SEO Checklist
Before working through the SEO checklist, define the keywords (search phrases) you want to address with a particular page. From this list, select your primary keyword.
Content & Relevance
- Unique primary keyword? - Make sure that the primary keyword is unique for the page among the other pages of the site.
- Descriptive URL? - The url has to be in relation with the content. It should contain the primary keyword.
- Unique, descriptive page title? - HTML head title tag and page headline (h2 tag) should contain the primary keyword.
- Unique, descriptive content? - Sub titles (h3, h4, ... tags) and content (p tag) should contain the previously defined keywords.
- Images alt text? - Each image shown on a page has have a descriptive alt text relevant to the image.
- Meta description short, unique with keywords? - Not relevant for search engine positioning but critical for click through rate.
- Meta keywords contains the keywords? - Not really relevant but let's make sure that our page adheres to W3 recommendation.
- Are there words or phrases in bold? - Emphasize important words and phrases by embedding them within a strong tag.
Page Speed & User Friendliness
You may want to check core vitals of a webpage using Chrome inspector > Lighthouse
- Page speed above average? - Confirm that the page load speed is in the green area with Google's page speed test. If not, follow the insights log to improve page speed.
- Page is mobile friendly? - Confirm that the page is mobile friendly using Google's mobile friendly test. It is reckless to publish a non-responsive web page in 2021.
- Images are served device optimized? - This is usually achieved using a complex picutre/figure/img tag and by images being hosted on CDN and served through an image rendering service.
- Above the fold loads immediately? - All content shown above the fold should should use inline code only.
- External scripts, libraries, stylesheets? - Make sure that these elements are lazy loaded (end of html code) and not required to render above the fold.
- Compressed javascripts and stylesheets? - Check if javascripts and stylesheets are compressed. CSS Minifier
Technical
- Canonical URL? - Make sure that the page has declared the canonical link element to prevent duplicate content issues.
- Valid HTML Code? - Use the W3 online validator to check. https://validator.w3.org/
- Missing Images or External References? - Use browser inspector to see if there are resources not loading.
- Javascript Errors? - Use browser inspector to see if there are javscript errors.
- Is the page in the xml sitemap? - Make sure that this new page is in the site xml sitemap.
- Correctly linking? - Make sure that a page is linking back to homepage and other upstream pages but not cross linking (text links).
Use webmaster tools to monitor performance of a certain page and rework the page when you are not satisfied with the number of clicks you get and searches used to find the page.