Look we all know how important SEO is for your website, I mean what good is website if no one sees it?
Today we will be going through very simple check list that every Webflow website owner can do themselves to improve their SEO instantly!
Important thing to note is that this checklist will not automatically rank your website on top of Google, but will help you lay a great foundation for your Webflow website so you can focus on other aspects of SEO later on.
Before delving into specific steps, it's important to understand the foundational on-page SEO factors specific to Webflow.
As you know there are many factors search engines are looking at when determining where to rank your page on search results, so let’s list a few most important ones.
• Meta Titles and Descriptions: Make compelling meta tag for your pages. If you are not sure what meta tags are, It’s the gray text that shows up under your page name in Google and Webflow made it very easy to set up and change.
• Header Tags: Organize your content using proper header tags. The H1 tag is most important and should contain keyword you are targeting, but make sure it fits naturally into your heading. Also make sure you are not skipping heading levels, so don’t jump from H1 to H3 without any H2’s on your page.
• URL Structure: Make sure your ULS’s are short and to the point, 1-3 words is the spot you should aim for. Example: www.milanvracar.com/webflow-pricing.
• Image Alt Text: Make sure every single image on your page has Alt text. It makes it easier for Google to crawl your page and determine what your page is about.
• Responsive Design: Ensure your Webflow site is mobile-friendly. Google considers mobile responsiveness as a ranking factor and also in today’s landscape most of your traffic will be coming from phones.
• Page Load Speed: Get your loading speed as good as possible especially for mobile for the reasons listed above. Page speed is also a ranking factor Google uses.
• Keyword Optimization: Integrate target keywords naturally into your content, Google is becoming smarter every year so old trick won’t work, avoid keyword stuffing.
• Content Quality: Always prioritize quality over quantity. Yes having a lot of pages on certain topic is good for building topical authority but as I said Google is very smart and will maybe give you some initial traffic just for a lot of content but will eventually take it away.
Now that we covered some basic of Webflow’s on-Page SEO let’s jump into some tips you can use today to improve your SEO.
• Head to your page settings on the left of your designer.
• Make sure every page name contains your keyword and is 60 characters or less.
• Make sure your meta description also contains keyword and is 160 characters or less.
• Do this for every page.
• Structure your content with clear H1, H2, and H3 tags.
• Make sure you have your keyword in every H1, first H2 and in the beginning of first paragraph
• Make sure to not skip any heading level
• Head to your Settings and go to Publisinhg
• Switch “Enable SSL”, “Minify HTML”, “Minify CSS” and “Minify JS” to ON.
• This helps with your page loading speed and overall protection of your website.
• Stay in publishing settings
• In production section select domain with “www” as your default domain
• Not setting default domain can cause duplicated content.
• Go on top of the page and publish changes
• Go to your websites settings SEO tab.
• Switch “Disable Webflow Subdomain indexing” to YES.
• Enable Auto generate Sitemap by switching to YES.
• Set up you robot.txt like this:
User-agent: *
Allow: /
• Go to Fonts tab
• Upload font you want to use manually (if Webflow doesn’t already have it)
• After that it will show up in your typography settings in designer.
• In SEO tab scroll to Google site verification.
• Place your unique ID into the given field.
• You will find your ID in Google Search Console.
• Head over to integration panel.
• Under Google Analytics place your measurement ID.
• You will find that id once you set up your Google Analytics.
• Go back to your designer and open up Asset Panel (panel where all your images are).
• Go through each image and set meaningful alt text.
• Publish after being done.
• Go through every link you have on your website.
• Change Preload options to “Prefetch”.
• This helps nagiating through website much faster
• If you have many links in for example Navbar you might not want to do it for all links
Simple answer is YES and here is why:
• Clean Code: Webflow generates clean, semantic code, contributing to better SEO performance.
• Ease of Editing: Webflow's intuitive editor allows easy modification of on-page elements, facilitating quick SEO updates.
• Responsive Design: Webflow's responsive design capabilities ensure a seamless experience across devices, positively impacting SEO.
• Hosting Infrastructure: Webflow's hosting infrastructure is designed for speed, contributing to improved page load times.
Implementing this Webflow SEO checklist is a great first step for fresh Webflow websites as well as existing one that haven’t been optimized this way but keep in mind that this won’t rank your website for you but it will help you establish great base that you can build upon.
Regularly update your content to reflect industry changes, provide fresh information, and align with evolving user needs. Aim for regular updates, at least quarterly.
Yes, you can transition to Webflow even if your site is live. Plan the migration carefully, ensuring minimal downtime and implementing 301 redirects for SEO continuity.
Yes, Webflow supports integration with third-party SEO tools. Explore available integrations to enhance your SEO efforts.
Webflow's CMS features allow for dynamic content updates, contributing to better SEO. Utilize CMS capabilities to organize and optimize your content effectively.