30 On-Site SEO Checklist for Developers

• Avoid Flash, but if you must use Flash, use SWF_Object() and have a text-only, keyword-centric and fully functional backup site loading behind it. This is only compliance, anyhow.

• Use meaningful filenames such as “web-development.jpg” instead of “image1.jpg” for all files including graphics, sound, scripts, etc…

• Use hyphens in filenames instead of underscores, i.e. “web-development .jpg” and not “web_development .jpg”. There is evidence to suggest that some search engine systems do not recognize anything besides the hyphen as a blank space consistently.

• Use the meta description and meta keywords tags, and put them immediately after the page title, as high on the page as possible.

• Get a list of keywords for EACH PAGE (you will need to work with marketing and whomever is writing the content to do this) and work them into the meta keywords and meta description tags as well as the page titles. .

• Try to use header tags where possible, around keywords. If using CSS, use CSS to define the size and characteristics of your header tags.

• Put bold or italics tags around keywords where possible (without making copy look chintzy or forced), and name links using keywords. This tip is probably more for content writers or marketing, but developers should be aware of it because efforts to make a page optimized should include collaboration between groups.

• Link internally – create some internal links by using keywords within the content.

• Do not put text in graphics. Use text.

• Use the ALT tag and combine ALT text with keywords (compliance)

• Be sure the site is compliant to coding and compliance standards

• Sites with private content(session pages) should try to have public pages as well. The more public pages, the more opportunity to optimize a site.

• Use robots.txt – by using this we can specify search engines, which pages need not to crawl.

• Use a sitemap, ideally sitemap.xml (registered with Google and at the root of your site), but at the least a header/footer/menu that includes text links. There is an entire protocol for sitemaps, provided by Google, and it is definitely worth a look because if you play by Google’s rules, Google will like you more.

• Be sure that Web Analytics code is installed on the server

• If using a CMS, try to install a “search-engine-friendly URL” component.

• Avoid using frames. If you must use frames, use tags and have alternate HTML written. </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;color:#000000;">Try to ensure that at least some page content is static and keyword-relevant. </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;color:#000000;">Verify that the any navigational element are text links and are not "click here" or "more info" type of links. </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><span style="color:#000000;">Create a HTML sitemap page. Its </span></span>easily reachable by your visitors. </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><span style="color:#000000;">Make a custom 404 page that looks good and links to the site&#8217;s main sections or (preferably) includes a sitemap. Have the custom 404 page do a meta refresh to the main page after a few seconds, and let browsers know &#8220;you will be directed to our main site in X seconds&#8221; . Example: </span></span><a href="http://www.apple.com/asdasdsa">404 page</a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><span style="color:#000000;">If the site is geared towards a specific geographic area, try to find hosting in that area. </span></span>Do a quick <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/ip2loc">IP location</a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> test to make sure you're hosted near your main market. </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;color:#000000;">Use lowercase file names. </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;color:#000000;">Follow the &#8220;First Letter Capital, Every Other Letter Lowercase&#8221; naming convention in links with keywords (where it isn&#8217;t painful or displeasing to do so). </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;color:#000000;">(both 23 &amp; 24, seems to be evidence that this matter to some search engine systems.)</span></p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;color:#000000;">If you must do a redirect, always do a 301 redirect. Anything else will make the site suspicious to search engine systems or otherwise create problems for your site. </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;color:#000000;">Periodically scan your site for orphaned pages or dead links. Address whatever issues you discover. </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;color:#000000;">Put pieces of JavaScript code in an external file and refer to them with src attributes within your page </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="">Use document.write to build things like JavaScript navigation menus and store the code in an external file. You can refer to the code that builds your top nav just like any other piece of JavaScript. </span>The point of numbers 27 and 28 is that they reduce clutter and make your page as clean as possible. I am sure that you have seen pages with hundreds of lines of JavaScript code at the top, followed by a little bit of content. Spiders (&#8217;bots) have to get through all this code before they get to the stuff worth indexing, and you want to prevent that. Bring keywords and content to the top of the page and increase their </span><strong><span style=""><span style="color:#000000;">prevalence</span></span></strong></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color:#000000;">.</span> </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color:#000000;">Stick CSS in an external file, too. Define <h1> - <h6> tags there and </span><strong><span style=""><span style="color:#000000;">use the header tags in content</span></span></strong></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=""><span style="color:#000000;">.</span> </span>Double check the code to make sure the content titles and subtitles are under H1 / H2 tags. </span> </p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color:#000000;">Avoid pasting from MS Word. There is all kinds of stuff in there that you do not want, Word-specific stuff that will only make your page look goofy to search engines. This is a known issue and programs like FrontPage offer functionality to &#8220;clean&#8221; your Word documents. Expect to lose your formatting and bullet points.</span> </span> </p> </li></ol>