9 Critical SEO Checklist Items for Website Design & Development

Web developers straddle multiple disciplines bringing content to the web. In addition, to design and marketing concerns, professional developers are also committed to keeping websites accessible, fully supported, and recognizable to search engines.
Various strategies accomplish the task, and while they are not always as well-versed in the field as dedicated SEO professionals, web developers and website design agencies are most effective when they understand SEO fundamentals (and beyond).

1. Don’t Forget the SEO Basics
Consistent attention to basic SEO provides a solid foundation for any website. Accounting for details like alt tags and title tags strengthens content and makes your site more accessible to both search engines and other accessibility needs, such as screen readers. The tags should be attached to every image and anchor text, accurately describing what’s on them.
Another long-time feature of SEO, the importance of metadata hasn’t diminished – it actually has new changes.
Metadata can best be described as a concise informative snapshot of other data, furnishing basic info about website content.
Well-structured meta titles and descriptions make it easier to find content, increases click-through-rate (CTR), and reinforces information organization. Creating metadata manually makes it more accurate and site-specific, driving better results than creating it automatically.

2. Validate all Code Against W3C
Following best practices includes validating code against W3C standards. The process ensures your code is seen properly by search and follows widely accepted formatting rules. Without validation, coding errors can cause a search to overlook or dismiss key aspects of your site.

3. Use Proper Structure
Site structure contributes to consistent user experience, but a well-structured website can also enhance SEO. Users and Google are looking for some of the same things, so delivering a memorable UX also satisfies the search provider.
Proper structure leads to site links, outlining your featured pages each time your website appears in search. The valuable SEO advantage makes it easier for visitors to navigate your site and points them to the information they came for.
Sitelinks are awarded by Google, recognizing websites with proper structure. If you present a messy website structure, you’ll likely be passed over, losing the SEO benefits of site links.
Web developers need to understand when to use

use <header> tags, <section> tags, <footer> tags, and much more during the development process. I’ve seen websites with more than one <h1> tag and always cringe when viewing the source code of sloppy web development.

Other structure and code issues are the simple things for UX – web developers must get into the habit of using the proper “type” on form fields for phone, email, URL, and text. This is simply great practice and makes for happy visitors on their mobile experience.

Link Internally for Better Crawling and Indexing

Google admittedly isn’t perfect, crawling and detecting all the content on websites. That makes it even more important to maximize the impact of your top pages. Linking internally helps support your site’s structure, in terms of ranking and indexing. The strategy is particularly effective when new content is linked to steady, evergreen pages Google already recognizes as relevant.

This goes double for using proper “noindex” tags throughout your site. Certain pages like “tag” pages typically do better by not having them indexed, giving more power to your service and product pages. Each particular website structure is different, and your web developer needs to understand the site architecture extremely well to get this nailed down properly.

5. Understand Pagination and Canonicalization

Strong canonicalization ensures every piece of content on your website has a unique URL. Done correctly, the process brings greater authority to your site, preventing the benefits of quality links and content from being diluted. Pagination splits content into multiple pages, providing a series of direct links, usually found near the bottom of the page.

Clicking the numbered page links and forward/back icons enables visitors to efficiently navigate material. Though it is not always a top priority, intuitive pagination is an easy way to boost UX, which ultimately helps SEO.

6. Ensure Proper Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml

You can’t blame Google for your website performance if you don’t send search engines the proper messages. If you’ve added a disallow directive to a Robots.txt file during development, make sure it is removed before the site goes live.

Both the Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml files should be properly formatted upon live launch and ready for your SEO professional to take the next steps. With the Sitemap.xml file, it should be submitted to Google Search Console.

7. Manage and Implement Structured Data

Including structured data from schema.org can elevate your game. It’s vital to make sure your structured data is coded properly. Automatic tools don’t always uncover structured data problems, so manually checking for coding errors is the best defense.

You can check each page’s structured data using Google’s Structured Data Tool. There are many opportunities to embed structured data. Some obvious ones are:

Local Business data

Navigation

Breadcrumbs

Image Galleries

8. Speed up Browser Caching

Browser caching and setting correct expire times for files saves time on the visitors future visits to your website. Essentially, this is a local copy of images and other files, such as CSS and JavaScript, that help with page load.

9. Page Load Speed is Critical

As previously mentioned, the Speed Update announcement is definitely one huge reason to make sure your site loads fast, especially in mobile search. More importantly, you want your site to load fast on the desktop as well.

Your web development professional needs to consider all areas where speed can be improved. This includes using progressive JPEGs, understanding when to use PNG8 vs PNG24, and optimizing all files and assets on page load.

Similarly, failing to compress images can result in usability issues. Files are readily compressed with photo management software, before being exported for the web. And in some cases, using a smaller image size is all that’s needed to facilitated faster loading speeds.

There are many tools available to check page speed.

In Summary

The best web developers maintain SEO awareness, optimizing during each stage of website design and development. An SEO checklist helps manage the details and ensures a tight campaign and a website that can scale as your needs grow.

If you’re not getting the best possible performance from your website, it’s time to start giving SEO the attention it deserves.

If you’re looking for a progressive web development company that understands these concepts and many more on how SEO plays a vital role in the website design process, feel free to reach out to us!