SEO Guides
SEO guides and templates
Practical content for finding, prioritizing, and fixing the SEO issues that affect crawlability, indexation, snippets, and performance.
How-to guides
Guides
What Is an SEO Audit and What Should It Include?
A plain-English guide to what an SEO audit is, the four layers it must cover, how to run one step by step, and how to turn the findings into a prioritised fix list.
How to Check If Google Can Index Your Website
A practical guide to checking indexing: how to tell if a page is in Google, the four signals that control it, and what to do when a page is crawled but not indexed.
Technical SEO Checklist for Small Business Websites
A no-fluff technical SEO checklist for small sites: what technical SEO covers, the checks that matter most, and how to work through them in priority order.
On-Page SEO Checklist: Titles, Descriptions, Headings, Images
A practical DomainLens guide to On-Page SEO Checklist: Titles, Descriptions, Headings, Images, focused on title tag, meta description, H1, image alt text.
Core Web Vitals and SEO: What Actually Matters
What Core Web Vitals measure, how much they really affect rankings, how to measure them with field data, and the mistakes that waste your optimisation effort.
WordPress SEO Audit Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to WordPress SEO Audit Checklist, focused on plugins, themes, indexing settings, media.
Shopify SEO Audit Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Shopify SEO Audit Checklist, focused on collections, product schema, faceted URLs, speed.
Webflow SEO Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Webflow SEO Checklist, focused on CMS templates, canonical tags, sitemap, semantic headings.
Wix SEO Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Wix SEO Checklist, focused on SEO basics, indexing, structured data, mobile layout.
Laravel SEO Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Laravel SEO Checklist, focused on server rendering, routes, canonical URLs, sitemaps.
Vue SPA SEO Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Vue SPA SEO Checklist, focused on SSR, rendered HTML, crawlable links, hydration.
JavaScript SEO: Why Google Might Not See Your Content
A practical DomainLens guide to JavaScript SEO: Why Google Might Not See Your Content, focused on client-side rendering, hydration, rendered HTML, crawlable links.
What Is llms.txt and Should Your Site Have One?
A practical DomainLens guide to What Is llms.txt and Should Your Site Have One?, focused on AI crawlers, content discovery, file format, robots.txt overlap.
Crawl Budget: What It Is and When It Actually Matters
A practical DomainLens guide to Crawl Budget: What It Is and When It Actually Matters, focused on crawl rate, crawl demand, log files, large sites.
Website Migration SEO Checklist: Avoid Losing Rankings
A practical DomainLens guide to Website Migration SEO Checklist: Avoid Losing Rankings, focused on URL mapping, 301 redirects, staging noindex, post-launch monitoring.
E-commerce SEO Audit Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to E-commerce SEO Audit Checklist, focused on product schema, faceted navigation, out-of-stock pages, duplicate variants.
Next.js SEO Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Next.js SEO Checklist, focused on SSR vs SSG, metadata API, dynamic routes, sitemap generation.
Free SEO Checker: How to Audit Any Website Online
What a free SEO checker actually does, what it can and cannot tell you, how to use one properly, and where a free tool stops and a paid platform begins.
How to Do an SEO Analysis of a Website
A practical DomainLens guide to How to Do an SEO Analysis of a Website, focused on technical signals, on-page content, indexability, competitor benchmarks.
How to Improve Your Google Rankings and Get More Traffic
A practical DomainLens guide to How to Improve Your Google Rankings and Get More Traffic, focused on search intent, content quality, internal linking, page experience.
Log File Analysis for SEO: What Googlebot Actually Crawls
A practical DomainLens guide to Log File Analysis for SEO: What Googlebot Actually Crawls, focused on server logs, crawl frequency, status codes, wasted crawl.
SEO for Beginners: A Step-by-Step Guide to Ranking on Google
New to SEO? This step-by-step beginner’s guide explains how search engines work and shows you how to start improving your Google rankings today.
Keyword Research: How to Find Keywords That Bring Traffic
Keyword research tells you what your audience is searching for. This guide shows how to find the right keywords and turn them into content that ranks.
Local SEO: How to Rank in Your City and Get Found Nearby
Local SEO helps nearby customers find you in search and on Google Maps. This guide covers the steps that actually move local rankings.
Page Speed Optimization: A Complete Guide to a Faster Website
A faster website ranks better and converts more. This guide explains what slows pages down and the practical steps to speed up your website.
Small Business SEO Checklist: What to Fix First
A practical DomainLens guide to Small Business SEO Checklist: What to Fix First, focused on local visibility, indexability, on-page basics, technical quick wins.
