Introducing a comprehensive guide for performing all the necessary on-page evaluations that webmasters and SEO specialists must undertake to ensure a website is optimized for search engine visibility.
This guide will compile a wealth of previously published content from the website into one centralized location, with additional links to more in-depth resources throughout.
It’s also recommended to explore our resources on How to Test a Website Before Launch and SEO Basics for Enhancing Your Website for more detailed information.
Join Google Search Console
Google Search Console is the platform for monitoring your website’s performance, identifying issues, and tracking backlinks. It’s also the channel through which Google will reach out to you in case of any issues.
Here are the essential features to set up and regularly review in Google Search Console:
- Preferred domain: Decide whether your site appears in search results with the www prefix or without it.
- HTML enhancements: This is where Google Search Console will suggest improvements to your meta descriptions and title tags, as well as identify any content that cannot be indexed.
- Site links: View the domains that link to your site the most and the pages that receive the most links.
- Manual actions: Google will notify you if it has taken any manual actions on your site or specific pages.
- International targeting: Ensure your site is reaching your desired audience based on language and country.
- Index status: This feature provides an overview of the number of pages on your website included in Google’s index. It allows you to quickly spot any concerning trends or pages that have been blocked or removed.
- Crawl errors: This report details all errors Google has encountered during the site’s crawl over the past 90 days.
- Robots.txt editor: This is the location to make adjustments to your robots.txt file and identify any errors. The error list at the bottom of the page outlines any issues found.
Sign up for Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a complimentary service that tracks and reports website traffic, offering insights into the demographics of site visitors, the success of specific campaigns, and the duration of visits.
Ensure that Google Analytics or the analytics tool you’re utilizing is properly set up and operational from the start to accurately measure and analyze traffic to your site.
Website Speed
Utilize Google’s own site speed test tool to evaluate how quickly your website loads and make any necessary adjustments based on its recommendations.
Mobile Friendliness
Verify that your website and its content are equally optimized for various screen sizes and devices. Keep in mind that Google has indicated its preference for responsive design as the standard for mobile optimization. Review our detailed checklist for mobile-friendly solutions to address any issues.
- Title Tags
- Title tags should span between 50 to 60 characters, including spaces.
- Your primary keywords should appear first in your title tag, with the less significant ones following.
- Should your company’s name isn’t a key keyword phrase, position it at the end of the title tag.
- Avoid reusing title tags, each page requires a unique version.
- Refrain from overusing title tags, as it can harm your visibility in search results.
- Title tags must accurately reflect the content of the page.
- Avoid keyword-dense title tags.
- Headlines (tags) should stand out from the title tag.
- Meta Descriptions
- Ensure your most crucial keywords for the page are present in the meta description.
- Craft clear, readable content.
- A meta description should not exceed 135 to 160 characters. If it’s longer, search engines may truncate it, so it’s important to place key keywords closer to the beginning.
- Do not duplicate meta descriptions.
Headlines
The headlines for your articles should be kept under 55 characters to guarantee their full visibility in search results. They should be concise, engaging, and detailed. H1 – H6 Tags
Tag your headlines as H1, and any subheadings in your articles as H2, H3, etc., in a descending, logical sequence. Resources
Analytics The 2023 B2B Superpowers Index
Analytics Data Analytics in Marketing
Digital Marketing The Third-Party Data Deprecation Playbook
Digital Marketing Utilizing Email To Stop Fraud-eCommerce Client Fraud Case Study
h2 and h3 tags Images
Ensure all your images are optimized for the web, avoiding large sizes that could slow down your site. Also, make sure they’re properly labeled with titles and alt text. XML Sitemaps/HTML Sitemap
Ensure your website contains an accurate site map in both XML and HTML formats to guarantee comprehensive indexing by Google. Accelerated Mobile Pages
Check that Google’s AMP project is rendering your mobile pages correctly. Use the Search Console AMP tool to verify. Social Media Integration
Verify that the social media icons on your site link to the correct pages. Ensure you have the appropriate buttons and social plugins installed for your goals and user actions (for example, does it ‘share a post’ instead of ‘Like’ your page on Facebook?). Secure Certificate
If your website is an ecommerce site or uses encrypted pages to safeguard visitor privacy on forms or elsewhere, verify your certificate. https padlock Duplicate Content
If your site contains duplicate content, implement a 301 redirect to ensure Google only indexes your preferred version.
Nofollow
Add rel=“nofollow” to any links that you don’t want search engine crawlers to follow. For instance, sponsored content or commercially led articles with links out to vendors or service providers.
Check structured data
The Structured Data section in Search Console contains information about all the structured data elements Google has located on your site, whether from Schema markup or other microformats. Check for any errors. If you click on the individual ‘Data Types’ it will show you exactly which URLs contain that particular markup and when it was detected.
Error response codes
Response codes, such as 400, 403, 404, 500 and 503, should all be investigated thoroughly. If you see multiple 404 results from internal site links, fix the offending links immediately.
Makes sure 301s being used for all redirects, and avoid any 302 or 307 redirects.
Internal linking
Are you using internal linking in the most effective way? You should have a few relevant internal links per article (depending on length and type of content). Make sure the anchor text is descriptive of the linked page.
If your republishing another site’s content (with permission of course) ensure there’s a rel=canonical tag on each page linking to the original source.
Google News
Double check your site is eligible for Google News, if not, try resubmitting once you’ve carried out Google’s suggestions.
Ensure that Google is only indexing your preferred domain, i.e. either with the www prefix or without it: http://www.example.com or http://example.com. Google may treat the www and non-www versions of your domain as separate sites with separate pages, thus harming your visibility.