Link Building – VeecoTech

The Ultimate SEO Checklist: Best Practices & Examples (Updated for 2025)

Ezra — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 09:00:23 +0000

If you’re looking for a comprehensive SEO checklist to search-engine-optimize your website, you’ve just found it. Keep reading to find out more!

Don’t have the time to read now? Get your 👉 Free Ultimate SEO Checklist here!

How to Use this Checklist

This checklist covers every aspect of SEO practices, from basic SEO practices to the three main parts of SEO: Technical SEO, On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO.

I have also added best practices of:

Keyword Research
Content Audit
Local SEO
Mobile SEO

When you’re going through the checklist, you might find some tasks that you’re not familiar with. Don’t worry, I have included a “Learn More” section for further reading.

Another tip is you don’t need to perform everything on the list in one day. You just need to follow the categories in the list:

Perform only once
Perform it regularly
Perform it when you publish a new page

Last point before we move on:

SEO is a long-term process. A checklist won’t grow your website unless you do it accordingly. Every little detail and effort will have an impact on your rankings.

Let’s deep dive into it now!

SEO Basics Checklist

These are the fundamental setup you need to start ranking on search engines. You will learn the crucial practices and tools.

1. Setup Your Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool that helps you to check your site’s performance on Google.

It helps you to:

Check your keywords’ ranking position
Discover keywords and links
Identify and fix website error
Receive messages from Google
Submit a sitemap

Visit this to learn how to set up Google Search Console step-by-step.

You can also set up the Bing Webmaster tool to understand your site performance on Bing.

2. Setup Your Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 is another free tool that collects your website’s data which include number traffic, demographics, locations, user behaviour, etc.

Remember to connect your Google Analytics with your Google Search Console to import data to your Google Analytics.

3. Install an SEO Plugin

There are a lot of good SEO plugins for your site. These plugins will help you optimize things like sitemaps and meta descriptions.

Image Source: Yoast

If you’re on WordPress, you should consider installing Yoast SEO. It’s one of the best SEO plugins with a free version available.

4. Create a Robot.txt File

A robot.txt file is the root directory of your website. It gives search engine’s crawlers instructions as to which pages they can crawl and index.

It is commonly used to tell Google’s crawlers to stop crawling on certain pages or sections of your site.

To find your robot.txt file, simply type in your domain and add “robot.txt”:

https://www.example.com/robot.txt

If you’re able to find your robot.txt file, you’re good to go. If you don’t, head over to the Robot.txt generator to generate one and upload it to your server.

5. Submit XML Sitemap

The purpose of a sitemap is to let Google know which pages and files on your site are important. This helps Google to crawl and index your site.

The most common format of sitemap is XML.

Similar to the robot.txt file, you can identify your sitemap by adding “sitemap.xml” after your domain:

https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

If you already install Yoast SEO Plugin, it will help you create a sitemap automatically.

Image source: Yoast

Learn More:

SEO Marketing: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners

How to Use Google Search Console: A Beginner’s Guide

The Beginner’s Definitive Guide to Google Analytics

A Beginners Guide to Robot.txt

What is an XML SiteMap?

Want to improve your ROI?

Get more qualified traffic on the search terms that matter most to your business today!

Technical SEO Checklist

Technical SEO refers to optimizing your website for search engines to crawl and index easily. It’s called “technical” because it has nothing to do with the content.

Here are the best practices:

1. Use HTTPS

HTTPS has been a Google ranking factor since 2014.

So make sure your website has a padlock icon like this:

If your site is still using HTTP, you should migrate it now.

2. Ensure Your Website is Accessible at One Domain

You should ensure that Google only indexes one version of your website.

To check whether your site looks good, place these 4 variations of the domain into httpstatus.io:

http://www.yourdomain.com
http://yourdomain.com
https://www.yourdomain.com
https:yourdomain.com

If you found this, then you’re ready to go.

If not, you should make a 301 redirect to the primary one. Contact your developers or a trusted SEO agency in Malaysia if you need any help.

3. Identify and Fix Crawl Errors

Make sure your site is crawlable and indexable. Otherwise, Google will have trouble viewing your site.

Open your Google Search Console and head to the “Pages” under “Indexing” section.

Go through the list of reasons why the pages are not indexed, click on each reason, and then click ‘Validate Fix’.

4. Ensure Your Site Loads Fast

Site speed is super important.

You can use GTMetrix and Page Speed Insights to test your website speed.

Follow the suggestion given by these platforms to improve your site speed.

Learn more from Moz if you want to improve your site speed.

5. Check and Optimize Your 404 Page

A 404 Page is a page that tells the user that the page they visit is no longer available.

Your 404 page should contain something meaningful and provide an alternative to your visitor (such as navigate to your home page)

Here’s an example of VeecoTech’s 404 Page:

6. Check Your Page Depth

A good site structure should not be more than 3 levels deep. Users should access any of your pages in less than 3 clicks (from the homepage).

This is because pages more than that are less likely to be found by visitors and search engines.

7. Fix Broken Internal and External Links

Broken links refer to the links that are not functioning. It can negatively impact your site’s user experience.

You can identify broken links by performing a website audit or using this free tool. Watch this video to find and fix your broken links.

8. Add Schema Markup

As Google keeps improving their search engines, schema and structured data have been more important than before.

With schema and structured data, your website appears more interesting (such as reviews, search rich cards, rich snippets, local businesses, etc), which increase click-through rate and conversion.

Image source: Workspaces Builder

Watch this video to know how to add schema markup to your site.

9. Use SEO Friendly URL

An SEO friendly URL helps search engine crawlers to understand what the page is about.

