Quick SEO Checklist

SEO is the set of efforts that helps your website to be more visible. When someone says about having a good SEO, it means that that given website has been turned in a specific way to be found by the right people.

SEO is divided into two big areas:

• Semantic: which it has to do with the wording (keywords) in a given website. Using the right words will make a specific page of a website to be relevant to someone's search; and
• Technical: which has to with the security and speed of a given website. A website must meet minimum security requirements to be considered trusty, therefore to be a listing candidate. The speed is another important technical aspect, the faster a page loads and displays, the more likely the link will be at the top of the list.

Please also note that SEO is not something you do one time, it is a repetitive process.

It is All about Your Wording

If you have a flower shop and one of your pages is all about St-Valentines day, you will need to select the exact phrases (nouns and verbs) that people would use when looking for. For example:

• "flowers for girlfriend"
• "roses for wife"
• "st-valentin specials"

Then, it is all writing pertinent text using those selected words.

The Technical Check List

Without discussing a lot, our vision of a good technical SEO includes the following:

• Create Friendly URL's, use simple and descriptive page directions, like this page.
• Use a CDN, will help to deliver the content faster. Web browsers have a limitation on how many simultaneous downloads they can do per hostname, CDN's help to leverage this limitation, not to mention they are optimized to deliver faster than an ordinary web server.
• Optimize image size, the smaller the objects, the faster they transmit and load. Use the right format, JPEG at 85% compression is a good start if you are not going to use transparent backgrounds, otherwise PNG. Install javascript libraries to deliver WEBP images when they are supported.
• Use the right metatags, will help the search engines to know more about your page. Breadcrumbs and description metatags are important.
• Minify your HTML code, as the image sizing, the smaller the faster.
• Use a TLD domain that targets your customers. If your customers are in Canada, use a dot CA domain.
• Use HTTP/2 and let the browser load what it needs in the very first hit.
• Prioritize your JS and CSS, let the essential ones load first then your page will start to display sooner.
• Tag your images and help search machines to know what images are about.
• Install and configure a caching engine if you are using a CMS.

Follow this suggestion and your page will improve.