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Search engine optimisation for websites is not an easy feat. It’s a marketing discipline that involves an iterative process of continuous improvement.

With that said, having an already optimised framework reduces the load of such process. This is where Drupal becomes a necessary tool for SEO. Drupal, as a Content Management Software, provides a solid foundation for technical SEO, helping your website draw customers in.

So, if you’re planning to build a lead generating website that attracts more traffic, you need to read through our Drupal SEO checklist below:

Drupal SEO Checklist 1: Unique Titles for Web Pages

Titles usually make the first impressions. Unique and meaningful page titles catches attention more quickly and helps your reader choose your site out of the other sites in the search engine results.

From an SEO perspective, your web pages help search engines understand what your web pages are about. In saying so, you need to provide your pages good page titles that are easily understood and identifiable by your readers. It is vital you utilise H1-H6 HTML elements properly.

To help you create unique page titles that match the user’s search, Drupal Page Title Module can come in handy. Be sure to install this module when building an optimised website.

Drupal SEO Checklist 2: Proper Configuration of XML Sitemap and Google News Sitemap

To get an optimised website, you need to configure both the XML Sitemap and Google News Sitemap early in your site.

XML Sitemap for Drupal creates a robot-friendly map for search engines to help them intelligently crawl your website and keep results up to date. Google News Sitemap, on the other hand, generates a Google-specific map to help your news section rank and appear as news item on Google’s SERP pages. With these two configured, you’ll make your website more SEO friendly and easier to crawl and index.

Drupal SEO Checklist 3: Redirect Module

Want to make sure your target users make it to your site? Configure Redirect module in your website to help you capture any broken links, set up promotional links, or simply identify typos from users who are trying to reach your site. Redirect also helps you monitor how many times users are hitting those redirects.

Drupal SEO Checklist 4: Global Redirect Module

Global Redirect module works hand in hand with the Redirect module in catching any broken links. It ensures links are case-insensitive by testing all links with and without a trailing slash. And instead of leading your users to a 404 page, Global Redirect will return them to your homepage.

However, if you’re on Drupal 8, you can totally ignore this since Global Redirect has already been merged with Redirect in that version.

Drupal SEO Checklist 5: .HTAccess Redirect

When a user simply types yoursite.com, sometimes the website is not accessible causing loss of traffic to your site. To avoid this, use the .htaccess redirect to help set up your site in handling such access requests. This way, you can be sure your users have access to your site anyway they type it in.

Drupal SEO Checklist 6: Descriptive Homepage Using Drupal

Your homepage is the face of your business where your users usually form their first impression upon landing on your site. Therefore, it should be designed with a descriptive headline, slogan and image that completely represent who you are. SEO-friendly keywords can help you achieve this just as long you don’t go overboard. Remember that too much keyword stuffing can hurt your trust index and conversion rates.

Drupal SEO Checklist 7: SEO-Optimised Meta Tags

Meta tags are one of the most essential on-page ranking factors that give your users and search engines a better picture of what your webpage is about. Using Drupal Metatag module gives your site an easy and user-friendly interface for metadata update. You can easily populate metadata with page descriptions, keywords, and more. Even better, this module allows you to control how your website will appear on your social media pages like Facebook and Twitter.

Drupal SEO Checklist 8: OG tags

To make sure your website communicates well with Facebook, you need your OG tags to be descriptive and filled correctly. This helps you set up your website on Facebook exactly how you want it to appear including the use of images and taglines.

Drupal SEO Checklist 9: Facebook and Twitter Site Information

Once configuration for metatags and OG tags are completed, head over to Facebook to see how the information appears. It’s imperative to do this test first before letting your users start on sharing your site. The same way goes to Twitter; tweet a couple of your pages to check how they will come through on your Twitter Cards.

Drupal SEO Checklist 10: Path Alias Pattern

When building your website, Drupal will set your URLs to node/123 for the database backend. However, this doesn’t do good for both the search engines and end users. To set up rules and patterns for your URLs, you can use the Drupal Pathauto module. This will automatically reduce your maintenance times and simplify your site navigation process.

Drupal SEO Checklist 11: Site Verification

Search engine crawlers are likely to reward a site with higher ranking if they are verified. With site verification, Google will allow you to access private search data thus opening doors for better data and better search engine rankings. Use this Drupal Site Verification module to show search engines that you truly own your website.

Drupal SEO Checklist 12: Search 404 Module

Want to reduce your bounce rates due to Page Not Found error? The Search 404 Module helps by offering a search of your site based on URL string instead of directing your users to ‘Error: Page Not Found’.

Search engine optimization may be a tricky process but with the help of Drupal, it’s easier to formulate your strategies. Drupal provides a lot of SEO modules to help you build an optimised website primed for traffic.

Need a new search engine optimised website for your business? Team Elephant can get the job done.

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