SEO Checklist for Web Designing

SEO Checklist for Web Designing 1. Key content: Domain Your domain name should be customizable (e.g. Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, etc.), easy to pronounce, and even easier to remember. Don’t worry too much about stuffing keywords into your domain name. Keywords in the domain name are no longer as powerful as they used to be.

2. www or not www – The choice is yours, http://www.20news.net / or http://mysite.com/, pick one and stick with it.

3. Simple Design – Don’t reinvent the wheel. If your design is complex, it will most likely interfere with your visitors’ ability to navigate and view your site and will slow down development. The simpler the better.

4.Do not create directories more than three levels from the root directory – Pages are as close to the home page in the directory structure as possible. Keep things organized, but don’t get too organized. If you have a file or a subfolder in a directory, there must be a VERY valid reason.
File/folder names using keywords – Your file and folder names must contain keywords. If your page is about Idaho potatoes, the filename should be idaho-potato.

5.Static URLs – Static URLs are URLs that are not dynamically generated. The static URL looks like http://www.20news.net/directory/file-name.htm and the dynamic URL looks like http://www.20news.net/index.htm?page-name=. You can make search engines searchable for dynamic URLs, but it’s much easier to index everything with static URLs.

6. SEO Checklist for Web Designing.Think Small – The smaller your web pages, the faster they load. A single page must be under 15K (unless absolutely necessary) and the entire page including graphics must be under 50K (unless absolutely necessary). Remember that not everyone has a high-speed Internet connection. there are still people who don’t have a 56K modem.

7.Dashes – Use dashes (-) instead of underscores (_) to separate words in folder and file names. Most search engines parse a dash just as readers would parse a space. Using underscores makes what_would_you_do look like whatwouldyoudo to most search engines. You absolutely must separate the words in your URL.

8.Navigating on Every Page – It’s a good idea to have consistent navigation across every page of your site. Your navigation should link to the main sections of your site. It would also make sense to have every page on your site link to the homepage.

9.Sitemap – You should create a sitemap that links to the main and subsections of your site. Sitemaps should at least link from your site’s home page. Preferably the sitemap should be linked from each page. The recommended filename for your sitemap is “; sitemap.htmlandquot; or “” site-map.html.andquot;

10.SEO Checklist for Web Designing.Title – The page title should be used within the TITLE tag and at the top of each page. The title should be keyword rich (maximum 7-10 words) and descriptive.

11. META Tag Description – Some say meta tags are dead, but some search engines will actually use them under the page title on search engine results pages (SERPs). Do not use more than 150 characters, including spaces and punctuation. Your description should be a complete, keyword-rich sentence.

12. Keywords META Tag – List of keywords that appear on the page. Use spaces to separate keywords (not commas). Sort keywords as they will be searched for or as close to a full phrase as possible. This tag is basically dead, but by creating it when you create the page, it allows you to come back many times later and realize which keywords you specifically targeted.

If the keyword does not appear at least twice on the page, it will not appear in the keyword meta tag. Also, try to limit the total number of keywords to less than twenty.

13. SEO Checklist for Web Designing.META Robots Tag – Some search engine robots respect the META Robots tag. This gives you some control over what appears in search engines and what doesn’t. It’s not an essential aspect of search engine optimization, but you don’t need to add it. ). You shouldn’t start a page with an H2 tag. If the default H1 is too large, use CSS to style it effectively. Remember that most search engines like to see the title tag and then some text or an image; not H1 immediately followed by H2.

14. TITLE Attribute – Use the A HREF TITLE attribute (e.g. andlt; a href = “page.html” title = ” This page contains links to other pages.andquot; andgt;). The TITLE attribute improves usability/accessibility. Make sure to include keywords however you see fit, but remember that they should tell your visitors where they are going when they click the link.

15.ALT tags – All images must have an ALT tag. Use keyword-rich descriptions of images. If the image contains text, use the text from the image. It is also a usability/accessibility tool.

16.More Text Than HTML – A page must have more text than markup language.

17. Anchor text – Anchor text is the text used to create a link to a page. Using keywords in the anchor text is a very good idea and will improve the performance of the page in the SERPs.

18. SEO Checklist for Web Designing.Use text links, not images – If you’re going to link to something, use text. Search engines cannot read text in images. The only time this rule doesn’t apply is when you’re linking to something with a well-known logo. Even then, it’s still best to use text links. If you must use an image as a link, make sure to give it a good ALT tag.

19.Gobs of Content – The more content the better. Having pages on pages with original and relevant content is the best form of search engine optimization.

20.Add New Content Regularly – If you could add a new page of content every day