Here are the three basic guidelines:

They contain keywords
They are short
They use hyphens (-)

Learn More:

Technical SEO: The Definitive Guide

Advanced Technical SEO: A Complete Guide

Keyword Research Checklist

To achieve great SEO results, you need to have solid keyword research.

A keyword means the term or word that people use when searching for something on a search engine.

Follow the keywords research steps below to find the keywords that your customers search for:

1. Identify Your Keywords From Competitors

When you’ve just started, you will find it difficult to determine your most relevant keywords.

One of the fastest ways to get started is to identify those keywords that are working for your competitors.

There are a lot of great SEO tools out there, but if you’re just starting, I highly recommend trying the free version of Ubersuggest.

Image source: Search Engine Journal

Simply head to the “Domain Competitors” in Rank Tracker, insert your website domain and click search.

You will see a great list of your competitors. You can go through each column to collect tons of valuable keywords.

You just need to click the “search” icon and voila – a detailed list of keywords will show up.

2. Determine Your Seed Keywords

Now you have a lot of keywords from competitors, but you need to determine your seed keywords.

A seed keyword is a keyword that is related to your core business and
has high search volume and high competition.

These keywords are the keywords that drive your sales and conversion.

Below are 2 effective ways to determine your seed keywords:

Identify keywords that best describe your core services
Identify from Rank Tracker (Google Search Console & Competitors)

Firstly, ask yourself the questions below:

What are the words that best describe my website?
What products/services do I offer?
What are the keywords I want to rank for?
What words will my prospects use when they want to research a topic related to my service?

With those questions, head to Rank Tracker and place your website domain. Let the software make an initial run.

Then, navigate to ‘Preferences’ in the menu bar, and look for ‘Google Analytics Settings’ and ‘Google Search Console Settings’ to connect your Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts.

You should be able to see keywords that already bring traffic. Take note of those that have high impressions.

Don’t forget to also take into account the keywords from your competitors!

Sidenote: You can also use the Google Keyword Planner in Rank Tracker to explore more keywords!

3. Explore Various Long-Tail Keyword

Seed keywords are not enough. It’s because they are highly competitive keywords. That’s why you need long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords are the keywords that are more than three words.

Although long-tail keywords have lower search volume, they deliver a higher conversion rate.

Image Source: Semrush

A good mix of your seed and long-tail keywords are important in your SEO strategy. Once you’ve determined your keywords, remember to use the closely related keywords throughout your page content.

Other than using Rank Tracker to explore your long-tail keywords, try Ubersuggest (it’s free!). Install Ubersuggest Chrome Extension.

Once you’ve installed it, you will see a keyword suggestion panel on the right side of your Google Search result page.

Wish to know more about the keywords? Click the word “Ubersuggest”:

I’ve no room to discuss how to choose the right long-tail keywords but you can read this great article to find out more.

4. Check Out Suggestions from Google

Other than using Ubersuggest, you can use the keywords provided by Google.

Open Google, type in your keywords.

But don’t press enter or “Search Google”, take a look at the keywords that google gives you:

You can also check out the keywords at “People also search for”.

And “Related Searches”:

Sidenote: If you have the Ubersuggest Chrome extension, it will automatically show the details of the keywords, which saves you time in analyzing them.

5. Analyze Searcher’s Intent from the Page that Rank

If you want to buy contact lenses, you probably won’t look for a page that tells you “What are Contact lens?”

That’s why you need to ensure your content meets the searcher’s intent. If your page content is not aligned with this, it won’t rank.

Here’s how you can check the searchers’ intent: Place your keywords, then look at the types and format of pages that Google ranks.

Let’s say your keyword is “spectacle frame”. After placing your keywords, we can see that type of the pages that rank is transactional (“buy”, “best price”)

If you want to target this keyword with a blog post, you probably won’t rank because it doesn’t meet the search intent.

6. Determine the Right Keyword

Okay, now you should have a list of keywords.

But how do you pick the right keywords?

I don’t have enough room for me to discuss further, but here are some of the details you should go through:

Search volume
Keywords Difficulty
Cost-per-click (CPC)
Keyword Efficiency Index (KEI) (for Rank Tracker only)

I have included some awesome articles in the learn more section. Do check them out.

7. Create a Keyword Map

After you’ve identified your targeted keywords, you need to know how to place your keywords on your page. A keyword map helps you categories your keywords and place them into relevant pages or content.

Take a look at this article to know more about keyword mapping.

8. Track Your Keyword Ranking

This step is done after you’ve included your keywords in your site.

To track your keyword, simply head into Rank Tracker and add your keywords at “Rank Tracker section”. Copy and paste your keywords and click next.

You can also use “Check Ranking” if your keywords are already in Rank Tracker.

Optimize your keywords if it’s not working well.

Find out more about keyword’s ranking tracking here if you need help.

Learn More (Keyword Research):

Keyword Research Strategies

How to do Keyword Research for SEO

15 Best Keyword Research Tool – Both Free and Paid

15 Free SEO Tools to Drive Traffic, Clicks & Sales

9 Free Chrome Extensions for SEO and Keyword Research

Learn More (SEO Powersuite):

Complete Guide on SEO Workflow

SEO Powersuite Review

Best SEO Tools in a Review

SEO Guidebook

Not sure which SEO Tools you should invest in? Check this SEO Tools comprehensive review.

On-Page SEO Checklist

Now it’s time to optimize your actual content on the page. There are two main goals in on-page SEO:

Ensure the content satisfies the user’s search intent
Ensure it’s understood by search engines

1. Optimize All Your Titles

A good title helps the users and search engines know the direction of a page.

