If you want to see your business website on page one of the Search Engine Result Page, your marketing partners are likely strong at work with content creation, study, and promotion. Before content can drive website visitors, your website’s technical features must follow these Google Webmaster Guidelines and recommendations. Before you spend valuable marketing dollars in design and content creation, follow these guidelines so that your inbound marketing and SEO campaign is built on a solid foundation.

Similar or duplicate pages need a canonical version so that Google knows which page to crawl and index. A canonical URL is distinctive than a redirect 301 in that a rel-canonical tag shows Google which URL is the initial version of a similar page, while a 301 redirect indicates Google that an old URL has gone to a different or renewed one.

In early 2018, Google announced that page speed is a ranking element in mobile search ranking. Later in the year, The Speed Update converted official. Not only is website speed an essential part of Google’s Guidelines, but it’s also a picture of your brand to new website visitors. If you’d like to improve your website user experience and meet Google guidelines for web design, Knowmad Digital marketing allows a handy UX checklist that covers page speed tips

Blocked robots.txt files take URLs out of Google’s index. The code is usually used when websites are in the development stages and live on key category pages after the site goes live, making it unlikely for page-one placements. ScreamingFrog and DeepCrawl give the most reliable tools for monitoring your website for these kinds of crawl errors also more.

Short URLs refer to URL structure; not URL shorteners used for social media posts like bit.ly or ow.ly. Keep the URL of your website that you may have as simple as possible to get a higher rank in SERP, and to stand out. Use hyphens to separate long phrases and avoid irrelevant parameters (such as numbers).

Google Search Console, earlier known as Google Webmaster Tools, is a free service provided by Google to assist you to identify errors that can affect your website visibility. In addition to error reporting, the latest version of Google Search Console can assist you to identify all of the following issues that impact and provide search engine information

Although Google My Business is not part of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, it’s an important tool for driving local mobile traffic to your website. Use the infographic to promote your business in Google SERP While there are many in-depth blogs on technical SEO, this list is a manageable starting point for any marketing or web team that lacks an SEO or inbound expert.