The document is a comprehensive SEO cheat sheet by Colin McDermott, outlining essential elements for optimizing websites, including meta tags, sitemaps, and compliance with Google Webmaster guidelines. It covers various best practices for on-page SEO, site structure, and keyword research, as well as tools for testing site speed and detecting issues. Important recommendations include ensuring proper metadata, 404 error handling, and avoiding common SEO pitfalls.

1. Onsite SEO Cheatsheet Cheat Sheet
by Colin McDermott (colinbancmedia) via cheatography.com/3917/cs/827/
Meta Tag / Head Area Checklist Sitemaps Google Webmaster Tools
Title Required XML Sitemap Recommended Fetch as Googlebot Required
Meta Description Required Static Sitemap Recommended Submit .xml Sitemap Required
Rel Canonical Tag Recommended Compressed Sitemap Recommended Submit Compressed Sitemap Recommended
Meta Content Type Required Video Sitemap Optional Submit RSS Feed Recommended
Meta Keywords Optional - Not used by Google News Sitemap Optional Set Geographic target Recommended
Google RSS Feed Recommended Set Preferred domain Recommended
Meta Robots Optional Sitemap Index File Optional HTML Improvements Optional
Meta Googlebot Optional Sitemap reference in Robots.txt Recommended Rich Snippets Testing Tool Optional
Meta Google Optional
Meta Google Site Verifi Optional Robots.txt Bing Webmaster Tools
cation
Robots.txt Recommended Fetch as Bingbot Recommended
Rel Next/Prev Optional
Robots.txt sitemap link Optional Submit Sitemap Recommended
Rel DNS Prefetch Optional
Robots.txt disallow rules Optional - be careful Submit RSS Feed Optional
Rel Shortlink Optional
Robots.txt allow rules Optional Submit URLs Optional
Facebook Open Graph Recommended
Check in Webmaster Tools Recommended
Tags Website Speed Tools (Online)
Twitter Card Tags Optional Broken Links / Redirects Google PageSpeed Insights
Rel Alternate (RSS Feed) Optional
Check for broken links/error pages Required Neustar Instant Speed Test
Rel Shortcut Icon/Icon Recommended (4xx,5xx) GTmetrix
(Favicon)
Check for redirects (3xx) Required
Pingdom Tools Full Page Test
Meta Refresh Not recommended
All website pages sending 200 success Required
Yahoo! YSlow
code
Body Webpagetest.org
Homepage should not redirect Required
Whichloadsfaster.com
Heading tags (H1, H2, H3, H4...) Recomm
Homepage should send 200 success Required
ended Site-Perf.com
code
Paragraph tags Optional loadImpact.com
Page Anchors Optional Links
Auditing Tools
Links Required Title Recommended
Navigation Required Screaming Frog
Rel Nofollow Optional - Use with care
Privacy / Cookie / Contact pages Recomm Xenu
Rel Alternate Hreflang x For Multi Language Sites
ended
Rel Next/Previous Optional
Facebook
Address Info Recomm
Rel Tag Optional
ended Facebook Debugger Tool
Rel Author / Me Optional
Rich snippets (microdata, microf Recomm Google Structured Data Testing Tool
ormats, RDFa) ended Rel Bookmark Optional
Strong Optional Google Webmaster Guidelines
404 Error Page
Em Optional Read, understand and follow the Google Webmaster
Check 404 page exists Required
Breadcrumbs Recomm Guidelines
ended Check 404 page returns 404 status code Required
Do not place a link exchange section on your website
Custom 404 error page Optional
Avoid automatically generated / scraped content
Content Add useful links, sitemap or search box to Optional
Avoid cloaking
Check for duplicate/scraped content 404 page
Avoid 'sneaky redirects'
Do not mix languages on a page
HTML Validation Avoid hidden text or links
Check for spelling and grammar
Avoid doorway pages
W3C Markup Validation Service
Avoid hidden content
Do not abuse rich snippets
Do not over-use keywords/phrases
3rd Party Software: Flash/Silverlight/Java/PDF etc
Do not over-use bold tags Keyword Research
3rd Party Software Navigation Menu Avoid
Nofollow all untrusted/UGC links Google Adwords Keyword Tool
3rd Party Software Intro page Avoid
Google Suggest
3rd Party Software Text Content Avoid
Image Optimisation
UberSuggest
Entire Site Using Third Party Software Avoid
Alt Required
Bing Keyword Tool
Small Features Allowed
Search engine friendly Recommended
file name Videos Allowed
WordPress

2. Title Recommended Audio elements Allowed
All in One SEO
Compress Images Recommended Animations Allowed
WordPress SEO by Yoast
(Smush.it etc) Tools Allowed
W3 Total Cache
Convert Images to Optional (Google Chrome &
WebP Opera only) Over Optimisation
Credits
Store on cookieless Recommended Is the site user friendly?
sub-domains Cheat Sheet created by Colin McDermott from Banc
Could a user class the page as spammy?
Media.
Store on cloud hosting Recommended
Do not over-use keywords/phrases in text, headings or
/ CDN Banc Media: http://www.bancmedia.com/
meta data
Colin McDermott: http://cm.org.uk/
Do not create more internal links than necesssary
URL Big Thanks to Dave @ Added Bytes.
Too many keyword rich links
Search engine friendly URL Recommended
Poor content/too many repeated phrases
No Session ID in URL Required
Too many ads (eg Adsense) above the fold
Homepage URL is root ( '/' ) Required
Too many ads, such that content is hard to access
URLs match Canonical Tags Required
URLs match FB OG Site Tag Required
All lowercase letters Recommended
Consistent closing slash Required
No spaces Required
No non-permitted characters Required
No duplicate URLs for same page Required
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Colin McDermott (colinbancmedia) This cheat sheet was published on 9th February, 2013 FeedbackFair, increase your conversion rate today!
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