\n| 5<\/td>\n | The sitemap is submitted<\/td>\n | Search Console, Sitemaps section<\/td>\n | Success status, no errors<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Point 1 looks too obvious to matter, yet it is the cause of the most dramatic traffic collapses after migrations and redesigns<\/a>.<\/p>\nURLs and structure<\/h2>\n \n\n\n| #<\/th>\n | What to check<\/th>\n | How<\/th>\n | Normal<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n | \n\n| 6<\/td>\n | One version of the site<\/td>\n | Open with and without www, http and https<\/td>\n | Everything lands on one address<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 7<\/td>\n | Canonical points to itself<\/td>\n | Search the source for canonical<\/td>\n | Matches the page address<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 8<\/td>\n | URLs are Latin and readable<\/td>\n | Look at the browser bar<\/td>\n | No encoded characters or random digits<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 9<\/td>\n | No redirect chains<\/td>\n | Test old addresses<\/td>\n | One hop to the final page<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nContent and markup<\/h2>\n\n\n\n| #<\/th>\n | What to check<\/th>\n | How<\/th>\n | Normal<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n | \n\n| 10<\/td>\n | Titles are unique<\/td>\n | Search Console or view source<\/td>\n | One per page, under 60 characters<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 11<\/td>\n | Descriptions are filled in<\/td>\n | Same<\/td>\n | Unique, under 160 characters<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 12<\/td>\n | One h1 per page<\/td>\n | Search the source for h1<\/td>\n | Exactly one, carrying the topic<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 13<\/td>\n | Heading hierarchy has no gaps<\/td>\n | Review the h1-h3 sequence<\/td>\n | Levels are not skipped<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 14<\/td>\n | Images have alt text<\/td>\n | Search the source for alt=<\/td>\n | Present and meaningful<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Point 12 is broken most often on homepages: the design replaces a text heading with an image, and the page is left with no primary signal about its topic.<\/p>\n Speed and mobile<\/h2>\n\n\n\n| #<\/th>\n | What to check<\/th>\n | How<\/th>\n | Normal<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n | \n\n| 15<\/td>\n | Core Web Vitals from field data<\/td>\n | Search Console, Core Web Vitals<\/td>\n | Most URLs in the green zone<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 16<\/td>\n | The site works on a phone<\/td>\n | Open it on a real device<\/td>\n | Text readable without zooming<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 17<\/td>\n | Images in modern formats<\/td>\n | Check extensions and weight<\/td>\n | WebP, under 300 KB per photo<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nLinks and navigation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n| #<\/th>\n | What to check<\/th>\n | How<\/th>\n | Normal<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n | \n\n| 18<\/td>\n | No broken links<\/td>\n | The 404 report in Search Console<\/td>\n | Empty or nearly empty<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 19<\/td>\n | Every page is reachable from navigation<\/td>\n | Walk the menu<\/td>\n | No pages without inbound links<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | \n| 20<\/td>\n | The 404 page is useful<\/td>\n | Open a non-existent address<\/td>\n | Returns 404, has menu and search<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nHow to use this list<\/h2>\nOrder matters. Points 1-5 come first: if the site is blocked from indexing, the other nineteen are pointless. Then 6-9, because URL errors create duplicates that devalue any work on content.<\/p>\n A realistic schedule: the first pass takes two or three hours. After that, quarterly runs through the same list take twenty minutes, because you already know where to look.<\/p>\n What is deliberately missing and why<\/h2>\nThere is no keyword density here, no text length, no backlink counts. Not because those do not matter, but because they are no longer the technical layer: they require decisions about substance rather than a check of state.<\/p>\n Technical SEO does not bring traffic. It removes the obstacles that stop traffic arriving despite decent content. The distinction matters: if all twenty points are in order and there are still no enquiries<\/a>, the problem is definitely not here, and you should be looking at whether the right people are arriving and whether they understand what you offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty checks requiring no special tools: indexing, URLs, headings, speed and navigation. Each point states how to check it and what counts as normal. The first pass takes two or three hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8058,"template":"","insight_category":[154],"insight_tag":[178,172,162],"class_list":["post-8062","insight","type-insight","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","insight_category-guides","insight_tag-performance","insight_tag-seo","insight_tag-web-development"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dextora.agency\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight\/8062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dextora.agency\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dextora.agency\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/insight"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dextora.agency\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dextora.agency\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dextora.agency\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"insight_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dextora.agency\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight_category?post=8062"},{"taxonomy":"insight_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dextora.agency\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/insight_tag?post=8062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} | | | | |