Most SEO problems are not content problems. They are build problems: sites shipped with duplicated titles, JavaScript-rendered headings, five-megabyte hero images, and a robots.txt someone copied from a tutorial in 2016. Retrofitting SEO onto a finished site costs far more than building it in from the start. This checklist covers the technical foundations that developers and designers can bake into every project from day one.

1. Start With Semantic HTML

Semantic markup tells search engines — and assistive technology — what each part of a page means. Use one <h1> per page, keep heading levels in order, and reach for <header> , <nav> , <main> , <article> , and <footer> instead of a soup of <div> elements.

<main> <article> <h1> Custom Website Design for Small Businesses </h1> <section> <h2> Our Design Process </h2> <p> ... </p> </section> </article> </main>

Enter fullscreen mode

Exit fullscreen mode

A crawler reading this structure understands the page hierarchy instantly.…