Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet

You live and breathe SEO and can’t understand why others don’t share the same sense of passion for search optimisation as you.

Sound familiar?

If you are struggling to get your web developers to see why you need a constant stream of changes and adjustments made to keep one step ahead of the game when it comes to effective SEO, we have got exactly what you need.

Whether you need to optimise an on-page SEO element of a website, such as its title tags and meta descriptions, or you have more technical SEO issues that need fixing, our simple and straightforward Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet includes everything you need to know.

Download our Free Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 

Ideal for SEO beginners and experts alike, our SEO cheat sheet can be easily downloaded, shared, and printed out for maximum convenience and minimal effort. Plus, with each SEO practice broken down into handy bite-sized sections, web developers and software engineers can dip in and dip out as and when they need to.

Ready to get started working with your developers to create a top-ranking website?

Don’t jump the gun just yet. To get the most out of your web developers and to ensure your two teams can work harmoniously together, you need to make sure you have as much data and analysis to hand as possible so that you can create a winning strategy.

As well as our SEO cheat sheet, of course!

Carry out a full site audit report

The quickest and most effective way to discover any errors that are holding a site back from reaching its full ranking potential, you can choose to carry out a full site audit yourself using a selection of free and paid online tools such as Screaming Frog, DeepCrawl, and Google Analytics or you can enlist the services of an SEO agency to do this time-consuming process for you.

Once the crawl is finished, you can now start to work with your web developers to fix any issues that have been brought to light.

The most common technical and bank-end SEO errors that your web development team can help you with are as follows:

Critical Crawler Issues

Critical crawler issues include 5xx errors, 4xx errors, and redirect to 4xx errors can have a huge impact on your site’s success.

5xx Errors

5xx errors such as 500, 502 and 503, indicate that there is an internal server error on a website that could be preventing users from accessing it.

To find 5xx errors, start by looking at your higher authority pages. Open them in the URL in your browser to see if you can access each page.

To resolve 5xx errors:

• Check with your website administrator to see if they are blocking AWS.
• Ask your host if they are serving an error due to too many crawl requests.

4xx Errors

4xx errors are shown when a resource cannot be reached or found. This could be due to formatting issues, a misspelled link, or because a web page no longer exists.

To find 4xx errors, start by looking at your high authority pages or ones with a lower crawl depthA Google crawl depth is the number of web pages indexed by Google after a specific page has been crawled.

To resolve 4xx errors:

• Check the spelling of their URLs.
• Clear your cookiesCookies are very small files that a website saves on a visitor's computer and uses to recognize repeat visits. and cache.
• Add a 301 redirect301 redirects are permanent, so they only need to be set up once. They can signal to search engines that a page has been permanently moved or removed, which can help boost website traffic in the process..

Redirect to 4xx

A redirect to 4xx is when a page is being redirected to a page that isn’t accessible. This can negatively impact both your user experience and the way in which a search bot can crawl your site.

To find redirect to 4xx errors, start by looking at your high authority pages or ones with a lower crawl depth.

To resolve redirect to 4xx errors:

• Change the redirect to an active and relevant source.
• Fix the 404 issues.

What to Say to Your Web Developer

Make it clear that these errors can make a site completely inaccessible to site visitors, potentially driving them to your competitors, never to return again. Work together to identify what caused these errors and create a plan to deal with urgent critical crawler issues that suit both parties.

Check the Cheat Sheet!

Direct your web developer straight to the HTTP Status Codes section on our SEO Cheat Sheet for help with redirection codes, server error codes, and client error codes.

Crawler Warnings

Crawler warnings affect your site’s crawlability, resulting in a site missing out on valuable traffic and the opportunity to rank higher.

There are several different crawler warnings, including:

• Meta NoindexThe noindex meta tag tells search engines not to index the page and show it in search results.. There is a noindex value in the robots tag, meaning search engines will not index the content, and the page will not show up on SERPs. If you aren’t showing up on the SERPs, you aren’t getting any organic trafficOrganic search traffic (sometimes called natural or unpaid search) is the traffic that's driven to a website because of unpaid placement on a search engine results page..
• X-Robots NoFollowThe nofollow attribute is an HTML tag that tells search engine crawlers not to follow a link.. There is a nofollow value in the x-robots response header. This means that any internal linksHyperlinks, also known as links, are the connection points on a webpage that take you to other webpages. you have on a web page will not be crawled by Google.
• Meta NoFollow. There is a nofollow value in the robots’ tags. This means search engines will not follow any of the internal links on the page, which could mean vital pages are missed.
• X-Robots NoIndex. Search engines cannot index a page’s content because there is a noindex value in the x-robots response header.

What to Say to Your Web Developer

Although some pages are hidden from search engines for a reason, and, therefore, not every Crawler Warning will be problematic, it is vital that a website’s most important pages are crawled and indexed accordingly.

