SEO Guideline for Developers 2018 (Basic)

Help Google crawl new content

Recommended actions:

Make sure that Googlebot can crawl new content, JavaScript, CSS, and image files by using the Fetch as Google tool.
Check and test Robots.txt using Search Console.
Submit sitemap to Google Search Console

Meta Title

A <title> tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. The <title> tag should be placed within the <head> element of the HTML document. You should create a unique title for each page on your site.

The most effective page titles are about 10-70 characters long, including spaces.
Keep your titles concise and make sure they contain your best keywords.
Each page should have its exclusive title. No duplicates.
We must ask client to supply Title for custom pages

Meta Description

A page’s description meta tag gives Google and other search engines a summary of what the page is about. Like the <title> tag, the description meta tag is placed within the <head> element of your HTML document

Meta descriptions are useful because they often dictate how your pages are shown in search results.
For optimum effectiveness, meta descriptions should be 160-300 characters long.
Your meta descriptions should be concise and contain your best keywords
Make sure each page of your website has its meta description.

Meta Keywords

Meta keywords are words or phrases that pertain to your site’s content. In the past, people have tried to take advantage of this tag so now it does not affect Google search rankings the way that it used to.

However, meta keywords still crucial to Bing Search Engine.

Write URLs for SEO

Clean URLs

A page’s URL is an integral part of its user experience and SEO. In fact, it is the first thing search engine crawlers see and, ideally, it tells them a lot regarding the page and its content.

That means your URLs need to be clean, comfortable to read, descriptive and free of URL parameters.

Take two URLs for example:

https://www.example.com/category/index.jsp?category_id=123&product_id=456&referrer=789

https://www.example.com/category/product-name

Optimized URLs

The structure and words you use in your URLs are also essential for SEO. The URL’s path helps search engines understand the page’s relationship and importance to the rest of the site.

A well-optimized URL structure has the following elements:

Short and descriptive (115 characters)
Hyphens instead of underscores
Keywords used at the beginning

Headings

Use heading tags to emphasize important text. Multiple heading sizes (H1 – H6) used in order create a hierarchical structure for your content, making it easier for users to navigate through your document

There should always be only one H1 style applied on a page. The H1 is typically the main title and is located in the upper third of a page.

You can include keywords in your headings.

The initial heading (<H1>) should include your best keywords.
The h1 tag will be similar to your title tag and not be duplicated from other pages (H1s)
The h1 tag will be the title of your blog post or article.
For category pages, this should be the Category Name
For product pages, this should be the Product Title
H1 should be < 70 characters

The h2 tag can be used multiple times, as long as it makes sense. It is a hierarchical structure, so before you use H3, you should have used H2. However, you can go back and use H2 after you have used H3

H2 tag should include your keywords.
H2 tags should always appear below H1’s
H2 can be used for Page Title, Product Name, Product Category or important text.
For category pages, this should be the Product Name
For product pages, this should be the Product Featured Title

H3 and beyond

Multiple H3’s can be allowed on a page and commonly serve. The H3 tag can be used for other Sub Product Category, Product Information, Widget Title…

301 Redirects

Using redirects on your old pages pointing to your new pages will make sure that users not only wind up in the right place, but that search engine spiders do too.

IMPORTANT

Highest – When possible, it is preferred that any existing URLs for site pages be kept.

KEEP link structure if it is good – EX: www.store.com/clothing/red-shirt.html

Discard link structure if it is bad – EX: www.store.com/redshirt2.php?=123be-sku-12?

If this is not possible, make sure to coordinate map out the entire sitemap for all current pages and establish 301 redirects. 301 redirects will require an import sheet. This can be unique based on project needs, and a plan will be developed early in the project.

Canonicalization

A canonical link tag is an HTML element that helps webmasters prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the ”canonical” or ”preferred” version of a webpage as part of search engine optimization. Additional URL parameters can be added if handled using techniques described here.

Dealing with www and index pages.

By default, all of the following URLs should redirect to https://www.example.com

https://example.com

https://example.com/index.(.*)

https://www.example.com/index.(.*)

There may be cases where a website owner prefers to use the non-www version or a subdomain as their root domain. That is fine as long as all other versions redirect to that chosen version.

Dealing with trailing slashes

URLs may have a trailing slash “/” at the end. Sometimes they do not. The server should always redirect to one or the other. Ideally, the version with the slash is preferred.

Example:

http://www.wildfang.com/careers should 301 redirect to http://www.wildfang.com/careers/

Note that this is not an issue with root URLs, such as www.example.com. A slash will never appear at the end of that URL.

Canonicalizing subpages

A product page on an e-commerce website that is accessible at three different URLs is not a good idea.

The example demonstrates a problem stemming from the CMS architecture. Ideally, there should only be one URL.

/product/reebok-black-crossfit-shoe/ET256/

/shoes/product/reebok-black-crossfit-shoe/ET256/

/shoes/fitness/product/reebok-black-crossfit-shoe/ET256/

In this case, where categories and subcategories appear to be constantly changing, the best URL to use is /product/reebok-black-crossfit-shoe/ET256/.

No other URLs should open this page. It is okay to add parameters to the URL. For example, the existence of the following URLs is okay if the canonical link tag is used.

/product/reebok-black-crossfit-shoe/ET256/

/product/reebok-black-crossfit-shoe/ET256/?cat=shoes

/product/reebok-black-crossfit-shoe/ET256/?cat=shoes&subcat=fitness

For each of the URLs above, what’s called the canonical link tag should be added to the <head> section of the page.

The purpose of the canonical link tag is to tell search engines which version of a URL to index. As mentioned earlier, the version of the URL that we want to index is /product/reebok-black-crossfit-shoe/ET256/.

In this case, the canonical link tag should look like this on all 3 of the above URLs:

Optimize images

The “alt” attribute allows you to specify alternative text for the image. It’s important. We suggest adding ALT text to your images so that it’s easier for search engines to index them.

Search engines don’t physically see images the way people do. ALT text is an option that allows you to specifically describe the image.

Make sure your website images have their own specific ALT text.
ALT text should include keywords
Use standard image formats (JPEG, GIF, PNG,…)
Images size need to < 100 KB

PageSpeed

Website speed has a huge impact on performance, affecting user experience, conversion rates, and even rankings. ‪‬‬By reducing page load-times, users are less likely to get distracted, and the search engines are more likely to reward you by ranking your pages higher in the SERPs.

Like with desktop, the time it takes a mobile page to load is an important mobile ranking factor. Your mobile/responsive website must deliver and render the “above the fold” content in under one second.

Eliminate render-blocking JavaScript and CSS in above-the-fold content
Leverage browser caching
Avoid landing page redirects
Enable compression
Reduce server response time

Optimising <iframe>

It’s hard for search engines to index pages with frames since it does not follow the standard layout for a website.

You should avoid the use of frames when optimizing your website. If we have to use this, Google Maps and Youtube’s iframe is allowed.