail is overlooked in your SEO maintenance efforts. 

This approach not only helps sustain your search engine rankings but also enhances the overall user experience, driving long-term organic traffic and conversions for your website.