SEO

Here’s my SEO checklist. Inspired by http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/other/search-engine-optimization-101/, I’m going to use this as the basis for the taxonomy for my SEO research.

Keywords – Research keyword phrases

Content – Good relevant content

Domain name – Keyword in the domain name

Pretty URL’s

Title Tag – Most important after the page content. Unique for each page. Page Title > Site name. Max 60 char

Meta tags – not as important but include them anyway

Optimize page structure – valid XHTML

Craft proper links – no ‘read more’ links

Make your site accessible

Avoid duplicate content – print versions

Use robot.txt

Use site map – both HTML and XML versions

Use common domain name scheme

Submit your site – to search engines and website galleries for example

Check for broken links – use a 404 page

Get links from peer sites

Use appropriate tools – use google analytics, see if the bots encountered any errors

Wow, that makes things a lot easier. Most of these suggestions fall in to the category of basic website building. I think I should be able to make a decent check list for the following things, which will make it a standard process to follow. We can also research tools to use like checking for broken links to make our job easier.

1. Domain name
2. Pretty URL’s
3. Title Tag
4. Meta tags
5. Optimize page structure
6. Craft proper links
7. Make your site accessible
8. Avoid duplicate content
9. Use robot.txt
10. Use site map
11. Use common domain name scheme
12. Check for broken links
13. Submit your site

SEO Check lists

http://www.webconfs.com/15-minute-seo.php

1. Keywords – Research keyword phrases

Following from your keyword research these tasks become simple:

• Domain name – Keyword in the domain name
• Title Tag – Most important after the page content. Unique for each page. Page Title > Site name. Max 60 char
• Meta tags – not as important but include them anyway

2. Content – Good relevant content

• Craft proper links – no ‘read more’ links

3. .htaccess

• Pretty URL’s – Determined by how you setup Apache rewrite, usually using .htaccess
• Use common domain name scheme

http://www.stepforth.com/resources/web-marketing-knowledgebase/non-www-redirect

4. Off site Website Checks

• Submit your site – to search engines and website galleries for example
• Get links from peer sites

5. On-site Website Checks

• Optimize page structure – valid XHTML
• Make your site accessible
• Avoid duplicate content – print versions
• Use robot.txt
• Use site map – both HTML and XML versions
• Check for broken links – use a 404 page
• Use appropriate tools – use google analytics, see if the bots encountered any errors