SEO Cheat Sheet for Devs
Tags: webdev, startup, beginners, tutorial
Published: 2019-08-19 17:56:54

According to <a href="https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?options=%7B%22filter%22%3A%7B%22%24and%22%3A%5B%7B%22deviceType%22%3A%7B%22%24in%22%3A%5B%22Desktop%2Flaptop%22%5D%7D%7D%5D%7D%2C%22dateLabel%22%3A%22Trend%22%2C%22attributes%22%3A%22share%22%2C%22group%22%3A%22searchEngine%22%2C%22sort%22%3A%7B%22share%22%3A-1%7D%2C%22id%22%3A%22searchEnginesDesktop%22%2C%22dateInterval%22%3A%22Monthly%22%2C%22dateStart%22%3A%222017-01%22%2C%22dateEnd%22%3A%222017-12%22%2C%22segments%22%3A%22-1000%22%7D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Net Market Share</a>, Google is still the search engine leader with 75% of searches made on Google.com. With that in mind, following their best SEO practices is a good strategy and something all businesses should have on their checklist. This includes optimizing for factors such as mobile friendly pages with a fast page load time and using helpful SEO plug-ins to setup a WordPress site for success.

Everyone in the digital space has a role to play in SEO, including webmasters. In this post, we'll cover what you need to know pre and post launch for a new website or migration. Our <i>2019 SEO Checklist for Webmasters </i>tells you what to do step-by-step.
<h3><b>Preparing for Launch or Migration</b></h3>
<ol>
 	<li>Set your domain name to auto-renew. Yes, that sounds obvious, but people have lost their domain name when they missed the renewal date.</li>
 	<li>Install <a href="https://pagely.com/blog/google-analytics-wordpress-guide/">Google Analytics</a>. It's free and also helps your content marketers with their role in SEO.</li>
 	<li>Install a<a href="https://pagely.com/blog/yoast-seo-alternatives/"> plug-in</a> to help with your technical SEO, which includes title tags, meta descriptions, structured data, and sitemaps. Follow <a href="https://moz.com/blog/seo-meta-tags" target="_blank" rel="noopener">best practices on tags.</a></li>
 	<li>Set up Search Console.</li>
 	<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data?visit_id=1-636507697624367960-3670912478&amp;rd=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Help Google understand the content of a page with structured data</a> and test your page with the <a href="https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">structured data tool</a>.</li>
</ol>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-12762 size-full" src="https://pagely.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/test.jpg" alt="Test your structured data" width="650" height="339" />
<ol start="6">
 	<li>Use a site audit tool, such as <a href="https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Screaming Frog</a> to audit SEO for your site.</li>
 	<li>Check mobile friendliness. <a href="https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/data-measurement/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">53% of visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load.</a></li>
 	<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/common-mistakes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Review common mistakes webmasters make when designing for mobile.</a></li>
 	<li>Tell search engines which URL to use. Moz describes this (canonicalization) as a way to <a href="https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><i>prevent problems caused by identical or "duplicate" content appearing on multiple URLs. </i></a></li>
</ol>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-12763 size-full" src="https://pagely.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/rel-canon.png" alt="rel=canonical tag example" width="770" height="162" />
<ol start="10">
 	<li>Use https: <a href="https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/gary-illyes-interview/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Way back in 2015, Google's Gary Illyes said that when pages are otherwise equal, the search engine will favor https, indicating a secure domain</a>. In addition to the SEO benefit, it keeps your site secure and is required for <a href="https://pagely.com/blog/accelerated-mobile-pages-for-wordpress/">AMP</a>.</li>
 	<li>Identify images with ALT tags. Search engines cannot see images without the corresponding descriptive text.</li>
 	<li>Create friendly URLs. Wouldn't you agree the <em>https://pagely.com/blog/yoast-seo-alternatives/</em> is much more friendly than <em>https://pagely.com/blog/random-words-or-characters-that-are-not-descriptive-08-01-2019</em>?</li>
 	<li><a href="https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/sitelinks-searchbox" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Install a working search engine on your site to set up a search box</a> that will display on the Google search results page such as the one below.</li>
</ol>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-12764 size-full" src="https://pagely.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/search-engine-box.png" alt="search engine box" width="815" height="445" />
<ol start="14">
 	<li>With a site migration, take time to map out pages in advance to lessen the number of 404 pages.</li>
 	<li>Have a critical eye towards usability. Do team members want videos to autoplay on the site? If so, make a case for not doing this. If it prevents people from browsing the page until the video is done.</li>
 	<li>Use contact forms instead of including your plaintext email address on the site to cut down on potential spam.</li>
</ol>
<h3><b>After Site Launch</b></h3>
<ol>
 	<li>See how many pages Google has indexed by typing <strong>site:yourwebsite.com</strong> into the search box.</li>
 	<li>As changes are made to the site, such as with new content, <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6065812?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ask Google to recrawl your URLs</a>.</li>
 	<li>Watch for crawl errors in your Search Console.</li>
</ol>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-12765 size-full" src="https://pagely.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/crawl-errors.png" alt="search console crawl errors" width="650" height="415" />
<ol start="4">
 	<li>Update your sitemap by <em>removing</em> non canonical URLs and 400-level pages before resubmitting. Also submit your sitemap if the site navigation has changed.</li>
 	<li><a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/99170">Use markup to </a><a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/99170" target="_blank" rel="noopener">improve search results</a>.</li>
 	<li>Keep an eye on your <a href="https://developers.google.com/speed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">page speed</a>. It may be be great at launch but if too much is added to the site over time - such as large images - it could impact the speed and overall SEO.</li>
 	<li>Check for broken links with a tool such as Screaming Frog and redirect broken links to an existing page.</li>
 	<li>Check for 404 errors whether in Screaming Frog or Search Console.</li>
 	<li>Check mobile friendliness - again! Yes, we said that earlier for your pre-site launch but this is only a bigger deal moving forward with <a href="https://searchengineland.com/googles-mobile-first-index-rolled-site-will-roll-slowly-285590" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google's mobile-first indexing</a> and plays a part in SEO.</li>
</ol>
<img class="aligncenter wp-image-12766 size-full" src="https://pagely.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/mobile-usability.jpg" alt="mobile usability" width="903" height="300" />