To optimize it, follow the best practices below:

Add your targeted keywords to the title (include your homepage)
Make sure all title tags are unique (no repeats)
Your title should accurately describe your page content
Write a compelling title to attract people to click and read.

You can use Headline Analyzer or Sharethrough to check whether your title looks good or not.

Read here if you want to craft a perfect SEO title.

You will see a great list of your competitors. You can go through each column to collect tons of valuable keywords.

2. Optimize Meta Description for Every Page

Although meta description is not a Google ranking factor, a good meta description can increase your click-through rate and increase your search traffic.

Follow these great tips to write a good meta description:

Keep it less than 160 characters
Add your target keywords (but don’t overdo it)
It should match search intent
Use active voice
Avoid duplicate meta descriptions

Image credit: Yoast

Tips: Use the Yoast SEO plugin to help you to write an SEO-friendly title and meta description.

Heads up: Google will not always use your meta description.

3. Include Your Target Keyword in URL

Your URL helps search engines to understand what the page is about. You should add relevant keywords to your URL.

For instance, I have written a blog about digital marketing and the keyword is “benefits of digital marketing”.

So I made the URL for the blog post as:

https://veecotech.com.my/benefits-of-digital-marketing

Pro tip: Research shows that a short URL works better.

4. Include Keyword in First 150 Words

Google puts more weight on the first 100-150 words of your page.

Hence, remember to use it, but again, don’t overdo it.

For example, I’ve written a blog post of “Why Do You Need a Website”. You can see that I include my keyword “website” in the first paragraph:

5. Place Keyword in H1, H2 or H3 Tags

H1 tag is the first important element shown on a page. You should label them properly according to the importance of the title.

Take a look at the image below to have a better grasp of the H1, H2 and H3 tags:

Image Source: ReliableSoft

Adding keywords to these helps readers and search engines to understand more about your content.

6. Optimize Your Images

Below are some best practices when you optimize your images (including screenshots and infographics).

First, you need to compress your image file size without compromising the image quality. This helps your page to run faster.

You can compress it by using an image compressor or install an image compression plugin.

Second, optimize the file name and add an Alt text to your images.

For example, when I save this image, I will rename it as simple-ways-boost-seo-ranking.png.

And add an Alt text that describes the photo (in this case I will follow the title).

7. Use Internal Links

Internal links are the links that point to other pages in the same domain. Adding internal links help search engines and readers to understand and navigate your content better.

When you publish new content, make sure it links to other pages on your website.

For example, I’ve added a few internal links that link to other pages of my website in this blog post:

Pro tip: Use keyword-rich anchor text in your internal links.

Notice that I used “eCommerce business” in the paragraph. This tells search engines that the page I’m linking to is about e-commerce.

8. Add External Links

Similar to internal links, external links are links pointing to other pages, but pages that have different domains.

Try to link to appropriate pages that are trustworthy and relevantto your content.

This helps both readers and search engines know that your content is well-referenced. For example, I link to BigCommerce when I share their research statistics:

9. Optimize Your Website & Post for Google Sitelinks

Sitelinks is another great way to improve the appearance of your website.

Although you can’t decide which site links to show, you can guide Google to pick the site you want.

10. Optimize Your Post for Feature Snippet Using Lists

A featured snippet is a brief answer to the searcher’s query. It usually shows on the top of the search engine result page.

According to Search Engine Land, the average click-through rate of a featured snippet is 8.6%. It will certainly boost your organic traffic click-through rate if your content gets there.

You can try using lists as Google loves showing lists at the top of its search result.

Look at these articles if you want to optimize your feature snippets:

What are Featured Snippets & How to Optimize?

How to Optimize for Google Featured Snippets: A 12 Steps Guide

Learn More:

On-Page SEO: The Definitive Guide

On-Page SEO: The Beginner’s Guide

Advanced: The Complete Guide to On-Page SEO

Content SEO Checklist

“Content is king” — Bill Gates

If you want to rank in Google, there’s no doubt that you need to publish great content.

Follow these practices below to level up your content.

1. Identify the Search Intent

Yup, like what I’ve mentioned in the keyword research checklist, you need to know who your target audience is and what they seek.

There are two ways to identify their search’s intent:

First, check out the content that Google ranks.

Type in your keyword and make a Google search. Then, go through the headline and the page that Google ranks on the first page. Refer to step 5 in the keyword research checklist for more information.

Second, go through your buyer’s persona or digital marketing funnel.

Check this (buyer’s persona) and this (marketing funnel) out if you want to know more.

Once you’ve determined, let’s proceed to the next one.

You will see a great list of your competitors. You can go through each column to collect tons of valuable keywords.

2. Focus on Creating In-Depth Content

Below are some of the advantages of creating in-depth content:

Google tends to rank the content that covers an entire topic in-depth.
In-depth content provides comprehensive and valuable information to searchers
High opportunity to gain a lot of backlinks

When you’re creating your high-quality content, always keep the search intent of your target audience in mind. Don’t just write long but valueless content.

3. Maximize Your Content Readability

I bet no one like to read content like this:

So you should try this:

If you’re writing a blog post, you should also make sure the content is easy to read by:

Breaking your content into chunks
Short sentences and paragraphs
Use active voice
Use simple words and phrase
Bold important words or phrases

5. Add a Lot Visual Content

You might notice that this article uses a lot of images.

Simple reason: It enhances the reading experience and helps content to rank better.

Consider these when you’re preparing for the next post:

Try these free tools when you plan to create your visual content.

