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SEO Implementation Process

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1. Collect Logins and Account Access

  • Google Analytics
  • Google Tag Manager
  • Google Search Console
  • Hosting/FTP
  • Domain
  • WordPress/CMS

2. SEO Audit

  1. Create a copy of the SEO Audit template and save to the client folder in the Drive
    • Update each item of the audit, along with the date
    • After your initial audit, continue to track anything you change or add in the second column
  2. Confirm if Google Analytics is installed
    • Tracking code?
    • Conversion goals?
    • Demographic tracking?
    • Search Console Integration
  3. Confirm if Google Tag Manager is installed
    • Scripts?
    • Events?
  4. Confirm if the site has an SSL certificate installed (https:// vs http://)
  5. Using the Moz Bar, notate the following metrics:
    • Domain Authority
    • Incoming Links
    • Linking Root Domains
  6. Using Google Search Console (if installed), notate the following metrics:
    • Incoming Links
    • Crawl Errors
    • Mobile Usability Errors
    • Manual Penalties
  7. Run a Google PageSpeed report for the site and notate the following metrics:
    • Desktop score
    • Mobile score
    • Screenshots for both mobile and desktop and save to Drive folder
  8. Run a Market Grade report and notate the following metrics:
    • Site Score
    • Performance Score
    • SEO Score
    • Mobile Score
    • Security Score
    • Screenshot the report and save to Drive folder
  9. Run a GT Metrix report and notate the following metrics:
    • Page Speed score
    • Screenshot the report and save to Drive folder
  10. Run the SEMRush Site Audit
    • Set up a project in SEMRush for the client’s domain
    • Run a Site Audit for the domain
      • Select the appropriate number of pages for the site (ex: 100, 500)
    • Document the site health score, errors, warnings and crawlability score

3. Collect Page URLs

  1. Open Screaming Frog and run a report on the client website
  2. Select HTML and download the report
  3. Save a copy of the CSV to the client’s folder in the Drive

 

4. Creating a Google Analytics Account

Universal Analytics

  1. When signed into Digital Uprise GA account, create a new Analytics account.
    • https://analytics.google.com/
    • Fill in account name (ex: B&A Architects)
    • Leave boxes checked
    • Select website
    • Fill in website name (ex: B&A Architects), URL (ex: ba-architects.com) and select https://, industry and time zone
    • Agree to terms
  2. Property Settings
    • Enable demographic and interest tracking
    • Enable user metrics
  3. Data Retention
    • Set to “do not automatically expire”
  4. Data Collection
    • Turn on advertising features and remarketing
  5. Referral Exclusion
    • Make sure own domain is excluded
  6. Views
    • Add brand name or initials to default view name (ex: B&A All Web Site Views)
    • Create Filtered and Test Views with brand name (ex: B&A Filtered, B&A Test)
  7. IP Filter (only in Filtered view!)
    • Add New Filter
    • Title “Agency IP”
    • Choose Predefined
    • Set fields to exclude, traffic from the IP addresses, that are equal to
    • Paste IP address into IP address field
    • Save and repeat for any remaining IP addresses
  8. Blocked Domain Filter (only in Filtered view!)
    • Add New Filter
    • Title “Blocked Sites 1”
    • Set filter type to Custom
    • Select Exclude
    • Change the dropdown menu to Hostname
    • Copy and paste the section of URLs from the Blocked Sites Master List into the Filter Pattern
    • Save and repeat for remaining Blocked Sites
  9. Annotate
    • Navigate to Audience Overview
    • Under the timeline, click the arrow to expand the annotation box
    • Click “Create new annotation”
    • Notate changes made or filters added and include the date completed
    • Select “Shared” and save
    • Repeat each time changes are made to the account

Google Analytics 4 to come

5. Creating a Google Tag Manager Account

  1. When signed into Digital Uprise GTM account, create a new Tag Manager account

6. Adding Google Analytics Tracking to GTM

  1. Create new GTM tag
    • New tag
    • Title as “GA Tracking”
    • Tag Type: Google Analytics: Universal Analytics
    • Track Type: Page View
    • Google Analytics Settings
      • Add New Variable
      • Title “GA Tracking ID”
      • In Google Analytics, under Property > Tracking Code, copy the Tracking ID (ex: UA-156442107-1)
      • Paste the Tracking ID into the Tracking ID box in GTM
    • Set Triggering to All Pages
  2. Submit and Publish

7. Adding Google Tag Manager to Website

Option 1: Manual Code Entry

  1. On Google Tag Manager, navigate to the admin tab and select Install Google Tag Manager
  2. Following the instructions, paste the <head> and <body> copy into the WordPress header template file
  3. To test installation, return to your GTM account and click “Preview”
  4. In another tab, navigate to the client site and refresh the page. The GTM debugger pane should now appear.

Option 2: Plugin

  1. On WordPress, install the Google Tag Manager for WordPress plugin
  2. On GTM, copy the GTM ID on the top right (ex: GTM-NGGF2RL)
  3. In WP, navigate to the plugin’s settings page
  4. Paste the code into the Google Tag Manager ID field and select codeless injection
  5. To test installation, return to your GTM account and click “Preview”
  6. In another tab, navigate to the client site and refresh the page. The GTM debugger pane should now appear.

