7 Technical SEO Website Checklist For Beginners

1. Page speed matters

Most think of slow load times as a nuisance for users, but its consequences go further than that. Page speed has long been a search ranking factor, and Google has even said that it may soon use mobile page speed as a factor in mobile search rankings. (Of course, your audience will appreciate faster page load times, too.)

Many have used Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to get an analysis of their site speed and recommendations for improvement. For those looking to improve mobile site performance specifically, Google has a new page speed tool out that is mobile-focused. This tool will check the page load time, test your mobile site on a 3G connection, evaluate mobile usability and more.

2. Robots.txt files are case-sensitive and must be placed in a site’s main directory

The file must be named in all lower case (robots.txt) in order to be recognized. Additionally, crawlers only look in one place when they search for a robots.txt file: the site’s main directory. If they don’t find it there, oftentimes they’ll simply continue to crawl, assuming there is no such file.

3. Crawlers can’t always access infinite scroll

And if crawlers can’t access it, the page may not rank.

When using the infinite scroll for your site, make sure that there is a paginated series of pages in addition to the one long scroll.

Make sure you implement replaceState/pushState on the infinite scroll page. This is a fun little optimization that most web developers are not aware of, so make sure to check your infinite scroll for rel=”next” and rel=”prev“ in the code.

4. Google doesn’t care how you structure your sitemap

As long as it’s XML, you can structure your sitemap however you’d like — category breakdown and overall structure is up to you and won’t affect how Google crawls your site.

6. Google usually crawls your home page first

It’s not a rule, but generally speaking, Google usually finds the home page first. An exception would be if there are a large number of links to a specific page within your site.

7. Half of page one Google results are now HTTPS

Website security is becoming increasingly important. In addition to the ranking boost given to secure sites, Chrome is now issuing warnings to users when they encounter sites with forms that are not secure. And it looks like webmasters have responded to these updates: According to Moz, over half of websites on page one of search results are HTTPS.

8. Try to keep your page load time to 2 to 3 seconds

Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller recommends a load time of two to three seconds(though a longer one won’t necessarily affect your rankings).

9. You can get your app into Google Search with Firebase app indexing

If you have an app that you have not yet indexed, now is the time. By using Firebase app indexing, you can enable results from your app to appear when someone who’s installed your app searches for a related keyword.

10. You can check how Google’s mobile crawler ‘sees’ pages of your website

With Google migrating to a mobile-first index, it’s more important than ever to make sure your pages perform well on mobile devices.

Use Google Console’s Mobile Usability report to find specific pages on your site that may have issues with usability on mobile devices. You can also try the mobile-friendly test.

Vishal Solanki -SEO Analyst

feedback or SEO Project discuss [email protected]