Complete new site SEO checklist

I'm new here so I thought posting some useful stuff would be a good way to say hi.

When building new sites I go through some set things each time and they are often forgotten so I thought a quick checklist would be useful.

1) Make sure all your links point to the same place. Usually this is www.yoursite.com but it could be yoursite.com or www.yoursite.com/index.html. These are technically different pages so you need to 301 redirect the ones you don't use to point at the one you do use.

2) Navigation should be clear and readable by search engines.

3) Each page links to the homepage (see point 1).

4) Create a sitemap for visitors and search engines to look at.

5) Create a text or xml site map and submit it to google and yahoo

6) Get some backlinks. Check this thread to get a headstart.

7) Get some backlinks with your keywords as the anchor text eg search engine

8) Write some good content for your site.

9) Submit the content from your site to article directories

10) Once you have done this post your URL here for review in case you missed anything.

I am sure I missed loads so please feel free to add some more - hopefully this will help anyone just wanting a quick overview of the basics they must do when starting a site.

 

11) Submit to directories (specially niche).

 

I think that list is way out of order, but most of the points are pretty good. Content would be higher up for me, like 2 behind registering the domain name. I'd look inward on new site before starting to look for links.

 

Good point, didn't think too much about the order

 

pretty good points all around.

 

hmm, domain name would be first on my list too.

 

Hmm, some good points yes.

Here is my own checklist:
http://www.jimwestergren.com/my-guide-to-seo-and-success/

Then I recommend this guide:
http://www.seomoz.org/beginners.php

 

I just changed my website design and it has a flash design header. The navigation is in flash also.

Thus, I am going to create a Sitemap on my main page linking to ALL of my web pages.

 

CP, here is a good automatic sitemap service (free) that will create, and update you sitemaps. www.automapit.com

-RonMo

 

thanks for that link ronmojohny, been nice of you.. looking for that.. nice list though..

i would like to add

11) Optimize your URL for better search engine recognition, instead of having url's like http://www.mysite.com/39/m/ make it like http://www.mysite.com/guide/seochecklist.html


Hope it helps

 

It is pretty nice. I will use it, thanks!

 

On your website, it says something about Yahoo! Sitemaps, do they have a similar program like Google Sitemaps....??

 

Yahoo has something called URLlist, similar to google sitemaps