5. Update Your Old Content

Run a content audit regularly. Remove content that doesn’t rank, doesn’t provide value, duplicate and low-quality content.

Instead of writing new content, you should update your old content to increase your SEO rankings.

Image credit: Search Engine Journal

6.Optimize Your Content for E-A-T

E-A-T stands for “Expertise, Authoritativeness & Trustworthiness”.

Google introduces this to stress that the websites that rank well need to have a good reputation.

Image Source: ReliableSoft

How do you optimize for E-A-T? Here are some tips for you:

Gain more high-quality backlinks (more about this later)
Create high-quality content
Get more reviews
Get more mentions
Hire experts to create content
Use Skyscraper Technique

Check this out if you want to know more about E-A-T:

What is E-A-T? Why Is It Important for SEO?

How to Optimize for Google’s E-A-T Algorithms?

Bonus: Skyscraper Technique

If you’ve followed the checklist, you will find that high-quality content and backlinks are two crucial factors in your SEO strategy.

But do you know that there is a technique to kill two birds with one stone?

It’s the Skyscraper technique.

The skyscraper technique is a powerful formula to create amazing content and earn high-quality backlinks.

Follow these three steps:

There are a lot more details on the Skyscraper technique. Find out, here.

Learn More:

How to Create Content Strategy that Drives Conversions

10 Amazing Tips to Write High-Quality Blog Posts

7 Traits that REALLY Defined High-Quality Content

The 10 Ingredients of Great Content Writing

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Off-Page SEO Checklist

Off-Page SEO is SEO practices done outside of your websites to improve your rankings such as link building. If you want to rank well on search engines, it’s a must. Follow these tested tactics to start your link building strategy.

1. Analyze Your Competitor’s Profile

You need to know your competitors before you can outrank them.

To identify backlinks from your competitor, simply head to SEO SpyGlass and place your competitors’ domain URL.

Click “Backlinks” to get more insights from your competitors’ backlinks. Look out for those that have high authority (high domain in-link rank).

Once you’ve gathered the data, you can transfer them to a spreadsheet and see if you could reach out to those authors.

2. Identify Link Intersection

Conducting a link intersect analysis will help you to find quick-win opportunities that competitors are already enjoying.

Using the link intersection in SEO SpyGlass, you can include up to five different domains to gain insights into which domains are linking to which of your competitors.

If you find any page that you miss out on, you can reach out to ask to be added.

3. Check for Unlink Mention

Unlink mention refers to people that mention your brand without linking back to you.

Here’s an example:

Image Source: Ahref

If you found those mentions, just reach out to the authors and request for them to make the text clickable. Since they’re familiar with your brand, there is a high chance that they will do that for you.

You can browse to Google Alerts, input your brand name, and you will see a list of mentions of your brand. Go through all of them and find the unlinked mentions.

Another method to find unlinked mentions is through images.

You can use Google reverse-search to find all web pages that use your image in their content.

Check this to know more about solving unlink mentions.

4. Search for Guest Posting

Guest blogging is where you write and publish an article on another site in your industry.

Then, you can link back to your website.

When you’re reaching out, remember quality is more important than quantity. You should seek those that are relevant to your content.

However, the question remains, how do you find guest posting opportunities?

One of the best ways is using the Link-Assistant tool in SEO Powersuite.

You can read this to understand more about guest posting.

5. Guestographics

In simple terms, Guestographics = Guest post + infographics

Do you know that you can also use infographics to gain high-quality backlinks?

Well, it doesn’t mean that you should post thousands of infographics in a post. When you use it properly, it can boost your ranking!

Image credit: Search Engine Journal

6.Optimize Your Content for E-A-T

E-A-T stands for “Expertise, Authoritativeness & Trustworthiness”.

Google introduces this to stress that the websites that rank well need to have a good reputation.

Image Source: ReliableSoft

How do you optimize for E-A-T? Here are some tips for you:

Gain more high-quality backlinks (more about this later)
Create high-quality content
Get more reviews
Get more mentions
Hire experts to create content
Use Skyscraper Technique

Check this out if you want to know more about E-A-T:

What is E-A-T? Why Is It Important for SEO?

How to Optimize for Google’s E-A-T Algorithms?

Bonus: Skyscraper Technique

If you’ve followed the checklist, you will find that high-quality content and backlinks are two crucial factors in your SEO strategy.

But do you know that there is a technique to kill two birds with one stone?

It’s the Skyscraper technique.

The skyscraper technique is a powerful formula to create amazing content and earn high-quality backlinks.

Follow these three steps:

There are a lot more details on the Skyscraper technique. Find out, here.

Learn More:

How to Create Content Strategy that Drives Conversions

10 Amazing Tips to Write High-Quality Blog Posts

7 Traits that REALLY Defined High-Quality Content

The 10 Ingredients of Great Content Writing

Most Asked SEO Questions Before Getting SEO Services

To help you better decide which SEO service to go with, I’ve conducted surveys and chatted with our Sales team to pinpoint the top FAQs.

How long does SEO take to see results from an SEO service?

The timeline varies depending on competition, site history, and keyword difficulty. Generally, noticeable improvements begin to show within 3–6 months, although more competitive niches may require 6–12 months. Don’t be discouraged if progress is slower than expected—consistency is key in building strong online visibility.

How do I know if my SEO is working?

We usually track the key metrics such as:

Organic traffic: Are more people finding you through search?
Conversion rates: Is your site turning visitors into leads or customers?
Keyword visibility: Are you ranking for terms that matter?
Brand awareness: Are you getting more direct searches and social mentions?

Regular analytics reports and transparent conversations with your SEO provider will help you see if your investment is paying off. If an agency can’t show measurable improvements aligned with your goals, it might be time to re-evaluate.

