This SEO Checklist 48.7% More Organic Traffic (Case Study) PDF

1/13/2017 This SEO Checklist = 48.
7% More Organic Trafﬁc [Case Study]
There’s an SEO checklist that I

use for every client.
And it works.
Want proof?
Proven.com recently used this

checklist to boost their organic
traffic by 48.7%.
(In 3 weeks)
And in today’s post I’m going to show you exactly how they did it…
step-by-step.
But First, A Quick Story…
http://backlinko.com/seo-checklist 1/66
1/13/2017 This SEO Checklist = 48.7% More Organic Trafﬁc [Case Study]
A few weeks back Proven.com founder Sean Falconer reached out

to me.
I had just sent out a newsletter to the Backlinko email list.
And this newsletter outlined my three favorite content marketing

strategies for 2016.
Sean replied to that email and said:
“Dude. I’ve actually done all three of these. And my results

have been nothing short of amazing. Take a look:
SEAN FALCONER
I was uber-impressed with Sean’s content marketing.
But I also noticed a few on-site SEO issues…
…issues that were holding him back from Google’s first page.
That’s when I had an idea:
Sean’s reply:
Keep reading to see what happened next.
Let’s See The Results From the SEO
Checklist That Sean Used
Thanks to my checklist, Sean’s organic search engine traffic shot

through the roof.
Proven.com saw a 48.7% increase in organic traffic…
…in just 3 weeks:
But that was just the beginning…
Now that the checklist had time to do its thing, 6 weeks later,
Sean’s organic traffic is now up 88.3%.
Now that you’ve seen how well this SEO checklist works, it’s time
for me to walk you through the entire 7-step process.
Step #1: Delete “Dead Weight” Pages
Google recently said that a huge site with tons of pages can be bad
for SEO.
To quote the Google rep (Gary Illyes):
“Narrow it down as much as you can. Don’t create low quality

and no value add pages. It’s just not worth it because one
thing is that we don’t necessarily want to index those pages.
We think that it’s a waste of resources. The other thing is that
you just won’t get quality traffic. If you don’t get quality traffic
then why are you burning resources on it?
GARY ILLYES
This is why I make sure that every page on my site is AWESOME.
In fact, Backlinko generates over 150k unique visitors per month…
…despite having only 33 posts:
How is this possible?
It’s because I focus on 100% quality.
Despite the fact that this quality over quantity approach clearly
works, I see A LOT of sites struggle with “Dead Weight” pages.
Dead Weight pages like:
WordPress category and tag pages

Outdated blog posts
Low-quality blog posts
Ecommerce product pages with zero sales
Archive pages
Thin content/boilerplate content
Old services pages
And as you just saw, Google said that these Dead Weight pages can
hurt your SEO efforts.
OK, back to Sean…
In the case of Proven.com, their blog content was solid.
But they DID have a lot of dead weight pages.
In fact, their site had over 48,000 pages indexed in Google:
Because Proven.com is an online job board, they had a lot of old job
listings hanging around:
Not to mention profile pages for companies that hadn’t posted a

job in months:
Also, Proven’s search result pages were getting indexed…
…which was creating Dead Weight pages by the thousands.

So I sent these pages over to Sean.
And Sean quickly deleted or redirected Proven.com’s Dead Weight

pages:
In total, Sean deleted or redirected over 10,000 pages.
Now that Sean’s site was cleaned up, it was time to fix the pages
that were left…
Step #2: Fix OnSite Issues and Errors
Next, I rolled up my sleeves and tackled Proven’s technical SEO

issues.
Specifically I focused on fixing:

Duplicate or missing title tags

Duplicate description tags
Broken links
Images with missing alt text
Pages blocked by Robots.txt
302 redirects that should be 301 redirects
Basically you’re looking for any technical issues that hurt user
experience and SEO.
I used RavenTool’s site auditor to uncover issues with Proven.com.
Thankfully, we already deleted 10k pages. So there weren’t nearly

as many pages to clean up.
(In fact, that’s one of the reasons you delete Dead Weight pages in
step #1. It makes the rest of the process MUCH easier).
The only problems I found were:
A broken link here and there…
…some missing alt text from a couple of sitewide images…
…and a few duplicate title tags.
And Sean fixed all of these on-site issues within 24 hours.
Errors=fixed.
Then it was time for the fun stuff
Step #3: Optimize HighPriority Pages for
OnPage SEO
A lot of people that run huge sites think:
“How can we possibly optimize thousands of pages? It would take

months.”
So they don’t optimize any.
#facepalm
Fortunately, you don’t need to tweak every single page on your site.
Just pick your top 10 most important pages. And put all of your
muscle behind those 10.
For example, I asked Sean to send me his 510 most
important pages.
And Sean sent them over:
Some of Sean’s most important pages were blog posts, like this:
Others were service pages, like his homepage:
Obviously, my recommendations were different for every page I