SEO Audit Report Example: What a Useful Report Should Include
A practical DomainLens guide to SEO Audit Report Example: What a Useful Report Should Include, focused on issue summary, severity, evidence, prioritized fixes.
How to Prioritize SEO Fixes After an Audit
A practical DomainLens guide to How to Prioritize SEO Fixes After an Audit, focused on impact, effort, indexability, business value.
Google Search Console SEO Audit: What to Check First
A practical DomainLens guide to Google Search Console SEO Audit: What to Check First, focused on index coverage, queries, crawl errors, page experience.
SaaS SEO Audit Checklist: Technical and Product-Led Fixes
A practical DomainLens guide to SaaS SEO Audit Checklist: Technical and Product-Led Fixes, focused on feature pages, programmatic pages, indexability, conversion paths.
Startup SEO Checklist: Build Search Traffic From Day One
A practical DomainLens guide to Startup SEO Checklist: Build Search Traffic From Day One, focused on launch pages, technical basics, content roadmap, measurement.
International SEO Checklist: Languages, Regions, and Hreflang
A practical DomainLens guide to International SEO Checklist: Languages, Regions, and Hreflang, focused on localized URLs, hreflang, canonical signals, regional targeting.
Technical SEO for JavaScript Sites: Rendering, Links, and Metadata
A practical DomainLens guide to Technical SEO for JavaScript Sites: Rendering, Links, and Metadata, focused on server rendering, hydration, crawlable links, metadata delivery.
React SEO Checklist: Make React Pages Crawlable and Indexable
A practical DomainLens guide to React SEO Checklist: Make React Pages Crawlable and Indexable, focused on SSR or prerendering, meta tags, routing, Core Web Vitals.
WooCommerce SEO Audit Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to WooCommerce SEO Audit Checklist, focused on product pages, category URLs, schema markup, site speed.
Squarespace SEO Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Squarespace SEO Checklist, focused on page titles, image SEO, URL slugs, mobile layout.
Magento SEO Audit Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Magento SEO Audit Checklist, focused on faceted navigation, product variants, canonical tags, crawl budget.
Nuxt SEO Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Nuxt SEO Checklist, focused on SSR, route rules, metadata, sitemap generation.
Astro SEO Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Astro SEO Checklist, focused on static rendering, content collections, metadata, image optimization.
Technical SEO Audit Prioritization: Fix What Matters First
An SEO audit can produce dozens of issues. This guide shows how to turn findings into a practical fix order.
Website Migration SEO Playbook: Redirects, URL Mapping, and Post-Launch Checks
A step-by-step website migration playbook: what a migration risks, how to map URLs and redirects, the launch-day checklist, and how to monitor recovery.
Issue explainers
Learn
Missing Meta Description: Why It Matters and How to Fix It
A plain guide to the meta description: what it is, why it goes missing, whether it affects SEO, and how to write one that earns more clicks.
Canonical Tag Issues: Common Mistakes and Fixes
A practical guide to canonical tag problems: what the tag does, the rules it must follow, why Google sometimes ignores it, and how to debug a bad canonical.
Noindex vs Robots.txt: What’s the Difference?
A practical DomainLens guide to Noindex vs Robots.txt: What’s the Difference?, focused on crawl control, index control, follow signals, safe usage.
Redirect Chains and SEO: Why They Hurt Crawlability
A practical DomainLens guide to Redirect Chains and SEO: Why They Hurt Crawlability, focused on latency, crawl budget, canonical targets, migration cleanup.
Broken Internal Links: How They Affect SEO
A practical DomainLens guide to Broken Internal Links: How They Affect SEO, focused on 404 pages, internal authority, crawl paths, user trust.
What Is LCP and How Do You Improve It?
A practical DomainLens guide to What Is LCP and How Do You Improve It?, focused on hero image, server response, critical CSS, preload.
What Is INP and Why Did It Replace FID?
A practical DomainLens guide to What Is INP and Why Did It Replace FID?, focused on interactions, long tasks, JavaScript, responsiveness.
What Is CLS and How to Prevent Layout Shifts?
A practical DomainLens guide to What Is CLS and How to Prevent Layout Shifts?, focused on image dimensions, ads, font loading, late content.
Hreflang Tags: How to Avoid Multilingual SEO Mistakes
A practical DomainLens guide to Hreflang Tags: How to Avoid Multilingual SEO Mistakes, focused on language codes, return tags, x-default, canonical conflicts.