Will an SEO service guarantee top rankings on search engines?

Well, many SEO agencies in Malaysia offer “guarantees” (full disclosure: We’ve tried that before!). Sure, it’s possible to hit page 1 for super niche, long-tail keywords with zero search volume localised keywords (Why do they promise guarantees if this isn’t possible?)

But top rankings for those keywords aren’t going to bring traffic and leads to your website. Instead of chasing agencies with the flashiest “guarantee”, look for a solid SEO partner focused on sustainable growth, like boosting your online presence, driving real traffic, and increasing conversions.

How often should I expect progress reports from my SEO provider?

Many agencies issue monthly or quarterly updates that detail key actions, changes made, and progress toward your KPIs. We provide monthly reports, but some clients prefer weekly check-ins. So, opt for a provider that offers consistent, transparent reporting so you’re never left in the dark.

Can I customise an SEO package according to my specific requirements?

Absolutely. Most reputable agencies understand that every business is different. If your target market or brand positioning requires a tailored approach, discuss this upfront. Personalised strategies often yield better results than one-size-fits-all packages.

What happens if I decide to cancel my SEO package before the contract period ends?

Always review the cancellation terms in your contract. Some agencies enforce notice periods or charge fees if you end the agreement early. Our approach strikes a balance between flexibility and fairness—if you find that our service isn’t meeting your needs, we’ll work with you to develop a reasonable exit strategy.

What’s Next for Your SEO Journey?

SEO costs in Malaysia can range from MYR 900 to MYR 10,000+ a month, depending on your goals and business size.

For SMEs, it’s about finding a plan that drives real growth without breaking the bank.

That’s where our SEO RankRise Growth plan comes in—starting at RM2,899 a month, it’s built to help Malaysian SMEs like yours grow organically with more leads and sales.

Want to see how it can work for you? Book a free 1-to-1 consultation with us, and we’ll explore how to boost your business the organic way.

Grow Your Traffic and Increase Your Revenue

Get started to drive your revenue from organic search with us today.

How to Increase Domain Authority for Your E-Commerce Website

Ezra — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 09:00:19 +0000

You have created your e-commerce website and started to sell your wonderful products through your website.

But one question remains: how do you let your e-commerce website rank high on search engines consistently so that you can increase your organic traffic?

One of the ways is to understand your Domain Authority (DA) score. Peter Drucker once said:

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”

By understanding the DA score of your e-commerce website, you’ll be able to plan out a proper SEO strategy to enhance your DA score. But before we proceed to the powerful techniques, let’s explore the basic of DA.

What is Domain Authority Score?

Domain Authority (DA) is a score or metric developed by Moz that reflects your website’s authority. The score ranges from 0 to 100, where a higher score indicates greater authority. According to Moz, it’s calculated based on 40+ signals, such as:

The number of incoming links pointing to your website
The quality and relevancy of incoming links
The quality of your website’s content
Social signals (the popularity of your domain and contain in social media networks)
Your website’s SEO performance

Therefore, you need to enhance your DA score if you want to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPS).

Why Your Domain Authority Score is essential?

Recently, Search Engine Journal published research to debunk the myth of Google’s ranking factors. According to the study, they found out that DA is not a ranking factor. It means that the score you see on the DA is not a metric that Google uses to rank websites on the SERP.

So you might wonder why I should care about my DA score since it’s not a ranking factor. However, a study by Ahrefs shows a correlation between domain authority and search engine results page (SERP) ranking, even though Google doesn’t have factor domain authority into their rankings.

The findings of this study suggest that DA is a useful metric for estimating the amount of organic traffic you receive from Google. On the other hand, some of the signals used by Moz in calculating DA scores (i.e., the number of backlinks) are also factors used by Google in their rankings. Moz also continuously updates its link index to represent your site’s ability to rank in search more accurately.

Therefore, you should pay attention to DA to improve your SEO rankings. However, remember that developing authority can take time, so don’t worry if you don’t see immediate results.

How Do You Check Domain Authority Score? (with Free DA Checkers)

Since DA is still crucial to your e-commerce website, you need to know your DA score to improve it. There are a few methods to check your domain authority score. Here are a few free domain authority checkers.

Moz Link Explorer

This is the official tool created by Moz to identify your DA score. Log in to Moz (you need to create an account to check your e-commerce DA score), insert the URL, and click Analyze. You will see the result as shown in the screenshot below. However, you can only search for ten queries per month if you’re using the free version.

Pro tip: You can Install the Mozbar Chrome extension to check your and your competitor’s DA score faster.

Small SEO Tools

Another free tool you can use to check your DA score is Small SEO Tools. The best thing about this tool is that there is no daily limitation on DA checking. You can even check DA scores in bulk and export them as an Excel file.

Don’t worry if your e-commerce website does not have a high DA right now. You can follow the best practices below to give it a boost.

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What is a Good Domain Authority for E-Commerce?

If you have just launched your e-commerce website, your DA score will be 1. This is because your website doesn’t have a strong link profile yet. But how high of a DA score do you need for your e-commerce store to be considered good?

One of the best ways to determine a good DA score is to measure it against other comparable or similar sites.

For example, if you have an e-commerce store that sells cosmetics and beauty care products, try to identify the DA score for your competitors. You can do this by searching for a few keywords that are relevant to your business. Then, use the MozBar chrome extension plugin to get an average DA score.

8 Tested Techniques to Enhance your E-Commerce website Domain Authority

Now that you understand the basics of DA, how to measure it, and what is a good DA score, let’s discover some proven SEO techniques to increase your e-commerce store’s domain authority.

