SEO checklist | Best and worst practices when designing a high traffic website

SEO checklist for best and worst practices when designing a high traffic website

I was browsing over at Daily Blog Tips and saw that Daniel posted about a SEO checklist of “Best and Worst Practices for Designing a High Traffic Website. The idea of the list is to identify all the major factors that might affect the search optimization of your site. Each of these factors received a score which ranges from -3, which is very bad for your site, to +3, which is very good.

I looked at Daniel’s post and thought I’d present it to you in a different way, grouping the scores together, starting from the worst practices going up to the best. I have also added a few comments to each of the sections.

Worst Practices
Keywords * Keyword stuffing (-3)
Links * Outbound links to bad neighbors (-3)
Links * Cross-linking (-3)
Content * Invisible text (-3)
Content * Doorway pages (-3)
Content * Duplicate content (-3)
Other factors * Misused Redirects (-3)

Comments: I agree on all of the points above, none of these should be done on any website. All of them are the worst of the worst.

Worse than Bad Practices
Content * Poor coding or design (-2)
Other factors * Flash (-2)

Comments: Much can be said about poor coding or design, which could include bloated HTML (too many extra tags), broken HTML (not closing tags) and non-validated code. Flash, previously not crawlable (Search Engines could not read the content in the Flash object), is now readable, at least to a degree. Although I am not all for Flash, I think that flash can really add value to your site when using it sparingly.

Bad Practices
Links * Many outgoing links (-1)
Meta Tags * Refresh Meta Tag (-1)
Other factors * Hosting downtime (-1)

Comments: Too many outgoing links from one page, YES, a definite no-no. Quality over quantity and a good link structure should be considered. Choosing a reliable host is critical. You cannot afford any downtime. I think you’ll agree.

Not Bad/Not Good Practices?
Other factors * URL length (0)

Comments: Hmmm, this is tricky. How long is a piece of string and how long is long for a domain name? The best option is to choose a descriptive domain name that is short and to the point, preferably one with your most important keyword in it.

Good Practices
Keywords * Keyword in Meta tags (+1)
Meta Tags * Description Meta Tag (+1)
Meta Tags * Keywords Meta Tag (+1)
Other factors * Top-level domain (+1)

Comments: These are all important and I agree with the rating they received, however I believe that the Description tag should have at least received a (+2) as it is still used in the SERP’s to describe your site.

Better Practices
Keywords * Keyword in the beginning of document (+2)
Keywords * Keyword in ALT tags (+2)
Links * Anchor text of internal links (+2)
Content * Age of content (+2)
Other factors * Sitemap (+2)
Other factors * Site size (+2)
Other factors * Site age (+2)

Comments: Again, I agree on all of these. I had to really think hard on the “site size” factor and thought that size does not matter (or perhaps should not), but after reading the original post I agree that spiders love the larger type sites simply because there are more content to collect and index.

Best Practices
Keywords * Keyword in title tag (+3)
Keywords * Keyword in URL (+3)
Keywords * Keyword density in document (+3)
Keywords * Keyword in H1 and H2 headings (+3)
Links * Anchor text of inbound links (+3)
Links * Origin of inbound links (+3)
Links * Links from similar sites (+3)
Links * Links from .edu and .gov sites (+3)
Content * Unique content (+3)
Content * Frequent updates (+3)
Other factors * Site accessibility (+3)

Comments: I agree with 10 out of the 11 and would dare to say that you should never slip up on any one of them. They are all critical factors for successful on-site optimization. I’d like to highlight one which is the “Links from .edu and .gov sites”. I’ve battled to get links from .edu and .gov sites and quite frankly, while a link to my site may add value, it is totally unrelated. Getting links from such sites never really applied or appealed to my sites or my client sites. Perhaps I am missing the point but for me .edu and .gov sites appeal to US users/site owners and not the International community. If they consider this as a ranking factor then I believe that this disqualifies me for a better ranking.

There are many more factors which Daniel, or me, did not highlight thus you can get the full report at WebConfs if you did not get the link at the top.

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