In this episode we'll dive deep in to best practices for SEO inside of Webflow. We'll talk about the basics of SEO including meta descriptions, title tags, alt tags, site speed, schema markup, and more while reviewing other factors (content, engagement, etc) that  impact your overall search rankings.

‍

SEO tasks in Webflow Designer:

• Always style with Webflow's default elements first
• Only one H1 per page, and follow hierarchy (as you would in a book)
• Add meta title and description for all pages
• Add Open Graph image for all pages
• Alt tag for all graphic assets
• Always build a sitemap page
• Build a clean, organized & scalable site structure with our Client-First style system
• Add element tags to elements of your build
• Add structured data

‍

What is structured data? 

As the name suggests, it adds structure to the data, or categorizes data on the internet. It's essentially a vocabulary of terms that helps organize and interpret information. Schema was founded and supported through a collaboration between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Yandex.

Why is it important? 

It tells search engines what type of information can be displayed in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) and essentially, what this information as a whole, represents. Structured data creates more clarity, relevance and informed searches, thus making a webpage eligible for rich results like featured snippets or video carousels.

‍

Bonus: Structured data may qualify a webpage to be an Action on the Google Assistant. .i.e. when a user verbally asks Google Assistant to find something, your webpage could be presented as an answer by the Google Assistant for that query.

‍

Resources:

• Schema documentation
• Schema JSON-LD Markup Generator
• Google Structured Data Testing Tool
• Rich Results Test

‍

SEO tasks for Webflow CMS:

• Keep slugs short & keyword-focused. Add a separate item name field, if necessary. 
• Add a separate long text field for meta description.
• Add image field for OG.
• Add 301 redirects for CMS collections that don’t host on-page content.
• Remember to turn on the RSS feed for growing CMS collections.

‍

SEO tasks in Webflow Project Settings:

• Add Favicon and Web-clip
• Enable SSL
• Minify HTML, CSS, and JS
• Turn off .weblfow.io subdomain indexing
• Turn on auto-generation of sitemap.xml
• Register website on Google Search Console
• Add sitemap link to GSC
• Sync GSC with Bing Webmaster Tools
• Add Global Canonical URL [Note: do not end the URL with /]
• If you have unused fonts, remove them
• Assign site default language

‍

SEO tasks outside Webflow:

• List website on local directories
• Add social media profiles on the website
• Register website on Google My Business and post regularly
• Encourage users to leave reviews and ratings on the GMB profile
• Sync GMB with Bing Places for Business

‍