Create Unique Premium Content

Content is always one of the top three SEO techniques when it comes to a good SEO strategy. Here are some ways to create high-quality content for your e-commerce business:

Performcompetitor research. Select 3-4 high-profile competitors in your niche and Inspect the content they have on their website
Conduct keyword research and place your targeted keywords in your content appropriately
Use short and keyword-rich URL
Write catchy titles, headings, and meta descriptions to enhance the click-through rate.
Write detailed, helpful descriptions for each of your products. You can refer to how Amazon provides detailed descriptions of its products.
Include relevant FAQs on your product page. Well-written FAQs not only help you to rank for more keywords but also solve your prospects’ questions.
Optimize your product photos and videos. Add alt texts to your images.
Showcase your great reviews from customers on your homepage or the product page. 77% of visitors read product reviews before they buy a product. This can enhance the overall user experience.
Perform internal linking to your content.

If you want to enhance your DA score further, you should put more effort into creating various quality, engaging content that encourages visitors and backlinks, such as blogging on your e-commerce website. Research from HubSpot shows 60% of consumers read blog content to learn something new from your website.

One of the great examples is Net A Porter. You can see that it has a very high DA score.

Build High-Quality Backlinks

Websites with a high DA typically have many high-quality referring domains. Hence, you should acquire high-quality links from domains with a higher DA than your website if you want to increase your website’s DA,

While getting backlinks from higher DA websites is crucial, you should avoid getting backlinks from spammy sites. Here are the types of backlinks you should consider to improve your DA:

Backlinks from high-quality websites: These links represent the SEO gold standard. They originate from websites with high authority and are regarded as a vote of confidence in your website.
Links from relevant websites: Avoid getting high DA links irrelevant to your business. Getting links from your industry helps to demonstrate to Google that your website is a credible source of information for your target audience.
Links from high-traffic websites: Links from high-traffic websites can drive significant traffic to your website. This can assist in boosting your website’s SEO ranking and conversion rate.

To get backlinks from these websites, follow these methods to get backlinks to your e-commerce website:

Skyscraper Technique: A genius method created by Brian Dean, an SEO expert. Identify content that gets a lot of backlinks, create an improved version then reach out to sites linking to your competitors. For inspiration, check out our link-building case studies to see this technique in action.
Guest blogging: The benefit of guest posting is you provide high-quality content to a website with higher DA and get a backlink to your site with an anchor text in the guest post. However, different websites have different guidelines for their guest post, so make sure you follow them accordingly.
Outreach: If your website is new, people need help finding you on Google. Therefore, you need to conduct outreach to promote your content. For example, you can provide some offers or discounts for your product to your target persona in exchange for getting a backlink to your e-commerce website.

Optimize Your Website Structure

Usually, an e-commerce website has more pages as there are many products. If you don’t structure your website correctly, it makes it difficult for the Google crawl bot to crawl and index your page, affecting its visibility.

Hence, one crucial e-commerce SEO rule is to ensure visitors can reach all your pages within three clicks from your homepage. By doing this, you are making the link authority concentrate on your products, which helps rank your pages higher on Google.

Here’s an example of a good e-commerce site structure that you can follow:

Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly

Google has announced that mobile responsiveness is a ranking factor. Undoubtedly, you should make your e-commerce store mobile-responsive to enhance the user experience and thus improve your DA score.

You can build a mobile-friendly site by:

Use a responsive theme and plugins. If you’re using WordPress, make sure you choose a good WordPress theme that is mobile-friendliness.
Select a mobile-responsive website builder. If you’re using other e-commerce platforms, choose website builders such as Wix, Benova, and Shopify that support mobile responsiveness.
Redesign your pop-ups. Research shows that people hate pop-ups on mobile. However, you can still utilize the pros of pop-ups if you optimize them well. For instance, your pop-ups should be easy to close.
Enhance your website speed on mobile. Note that your desktop website performance may differ significantly from your mobile. You can use this tool from Google to check your website performance on both devices. Follow these advanced practices to enhance your speed on mobile.

Source: Crazy Egg

Enhance Your E-Commerce Website Speed

Everyone doesn’t like slow websites, and it’s the same for e-commerce. Google has publicly stated that site speed is one of the few signals it uses as part of its algorithm. Hence, if your site loads slowly, it will also affect your DA.

However, site speed is not only crucial for e-commerce SEO; it also has a direct impact on your revenue. Research proves that slow loading time can increase shopping cart abandonment by 29.8%.

So, to improve your website speed, here are some suggestions for you:

Compress your images and videos.High-res photos can consume a lot of bandwidth, making your site load slower. You can load your website faster with various image and web compressor tools.
Audit your Javascript files. jQuery and JavaScript require time to load, interpret, and execute. Web page loading times may significantly impact if you use multiple API calls to render JavaScript/jQuery data. Hence, an audit can help you to remove any unnecessary files.
Invest in Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN service is a distributed network of independent servers deployed in different geographic locations that can serve web content to visitors with high availability and performance. Although it’s not a must, investing in CDN can be cost-effective, especially if you want to grow your business in different countries.

Boost Your Site Social Appearance

Although Google considers links from social media as “no-follow” links, some research indicates that websites that rank highly on Google SERP have a high social share. Hence, you should not forget to use social media to enhance your website’s DA.

The most straightforward strategy is to actively share engaging content through official channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, to increase your website’s social signal.

You can also run your promotions, giveaways, contests and other marketing campaigns on your social accounts and funnel them to your e-commerce website.

Another great way to leverage your social presence is by using a content repurposing strategy.

