Do you find yourself reworking pages on your website that weren’t created with SEO in mind?
Businesses face this common challenge: balancing value for real users and ticking the right boxes for search-engine algorithms.
The best way to avoid this is to start each webpage with solid SEO built in. To support this, use a consistent SEO components checklist when creating any new page.
Because not everyone creating pages is a developer, the process should be streamlined:
Have the requester (content author, marketer) fill a template (for example a GitHub issue) containing the checklist
The developer uses that to build the page and ensure all SEO elements are included
🌐 SEO checklist for websites
Use this list to maintain a technically healthy and high-performing website:
⚡ Performance
Page Load Speed – Minimize heavy scripts, compress images, enable caching, and use lazy loading
Performance Metrics – Monitor Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP) using PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse
Server & Hosting Performance – Verify server response time, CDN configuration, and reliable uptime from your hosting provider
🔒 Security & Reliability
HTTPS / Secure – Ensure the site loads via HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate
Security & Uptime Monitoring – Use automated tools or services to monitor downtime, SSL renewals, and vulnerabilities
🧭 Crawlability & Indexing
Sitemap / Robots.txt / Crawlability – Confirm all important pages are crawlable and included in the sitemap
Canonical Tags / Duplicate Content Handling – Use canonical tags or noindex where needed to avoid duplicate content
Use this list to validate each new page before publishing:
🏷️ Core On-Page SEO
Descriptive Page Title – Includes the target keyword, is compelling, and under ~60 characters
Meta Description – Unique for the page, includes a keyword, and gives a strong value proposition
Single H1 Tag – Clearly describes the page, aligns with the page title, includes the keyword
Friendly URLs / Slugs – Short, descriptive, and uses hyphens; contains the keyword and avoids unnecessary parameters
✍️ Content & Structure
Heading Structure (H2, H3, ...) – Content broken up with subheadings; readable, logical hierarchy
Content Quality & Relevance – Matches user intent, uses primary and secondary keywords naturally (no stuffing), provides real value
🧩 Technical & Media Optimization
Image Optimization – Descriptive filenames, alt text for accessibility, and optimized file size
Semantic Markup & Accessibility – Use proper HTML tags, ARIA roles, and descriptive alt text
Social Sharing Tags (Open Graph) – Add metadata for sharing (title, description, image)
🧪 Review & Validation
Quality Review / QA – Preview on devices and browsers, check links, validate HTML, and test page speed
Following these checklists ensures your pages and your overall website are search-engine friendly from day one, avoiding costly rework later.
Using GitHub Issues for a new webpage
Not everybody who wants to create a webpage is actually doing the creation (sometimes they will give the task to a developer). Therefore, to make sure that content does not get lost in the creation process, it is important to have a streamlined procedure.
Creating a GitHub Issue is the best way for non-developers to send the request for a new webpage to their developers. So, the best place to keep your checklist is in a GitHub Issue template that exists specifically for requesting a new page on your website. See this rule about GitHub issue templates.
To see an example in action, see the template for adding a new page to SSW.Website. The user replaces all the placeholders with their information, and when a developer creates the page they will know to include the important SEO components.