25 points to build
search-engine friendly
websites

Channelship’s SEO checklist
1. All pages must have unique metatags (title, description, keywords). If the
website has a CMS, the user should be able to enter the metatags through it.
2. All text must be HTML. In the case you would like to use images instead of
HTML, this must be validated by your project manager.
3. Always design and develop to achieve a balance between what is best for the
website’s usability and for search engine optimisation.
4. H1 and H2 are extremely important and where possible, the text they relate to
should be at the top of pages. Always remember that search engines read from
top to bottom, so endeavour to design and place content in accordance.
5. Avoid i-frames and tables. Do table-less development where possible.

Channelship’s SEO checklist
6. Sites should be correctly viewable/ navigable in Internet Explorer 6 and 7,
Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari.
7. Sites should be validated to W3C standards (e.g: XHTML valid/ CSS valid)
8. All images must have alt text and all images must have friendly names (e.g.
“red-apple.gif” and not “img0098.gif”. If the images are “clickable” then they
should also have a title tag. Save all images in one folder.
9. All sites must have an HTML sitemap and an XML sitemap, detailing all the
pages within the site.

Channelship’s SEO checklist
10. Url/Url rewrite:
Avoid excessive parameters and session IDs like the following:
www.examplesite.com/products/view.php?id=152&backurl=%2Fproducts%2Find
ex.php%3Fcatid%3D7
Generate clear descriptive urls like the following:
www.examplesite.com/products/laptops/dell-latitude-1234
Avoid the use of underscore (“_”) in file names and urls. Use hyphen (“-“)
Where possible, url rewriting should occur automatically, via programs such as
mod-rewrite. Alternatively, and if website has a CMS, then the friendly url should
be entered via the CMS manually.
11. Avoid basing all the navigation in drop-down menus. Search engines cannot
read Javascript, so where possible, the contents of Javascript generated drop
down menus (sections, subsections, etc) should be repeated in the page in
HTML (typically at the bottom, e.g: About, services, etc)

Channelship’s SEO checklist
12. Use breadcrumb navigation where possible (e.g. Products >Ireland>diy>latest
offers…)#
13. Generate a custom and friendly 404 page for users that mistype urls or use
broken links. If you are re-developing a site, ensure that 301 redirects are in
place for every url deleted from the old site if you cannot automate this.
14. All script files and CSS files must be external (i.e: called from a page, but not in
the page itself).
15. Ensure website is hosted in Ireland. Search engines consider it more relevant.
16. Always keep in mind the code-to-text ratio (avoid excessive code in comparison
to text).

Channelship’s SEO checklist
17. Use of Flash: Limit the use of Flash to animation purposes. Even though Google
can now read some Flash, do not expect text content in Flash to be captured
correctly.
18. Create a robot.txt file in accordance with the SEO strategy
19. Keep the amount of outbound links to a minimum. Use “nofollow” tag if
necessary.
20. Keep a good balance on internal linking. Use rich an evocative anchor text (e.g:
if you want to link to the “services” section you can write “need effective cleaning
services”, instead of “services”. Always give links a title tag.

Channelship’s SEO checklist
21. Validate all contact forms
22. Always endeavour to allow for user-generated content (a blog is the ultimate
form of it) when planning the site. Fresh content is vital to attract search engines
and is of extreme importance to complement the offsite optimization efforts.
23. Ensure correct canonicalisation.
24. Setup site in Google webmaster tools for campaign purposes. Submit XML
sitemap to Google accordingly.
25. Implement Web Analytics on every page

Web Specialists
Talk to us: 00353 1 524 1415
www.channelship.ie
www.channelship.ie/blog