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The summer is flying by and it’s almost time to go back to school. Students and parents will be searching for the best deals to start the year off right. Amidst the craziness a new semester or quarter can bring, your site needs to keep up with your needs and those of your customers.

So, we have one question for you, as it stands right now: can your site make the grade? Here are some small SEO checks and changes you can make to ensure your site is fully optimized and ready to go back to school:

1. Title Tags

Every page on your site should have a unique title tag. This line of text lets search engines and their users know what to expect on the page. There have been several changes to the recommended length. The most recent change focuses more on pixel width than character length; however, if you keep your title tags below 55-65 characters, you can rest assured it won’t get cut off in the SERPs.

2. Meta Descriptions

These go hand-in-hand (pixel-by-pixel?) with your title tags. This is free ad space where you can elaborate on what the visitor can expect to find on the page and why they should click on it. You have 155 characters or less to be relevant, useful, and persuasive – go!

3. Links

Check your site for broken links and either fix them, send them to a cool 404 page (complete with a CTA, if you dare), or redirect them to another relevant page. Examine your internal linking structure to identify areas for improvement, like linking relevant pages together or including a link to relevant pages/products within existing page content or blog posts.

4. Redirects

Speaking of redirects, make sure they are working correctly and are still pointing to the most relevant page possible. If you don’t have a relevant page, perhaps creating a landing page with a relevant offer (white paper, eBook, etc.) would be a better use of it. It can be a creative way to explain why that content is missing while still providing the opportunity to convert.

5. Images

Check all your images to make sure they’re showing up correctly across all devices. If not, the image link might be broken or the image could be the wrong size. Verify that all images include alt text to accurately describe what’s in the picture. Include keywords, but be wary of stuffing the description full of them – that won’t do you any favors.

6. Sitemap

Your sitemap lists all of the included pages of your site and their assigned priorities. Review your sitemap to ensure everything is present & accounted for, and that the pages are assigned the appropriate priority. Make sure you submit a completed sitemap to Webmaster Tools (Google & Bing would be a good place to start).

With the holidays coming up, you can also consider creating a holiday sitemap. By temporarily assigning a higher priority to your holiday pages and products within your sitemap and submitting that sitemap to the search engines, you can help the search engines assign a higher priority to those pages as well – just remember to resubmit the sitemap you usually use once the holidays are over!

7. Robots.txt

If you have a robots.txt file, take some time to review it. This file tells crawlers how to crawl your site; you want to make sure it’s set up correctly and all of the pages you want to be crawled are able to be crawled by search engine bots. If you don’t have any conditions in which you need to tell search bots how to crawl your site, you might be better off without one.

8. Categories

Take some time to review your categories. Your site could be seeing a huge boost in traffic over the coming months and you want to make sure people can find what they need. Ensure there are enough products to necessitate each category; you don’t want them to be overloaded with products, but you don’t want them to be too empty either. Too many categories or too many products in not enough categories can be overwhelming. Instead, try to keep your categories as simple and as useful as possible.

9. Navigation

Similar to categories, you want to make it as easy and simple as possible for visitors to get around your site. You don’t want a frustrating navigation to be the reason someone leaves your site. Keep it as simple and descriptive as possible, including site search capabilities can be a big help as well.

10. Local

Google’s Pigeon update is all about local, namely making local results more relevant, accurate, and useful.

One of the best ways to protect your site against adverse effects from this update is to follow local SEO best practices. Directory listings are still a boon for your business, as long as they’re relevant to your business. Ensure your citation (business name, address, & phone number) is accurate and consistent across all of your sites, profiles, & listings.

Consider this your back to school checklist. Start hitting these areas now to ensure your site’s ready when it comes time to take the test. Midnight cramming won’t cut it, but, with these optimization tips, your site has a good chance of making the grade when it matters.