Drupal Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Checklist

Submitted by Chris Steins on Mon, 01/03/2011 - 7:43am
Chris Steins's picture

Here at Urban Insight we run through a 25-point checklist when we launch a new website. One of these checks is a baseline search engine optimization (SEO) and evaluation. I was recently updating our SEO checklist, and discovered that while there are many great of articles about Drupal SEO modules, as well as at least two books and Volacci's Drupal SEO Checklist Module, I didn't find a quick checklist of steps that combined both Drupal steps, as well as non-Drupal best practices. I thought I'd share some of the steps we recommend for Drupal SEO.

  1. Register the site with the three big search engines (Google, Bing and Yahoo!).
  2. Setup Google Analytics with the Google Analytics module.
  3. Setup an XML Sitemap.
  4. Setup Webmaster Tools for Google, Bing and Yahoo!.
  5. Validate your robots.txt file.
  6. Set your Homepage meta description and keywords with Nodewords module.
  7. Create custom page titles with the Page Title module.
  8. Standardize your domain name (such as planetizen.com or www.planetizen.com).
  9. Consolidate duplicate page URLs, such as node/123, /alias and, https:// versions of your pages.
  10. Extend your domain name registration to at least five years.
  11. Use friendly URLs: Enable clean URLs, install Path and Pathauto modules.
  12. Create several inbound links from other, ideally related and high-profile websites.
  13. Maintain Legacy URLs: Try to maintain or redirect your legacy URLs.
  14. Create a useful 404 error page.
  15. Use a tool to help you keep the site SEO optimized, like SEO Checklist Module or Droptor.

Let me know if you think I've overlooked a step in what should be a standard step for search engine optimization for a Drupal website.

Tags: 
drupal seo
search engine optimization
seo checklist
drupal launch checklsit
drupal best practices
drupal seo checklist

4 comments

by Packer J (not verified) on Fri, 09/16/2011 - 8:12pm

Writing style is also very important for SEO optimization. You should try to write your pages in a way that emphasizes the keywords on that page.

by S Schweiz (not verified) on Fri, 09/30/2011 - 10:05pm

I have learned so many things from reading this post. This is one of the better educational/hands-on posts on Drupal SEO I've read. Thanks again.

by Harry J. (not verified) on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 7:54pm

No Chris, you've included all of the Key points to make a Drupal website more SEO friendly. Indeed Drupal is getting popular day by day for using it for SEO purpose for which till date WordPress has been extremely being used. But with such SEO friendly approach of Drupal, I think it'll become the leader in that sector too like the e-commerce field. Regards, Harry J. from http://www.prominentposition.com.au/

by Sohel Parvez (not verified) on Sat, 10/13/2012 - 9:38am

Thanks Chris for your awesome post. Drupal seo is totally depends on various module. yesterday i published a article about Drupal Search Engine Optimization Checklist (http://t.co/TYZtWFj3). please feel free to check my article & leave your thought on comment.

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