Strong technical SEO does not replace great content, but without it even great content struggles to be discovered. Use this checklist before launching a new website.
Crawling and indexing
- Publish an XML sitemap and reference it in robots.txt.
- Make sure robots.txt does not block important pages, CSS or JavaScript.
- Verify your site in Google Search Console and submit the sitemap.
- Return a proper 404 status for missing pages and use 301 redirects for moved URLs.
On-page fundamentals
- Give every page a unique, descriptive title and meta description.
- Use one H1 per page and a logical H2/H3 hierarchy.
- Use short, readable URLs and add canonical tags.
- Write descriptive alt text for meaningful images.
Performance and experience
- Compress images and serve modern formats such as WebP.
- Lazy-load below-the-fold images.
- Enable caching and compression on the server.
- Test the site on real mobile devices.
Structured data
Add schema markup for your organisation, breadcrumbs, articles and services so search engines can better understand your content. Remember that structured data helps eligibility for rich results but does not guarantee them.
SEO is a long-term effort. Build the foundation now, then keep publishing helpful content and monitoring results.