Show your web developer the importance of accuracy when it comes to noindex and nofollow by helping them to understand the link between certain keywords on a page and the amount of organic traffic this can bring in. You could even show them how much money a site makes on organic traffic so they can see the monetary benefits of good SEO.

Check the Cheat Sheet!

Refer to the Robots Exclusion Standard section on our SEO Cheat Sheet for more help and advice on noindex and nofollow usage.

Redirect Issues

Having a direct impact on user experience, redirect issues can include temporary redirectsA redirect is a web page that loads in place of another web page., redirect chains, and meta refreshes.

Temporary Redirect

A 302 or 307 redirect allows you to temporarily send users and search engines to a different URL from the one they initially requested. The difference between this type of redirect and a permanent redirect (301) is that you are telling search engines that this change is only temporary.

Google does not give as much ranking authority to these types of pages, resulting in a lost opportunity to be ranked higher and the chance for competitors to take advantage of this.

Redirect Chain

Any web pages that follow two or more redirects are known as a redirect chain. These can be caused when multiple redirect rules pile up, such as redirecting a non-secure page to a secure one. Google crawlers do not like long redirect chains and will often not reach the final page, resulting in the page not being indexed.

Meta Refresh

Meta refresh is HTML coding that automatically redirects a user to a new page after a number of seconds. These tend to be slower than other redirects and are not great for your SEO efforts.

What to Say to Your Web Developer

Discuss why your web developer chose each redirect and explain to them how this affects your SEO efforts. Create a plan moving forward that involves your insight into your SEO so that the best redirects can be used based on each circumstance.

Make sure to speak to them about the impact that redirects can have on a site’s performance, including:

• Page loading times. Speed is one of Google’s top-ranking factors. The longer a user has to wait, the more ranking power a page loses, as this, in Google’s eyes, is not adding any value to the user’s experience.
• The overall user experience. Also having a negative impact on user experience, the longer a searcher has to wait for a page to appear, the more likely they are to bounce. Your bounce rateBounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who visit only one page. A high bounce rate indicates that visitors are not satisfied with your website. has an impact on your ranking position.
• The ability for crawlers to crawl and index a web page. Redirect issues can directly affect the crawling and indexing of a page and, in some cases, stop them from being crawled and indexed altogether.

Check the Cheat Sheet!

Head to the HTTP Status Code and Performance sections of our SEO Cheat Sheet for more information on redirects and page speed.

MetadataPut simply, metadata is data that describes data. It’s a labelling system designed to help machines and humans understand what is contained within a packet of data. Issues

Metadata issues affect how search engines can process a page and display them in SERPs, and although not critical to your overall SEO efforts, fixing these types of issues will have a positive effect on your site’s ranking.

There are many potential metadata issues that could be affecting a website, including:

• Missing title. Without a title tag, searchers will not know if a page is relevant to their search, and search engines will not be able to identify keywords and associate a page with a specific topic.
• The title is too long. Your title tag should not be longer than 600 pixels as Google typically only displays the first 50-60 characters.
• The title is too short. Your title tag should not be under ten characters, as searchers will not be able to determine if a page is relevant to their search.
• Multiple titles. If a crawler is finding more than one title tag on a page, they can become confused.
• Missing canonical tags. Each page should have a canonical tagThe canonical tag is used to designate a single page as the original page, or the page that should be indexed by search engines. to prevent duplication issues.
• Missing description. Appearing directly above the title tag on SERP, meta descriptions allow you to advertise content and let users know exactly what a page is about.
• The description is too long. A meta descriptionWebsite meta descriptions are used to inform web users on search engines about the content of webpages. should be no longer than 300 characters.
• The description is too short. A meta description should not be less than 55 characters.
• URL is too long. Each page URL should be no longer than 75 characters.
• URL with too many parameters. Add a Disallow directive in your robots/txt file to prevent this.

What to Say to Your Web Developer

It is possible that metadata issues have not been previously brought to the attention of your web developer, and they may not realise the effect they can have on your SEO efforts. Start by showing them examples of good and bad title tags and meta descriptions and how these affect a site’s rankings.

Don’t forget to also talk to them about the importance of keywords.

Check the Cheat Sheet!

Use the Important HTML Elements and URLs sections of our SEO Cheat Sheet to discover the best practices for title tags, meta description tags, and images.

Content Issues

Content is crucial for SEO as you are probably all too aware, and, unfortunately, there are many different content issues that you may have to contend with, including content duplication, duplicate tags, thin content, slow loading times, and missing H1s.

Although it can be time-consuming to identify and resolve the above content issues, it is a necessary process if you want search engines to look favourably upon a website and rank its pages effectively.

Duplicate ContentDuplicate content is content that appears more than once across a single website. Duplicate content can be a sign of poor resource management, low trust, or a lack of quality control.

If the code and content on one page are too similar to another page, it may be flagged as duplicate content. Remember that crawlers will be looking at the code as well as what searchers can see on a particular page.

Fix duplicate content by either making changes to the content or by adding a 30 redirect.