Structured Data and Rich Results: A Practical Guide
A practical DomainLens guide to Structured Data and Rich Results: A Practical Guide, focused on JSON-LD, schema types, validation errors, rich result eligibility.
Open Graph and Twitter Cards: How Your Links Look When Shared
A practical DomainLens guide to Open Graph and Twitter Cards: How Your Links Look When Shared, focused on og:title, og:image, twitter:card, preview debugging.
Mixed Content and HTTPS: Fixing Insecure Resources
A practical DomainLens guide to Mixed Content and HTTPS: Fixing Insecure Resources, focused on HTTP resources, security headers, HSTS, browser warnings.
Title Tag Best Practices: Length, Keywords, and Duplicates
A practical guide to the title tag: what it controls, how long it should be in pixels, how to write one that earns the click, and how to fix duplicates.
Image Alt Text: Accessibility and SEO Done Right
A practical guide to image alt text: what it is for, how to write it, when an image is decorative, and how it feeds accessibility and image search.
What Is TTFB and How to Reduce Server Response Time
A practical DomainLens guide to What Is TTFB and How to Reduce Server Response Time, focused on server response, caching, CDN, database queries.
XML Sitemap Best Practices
A practical DomainLens guide to XML Sitemap Best Practices, focused on URL inclusion, lastmod, index sitemaps, submission.
H1 and Heading Structure: How to Organize Page Headings
A practical guide to headings: what the H1 and H2–H6 are for, the rules of a good hierarchy, how H1 differs from the title tag, and how to audit your structure.
Thin Content: How Much Text Does a Page Really Need?
A practical DomainLens guide to Thin Content: How Much Text Does a Page Really Need?, focused on word count, content depth, doorway pages, search intent.
HTTP Status Codes for SEO: 200, 301, 302, 404, 410, 5xx
A practical DomainLens guide to HTTP Status Codes for SEO: 200, 301, 302, 404, 410, 5xx, focused on 200 OK, 301 vs 302, 404 vs 410, 5xx errors.
Internal Linking Strategy: Spreading Authority Across Pages
A practical DomainLens guide to Internal Linking Strategy: Spreading Authority Across Pages, focused on anchor text, link depth, orphan pages, topic clusters.
Mobile Usability and SEO: Passing the Mobile-Friendly Test
A practical DomainLens guide to Mobile Usability and SEO: Passing the Mobile-Friendly Test, focused on viewport meta, tap targets, readable text, zoom blocking.
Duplicate Content: How to Find and Resolve It
A practical DomainLens guide to Duplicate Content: How to Find and Resolve It, focused on duplicate titles, URL parameters, canonical tags, www vs non-www.
Nofollow, Sponsored, UGC: When to Use Link Attributes
A practical DomainLens guide to Nofollow, Sponsored, UGC: When to Use Link Attributes, focused on rel nofollow, rel sponsored, rel ugc, outbound trust.
Faceted Navigation SEO: Controlling Filtered URL Crawling
A practical DomainLens guide to Faceted Navigation SEO: Controlling Filtered URL Crawling, focused on parameter URLs, crawl budget, canonical tags, noindex rules.
Pagination SEO: Handling Paginated Content Correctly
A practical DomainLens guide to Pagination SEO: Handling Paginated Content Correctly, focused on page parameters, crawlable links, infinite scroll, canonical handling.
How to Fix Crawl Errors in Google Search Console
Crawl and indexing errors quietly keep pages out of Google. This guide explains the Search Console reports and how to fix the most common causes.
HTML Lang Attribute: SEO and Accessibility Best Practices
A practical DomainLens guide to HTML Lang Attribute: SEO and Accessibility Best Practices, focused on language declaration, screen readers, hreflang consistency, localized pages.
Security Headers: Trust, Browser Safety, and SEO Hygiene
A practical DomainLens guide to Security Headers: Trust, Browser Safety, and SEO Hygiene, focused on HSTS, Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy.
Charset Declaration: Prevent Encoding Problems in SEO Pages
A practical DomainLens guide to Charset Declaration: Prevent Encoding Problems in SEO Pages, focused on UTF-8, early meta charset, HTML parsing, broken characters.
Lazy Loading Images: SEO and Performance Best Practices
A practical DomainLens guide to Lazy Loading Images: SEO and Performance Best Practices, focused on below-the-fold images, LCP image priority, loading attribute, responsive images.
Favicons and SEO: Brand Signals in Search, Tabs, and Bookmarks
A practical DomainLens guide to Favicons and SEO: Brand Signals in Search, Tabs, and Bookmarks, focused on favicon formats, search result icons, apple touch icon, brand recognition.
