The Ultimate On-Page SEO / Technical SEO Checklist for Startups

A well-optimized website is essential for driving traffic, increasing engagement, and boosting search engine rankings. Use this checklist to ensure your biotech or renewable energy website meets both technical and on-page SEO standards.

1. Enable Search Engine-Friendly URLs

Search engines favor clean, descriptive URLs that clearly indicate the content of the page. Avoid special characters, session IDs, and overly long URLs. Instead, use readable, keyword-rich URLs. For example, /cancer-research-advances is much more SEO-friendly than /?page_id=34789. It helps both search engines and users understand what your page is about at a glance.

2. Ensure Navigation Uses Text Links

Text-based navigation is vital for SEO because it allows search engine crawlers to move from one page to another and index them properly. Avoid using JavaScript or image-based links that cannot be read by search engines. Proper navigation ensures a strong internal linking structure, which is key for improving your site’s crawlability and rankings.

3. Add Internal Links to Key Pages on the Homepage

The homepage often has the highest authority on a site. Linking to other important pages from the homepage signals to search engines that these pages are important. It also enhances user experience by making essential content more easily accessible to visitors.

4. Use Targeted Keywords in Content

Include relevant keywords naturally in your content without overloading. Focus on placing them in high-impact areas such as the page title, meta description, headers (H1, H2), and image alt tags. Ensure that the content remains readable and informative for users, which will help with engagement and reduce bounce rates.

5. Include Related Phrases Alongside Main Keywords

Incorporate related phrases (synonyms and semantic variations) in your content to improve relevance and coverage. These related keywords signal to search engines that your content comprehensively addresses a topic. Tools like LSIGraph or Google’s Keyword Planner can help identify related terms to enrich your content.

6. Optimize Meta Tags

Meta title and description tags provide a preview of your page in search engine results. The meta title should be clear and concise, under 70 characters, and include your primary keyword. The meta description, capped at 160 characters, should provide a compelling summary of the page’s content, enticing users to click through to your site.

7. Analyze Website for Load Speed Improvements

Site speed is critical for both user experience and SEO. Analyze your website using tools like Google Lighthouse or Pingdom to identify slow-loading elements. These tools provide detailed reports that highlight areas needing improvement, such as oversized images, excessive JavaScript, or too many HTTP requests.

8. Improve Load Speed

Site speed is an essential ranking factor and user experience element. Here are steps to optimize:

• Compress Images: Large image files can dramatically slow page load times. Use tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim to compress images that are larger than 200KB without losing quality. Also, consider using next-gen image formats like WebP for faster loading.
• Enable Browser Caching: Caching allows browsers to store copies of your web pages locally, reducing the time it takes to load them on subsequent visits. Implement browser caching via your CMS or by adding cache-control headers to your server.
• Use GZIP Compression: GZIP compresses your site’s files before sending them to the browser, reducing the amount of data transferred and speeding up load times. GZIP can typically be enabled via your web server settings.
• Optimize CSS and JavaScript: Minify and combine CSS and JavaScript files to reduce the number of HTTP requests. Tools like WP Rocket or Autoptimize can handle this automatically for WordPress sites.
• Content Delivery Network (CDN): CDNs like Cloudflare can significantly improve load times by distributing your site’s content across various servers worldwide, allowing faster delivery based on a user’s location.

9. Add an XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap helps search engines crawl and index your website by providing a clear map of all the pages on your site. Most CMS platforms like WordPress automatically generate an XML sitemap, but you can also use tools like Yoast SEO to ensure it’s up-to-date. Ensure your sitemap is submitted to Google Search Console.

10. Add a robots.txt File

The robots.txt file tells search engines which parts of your site to crawl and which to ignore. You can use it to prevent indexing of pages like admin sections, duplicate content, or sensitive information. Ensure that critical pages (e.g., home, blog, service pages) are NOT blocked in robots.txt.

11. Implement Canonical Tags for Duplicate Content

Duplicate content can confuse search engines and harm your rankings. Canonical tags signal which version of a page is the “official” one to index, helping avoid duplicate content penalties. This tag should be included in the HTML head of each page.

12. Ensure Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly

With mobile traffic making up the majority of web visits, mobile-friendliness is a must. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to verify that your site works across devices. If necessary, use responsive design techniques to ensure your site automatically adjusts to various screen sizes and resolutions. Optimizing for mobile also means ensuring that your navigation and interactive elements are touch-friendly.

13. Clean Up Code and Fix Errors

Using clean, error-free code improves your site’s performance and makes it easier for search engines to crawl. Validate your HTML and CSS with the W3C Validator to identify any coding issues that may be slowing your site down or causing rendering problems in certain browsers.

14. Avoid Excessive Ads

Aggressive or intrusive ads (such as pop-ups or large banner ads) can severely harm user experience and SEO performance. Sites that display too many ads above the fold or slow the load time often rank poorly. Keep ads relevant, minimal, and unobtrusive.

15. Fix 404 Errors

Broken links and missing pages can frustrate users and lead to higher bounce rates. Regularly monitor Google Search Console for 404 errors, and fix them by setting up 301 redirects to relevant pages or creating custom 404 pages that provide helpful navigation back to important content.

16. Improve Readability for a Broad Audience

Your website content should be accessible to a broad audience, even if you’re covering technical topics. Use readability tools like Readable to ensure your content is clear, concise, and easy to follow. Avoid overly technical jargon unless necessary and use headings, bullet points, and short paragraphs to improve flow.

17. Add Relevant rel Attributes to Outgoing Links

For sites with user-generated content (e.g., forums, reviews) or sponsored content, use the appropriate rel attributes to clarify link relationships:

• rel="sponsored" for paid or sponsored links.
• rel="ugc" for links within user-generated content.
• rel="nofollow" for links you don’t want to pass link authority.

18. Improve Page Experience

Google’s Core Web Vitals focus on three key factors: load speed, interactivity, and visual stability. Ensure your pages load quickly, respond rapidly to user inputs, and maintain visual stability (e.g., avoid shifting elements during load). Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to analyze your site’s Core Web Vitals and identify areas for improvement.