Duplicate Titles

If multiple pages on a website have the same title tag content, it can cause the content to seem less valuable. Although title tags can contain some of the same elements, such as keywords and the name of the brand, you do want to keep each one unique in some way.

Make small changes to a title to ensure that it directly matches the content on the page.

Thin Content

Content is considered to be thin if it contains less than 50 words. This can directly affect your rankings as content of this length is unlikely to fulfil searcher intent. Depending on what the web page was created for, you may want to add more content or add a redirect to a more meaningful page.

Slow Loading Times

Fast page loading times are critical for SEO, and pages that load too slowly need to be addressed as soon as possible. There are many ways to improve page loading speeds; see the cheat sheet for more information.

Missing H1s

If a page is missing a header tag or it has been formatted incorrectly, this can affect its ability to rank as Google won’t know what a page is about. One of the most common issues with H1 tags is having a paragraph text nested within it.

What to Say to Your Web Developer

It is highly likely that your web developer has had to deal with content issues in the past, and they may already be dreading discussing them with you. Overcome this obstacle by actively listening to your developer about their concerns and trying to put in place a process that makes content fixes more streamlined and less time-consuming.

It can also be a good idea to show them how content issues can directly lead to a drop in organic traffic and an increase in bounce rates so that they can see firsthand how important it is that searchers can find the content they want.

Consult the Cheat Sheet!

Refer to the Canonicalization and Performance section of our SEO Cheat Sheet for more advice on resolving content issues.

Platform Issues

When it comes to search engine optimisation, you need to think about the platforms that you are using for a website, web pages, and for any content that you post. Common platform-related issues include:

Unresponsive Website

Every website needs to be able to be viewed on mobile and tablet devices in the same way that it can be consumed on a desktop computer. The simplest way to achieve this is by creating a responsive website, i.e., one that adjusts for different screen sizes. In terms of SEO, from 2015, Google made mobile-friendliness one of its ranking factors, meaning that sites without a responsive website will lose out to ones that do.

Social Media Metadata

Although social media is not an official ranking for Google, it can amplify the ranking factors that Google does consider. As well as ensuring that you are sharing the right content, in the right format, at the right time and on the right social platform, you also need to ensure that your web developers are using the right social meta tagsA meta tag is a structured data element that appears in the head section of a webpage..

Social media metadata allows you to optimise your content for sharing on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest, which, in turn, helps the content to spread, leading to an increase in links and mentions.

What to Say to Your Web Developer

Knowing what social meta tags to include can be a minefield for even the most experienced webmaster, so you will need to support your web developer as much as you can with this process. You may want to suggest that they use tools for testing and approving their chosen tags, such as the Twitter Validation Tool, the Facebook Debugger, Google Structured Data Testing Tool, and Pinterest Rich Pins Validator.

In terms of making your site more mobile-friendly, there are many simple changes that your web developer can make that will make a huge difference to how a website is viewed on mobile devices. A good place to start is using Google Search Console’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see how mobile-friendly a website is. This free tool will also offer advice on how to make a site more mobile-friendly.

Check the Cheat Sheet!

For even more tips on fixing platform-related issues, check out the Mobile and Important Social Metadata sections on the Cheat Sheet.

Security Issues

There are several common website security vulnerabilities that you need to ensure your website is protected against. These include:

SQL Injections

This is a type of web application security vulnerability in which an attacker tries to use application code to access or corrupt database content.

Cross Site Scripting (XSS)

XSS targets an application’s users by injecting code into a web application’s output. This can lead to users being redirected to malicious sites.

Insecure Direct Object References

This is when a web application exposes a reference to an internal implementation object such as a file, database record, or directory. When an application exposes a reference to one of these in a URL, hackers can manipulate it to gain access to a user’s personal data.

What to Say to Your Web Developer

Site security is likely to already be of great importance to your web developer, so it will be more a question of how you can help to make this process easier for them rather than explaining why it is necessary. Website security requires vigilance in all aspects of website design and development. Therefore, you need to ensure your web developer has the right resources and support to carry out this crucial task.

Helpful suggestions you may want to voice include:

• Use more effective password management.
• Configure your webserver to use HTTPS and HTTP Strict Transport Security.
• Keep track of the most popular threats.
• Use vulnerability scanning tools.
• Get an SSL certificate

In terms of SEO, website security is one of Google’s top priorities so make sure that your web developer is also aware of your dedication to this important element of site maintenance.

Check out the Cheat Sheet!

Our SEO Cheat Sheet has a whole section on website Security, so be sure to highlight this vital info to your web developer.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, you are now feeling more confident in your abilities to bring together the often conflicting worlds of SEOs and web developers to create websites that are loved by searchers and search engines alike.

Although the struggle is unlikely to be completely over, next time you sense a difference of opinion between development and search, simply bring out our Developer SEO Cheat Sheet and take a step back safe in the knowledge that the technical side of SEO is being taken care of.