For instance, you have published a video about nail painting. You can repurpose your video content by making it into a blog post, Instagram carousel post, infographic, or a 30-second short video. Then, share this different content across your social media to enhance your social profile.

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Improve Your Local SEO

Although improving your local SEO doesn’t directly impact your DA, it helps you to rank higher on Google SERP, especially on Google Snack Pack (formerly known as Local 3-Pack). This will enhance organic traffic to your website (even without getting a high DA!) To optimize for local SEO, you should consider the following:

Set up Google My Business (GMB) Profile. Google often ranks local businesses in their Snack Pack (or Local 3-Pack), which helps you to rank on Google faster and enhance your overall DA.
Frequently update your GMB Profile. GMB allows you to create a post and upload new photos and details to your GMB profile. By continuously updating your profile, encourage visitors to return to your e-commerce store while attracting new visitors to your store.
Create a profile on relevant platforms. For instance, you can create a profile on Yelp or Foursquare, as more people will use these platforms to research.
Encourage more reviews from your customers. Customer reviews are one of the most prominent factors to rank high on the Google Snack Pack.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed handling everything on your own, consider outsourcing to an SEO company in Malaysia.

VeecoTech has years of experience assisting clients across a wide range of sectors, including e-commerce, financial services, healthcare, and dental SEO, increasing their website traffic and domain authority within a certain time frame.

If you’re comparing SEO prices in Malaysia, we offer transparent packages tailored to your business goals.

Conclusion

Although Google doesn’t use DA in its ranking algorithms, it’s still a reliable metric to help you compare your website’s overall authority to your competitors.

Even though it’s not easy to increase your DA score, especially when you have reached 50+, you can still follow the above techniques and incorporate them into your link-building strategy to increase DA and improve your website’s search engine ranking.

FAQ

What is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority (DA) is a score or metric developed by Moz that reflects your website’s authority. The higher the score, the greater the authority of the website. Although Google and Moz have confirmed that it’s not a Google Ranking Factor, it’s still a valuable metric that helps you to evaluate how strong your website is compared to your competitors.

How to check your e-commerce website domain authority?

The most straightforward way is to use the Moz Link Explorer tool. You can also use Mozbar chrome extension to spy on your competitors’ DA and evaluate the opportunity to outrank them. Another great free tool to check your e-commerce website is the Small SEO tool.

What are the top 3 strategies to enhance e-commerce DA?

Here are the top three strategies if you want to boost your e-commerce DA:

Create premium content.Just check your biggest competitors in your industry.
Build high-quality backlinks to your e-commerce website.Backlink is one of the top Google ranking factors. You can create link-worthy content such as infographics, free tools, or e-books. Other methods include guest blogging and content outreach,
Boost the social appearance of your e-commerce site.Don’t underestimate the power of social media in boosting your DA. You can use a content repurposing strategy to encourage traffic to your e-commerce site.

Want to improve your ROI?

Get more qualified traffic on the search terms that matter most to your business today!

Multiple Locations SEO: How to Rank Well and Outrank Your Competitors

Ezra — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 09:00:09 +0000

According to recent local SEO statistics, 93% of consumers used online searchers to find local businesses. It means that if you apply great local SEO practices, you’re attracting more customers than those who aren’t.

Imagine your company has grown quickly with new franchises or branches in numerous cities and nations.

You’re now serving multiple regions, shipping internationally or globally.

The question remains: How can I get more customers to my branches in various locations through giant search engines like Google?

That’s what we’re going to discuss in this article! But before diving into the best practices to rank for multiple locations, let’s discuss multiple-location SEO.

What is Multiple-Location SEO?

Multiple-location SEO focuses on ranking your website for multiple geographic locations. It allows you to increase search traffic from multiple regions. This can be important for businesses with multiple physical locations or serving customers in different regions.

For instance, you have a few pizza shops across London, and one of your stores is in Kensington, London.

If your pizza store shows up on Google’s Snack Pack (formerly known as Google Local 3-Pack, or the map listing as shown in the screenshot below), there is a high chance that you’re getting more clicks to your site.

Recent research shows that 48.3% of the clicks go to Google’s Snack Pack (it’s almost as if you’re ranking in the second search position on Google!).

Hence, developing a solid SEO strategy is crucialto gain more leads from different locations. Check out these powerful SEO strategies for more in-depth information about bringing your SEO strategy to the next level.

In short, multiple-location SEO allows search engines to distinguish between numerous locales. Thus, local shoppers can obtain useful information regarding the items and services offered by neighbouring retailers.

Steps to Optimize for Multiple locations

Now you know that multiple-location SEO is crucial in enhancing brand awareness and increasing sales and conversion. Follow the steps below to learn how to rank for multiple locations.

Create a Page for Each Location on Your Website

The initial step to rank for multiple locations is to create a page for each locationon your website.

For instance, if you want more customers from London, you should set up a page targeted at London areas. You can even go into more detail by adding specific districts, such as Kensington, to your page.

When you create a new page, you should add the location to your URL. For instance, you have a pizza store in Kensington. London. Your URL should look like this:

mypizzastore.com/locations/london (for a specific state)
mypizzastore.com/locations/london/kensington (for a specific district)

Optimize Your Page with Local Keywords

Once you have created pages, you need to optimize your pages around your location keywords so that Google knows this page is optimized for local purposes.

But before you optimize your page, you need to know the keywords your customers use when searching for pizza.

So how do you find those keywords? One of the easiest ways to find suitable keywords is using Ubersuggest.

Open Ubersuggest, go to “Keyword Ideas,” then insert a few seed keywords such as “pizza kensington london” or “best pizza in kensington london” and click “Search”.

