You are hereSEO On Page Positive and Negative Factors Checklist

SEO On Page Positive and Negative Factors Checklist

I made this at work for our web people to follow. It is a scaled down version of the Google ranking factors checklist found at http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm

I took out the stuff where an SEO's years of expereince would probably be best getting involved and left all the stuff any web programmer can and should be doing everytime they make a new website or make any updates or changes to a website.

Make Sure all these factors are met as best as possible for maximum webpage optimization

 

OnPage Factors

 

  1. Keyword in URL First word is best, second is second best, etc.
  2. Keyword in Title tag Keyword in Title tag - close to beginning
  3. Title tag 10 - 60 characters, no special characters.
  4. Keyword in Description meta tag Shows theme - less than 200 chars.
  5. Google no longer “relies” upon this tag, but will often use it.
  6. Keyword in Keyword metatag Shows theme - less than 10 words.
  7. Every word in this tag MUST appear somewhere in the body text. If not, it can be penalized for irrelevance.
  8. No single word should appear more than twice.
  9. If not, it may be considered spam. Google purportedly no longer uses this tag, but others do.
  10. Keywords - Body
  11. Keyword density in body text 5 - 20% - (all keywords/ total words)
  12. Some report topic sensitivity - the keyword spamming threshold % varies with the topic.
  13. Individual keyword density 1 - 6% - (each keyword/ total words)
  14. Keyword in H1, H2 and H3 Use H font style tags appropriately
  15. Keyword proximity (for 2+ keywords) Directly adjacent is best
  16. Keyword phrase order Does word order in the page match word order for the targeted phrase?
  17. Keyword prominence (how early in page/tag) Can be important at top of page, in bold, in large font
  18. Keywords - Other
  19. Keyword in alt text Should describe graphic - Do NOT fill with spam
  20. Keyword in links to site pages (anchor text) Links out anchor text use keyword?

 

NAVIGATION - INTERNAL LINKS

 

  1. To internal pages- keywords? Link should contain keywords.
  2. The filename “linked to” should contain the keywords.
  3. Use hyphenated filenames, but not long ones - two or three hyphens only.
  4. All Internal links valid? Validate all links to all pages on site.
  5. Efficient - tree-like structure trY FOR two clicks to any page - no page deeper than 4 clicks
  6. Intra-site linking Appropriate links between lower-level pages
  7. NAVIGATION - OUTGOING LINKS
  8. Outgoing link Anchor Text Google patent - Should be on topic, descriptive
  9. OTHER ON-Page Factors
  10. CSS Used ALL pages should be formatted using only CSS. Used to keep formatting separate from content.
  11. File Size Try not to exceed 100K page size (however, some subject matter, such as this page, requires larger file sizes).
  12. Smaller files are preferred <40K (lots of them).
  13. Hyphens in URL Preferred method for indicating a space, where there can be no actual space
  14. One or two= excellent for separating keywords (i.e., pet-smart, pets-mart)
  15. Four or more= BAD, starts to look spammy
  16. Frequent Updates Frequent updates = frequent spidering = newer cache
  17. Page Theming Page exhibit theme? General consistency?
  18. Keyword stemming Stem, stems, stemmed, stemmer,
    stemming, stemmist, stemification
  19. URL length Keep it minimized - use somewhat less than the 2,000 characters allowed by IE - less than 100 is good, less is even better

 

NEGATIVE Items

 

  1. Text presented in graphics form only
  2. Redirect thru refresh metatags Don't immediately send your visitor to another page other than the one he/ she clicked on, using meta refresh.
  3. Keyword stuffing threshold In body, meta tags, alt text, etc. = demotion
  4. Keyword dilution Targeting too many unrelated keywords on a page, which would detract from theming, and reduce the importance of your REALLY important keywords.
  5. Dynamic Pages Problematic - know pitfalls - shorten URLs, reduce variables (“. . no more than 2 or 3”, M.Cutts July 2006), lose the session IDs
  6. Excessive Javascript Don't use for redirects, or hiding links
  7. Flash page(s) SE spiders can't read Flash content
  8. Use of Frames Spidering Problems with Frames - STILL
  9. Single pixel links A red flag - one reason only - a sneaky link.

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