&nbsp;
<ol start="10">
 	<li>Check that good backlinks were not lost with a site migration or new design. <a href="https://ahrefs.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ahrefs</a> is one tool that helps you discover lost backlinks.</li>
 	<li>Monitor Google algorithm changes with a tool such as <a href="https://cognitiveseo.com/signals/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Signals</a>, <a href="http://mozcast.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mozcast,</a> or <a href="https://barracuda.digital/panguin-seo-tool/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Barracuda</a> to stay alert to changes that may impact your site.</li>
 	<li>Be prepared for the possibility of panicked team members asking about a decline in site traffic. Poor content or low quality backlinks can impact SEO and staying on top of algorithms can help you understand the cause of a decline.</li>
 	<li>Use a monitoring tool for site performance and uptime. You can create <a href="https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033021?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">custom alerts in Google Analytics</a> to be notified when <em>traffic = 0</em>. Unless your website is very new and zero site visitors is possible in the beginning, a <em>traffic = 0 </em>alert is indicative that your site may be down.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Wrap Up</h3>
Site design is a big part of SEO and using this checklist will help your site launch or migration go smoothly. <a href="https://pagely.com/case-studies/bmc/">Proper configuration helped one Pagely client double their SEO traffic overnight</a>. Keep this checklist handy post-launch so you can catch potential SEO problems quickly and ensure your site is well optimized. Google's recently updated <a href="https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SEO Starter Guide </a>is also a good reference for your entire team. Is there anything we missed? Is there a 'must-do' on your SEO checklist? Let me know in the comments below.