You will see a lot of suggested keywords that are related to your business. Choose 5-10 keywords with high search volume butlow SEO difficulty.

Once you have selected the keywords, place them in an Excel file. Read this keyword research SEO Checklist if you’re interested to discover more lucrative keywords for your business.

After confirming your keywords, you should include your keywords in the following:

Title and subheadings (H1, H2 tags)
Website content
Meta description
Image ALT texts

Although the presence of keywords is crucial, don’t spam your keywords everywhere. You should include them in a way that is natural and not spammy. Here’s a great example of how a website optimizes local keywords without spamming.

Want to improve your ROI?

Get more qualified traffic on the search terms that matter most to your business today!

Create Great Location-Relevant Content

Don’t forget to tailor your content based on your location! Although it takes effort to create this content, especially if you’ve many locations, it’s still worth it as location-relevant content has a higher click-through rate than general content.

Here are some areas of your website that you should take note of when you’re creating localized content:

Product pages. This is crucial if you have outlets or branches in different countries with different languages. You can use Google translate plugin or hire translators to provide copies in native languages.
Images. Add images of your physical outlets and event photos to build trust.
Reviews. It’s best if you can highlight native reviews. For example, if you have branches in Japan, you should showcase reviews from your customer in Japan instead of London or the United States.

Setup Google Business Profile

Setup Google Business Profile is essential to rank for multiple locations. Google Business Profile boosts your brand awareness and increases your opportunity to show on Google’s Snack Pack.

Therefore, you should set up a Google Business Profile profile for each targeted location. If you’re unsure how to set up a Google Business Profile profile, check out this article from Google.

Once you have created the profile, make sure you remember to fill up this information:

Business name, address, and phone number
Business categories
Services
Business description
Operation hours
Upload photos and videos (both company and products, if applicable)

Google Business Profile also allows you to activate messaging feature, which helps to encourage more visitors to contact you.

If you already have Google Business Profile profile for all locations, you should continue to optimize it by uploading new photos and creating new Google Business Profile post to inform visitors of your new events.

Encourage Customers to Give Reviews

According to local SEO research by Loganix, reviews are one of the most crucial ranking factors to rank in Google’s Snack Pack and local organic ranking.

Source: Loganix

Besides, research also shows that nine out of ten consumers will read the reviews of a business before they buy products or get services from it. Therefore, you need to try to collect as many reviews as possible if you want to rank for multiple locations.

Here’s a great example from a local dental clinic in Penang, Malaysia, that gets a lot of positive reviews from its patients.

“I set a number of reviews as a KPI for every staff. But my main purpose is to encourage them to keep building relationship with my patients.” said Dr. Felicia, the principal dentist at Skye Dental Penang.

Managing your reviews is difficult, especially if customers give you bad reviews. So we have highlighted some effective ways to encourage your customers to write reviews for your business:

Create a Google review shortcut link. Here’s a guide to creating a Google review shortcut link.
Embed a Google review link on your website
Include a Google review link in the footer
Run a Google review email campaign
Ask for more reviews on social media
Respond to your Google review. You can use this AI tool to help if you don’t know how to reply politely.

Create Local Business Listings for Each Location

Besides using Google platforms, you can enhance your multiple location ranking by creating local business listings such as Yelp, Angie’s List, and Yellow Pages. By having various business listings, you’re improving your brand visibility as your brand appears across various platforms.

Besides, local business listings allow you to get more client reviews, as different clients prefer different platforms.

Let’s say you have a hotel industry business and want to rank for multiple locations. You can create local business listings on Trip Advisors, Expedia, Trivago and Yelp. Doing this means you’re getting more reviews compared to only using one platform.

If you’re in Malaysia, here are some best local listing sites you can try out:

You can also add links to your location-specific pages on your website. This way, customers can get more information about your business with a click of a link.

Build Backlinks for Each Location

Another crucial factor in ranking for multiple locations is building backlinks to your location-specific pages. Google “sees” backlinks as a trust signal of your website.

The more quality backlinks you have, the higher the authority you are. Hence, you must continuously monitor and grow your backlinks to ensure you rank continuously.

There are numerous ways to build backlinks. One effective way is to reach out to the bloggers in your community, especially those who consistently publish content related to your industry. You can find them by searching for keywords in your industry on Google.

For instance, if you’re an interior designer, you can search for keywords like “interior design blog” to find bloggers that consistently share topics related to interior design.

Then, reach out to them and ask them to write a post or review about your interior design projects. You can also try guest posting techniques and contact the owner to submit your post.

Another way to get backlinks for your location-specific pages is local citations. Local citations refer to If you have business in the US, one of the best ways to get local citations is submitting your site to data aggregators such as Express Update, Neustar Localeze, and Factual.

These companies collect business information and distribute it to hundreds of other websites. Hence, you have the opportunity to get a lot of citations if they have your business information.

Conclusion

Multiple-location SEO can provide numerous benefits for a corporation.

You will have the chance to improve brand awareness and attract local customers. Since many individuals conduct local searches, you can increase customer acquisition outcomes.

When it comes to SEO for various locations, one of the best ideas I can provide is to adopt local SEO best practices for each location.

A one-size-fits-all approach is ineffective and can result in fewer website visitors, prospects, and clients for your firm. But you may win big by combining brand recognition with a great local strategy.

To reap the benefits of this SEO method, you must design and optimize a page for locations important to your organization. Then, solicit feedback and build local business listings so clients can evaluate your company accurately.

I hope this multiple-location SEO guide helps you to grow your business!

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