Below is a checklist of standard SEO deployments recommended to our customers --
Development:
Redirects
- Redirect from non www to www version of website
- Redirects from any old URL’s that are no longer being used to the new URL for that page
- Only use 301 redirects (not 302 or others)
- URL’s ideally would be kept the same. For creating new URL’s: simple, include keywords, and use only hyphens (not underscores)
Blog
- Site should have a blog that is at domain.com/blog (“news” instead of “blog” would be fine if client prefers that) and
- All posts should be have the URL structure /blog/post-name
Content Related
- Ability to add in custom meta data (title tags and meta descriptions)
- Don’t use meta keywords
- Headings: should have only one h1 tagged heading on each page then h2’s should be used for subheadings (can use h3, h4 if necessary but never skip a number)
- Canonical tags on each page
Misc – Priority Order
- Robots file that disallows only a few unnecessary pages
- XML sitemap dynamically updates (plugin fine)
- Load time – the faster the better! We usually recommend less than 3 seconds
- Mobile friendly design
- Keep existing scripts: Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Search Console, etc
- Custom 404 error page and errors should cause a strict 404 error (not soft)
- No broken links (to internal or external pages)
- Include social media links on each page (generally in the footer)
- Favicon
Content:
- Content should be relevant to what they do and the keywords they want to rank for
- Word count should be at least 300 words per page, generally the more the better
- No duplicate content should be used (word for word content on other sites)
- Add in alt text for every picture that is a mix of keywords and a description of the picture
- Call to action should be clear, bold, and consistent throughout the website