AMP SEO: When It Matters and How to Validate AMP Pages
A practical DomainLens guide to AMP SEO: When It Matters and How to Validate AMP Pages, focused on amphtml link, valid AMP markup, canonical pairing, mobile search experience.
Theme Color Meta Tag: Mobile Browser Polish and Brand Consistency
A practical DomainLens guide to Theme Color Meta Tag: Mobile Browser Polish and Brand Consistency, focused on mobile browser UI, brand color, dark mode variants, PWA polish.
Web App Manifest: PWA Signals, Installability, and SEO Hygiene
A practical DomainLens guide to Web App Manifest: PWA Signals, Installability, and SEO Hygiene, focused on manifest link, app icons, display mode, installability signals.
Orphan Pages: How to Find and Fix Pages With No Internal Links
A practical DomainLens guide to Orphan Pages: How to Find and Fix Pages With No Internal Links, focused on internal links, crawl discovery, XML sitemap gaps, site architecture.
Crawlable Links: Why Google May Not Follow Your Links
A practical DomainLens guide to Crawlable Links: Why Google May Not Follow Your Links, focused on anchor tags, JavaScript links, internal discovery, rendered HTML.
Index Bloat: How Too Many Low-Value Pages Hurt SEO
A practical DomainLens guide to Index Bloat: How Too Many Low-Value Pages Hurt SEO, focused on low-value URLs, crawl budget, noindex rules, canonical cleanup.
Soft 404 Errors: How to Detect and Fix Them
A practical DomainLens guide to Soft 404 Errors: How to Detect and Fix Them, focused on thin pages, wrong status codes, 404 vs 200, Search Console validation.
SEO-Friendly URL Structure: Clean URLs That Search Engines Understand
A practical DomainLens guide to SEO-Friendly URL Structure: Clean URLs That Search Engines Understand, focused on readable URLs, parameters, redirects, canonical consistency.
Image SEO Optimization: Beyond Alt Text
A practical DomainLens guide to Image SEO Optimization: Beyond Alt Text, focused on file names, image compression, responsive images, image discovery.
Lighthouse Performance: How to Fix Lab Issues That Hurt SEO
A practical guide to fixing Lighthouse performance problems without chasing vanity scores. Learn which lab issues matter most and how to prioritize them.
First Contentful Paint: What FCP Means and How to Improve It
FCP measures when users first see real content. This guide explains what slows it down and which fixes make a page feel faster sooner.
Speed Index: What It Means and How to Make Pages Look Faster
Speed Index shows how quickly the visible page fills in. Learn how to improve visual progress instead of only chasing final load time.
Canonical vs Noindex: Which Signal Should You Use?
Canonical and noindex solve different SEO problems. This guide explains which signal to use when you want consolidation, removal, or cleaner index control.
Robots.txt Best Practices: Control Crawling Without Blocking SEO
Robots.txt controls crawling, not indexing. Learn how to use it without accidentally hiding important pages from search engines.
Crawl Budget for E-commerce: Stop Wasting Googlebot on Low-Value URLs
E-commerce sites can create thousands of low-value URLs. This guide shows how to protect crawl budget and keep important pages discoverable.
Core Web Vitals Field Data: How to Read Real User Performance
Field data shows how real users experience your site. Learn how to read it without overreacting to one Lighthouse run.
INP Optimization Guide: Fix Interaction to Next Paint for Better Core Web Vitals
A practical guide to Interaction to Next Paint: what it measures, why it is harder to fix than load speed, and how to make real interactions respond faster.
CLS Layout Shifts Fix Guide: Improve Cumulative Layout Shift and Page Experience
A practical guide to finding and fixing Cumulative Layout Shift: what causes elements to jump, how to reserve space, and how to prove the layout is stable.
LCP Optimization Guide: Improve Largest Contentful Paint and Page Speed
A deep guide to Largest Contentful Paint: the four phases that make it up, how to identify your LCP element, and the fixes that actually move it.
Indexability Debugging Guide: Why Google Cannot Index Your Page
A practical workflow for pages that are crawled but not indexed: what the Search Console states mean, the signals that decide indexing, and how to fix each cause.
JavaScript SEO Debugging Guide: Rendered HTML, Hydration, and Crawlable Links
A debugging guide for React, Vue, Nuxt, and Next.js SEO: how Google renders JavaScript, why content and links go missing, and how to make them crawlable.
