20 SEO checklists
Search Engine Optimization [http://imri.in] should be an integral part of your website project, from the beginning to end. You should structure your website correctly and make it spider friendly to get a high search engine ranking. You can use the following list to make sure you're your web pages can be found, indexed and ranked correctly by the search engine or it is an SEO [http://imri.in/blog/] friendly website.
1. Your website should have a specific theme: All the web pages in your site should deal with various aspects of a central theme and should relate to each other. In your home page, make the theme clear, state the service you are offering, and reinforce these in the other pages.
2. Your Web pages should have quality content: The content of the web page should be closely related to the page title and the theme of the website. Otherwise it will not get a high ranking.
3. Your website Navigation: All your important pages should be accessible with in three clicks from the home page. Pages deeper than that may not be indexed by the search engines.
4. Title Tag should be unique for each page: The title of each page should contain the keywords which best describe that page.
5. Use the "Description" meta tag: Use a highly descriptive sentence about the content and purpose of your page, and contains your most important keyword phrase early in the sentence. Some search engines display this with the search results.
6. Use the "Keywords" meta tag. This is an HTML tag that lists all of the main keywords and key phrases that are contained on that web page. Some search engines pay attention to this tag, some do not this will help you to write appropriate content.
7. Include keywords in the visible page content: You can include the keywords in the header text, link text and titles, table captions, the Alt attribute of the image tag, the title attribute of the link tag, etc.
8. Search engine spiders should be able to reach every page: The pages you want to be indexed should be reachable following a text link. The search engine spiders may not be able to index the pages which requires a password to view, generated by a script in response to a query or with a long and complicated URL.
9. Include a site map: Create a site map with text links and include descriptive text containing the relevant keywords for each page.
10. Give links to important pages from all other pages: This will help to determine the most important pages in your website. The search engine will assign more importance to the page having more links from other pages.
11. Build link text with keywords: When you create a text link to another page on your site, use that page's targeted keywords as the text for the link. Make it as descriptive as possible.
12. Don't use frames: If possible, don't use frames on any page you want to get indexed by search engines. If you feel you are using frames for a page, then also make use of the "noframes" HTML tags to provide alternative text that spiders can read.
13. Don't use redirects: Only use a permanent redirect a "301 redirect" which is acceptable to search engines.
14. Explain the important content in plain text: Search engine spiders are not able to read the contents in JPEG, GIF, or PNG files. If it is important to use the image, put the same text in the "Alt" tag.
15. Don't put the important contents in the flash file: Spiders are not able to read the flash files. Don't create Flash pages for any content you want to get indexed - instead, put that content in the HTML portion of the page.
16. Don't put links and keywords in Java Scripts: Search Engine spiders are not able to read the contents with in the JavaScript code. Use the "noscript" HTML tags to provide an alternative that can be read by spiders.
17. Optimize every important page of your website: Optimize every important page of your website with appropriate keyword for each. It will help you to get a lot of search engine traffic to your site from other pages which are focused on very specific keyword phrases.
18. Don't use duplicate content. Each page of your site should have unique content. Duplicating content or pages might be seen as "search engine spamming".
19. Provide linking instructions for those who want to link to your site: Encourage other people link your site by stating your policies and giving the wordings you like them to use in their link. Provide the ready-made HTML code for the link. Give text links, as spiders can't read text from an image file.
20. There should be no coding error and broken link: The search engine spiders will not be able to read and index the pages with coding errors and broken links. Use a Web page validation utility to check your HTML code to make sure it's error-free.
1. Your website should have a specific theme: All the web pages in your site should deal with various aspects of a central theme and should relate to each other. In your home page, make the theme clear, state the service you are offering, and reinforce these in the other pages.
2. Your Web pages should have quality content: The content of the web page should be closely related to the page title and the theme of the website. Otherwise it will not get a high ranking.
3. Your website Navigation: All your important pages should be accessible with in three clicks from the home page. Pages deeper than that may not be indexed by the search engines.
4. Title Tag should be unique for each page: The title of each page should contain the keywords which best describe that page.
5. Use the "Description" meta tag: Use a highly descriptive sentence about the content and purpose of your page, and contains your most important keyword phrase early in the sentence. Some search engines display this with the search results.
6. Use the "Keywords" meta tag. This is an HTML tag that lists all of the main keywords and key phrases that are contained on that web page. Some search engines pay attention to this tag, some do not this will help you to write appropriate content.
7. Include keywords in the visible page content: You can include the keywords in the header text, link text and titles, table captions, the Alt attribute of the image tag, the title attribute of the link tag, etc.
8. Search engine spiders should be able to reach every page: The pages you want to be indexed should be reachable following a text link. The search engine spiders may not be able to index the pages which requires a password to view, generated by a script in response to a query or with a long and complicated URL.
9. Include a site map: Create a site map with text links and include descriptive text containing the relevant keywords for each page.
10. Give links to important pages from all other pages: This will help to determine the most important pages in your website. The search engine will assign more importance to the page having more links from other pages.
11. Build link text with keywords: When you create a text link to another page on your site, use that page's targeted keywords as the text for the link. Make it as descriptive as possible.
12. Don't use frames: If possible, don't use frames on any page you want to get indexed by search engines. If you feel you are using frames for a page, then also make use of the "noframes" HTML tags to provide alternative text that spiders can read.
13. Don't use redirects: Only use a permanent redirect a "301 redirect" which is acceptable to search engines.
14. Explain the important content in plain text: Search engine spiders are not able to read the contents in JPEG, GIF, or PNG files. If it is important to use the image, put the same text in the "Alt" tag.
15. Don't put the important contents in the flash file: Spiders are not able to read the flash files. Don't create Flash pages for any content you want to get indexed - instead, put that content in the HTML portion of the page.
16. Don't put links and keywords in Java Scripts: Search Engine spiders are not able to read the contents with in the JavaScript code. Use the "noscript" HTML tags to provide an alternative that can be read by spiders.
17. Optimize every important page of your website: Optimize every important page of your website with appropriate keyword for each. It will help you to get a lot of search engine traffic to your site from other pages which are focused on very specific keyword phrases.
18. Don't use duplicate content. Each page of your site should have unique content. Duplicating content or pages might be seen as "search engine spamming".
19. Provide linking instructions for those who want to link to your site: Encourage other people link your site by stating your policies and giving the wordings you like them to use in their link. Provide the ready-made HTML code for the link. Give text links, as spiders can't read text from an image file.
20. There should be no coding error and broken link: The search engine spiders will not be able to read and index the pages with coding errors and broken links. Use a Web page validation utility to check your HTML code to make sure it's error-free.
