SEO

Quick Reference

Critical Rules

On-Page Fundamentals

• Title: 50-60 chars, primary keyword in first 30 chars, unique per page
• Meta description: 150-160 chars, benefit-focused, call-to-action
• Only one H1 per page — must differ from title but include primary keyword
• H1 → H2 → H3 strict hierarchy — never skip levels
• Primary keyword in: title, H1, first 100 words, URL
• Keyword density under 3% — stuffing triggers penalties

Technical Essentials

• Core Web Vitals: LCP < 2.5s, INP < 200ms, CLS < 0.1
• Mobile-first indexing: Google indexes mobile version — test mobile rendering
• Canonical URL on every page — prevents duplicate content penalties
• robots.txt: don't block CSS/JS, Google needs them to render
• XML sitemap: max 50K URLs per file, submit in Search Console
• HTTPS required — mixed content breaks security indicators

Content Signals

• Search intent match: informational, navigational, transactional, commercial
• E-E-A-T for YMYL: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
• Thin content penalty: pages under 300 words with no unique value
• Content freshness: update dates matter for time-sensitive queries

Penalties to Avoid

• Hidden text with CSS or font-size:0 — immediate penalty
• Duplicate title tags across pages — wastes crawl budget
• Keyword stuffing in alt text — unnatural patterns detected
• Cloaking: showing different content to users vs bots
• Link schemes: buying links, excessive link exchanges