SEO & SMO Strategy / Checklist / Recommendations
On Page SEO Optimization
SEO Initial
Follow Google Webmaster guidelines - http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769
Get the strategy from Google SEO Starter Guide - http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/e n/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
Maintain the website in silo architecture (tree like hierarchy)
Competitor analysis (Analyze for their services, keywords, UI, navigation etc,)
Maintain structured markup language
SEO URL Recommendations
Redirect non-WWW version to WWW version URL
URL optimization - Choose hyphen instead of underscores between keywords, avoid stop words(the, that, is, was)
Not case sensitive (But, better to use lower case letters or else redirect upper case to corresponding lower case using .htaccess server file)
URL character length - 115 (Not a thumb rule, keep short as much as possible)
Always best practice to use absolute URL
SEO METAs
Title optimization - Less than 70 characters (Keep branding at end of the content)
META keywords - Less than 250 characters
o Avoid unrelated keywords
o Use Keyword Research tool - Google Adwords Keyword Tool
META Description - Lest than 160 characters (Have call-to-action words like subscribe, free quote, grab today etc,)
To avoid showing the directory listing in SERP for the branding (Recommended)
o Use <meta name="robots" content="noodp" > if the site is listed in DMOZ - ODP
o Use <meta name="robots" content=" noydir" > if the site is listed in Yahoo! Directory
By default use <meta name="robots" content="index, follow"/> to index the page and to follow the links in the page
To block individual page insert <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"> in the corresponding page
Avoid META refresh for less than 5 seconds
Content for SEO
H1 - Insert the primary keyword (Use only one H1)
H2-H6 optimization (Insert all primary & sec keywords)
Avoid linking in header tags (H1 - H6) unnecessarily
Avoid duplicate title, description and content as well
Keyword Density - Max 3%
Keep keyword prominence and proximity
Better maintain less than 100 links in a page (Not a thumb rule)
Use rel="nofollow" in AHREF tags for external(outbound) links (Avoid linking if it is low quality, dodgy or link farm site)
Add blog feed to show up to 3 posts in homepage (Which updates homepage frequently)
Create and update both the HTML & XML sitemaps
Sitemap should not exceed more 50,000 links and 10 MB of file size. If it exceeds create multiple sitemaps and use sitemap index file
Create robots.txt file to block the folders in the site (Eg: contact form pages) • Also give the sitemap link at the end
Use social sharing buttons for resources, articles, especially blogs
Image Optimization Recommendations
1. Image optimization
• File name optimization (eg: oursource.jpg)
• ALT tag (Insert keywords)
• Title tag (Insert keywords)
• Insert image dimension
2. Use CSS sprites (background images) if the image has more text
3. Add favicon
Site Navigation
1. Ensure for Text Navigation and avoid JavaScript or Flash navigation, where search engine bots can’t crawl
2. Use proper breadcrumb navigation
3. Avoid 404 or broken pages
4. Contextualization (Linking in the content)
5. Give link to the required resources, case study or articles in site navigation (left, right, bottom)
6. Insert website search button ( prefer top right corner)
7. Have a customized 404 page to avoid losing traffic
• List out all services / products in the body area
• Give social media profile links (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+...)
• Provide a physical contact address as well
8. Add a quick contact form in all the pages
SEO Blogging Recommendations
1. Instead of archives in the blog navigation, better differentiate with categories or cloud tagging
2. Tag each post based on its keywords
3. Provide author name for the blog posts with linking his / her G + profile
4. Add pagination to navigate to inner pages at end of the blog landing page, like “2,3…10, next”
5. Use Facebook like button, Twitter follow button, Google + Add to circles, RSS feed, newsletter subscription, YouTube channel, Pinterest Follow buttons to build social reputation
6. Use social sharing buttons - Facebook, Twitter, Google +1, Linkedin etc,
7. Add “Email to friend”
8. Add Twitter widget to show up to 2 - 3 tweets in navigation
9. Add Facebook “Recommendations bar” - Improves traffic (At end of the article, pops to read another post based on FB likes for the particular post)
10. Show popular posts and recent comments in right navigation
Recommendation Website Speed
Code / HTML optimization
Minimize HTTP Requests
Minify CSS, flash, frames
Make JavaScript/CSS external
Enable compression - Using Gzip
Use server side caching
Minimize DNS lookups
Reduce # of 301 redirects
Maintain web page size less than100k (Not a thumb rule)
Two ways to boost site speed automatically from Google -
o https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/psol
o https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/service
Tocheck page speed online - https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights
Page Speed Insights Rules - https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/rules
Trustworthy / Authority
1. Quality content (Rich content)
2. Content Uniqueness
3. The quality & quantity of websites linking (inbound links)
4. The quality & quantity of websites we are linking to
5. The overall usability experience on your website
6. The validity of information about the website
• Add a physical contact address
• Author name for blog posts
7. DMOZ listing, profiles in Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube etc,
8. Linking website in Google + page and linking G + page in the website (vice versa)
9. Additional SERP info. - Having maps, breadcrumbs, date, search box etc, (Rich Snippet)
10. Google Webmaster verification
11. Fresh content update
12. Analytics - tracking website
Avoid Spamming
1. Better keep the links less than 100 (Page should be readable to the users)
2. Avoid Keyword Cannibalization (Don’t target same keywords in multiple pages)
3. Avoid hidden text or hidden links (Eg: Both text & background in same color)
4. Don't use cloaking or sneaky redirects (Showing different content for crawlers and users)
5. Don't load pages with irrelevant keywords
6. Avoid keyword stuffing
7. Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content. (Avoid duplication by canonical tag or 301 or 302 redirection)
8. Don't create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware (Also ensure no one hacked intentionally)
9. Avoid "doorway" pages (Spamdexing, Gateway) created just for search engines, with little or original content
Issues Fixing
Fix all issues noticing in Google webmaster tool especially messages, crawl errors, malwares and duplicated content, long, short & missing title, description.