8. Creating GTM Tags for Event Tracking

  1. Create a new tag
  2. Create tags and triggers by following the Standard GTM Tags spreadsheet
    • Or add any additional custom tags and triggers, depending on the site’s goals
  3. In the workspace, click Preview and navigate to the client site
  4. Refresh the page and check the tags by completing the action and seeing if the tag fires in the debugger window
  5. Once all tags are confirmed, return to GTM, leave preview mode and publish your container

9. Goal Tracking with GTM and GA

  1. In Google Analytics, under Admin > View, select Goals.
  2. Add a New Goal

Setting an Event based goal

  1. Set as a custom goal
  2. Give the goal a name based on the action (i.e. Phone Call Clicks) and set it as an event
  3. Set the Category and Action equal to the values for the event on the tag you created in Tag Manager
  4. Save

Setting a Destination based goal

  1. Set as a custom goal
  2. Give the goal a name based on the action (i.e. Contact Form Submission) and set it as a destination
  3. Set the destination as equal to the URL of your thank you page
  4. Save

10. Creating a Google Search Console Account

Note: requires access to the DNS

  1. https://search.google.com/u/2/search-console/welcome
  2. Paste domain into field on the “domain” tab and click continue
  3. Follow instructions on pop up to verify by DNS
    • If in GoDaddy, select GoDaddy.com as the provider and start the verification process. It will ask you to connect to the GoDaddy account
    • For other domain providers, copy the provided TXT record and paste it into the TXT record field in the DNS.
    • Note: these may take up to 24 hours to take effect
  4. Verify URL
    • Navigate back to the properties menu and “Add property”
    • On the right, under “URL prefix,” paste the site’s URL (include https://)
    • If you’ve already verified the domain, this should automatically verify

11. Setting Up HotJar

  1. Creating an account
    • Log into agency HotJar account
    • Click the plus sign in the top left corner and select “Add New Site”
    • Enter the website URL and site type
    • For Site Owner, select “New Client Organization”
    • Set to “I will pay and manage this account”
    • Enter client’s name and select the FREE account, unless otherwise approved via project scope
  2. Setting up tracking
    • Open your GTM account for the client
    • Create a new tag and call it “HotJar Tracking”
    • Select HotJar Tracking Code as the Track Type
    • In your HotJar account, navigate to the tracking code installation for the client’s website
    • Copy the Site ID on the top right and paste it into the HotJar Site ID field on GTM
    • Set triggering to All Pages
    • Save and publish the container
  3. IP Blocking
    • Under Settings, navigate to IP blocking
    • Select the client organization
    • Click “Block My Own IP” at the bottom
    • Name and add any additional IP’s to the fields and Block IP
  4. Creating Heatmaps
    • Under the Heatmaps section, click “Add New Heatmap”
    • Name your heatmap (i.e. Home)
    • Select the number of pageviews per heatmap – 1000 for free accounts, 2000 for paid accounts
    • Under page targeting, select “a specific page” and enter the URL for the page you want to track
    • Save your heatmap
    • For free accounts, create two more heatmaps for key pages. On paid accounts, create heatmaps for all pages
  5. Enable Recording
    • Under the Recording page, select “Record Visitors”
    • Set the number of recordings – 100 for free accounts, 2000 for paid accounts
    • Set the page targeting to “Visit any page”
    • On Recording Options, select “Only click & scroll sessions” and “Only 30s+ sessions”
    • Click “Start Recording”

12. Setting up Yoast SEO

  1. General
    • Under General > Features, click the (?) next to XML sitemaps
    • Click the text link “see the XML sitemap”
    • Copy this link and save it
  2. Search Appearance
    • Under Search Appearance > General, set the company name and logo
    • Under Search Appearance > Content Types, make sure each content type is updated to either show or be hidden in search results based on type
      • Update the SEO title and default metadata for each content type
    • Under Search Appearance > Taxonomies, turn off search results for all taxonomies
    • Under Search Appearance > Archives, turn off search results for all archives
  3. Social
    • Under Social > Accounts, add links for all social media accounts
  4. Tools
    • Create robots.txt file
      • Under Tools, select File Editor
      • If no robots.txt file has been created yet, click “Create robots.txt file”
      • Once the code shows up on the back, click the back arrow on your browser to go back to the Yoast menu. You should now have a robots.txt file
    • Update robots.txt
      • User-agent: *
      • Disallow: /wp-admin/
      • Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
      • Sitemap: https://domain.com/sitemap_index.xml

13. Redirecting Old URL’s

  1. Using redirection template and list of URL’s crawled from original site, create list of 100 most visited pages
  2. Map out redirects from old URL to new URL and save as .csv
  3. In the Redirection plugin on your WordPress dashboard, create a new group “Redirects from Redesign”
  4. Upload the .csv to the new group using the Bulk Upload option
  5. Test redirects to verify they work

14. Indexing and Sitemap

  1. Submit XML Sitemap to Google
    • In Google Search Console, navigate to the sitemaps menu
    • Paste the sitemap URL in to the field and Submit
  2. Fetch and index homepage
    • In Google Search Console, paste the URL of the home page into the search bar at the top
    • On the next page, click “Request Indexing” of the URL

15. Resources

SEO Setup Checklist

Blocked Sites List

Standard GTM Tags

Redirect Template

How to Export/Import Redirects

Website Grader

GT Metrix Speed Test

Google Page Speed

Yoast SEO

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Moz SEO Toolbar

 

About Amantha Hons

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