worked on.
But in general, I applied the techniques from my massive guide to

on-page SEO.
Sean’s content was already well optimized. So I only needed to

make a few tweaks.
For example, let’s look at what I recommended for Sean’s post on

questions to ask references.
First, I asked Sean to add his target keyword (“questions to ask

references”) to the body of the article:
I also recommended that he sprinkle LSI keywords (like “business

references”) into his content:
Now that Sean’s content was keyword-optimized, it was time to

move onto a NEW ranking factor that’s super important right
now…
Step #4: Optimize for CTR
If you’re serious about crushing it with SEO in 2016, there are two
skills you need to master:
Skill #1: Optimizing your organic click-through-rate (CTR)
Skill #2: I’ll cover this skill in the next step (step #5)
Let’s start with CTR.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Google uses CTR as a
ranking signal.
Here’s a quote from a research paper published by Google:
So:
How did I improve Sean’s CTR?
I used the techniques from this video:
How to Get More Organic Traf c (FAST)
To give you an idea of how I used the techniques from the video, let
me walk you through an example…
Sean had a post on his blog called: 100+ Best Job Boards to Find
Niche Talent.
Here’s what the page’s organic result looked like:
Not bad…but could be better.
Here’s exactly what I did to improve this listing’s CTR:
First, I looked at Adwords ads for keywords, like “job boards”:
And I noticed that most listed a specific number of job boards in

their ads:
(I also noticed that NONE of them used the term, “niche talent”).
So I recommended that Sean change his title tag to:
“100+ Job Boards For Job Seekers and Recruiters”
And his description tag to:
“Find the best job boards on the web all in one place. See
our list of 100+ boards right here.”
Here’s what his Google result looks like today:
And now that page’s CTR for its target keyword is 4.88%…
…64.1% higher than before.
Pretty cool, huh?
Now that I helped turn Sean’s Google results into click magnets, it
was time for the next step…
http://backlinko.com/seo-checklist
Step #5: Reduce Bounce Rate and Boost 24/66
Step #5: Reduce Bounce Rate and Boost
Dwell Time (User Experience Signals)
I’ve talked about this before:
Google pays VERY close attention to so-called “user experience

signals”.
In other words, Google doesn’t want people to flee your site like its
on fire.
On the other hand:
If people stick to your site like superglue, Google may give you a
significant rankings boost.
The question is:
How can you optimize your site for user experience signals?
I cover everything you need to know in this video.
The SEO ranking factor you MUST master in 2...
I recommend watching the entire video before reading on. Go

ahead, I’ll wait
Now that you’ve watched the video, here’s how I applied these
strategies to Proven:
First, I asked Sean to pull his content above the fold.
How?
Well, Proven’s blog posts had a big gap between the site’s
navigation and the post title:
The top of your page is million-dollar real estate.
That’s why you want to avoid unnecessary space that pushes your
content below the fold.
So I asked Sean to reduce that space by 50%.
Proven’s blog also had breadcrumbs navigation.
Breadcrumbs navigation is OK for an ecommerce site. But it’s not

necessary for a blog.
So I recommended that Sean get rid of it.
Proven’s blog posts also had massive images at the top of each post.
These definitely looked cool…
…but they pushed Sean’s excellent content below the fold.
So I let Sean know that using smaller images significantly

increases the amount of time people spend on your page.
Here’s an example from Backlinko:
And Sean changed his images to match this style:
Next, I made Sean’s blog post introductions “sticky”.
Your blog post introductions are HUGE.

Because the truth is this:
If you lose someone in your intro, you’ve lost them for
good.
But if you hook someone with a compelling introduction…
…they’re MUCH more likely to stick around.
For example, I changed Sean’s introduction from this:
To this:
What did I change exactly?
First, I cut out sentences that stated the obvious.
And I formatted the content so that there were only 1-2 sentences
per paragraph (this improves your content’s readability).
These design and introduction improvements boosted Proven’s

“Avg. Time On Page” by 12.2%:
Step #6: Boost Site Speed
Our recent study of 1 million Google search results found a

significant correlation between site speed and rankings:
(Not to mention the fact that Google has said that they use page
speed as a ranking signal).
So yes, site speed IS important for SEO.
That’s why I include sitespeed as step #6 of my SEO checklist.
Here’s exactly what I did for Proven.com:
First, I ran Proven.com through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool:
Then I tested the site’s loading speed with GTMetrix.com.
Why did I use both?
Google’s tool only looks at your page’s HTML.
GTMetrix actually loads your page.
(That way you can see if server issues are slowing things down)
Overall, Sean’s site loaded pretty quickly.
The only problem was that his images weren’t well optimized.
Once he optimized his images (by manually resizing them and