Web page Testing
1. HTML & W3C validation
2. Check whether the site works in text browsers such as Lynx
3. Is compatible and rendering in different browser versions
Off Page (Link Building) Optimization
1. Competitor Analysis (analyze competitor backlink strategy)
2. Always build links in this format (http://www.)
3. Check qualify of the page with factors like Page Rank (PR), Google cache date, no. of inbound & outbound links, domain age, relevancy, IP address, DA, PA, etc,
4. Link Building Types
• Search Engine Submission
• Directory Submission: limited with Good DA, PA, Dofollow
• Social Bookmarking (Recommended)
• Forum Posting
• Question & Answering (Eg: Yahoo Answers,, Flixya)
• Blog Commenting
• Article Submission
• Press Release
• Video posting (E.g.: YouTube)
• RSS feed submission
• Local Optimization (Business Listing)
• Mapping - Google, Bing
• Social Sharing - Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Linkedin, Pinterst, (Recommended)
• Guest Blogging
5. Claim accounts on the following pages for reputation,
• Dmoz.com
• YouTube.com
• Yelp.com
• Maps.Google.com
• Local.Yahoo.com
• WordPress.com
• BlogSpot.com
• Tumblr.com
• Squidoo.com
• HubPages.com
• Flickr.com
• Wikipedia.org
• .edu
• .gov
• .org
6. Avoid link exchange (reciprocal)
7. Avoid paid links
8. Avoid links from link farms (page having only links)
SEO Tools & Resources
Xenu Link Sleuth - To check broken links, redirected pages, orphan files, HTML sitemap creation and complete site statistics
Copyscape - Duplicate content checker
Google Trends - Shows the trend for a particular keyword in Country & City basis
Blekko - Search Engine which provide complete backlinks with backlinks stats
SEOBook for Firefox, Google Toolbar - Addon which provides complete SEO info
List of Search Engines Add URL or submit URL
SEO Browser - http://www.seo-browser.com/
RichSnippetTesting Tool - http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
HTTP Status Checker - http://tools.seobook.com/server-header-checker/
SEOmoz Blog - Blog to know all SEO updates and queries
SEO Powersuite
Social Media
• Posting something interesting to get viral and to engage (For branding)
• Free giveaways tactic
• Share all blog posts and new service / products pages in all social media and social bookmarking sites
• Use UTM parameter to track the links (CTR, Referral Campaign)
• URL Shorten Matter (Bitly, Google URL Shortner)
• Set Up Social Segments for Tracking in Analytics
1. Facebook
o Tag peoples and pages in posts
o Ask like, comment & share for posts
o Post at least twice or thrice a daily
Post interesting topics
Use #hashtag for content engage
1. Twitter
• Tweet 2 to 3 a day
• Re-tweet and make favorite whichever inspires
• Mention(@) others and engage
• Post fun and interesting
• Use # (hash tag) to trend for keywords
• Follow 10 relevant peoples or companies a week
2. Linkedin
• Ask 1 to 2 recommendations a week
• Connect to 30 - 50 peoples a week
• Follow 10-15 new companies a week
• Post relevant blog posts in groups
3. Google +
• Share twice a day in profile & company page
• Make sure posts are public to reach
• Add 50 to 70 new peoples a week
• Create events to publicize
• Try making hangouts
4. Pinterest
• Pin 6 images a week (1 per day)
• Use keywords in title, description
• Pin products and services work flow images
• Follow 35+ interesting boards a week relevant to us
6. YouTube
• Subscribe 3 channels a week
• Share 3 videos a week in Facebook, Twitter, Google +, etc
• Post videos of company hosts
No comments:
Post a Comment