As builders, at the moment, we are only required to ensure Yoast is installed, active and that the basic SEO setup requirements are met (see below) on the page or custom images for their open graph settings (Please see the SEO Setup and Best Practices guide for more detailed information). After the site is built, the customer can choose to index their site and submit the site to their Google Search Console, Bing and Yandex. Items that must be properly set up by the builder before the site’s first draft is complete and sent to QA are listed below.
Yoast Setup Requirements
Below are the comprehensive settings in Yoast that must be accounted for during the new build process. Click the link for a full list of SEO Best Practices to keep in mind when building a site or optimizing a site.
Pages:
- Page Names should always be lowercase and when multiple words, separated by a (-) hyphen
- As content allows, try to have 2 to 3 links (not anchor links) to other internal pages within the site, as this increases user engagement and helps with authority
Title:
- 30 to 60 characters
- Structure should be as follows [Page Name] – [Keyword phrase with Company name]
- Example: Website Builder – Create Your Own Website in Minutes GoDaddy
- **Google will truncate Title Tags around 60 characters in length which detracts from its purpose
Meta Description:
- 70 to 156 characters
- The first 110 to 120 characters should be able to stand alone, starting with a call to action and include the Keyword phrase and Company name
- It should match the content of the web page it represents and leverage the same key word phrase used in the Title.
- **Google will truncate Meta Descriptions on mobile around 100-120 characters in length
H1 Tags:
Make sure there’s one H1 tag heading on every page that defines the page content
- 40 to 60 characters
- This should be the very first header tag on the page
- This should stand out on the web page
- There should only be one H1 Tag per page
Page Content:
- The focus keyword should be repeated throughout the page as needed to show relevance to search engines
- A featured image is chosen for the page even if it isn’t used on the page, and is added to the open graph tag areas for Facebook and Twitter so that a proper thumbnail is generated when the site is shared to these sites
Images:
- The image file name should represent what the image is vs. random numbers
- All images should have image alt text
- Images have been resized for web to better favor load speeds
- Through CSS you can specify which size to show on what device