This list was originally gathered by Anthony Roffidal, our information architect and SEO specialist for instructing our internal team for launching new websites.
Step 1: General
- Robots.txt
- Adding Analytics tracking code
- Implementing all tracking events on CTA and in nav (optional)
- Url rewriting to strip off www
- sitemap.xml
- Crawl website to make sure no link is broken
- minify
css and js (optional) - Favicon
- Htaccess speed tips
- 404 (UX tips: search/ fix URL/ sitemap/ Homepage)
- Accessibility check
- SSL / https
Step 2: On page SEO
- Meta title
- Meta description and keywords
- Canonical
- Make sure there are no coding errors
- Add microformat/ microdata
- add alt text to images and links
- respect the hierarchy of <h1> → <h6> and <strong>
- Make sure no link is broken
Step 3: After launch
- Ownership of both websites (www and non-www) on webmaster tools
- select preferred domain on WT
- Adding sitemap.xml to google, then select fetch as Google, submit to indexation.
- Linking Analytics to WT
- Enable Google search console
- Enable All Analytics features
- MOZ Campaign (optional)