Article by Axandra
SEO software
Getting high rankings can be complicated if you do not have a clear plan. Our SEO checklist helps you to find out if you have done everything to make sure that your web pages can get high rankings on Google and other search engines.
Step 1: Technical things that should be checked
Before you optimize your pages, there are several technical things that you have to check:
1. Check the uptime of your website
If your web host promises an uptime of 99.9%, your website can be down for more than 8 hours per year. It is important that you choose a reliable web host with an uptime that is higher than 99.9%. The uptime monitor tool in SEOprofiler helps you to monitor the uptime of your website.
2. Make sure that your web pages use HTTPS
HTTPS pages are no longer an option. They are a must-have for any website. HTTPS makes sure that your website visitors can enter their data securely. In addition, Google prefers secure web pages.
Make sure that your website uses HTTPS and that your HTTP pages redirect to the HTTPS version. The website audit tool in SEOprofiler checks the security settings of your website.
Also, check if your website has been hacked with Google's safe browsing tool.
3. Check your web pages for duplicate content
Either use your website domain with www or without www. Do not use both versions. Use a single URL format so that Google can find the preferred version of your website. Use the rel=canonical attribute
The website audit tool in SEOprofiler checks your web pages for duplicate content (full duplicates and partial duplicates).
4. Check your website for server errors
If your web pages return the wrong HTTP status code, Google and other search engines won't index your web pages correctly. Check your web pages to make sure that your website does not contain '404 not found', '403 forbidden', '500 internal server error' or other bad HTTP status codes. The website audit tool in SEOprofiler will do that for you. You can create your SEOprofiler account here to check your pages now.
You should also avoid links to redirected pages on your website. If the website audit tool shows redirects on your website, correct these links so that they point to the right page on your site.
5. Check the indexability of your web pages
Search engine won't index your web pages if there is an error in your robots.txt file, or if there are the wrong indexing tags on your pages.
The website audit tool checks the indexability of all pages of your website. Quickly find the pages that search engines cannot index and make sure that search engines can access them.
6. Check the link depth
Important pages of your website should not be available with a maximum of two clicks from your home page.
Pages that require more clicks often cannot be found by website visitors. The website audit tool shows you how many clicks people need to find particular pages on your website.
7. Avoid JavaScript navigation
Each page of your website should have its own URL. Otherwise, it is will be very difficult to get high rankings for the individual pages of your site.
Although Google can index JavaScript to some extent, JavaScript navigation can make indexation of your web pages very difficult (and impossible for some crawlers). In addition, your users won't be able to link to a particular page of your website.
Avoid JavaScript navigation and use regular HTML links for the navigational elements on your website.
Check your website now
These are the most important technical things that you should check to make sure that your web pages get high rankings on Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines. Next week, we're taking a look at the on-page things that you have to check.
The tools in SEOprofiler help you to check your pages as efficiently as possible. You also get tools to optimize your pages. free SEOprofiler account here.
SEO checklist
SEO checklist part 1: find out if your website is ready for high rankings
SEO checklist - part 2: how to make sure that your web pages will get high rankings