the seo checklist i use before launching any page in 2024, with real examples

seo · 2024-04-26 · 8 min

i run the same seo checklist before launching any page. not two hundred items. the ones that actually move ranking and traffic, in the order i run them, with the examples from pages i launched in 2024.

the checklist is not a secret. it is a habit. most of the value is in running it every time, not in the items themselves.

1. the intent and the title

before anything else: what query does this page answer, and does the title say it? not a clever title. the words a person would type. if the page is about "how much a website costs in italy", the title should contain that, not "investing in your digital presence".

the example: a page with the title "quanto costa un sito web" and a clear first paragraph doubled its click-through rate after the title was rewritten to match the query exactly. the content did not change. the promise did.

2. one h1, useful h2s

one h1 that matches the page. h2s that are questions a reader would ask, in the order they would ask them. not "introduction", "why it matters", "conclusion". those are structural labels, not answers.

the h2s are also the outline google sees. if the outline reads like a table of contents for the question, the page is easy to understand. if it reads like a template, it is not.

3. the meta description

the snippet is the ad. it should contain the keyword in the first 120 characters, make a specific promise, and stop before 160 characters. not a summary of the page. a reason to click it.

the example: the nine snippets over 200 characters on this site were truncated on mobile in the middle of a word. rewriting them to 150 characters was the cheapest ctr improvement i made all year.

4. internal links

every page should link to the next question, and be linked from a page that already has authority. a related-posts widget is not the same thing. the link should be in the sentence where the next question comes up.

the example: a post that sat on page three for months moved to page one after three contextual links from older posts. the content was already good. the links were the missing signal.

5. canonical

one url per piece of content. if the page is reachable with and without a trailing slash, with and without www, with tracking parameters, pick one and canonicalize the rest. this is boring and it prevents the most common duplicate-content problem.

6. sitemap and robots

the page should be in the sitemap, the sitemap should be in robots.txt, and robots.txt should not block the page by accident. a disallow left over from staging is a classic.

7. social cards

og:title, og:description, og:image. the image should be the right size and should not be a logo on a white square. the card is the first impression on every platform that is not google.

8. structured data

article for a post, faq for a real faq, breadcrumb for navigation, localbusiness for a local business. the schema should describe the page that exists, not the page you wish existed. invalid json-ld is worse than no json-ld.

9. alt text

every meaningful image gets alt text that describes what the image shows and why it is there. decorative images get an empty alt. this is an accessibility requirement first and an seo requirement second, and the order matters.

10. core web vitals

lcp, inp, cls. the hero image is usually the lcp. the largest image should be compressed, sized, and loaded early. the layout should not jump when a font or an ad loads. the interaction should not wait for a script that nobody needs.

the example: a page that felt fast on my machine was slow on a phone because the hero was a 2 mb png. converting it to webp at the right size cut the lcp in half. no code changed.

11. mobile

check the page on a real phone, not a resized browser. the menu, the tap targets, the form, the table. most traffic is mobile, and most launch reviews happen on a laptop.

12. redirects and 404

every old url should redirect to the new one with a 301. the 404 page should help, not apologize. a launch that breaks ten urls loses more than a launch that ships a day later.

13. analytics and search console

one counter, one conversion event, search console verified. if you cannot see what the page does after launch, the launch is not finished. the measurement is part of the page.

14. indexnow

ping the search engines when the page changes. it is not a ranking factor. it is a way to make the wait shorter.

what i skip

keyword density. meta keywords. submitting to a hundred directories. checking rankings every day. buying links. rewriting the page because a tool gave it a score of 87 instead of 92.

the checklist is not the work. the work is the page. the checklist is the last ten percent that makes sure the work is findable.

for the local version of the same checklist, see seo locale a parma. for the technical performance side, see why is my website slow.