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9-Item Checklist for a Search Engine-Friendly Website

As we mentioned in “How to Recognize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Expertise,” the technological side of SEO is more important than ever now. While search engines continue to tweak their definitions of what constitutes “quality content” for the average web user, their definition of “a good user experience” as well as the list of technical data they prefer has remained relatively stable.

The following is a 9-item checklist to ensure your website is showing search engines the most important technical information they want to see:

1. An XML Sitemap – By mapping out the pages of your site in an XML file, search engines can easily determine the organization of your site’s content.
2. HTTPS – (also known as HTTP over SSL or HTTP Secure) is the use of Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS), adding the security capabilities of SSL/TLS to standard HTTP communications. This way, search engines know your website is safe for users.
3. A robots.txt file (or robots noindex meta tags) – The robots.txt file tells search engines which parts of your site you do not want them to access. Alternatively, you can include a meta tag on the individual pages you do not want indexed by search engines.
4. Accurate Meta Titles – You can let search engines know what page titles they should display in their search results with the Meta Title tag. Just make sure they are accurate and relatively short (under 55-60 characters should do).
5. Relevant Meta Descriptions – Similarly, you can let search engines know what page descriptions to display with the Meta Description tag. Otherwise, search engines may extract text that they think is the best option for a page description, or simply the first snippet of text within the page. Keeping them under 150-160 characters is a good practice.
6. Good website speed – 40% of web users will abandon a website if it doesn’t load within 3 seconds. Faster load times means a better user experience, which means happier search engines. Try using Google’s PageSpeed tool for a quick check of your website’s loading speed, as well as suggestions on how to improve it.
7. Easy website navigation – For both users and search engines, the easier your website is to navigate, the better. In case you don’t already, consider adding “breadcrumb links” to your subpages that show how to quickly navigate back to a section landing page and/or the home page.
8. Easy-to-read URLs – A page URL should contain relevant words about that page’s content. This gives both users and search engines more information about the page than an oddly named URL would.
9. Alt text on all image files – Not only is this beneficial for search engine crawlers/spiders/bots (they can’t view image content), but this practice adheres to the Americans with Disabilities Act as well. If a user is viewing your site on a browser that doesn’t support images, or is using alternative technologies such as a screen reader, the alt text can provide information about the image. Ask Tripepi Smith about how to make sure your website is ADA-compliant.

Even if you have easy access to a knowledgeable website administrator who can help you with most or all of these items, it can still take time, energy and resources to ensure everything has been implemented correctly. Whenever possible, let technology do the work for you.

At Tripepi Smith, we use WordPress as our preferred platform for building websites. WordPress has an easy-to-understand user interface and benefits from a wide community of users and developers that constantly creates and discovers new website features via “plugins.” On websites we build for our clients, we sometimes use the “WordPress SEO Plugin” by Yoast to manage many of the items in the checklist above. This is the exact same plugin many large websites, such as Mashable.com (3.7 million monthly users), use. We also use WP Engine for hosting—the most-trusted technology partner for professional WordPress installations in the world (over 200,000 domains across 120 countries). WP Engine provides daily backups, keeps backups for 30 days, and has quick restoration capabilities—all extremely useful qualities in case of unforeseen emergencies.

Last but not least, take advantage of Google’s free tool suite. Don’t forget that Google still owns over 60% of the search engine market share. Install Google Analytics to track your site traffic and user behavior, enable Google Webmaster Tools to determine your site’s “health” based on issues that Google can detect, and consider creating a Custom Site Search to use on your website, etc.

Tripepi Smith is ready to help you ensure your website is completely search engine-friendly. Contact us today for more information.