SEO

Quick Reference

| Topic | File |

|-------|------|

| Title tags, meta descriptions, headers, keyword placement | on-page.md |

| Core Web Vitals, crawlability, mobile, indexing | technical.md |

| Search intent, E-E-A-T, content freshness | content.md |

| Google Business, NAP consistency, local keywords | local.md |

| JSON-LD, Article, LocalBusiness, FAQ, Product schema | schema.md |

| Internal linking, anchor text, backlink principles | links.md |

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