The SEO Checklist Review: An Actionable Way to Learn SEO for WordPress

Feeling overwhelmed by trying to implement search engine optimization (SEO) for your WordPress website?

If you’re not an SEO expert, understanding everything that you need to do to push your website up Google’s rankings can be tough. You have on-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, keyword research…there’s a lot to figure out.

The SEO Checklist is an information product built to solve that pain point, offering you a step-by-step guide and checklist that covers every important action you need to take to rank your site in Google and increase your organic traffic.

Here at WPLift, we usually review WordPress plugins and themes, so this is a tiny bit of a departure for us. However, SEO is important for every single website, so this knowledge is something that will be useful for all types of WordPress users, whether you’re creating your personal portfolio website, growing a blog, marketing your business, or anything else.

In our review of The SEO Checklist, we’ll explain what the bundle includes, which types of users will benefit the most from it, and some of our own general thoughts on its usefulness.

Who Is The SEO Checklist For?

To kick things off, let’s talk about the types of people that are going to benefit most from The SEO Checklist.

The obvious answer is SEO newbies. If you have no idea what to do to rank your WordPress site in Google, I think this is a really useful product to get you up to speed.

It’s not that you couldn’t find all this information yourself by Googling, it’s just that it would take you a lot more time. With The SEO Checklist, everything is already put together in one spot, with links and guides for exactly what you need to know.

It’s a great way to go from zero to being able to implement all the important stuff to rank your site.

It’s also super actionable – so it’s not just telling you what you need to do, but it’s also showing you how to do it, which is great if you’re a beginner.

The other area where I can see this as being useful is for agencies and WordPress website builders looking to standardize their processes and/or train team members.

If you’re already well-versed in SEO, you might not necessarily learn something new. But you will get:

1. A detailed checklist to make sure you don’t miss anything when working on/delivering a client’s website.
2. Detailed tutorials that you could use to train other members of your team who might not be as knowledgeable as you are.

I think there’s value in that as well.

What’s Included in The SEO Checklist?

The SEO Checklist bundle includes a few different items:

• 102-point SEO checklist – as a Google Sheet, a web app, and an eBook. This is the meat of the offering.
• 50+ detailed tutorials in the SOP (standard operating procedure) library.
• A 12-page content creation guide and Trello board to plan a year’s worth of content.
• 50-point content distribution checklist to promote the content that you create.

Let’s go through them…

The SEO Checklist Itself

The bulk of the product is The SEO Checklist itself, which comes in both a Google Sheet and a web app format and includes 102-plus checklist items.

The checklist items are divided into nine different categories:

1. Foundation Elements
2. User Experience
3. Performance
4. Technical SEO
5. Content
6. On-Page SEO
7. Off-Page SEO
8. Local SEO
9. Bonus – non-SEO – how to create a WordPress website.

Each step is divided into nine columns:

1. Title/action
2. Note
3. Status
4. Difficulty
5. Impact
6. Cost
7. Tools
8. SOP
9. Extra

If you’re not sure what an item means, you can hover over the Note column to see more details:

For the Google Sheet, you can, of course, make a copy so that you can actually check off items and track your progress. You could also add your own custom checklist items to further adapt the checklist to your own checklist.

Or, if you use the web app version, there’s a nice feature that lets you assign certain checklist items to different users in your team.

The thing I like most about The SEO Checklist is how actionable each step is. I think this is what turns it from “just a checklist” into a really useful tool for beginners. There are a few different things that make the checklist actionable, mostly contained in the columns on the right side:

• Tools – this column tells you where you’ll need to go to implement this checklist item. For example, to add a sitemap, you’ll need to use Google Search Console.
• SOP – these are detailed step-by-step guides that come directly from SEOBUDDY. Not every single item includes an SOP, but you do get over 50 different SOPs. The SOPs are super detailed, so I’ll dedicate an entire section to them.
• Extra – this links you to the best video and/or blog post to learn about that topic (from SEOBUDDY and/or third-party sources). Basically, instead of Googling and trying to find some useful content, you can just go straight to a really well-done guide. For example, the “Search intent” item links to this detailed guide from Backlinko.

