A helpful checklist / collection of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips and technics.
- URL
- Accessibility
- Meta Information
- Keywords
- Content
- Images
- Links
- Mobile
- Sitemap
- Social Media
- Tools & Services
- Descriptive URLs: use a descriptive page url, which should reflect your targeted keyword
- Subdomain or subfolder: subdomains are seen as separate domains
- Hyphens: split words using hyphens
- www or no-www: provide both domains, but set a prefered version in Google Webmaster Tools
- Localisation: chookse a country-specific domain, for better local search results
- HTTPS: Security is a top priority for Google
- URL builder: Use this tool to add custom compaign parameters to your URLs
- File extension: do not strip out the file extension on URLs
- 403: provide a 403 - Access denied page
- 404: provide a 404 - Page not found page
- Robots: block pages which should not be indexed via the
robots.txtfile or
<meta name="robots" content=""> - File not found: avoid
404 FILE_NOT_FOUNDerrors - Redirects: Avoid redirects if possible. Use 301 redirect instead of 302
- Pagination: implement the
rel="next"andrel="prev"attributes to links - Moving a website: redirect all your links to the new location via
.htaccess - Performance: performance and loading time is important
- Validation: write valid code (HTML Validator CSS Validator)
- WAI-Aria: use WAI-Aria tags to help machines understanding your code
- RichSnippets: markup your code with rich snippets, they show up on the search results page
- Custom Search: with sitelink Google Sitelink search box, people can reach your content more quickly
- Title: each page shound have a unique speaking title (60 - 100 characters)
<title>Website Title</title> - Description: each page should have a unique description (max. 160 characters)
<meta name="description" content="">
- Single: every page shound have a single unique targeted keyword
- Research: rank for keywords with high traffic and less competition
- URL: keyword should appear in URL name
- Title: keyword should appear in page title
- Heading: keyword should appear in headings
- Content: keyword should apear in ~3% of article length
- Meta Tag: you can ommit the
<meta name="keywords" content="">,
search engines do not use this meta tag
- Content: Content matters the most in SEO
- Headings: Clear structure
H1-H6max. 70 characters long - Strong: use
strongtag to highlight your targeted keyword - Uniqueness: do not provide duplicated content, use unique content types
- Length: article should be at least 300 words
- Freshness: new content is important. Updating pages or regulary posting is recommended
- File name: use a short descriptive name
- Alt tag: add an alt-tag this a description of the image (60 - 70 characters)
- Dimentions: add the
width=""andheight=""attributes to the image - Responsive Images: serve the most optimized image corresponding to the window size
- Size: keep the filesize as low as possible
- Optimization: Optimize images by removing some meta information
- Title: add a descriptive title to links
- Backlinks: Only add external links if you got a backlink to your site
- nofollow: add
rel="nofollow"attribute to external links only to prevent spam and bad links - Internal links: add ~3 internal links to your content
- Viewport: tell browsers how to adjust the page's dimension and scaling to suit the device
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1.0"> - mobile friendly: mobile optimized sites are marked in search results. Test for mobile friendly site
- AppLinks: apps that link to your content can then use this metadata to deep-link into your app
- Tap targets: clickable links should not be too small
- HTML sitemap: An HTML sitemap allows site visitors to easily navigate a website.
- XML sitemap: Help search engines to index your pages
- Image sitemap: Increase that your images can be found in Image Search results
- Video sitemap: Make sure, search engines know about all the video content on your site
- Mobile sitemap: For feature phones, you can create a mobile sitemap
- Social Shares: provide sharing options for your site
- Social Profiles: add social profiles to your Google search results
- OpenGraph: The Open Graph protocol enables any web page to become a rich object in a social graph.
- Facebook: Sharing Best Practices for Websites & Mobile Apps
- Twitter: with Twitter cards, you can attach photos, videos and media experience to you Tweets
- Authorship information
- Google+ Authorship: add Google+ authorship information to your page
<link rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/[GOOGLE+ ID]">or
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/[GOOGLE+ ID]" rel=author">Google+ Profile</a>or
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/[GOOGLE+ ID]" rel=me">Google+ Profile</a>or
<a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/[GOOGLE+ ID]" rel=publisher">Google+ Profile</a>
- Google Webmasters: allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility ot their websites
- Bing Webmasters: allows webmasters to add their websites to the Bing index crawler.
- Google Analytics: generate detailed statistics about a website's traffic
- Piwik: is an open analytics platform
- Yahoo Web Analytics: is Yahoo!’s alternative to the dominant Google Analytics.
- PageSpeed Insights: Page Speed Insights measures the performance of a page for mobile devices and desktop devices.
- feedthebot seo tool: displays: domain strength, links, image seo, social counts & mentions, page/technical seo, pagespeed and more.
- AdWords Keyword Tool: plan your Search Network campaigns and learn what your customers are looking for
- Google Trends: explore Google trending search topics with Google Trends.
- Google+ Snippet Creator: customize the snippet people see when your page is shared.
- Structured Data Testing Tool: past in you rich snippets or url to test it
- Twitter card validator: Enter the URL of the page with the meta tags to validate
- Facebook Debugger: Enter the URL you want to scrape to see how the page's markup appears to Facebook.