Check your website health: Very important for Webmasters!

Are you planning SEO for your site but finding it hard figuring out where to start from? If yes, then carry on....

SEO efforts need to be thoroughly planned and that is impossible unless you know what you are dealing with. A number of factors are important when optimizing a web site, including the content and structure of it, page layout, the HTML meta-tags and the submission process.

Here are some most important factors which need to be taken care of: 

All the pages of the site should be linked properly to other pages within the site.

All first level page link should be present on the Home page and second level link from the relevant and respective first level page

All pages must link to the Home Page and one level up in the same category.

All links that come to home page should be coming to default URL, no non-www or .../index.htm (html, php) URL. In case there are, make sure no such link exist anymore on the site and also set a redirect from the without "www" URL to the one with it.

There should be NO 404 error in the site

2. Make site Crawlable to Search Engines: Make sure that your website is Crawlable by Search Engines.

3. Javascript / css check: If the site has a lot of Javascript/CSS on the pages, it should be included in a separate file

4. Text/Image Ratio: If text to image ratio is too less this means there are so many images than the content on the web page, in that case it's advisable to put quality content.

7. URL check: Check you URLs. Try to make URLs static so that SEs can easily crawl them. It is always good to use keywords in URL path. Remember, dashes are better than underscores.

9. Content Duplication Check: Use Copyscape.com to check the duplicity. Fresh content is always supported by SEs.

10. Site Map check: There should be a sitemap link from all main pages of the site. Don't forget to submit your XML site map in to Search Engines.  

11. Multiple Site Check (Duplicate Sites Running): Are there other TLDs/sites with same content. If yes, then set 301-redirect from all of them to the main site or create unique content.

12. Invisible Text Check: Remove all invisible text, REMEMBER this is considered as spamming.

13. Redirect Check: there should not be 302 redirects on web pages, If such exists, get them removed/replaced by 301

14. Robots.txt check: There should be a robot.txt in the root folder of the site that allows spiders or is left blank. This is important for a couple of reasons. First, it allows you to specify exactly what pages major search engines may crawl. Second, including a robots.txt makes tracking of search engines easier because they always download the file before navigating your site. This characteristic differentiates the SEs from normal human visitors.

15. Site Architecture - If you have everything in one folder (the root folder) and are just using random or diffused titles on each page, then you could optimize your information architecture to be more conducive to a search engine friendly website.

16. Deep links - Using deep links combined with solid site architecture, focused titles and topical content are the foundation of an Authoritative site.

17. Home page. How informative is the Home page? Does it set the proper context for visitors? Is it just an annoying splash page with multimedia? How fast does it load?

18. Metatags - Page titles, descriptions, and keywords - Do you have all, and if so, do the metatags are unique & descriptive for each page of your website? If not, then please take care of them as these are some of the very important ranking factors. For more details you can read this post: - It is always good to use H1, H2, and H3 tags

20. Image Analysis and Alt Tags: Don't forget to optimize your images.

21. Backlinks - How many backlinks do you have and are you in the major authority directories, blogs, forums or relevant websites? Relevant & quality back links are very important for ranking. Read this Link Building Guide to find out different ways to make good links.

22. Broken Link/ Error page check: Check if site has some broken links or any 404 error pages. Google Webmaster Tool is a very good FREE tool which can be used for better analysis of your website. <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning /> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas /> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables /> <w:SnapToGridInCell /> <w:WrapTextWithPunct /> <w:UseAsianBreakRules /> <w:DontGrowAutofit /> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]-->  <!--[if gte mso 10]> <mce:style><! /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} --> <!--[endif]-->Sign up and verify with Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, and Live Search Webmaster Center - This is an important step now and become necessary later.

23. Check compatibility between browsers- Visit your site using Mozilla Firefox 2.x and Internet Explorer 6 and 7 and Safari 3.x. Remember to do this on both a Mac and a PC. You have to make sure that your website renders correctly and won't drive away users.

So I truly believe that you will take care of these small but important factors and take THAT first step towards SEO. Now get to it!