Basically, if you find yourself saying “how the heck do I do that?” to one of the checklist items, these columns will give you the knowledge that you need.

The SOPs (Detailed Tutorials)

Again, the SOPs are detailed tutorials for 50+ of the checklist items that show you step-by-step how to perform the checklist item. In addition to being detailed, they also have a nice design and some useful summaries.

For example, here’s a look at the SOP for setting up Google Analytics.

The beginning gives you a basic summary of what you’re going to be doing and why:

Then, you’ll get detailed step-by-step instructions, along with lots of interface screenshots to guide you along:

As someone who writes a lot of tutorials, I can confirm that these tutorials are super detailed and must’ve taken a long time to put together.

You can use them to level up your own knowledge. Or, if you’re trying to build a team, you could also use them to train your team members how to perform certain actions.

The SEO Checklist eBook

The 62-page SEO Checklist eBook covers all of the same information as the checklist, but with a little more explanation for each point. It’s basically like a companion to the checklist that gives a bit more depth to each item in a few paragraphs.

It’s not enough to learn every part of the item (you’ll use the SOP or Extras for that). But it does help you anchor what each item means.

Content Creation eBook and Trello Board

The 12-page content creation ebook gives you a quick guide on how to create a full year’s worth of content to fill out different parts of your funnel.

Specifically, you’ll learn how to use Ahrefs to generate a bunch of ideas for content on your site and structure them in a way that makes sense. You get some pretty actionable information here, even showing you which Ahrefs tools to use and what to put there:

You’ll also get a Trello board to help you set up your strategy.

The one downside of this part is that it’s kind of predicated on having Ahrefs, which is a bit pricey. There are some useful general-purpose tips, but some of the tips aren’t actionable if you don’t have Ahrefs (or a similar tool).

Content Distribution Checklist

Finally, in addition to The SEO Checklist, you also get a 50-point content distribution checklist that helps you understand what you need to do to promote each piece of content that you publish.

It will cover email, social media, link building, etc.

This is a really important checklist because content distribution is essential if you want your content to rank for competitive keywords. As much as people will tell you “Content is king”, publishing great content alone isn’t enough if you want to get more eyeballs on it.

The SEO Checklist Pricing

To get lifetime access to everything that you saw above, you’ll pay $97. That includes:

• 102-point SEO checklist – as a Google Sheet or web app
• The SEOBUDDY SOP collection (those detailed tutorials)
• SEO Checklist eBook version
• 52-week content planner + Trello board
• 50+-point content distribution checklist
• One month free Startup plan for the actual SEOBUDDY tool (usually $457 per month)

However, if you use the special coupon code WPLIFT25, you can save 25% off the purchase price, which makes it cost just $72.75.

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Final Thoughts on The SEO Checklist

Ever since hearing an interview with Atul Gawande, I’ve always been a fan of checklists.

Checklists are useful for everyone, whether you’re a beginner or an advanced user. As Atul’s research has shown, even experienced surgeons will generate better outcomes for their patients by using a checklist.

So with that in mind, I think The SEO Checklist isn’t just useful for total beginners – it can also be useful for agencies or WordPress creators who are looking to avoid making accidental SEO mistakes.

If you’re a beginner, The SEO Checklist can help you learn and understand what you need to do to rank your site in Google. You’ll both enhance your theoretical knowledge and also get actionable guides and tutorials to perform the stuff yourself.

And if you’re an agency/developer, The SEO Checklist can make sure that you don’t make any silly mistakes with your clients (like an experienced surgeon accidentally sewing up some gauze inside their patient!). You may or may not learn something new if you’re already an expert, but you will get a well-designed tool and detailed documentation to train new team members if needed.

Get The SEO Checklist