Structured Data Errors Guide: Fix JSON-LD, Schema Markup, and Rich Results
A practical guide to structured data errors: what blocks rich results versus what is only a warning, the common JSON-LD mistakes, and how to validate the fix.
Hreflang Debugging Guide: Fix Multilingual SEO, Return Tags, and x-default
A practical hreflang debugging guide: the rules every cluster must follow, the common return-tag and language-code errors, and how to validate multilingual SEO.
Duplicate Content Canonicalization Guide: Fix Canonical Tags, Parameters, and URL Variants
A practical guide to duplicate content and canonicalization: where variant URLs come from, how to choose between canonical, redirect, and noindex, and how to consolidate safely.
Internal Linking Audit Guide: Fix Orphan Pages, Link Depth, and Anchor Text
A practical internal linking audit: why links decide what ranks, the problems the audit finds, and how to fix orphan pages, depth, anchor text, and topic clusters.
Faceted Navigation SEO Guide: Filtered URL Crawling, Parameter URLs, and Index Control
A guide to faceted navigation SEO: how filters explode into URLs, which combinations deserve indexing, and how to control crawling and index bloat.
Security Headers SEO Guide: HTTPS, HSTS, CSP, and Trust Signals
A practical guide to security headers and SEO: how security connects to rankings, what each header does, and how to add them without breaking crawling.
Decision support
Comparisons
Free vs Paid SEO Audit Tools
A practical DomainLens guide to Free vs Paid SEO Audit Tools, focused on coverage, limits, collaboration, when to upgrade.
PageSpeed Insights vs Lighthouse vs CrUX
A practical DomainLens guide to PageSpeed Insights vs Lighthouse vs CrUX, focused on field data, lab data, URL coverage, decision making.
Screaming Frog vs Online SEO Auditors
A practical DomainLens guide to Screaming Frog vs Online SEO Auditors, focused on desktop crawling, quick checks, scale, sharing.
Manual SEO Audit vs Automated SEO Audit
A practical DomainLens guide to Manual SEO Audit vs Automated SEO Audit, focused on judgment, repeatability, speed, prioritization.
Hreflang vs Canonical: Handling Duplicate and Language Variants
A practical DomainLens guide to Hreflang vs Canonical: Handling Duplicate and Language Variants, focused on language variants, duplicate handling, signal conflicts, when to use which.
Google Search Console vs Third-Party SEO Tools
A practical DomainLens guide to Google Search Console vs Third-Party SEO Tools, focused on first-party data, coverage reports, crawl simulation, when to combine.
Best Free SEO Tools: What You Actually Need to Audit a Website
You don’t need an expensive subscription to audit a site. Here are the best free SEO tools, what each one does, and how to combine them effectively.
Technical SEO vs On-Page SEO: What to Fix First
A practical DomainLens guide to Technical SEO vs On-Page SEO: What to Fix First, focused on crawlability, content signals, implementation effort, ranking impact.
Core Web Vitals vs Lighthouse Score: Which Should You Trust?
A practical DomainLens guide to Core Web Vitals vs Lighthouse Score: Which Should You Trust?, focused on field data, lab data, page experience, prioritization.
Google Search Console vs PageSpeed Insights: When to Use Each
A practical DomainLens guide to Google Search Console vs PageSpeed Insights: When to Use Each, focused on index coverage, Core Web Vitals, URL inspection, performance diagnostics.
Reusable workflows
Templates
SEO Audit Checklist Template
A practical DomainLens guide to SEO Audit Checklist Template, focused on technical checks, on-page checks, performance checks, follow-up.
Technical SEO Audit Template
A practical DomainLens guide to Technical SEO Audit Template, focused on crawlability, indexation, status codes, sitemap hygiene.
Core Web Vitals Fix Priority Template
A practical DomainLens guide to Core Web Vitals Fix Priority Template, focused on impact, effort, field data, release tracking.
Website Launch SEO Checklist
A practical DomainLens guide to Website Launch SEO Checklist, focused on pre-launch QA, indexing, analytics, post-launch monitoring.
Monthly SEO Audit Report Template
A practical DomainLens guide to Monthly SEO Audit Report Template, focused on score trend, new issues, resolved issues, next priorities.
SEO Issue Prioritization Template
A practical DomainLens guide to SEO Issue Prioritization Template, focused on impact scoring, effort scoring, owner assignment, validation steps.
Website Migration URL Mapping Template
A practical DomainLens guide to Website Migration URL Mapping Template, focused on old URLs, new URLs, 301 redirects, post-launch checks.
Check your site before you start fixing
Run a fresh DomainLens audit and use the report as your priority list.