specifying image dimensions in his HTML), Sean’s loading speed
significantly improved:
Now that Proven.com’s on-site issues were patched up, there was
only one thing left to do…
Step #7: Create and Publish a Skyscraper
Post
Now it’s time to wrap things up with the Skyscraper Technique.
Yes, your Skyscraper content will help with traffic and link
building.
But your Skyscraper post ALSO encourages Google spiders to visit

your site.
That way they can see the on-site improvements you just made.
(If you don’t know about The Skyscraper Technique, this case study
shows you everything you need to know).
Now:
Sean noticed that most of the content ranking for keywords like
“job descriptions” and “job description templates” were mediocre
at best.
For example, most were just poorly-organized links to hundreds of

job descriptions:
And the creators of these job description lists LOVED cheesy stock
photos like this:
That’s when Sean realized that he could create something MUCH

better.
How?
First, Sean included all of his job descriptions on a single page.
(That way you don’t have to visit 15 different pages to see 15

different descriptions).
Second, Sean created a job description filtering system.
This made finding the right job description a breeze…
…especially compared to the massive list of links that Sean’s

competitors used.
In fact, a few people left comments just to say how helpful Sean’s
filtering system was:
Third, Sean included helpful information above each description

(like salary data).
Last but not least, Sean used images that represented each job…

without resorting to cheesy stock photos.
How did Sean’s post do?
Because Sean’s content was AWESOME, it generated a big spike in

traffic:
Sean’s post also quickly hit the first page for the keyword “job
descriptions”:
Once Sean published his Skyscraper post, he could put a big red
“X” next to the last item on the checklist.
(And do a happy dance because his organic search engine traffic

increased by 80%+)
Now It’s Your Turn
Now I want to hear from you:
What do you think of this SEO checklist?
Or maybe you have a question about something.
Either way, leave a quick comment below.
I’ll be around today to reply to comments and answer questions.
So if you have a question or thought, make sure to leave a comment

right now.

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1/13/2017 This SEO Checklist = 48.

7% More Organic Trafﬁc [Case Study]

There’s an SEO checklist that I

Proven.com recently used this

A few weeks back Proven.com founder Sean Falconer reached out

I had just sent out a newsletter to the Backlinko email list.

And this newsletter outlined my three favorite content marketing

Sean replied to that email and said:

“Dude. I’ve actually done all three of these. And my results

I was uber-impressed with Sean’s content marketing.

But I also noticed a few on-site SEO issues…

That’s when I had an idea:

Keep reading to see what happened next.

Thanks to my checklist, Sean’s organic search engine traffic shot

Proven.com saw a 48.7% increase in organic traffic…

…in just 3 weeks:

But that was just the beginning…

To quote the Google rep (Gary Illyes):

“Narrow it down as much as you can. Don’t create low quality

This is why I make sure that every page on my site is AWESOME.

In fact, Backlinko generates over 150k unique visitors per month…

…despite having only 33 posts:

How is this possible?

Dead Weight pages like:

WordPress category and tag pages

In the case of Proven.com, their blog content was solid.

But they DID have a lot of dead weight pages.

In fact, their site had over 48,000 pages indexed in Google:

Not to mention profile pages for companies that hadn’t posted a

Also, Proven’s search result pages were getting indexed…

…which was creating Dead Weight pages by the thousands.

So I sent these pages over to Sean.

And Sean quickly deleted or redirected Proven.com’s Dead Weight

In total, Sean deleted or redirected over 10,000 pages.

Next, I rolled up my sleeves and tackled Proven’s technical SEO

Specifically I focused on fixing:

Duplicate or missing title tags

I used RavenTool’s site auditor to uncover issues with Proven.com.

Thankfully, we already deleted 10k pages. So there weren’t nearly

A broken link here and there…

…some missing alt text from a couple of sitewide images…

…and a few duplicate title tags.

And Sean fixed all of these on-site issues within 24 hours.

Then it was time for the fun stuff

A lot of people that run huge sites think:

“How can we possibly optimize thousands of pages? It would take

So they don’t optimize any.

And Sean sent them over:

Others were service pages, like his homepage:

Obviously, my recommendations were different for every page I

But in general, I applied the techniques from my massive guide to

Sean’s content was already well optimized. So I only needed to

For example, let’s look at what I recommended for Sean’s post on

First, I asked Sean to add his target keyword (“questions to ask

I also recommended that he sprinkle LSI keywords (like “business

Now that Sean’s content was keyword-optimized, it was time to

Skill #1: Optimizing your organic click-through-rate (CTR)

Skill #2: I’ll cover this skill in the next step (step #5)

Let’s start with CTR.

Here’s a quote from a research paper published by Google:

How did I improve Sean’s CTR?

I used the techniques from this video: