A beautiful website that Google can't read is like a shop with no signboard — nobody finds it. This is the exact on-page SEO checklist we run through before every website we build goes live. If your developer can't tick all 25 boxes, you're leaving rankings on the table.
Technical Foundation
- ✅ HTTPS everywhere — SSL certificate installed and enforced
- ✅ Mobile-first responsive design — passes Google Mobile-Friendly Test
- ✅ Core Web Vitals pass — LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1
- ✅ XML sitemap — auto-generated, submitted to Search Console
- ✅ Robots.txt — properly configured, no accidental blocking
- ✅ Canonical URLs — every page has one, no duplicates
- ✅ Clean URL structure — /services/web-development, not /page?id=37
On-Page Optimization
- ✅ Unique title tags — 50–60 characters, keyword-front-loaded
- ✅ Unique meta descriptions — 140–160 characters with a CTA
- ✅ Single H1 per page — matches search intent
- ✅ Logical heading hierarchy — H1 → H2 → H3, no skipping
- ✅ Descriptive alt text — on every image, keyword-relevant
- ✅ Internal linking — related pages link to each other naturally
- ✅ Schema markup — Organization, FAQ, Service, Product, Breadcrumb as relevant
- ✅ OpenGraph + Twitter cards — proper sharing previews
Content & UX Signals
- ✅ Original, useful content — no AI-generated fluff or copied text
- ✅ Clear CTAs — above the fold, repeated naturally
- ✅ Fast loading — under 3 seconds on 4G
- ✅ No layout shifts — images have width/height, fonts preloaded
- ✅ Accessible forms — labels, error messages, keyboard navigable
- ✅ Breadcrumbs — visible and in structured data
Pre-Launch Checks
- ✅ Google Search Console verified
- ✅ Google Analytics 4 connected
- ✅ 404 page is helpful — has search and navigation
- ✅ 301 redirects — for any changed URLs from the old site
Run This Checklist Before Launch
Bookmark this page and run through it before every website launch. Most of these take 5 minutes to implement if your developer knows what they're doing. Fixing them after launch is 10x harder and you've already lost crawl budget.