SEO Requirements Doc for Move to New CMS or eCommerce Platform
I recently created something similar to this when helping one of our departments choose a new ecommerce and CMS platform for an existing website. Many of the elements are fairly specific to the needs of that website and were written with knowledge of the three or four CMS/Platforms being considered. Thus, they might not all be issues you deal with, and there may be issues you deal with that are not covered in this document. If so, please share them in the comments so other readers can benefit from your knowledge. Despite being written for a very specific site, this should still be generic enough to serve as a template if you’re struggling with writing your own SEO requirements document. Perhaps it will at least be enough to get your started.
SEO Requirements for New eCommerce Platform
Must-Haves:
- Ability to edit page titles and meta descriptions independently of the page name or any other content on the page.
- A default page title based on the page name to cover us in case a custom title has not yet been entered for new pages.
- A customizable filename for each page, preferably one that uses the current file names, as that would make the redirect process (see below) much easier.
- NOT something like /node/31 but more like /product/product-name.html
- A site URL structure / taxonomy that obeys the following rules:
- No superfluous folders (eg /html/main/)
- No categories in the product detail page URLs
- URL structure that allows for easy segmenting of site sections:
- i. All product detail pages (PDPs) must live in a folder specific to products (eg /products/)
- ii. All categories must live in a URL specific to categories (eg /category/)
- Search engine friendly site navigation that obeys the following rules:
- No code that would keep the user from seeing navigation with javascript turned off in their web browser.
- Do use text-based drop down menus
- i. If the first level navigation is to be images, they must use alt text on the image and title attributes in the link. These are to match the desired keyword/s for the destination.
- Drop down menus must go down all to all category levels.
- A text-based fill slot uniquely customizable on all pages to be used for the purpose of descriptive, conversion-oriented, SEO-friendly copy and strategically placed links into other pages.
- An atuo-generated XML sitemap that uses the canonical URLs and verifies in all three major search engine Webmaster Tools accounts.
- The SEO to consult on attributes for each type of page (eg importance, change frequency…)
- An html sitemap that automatically updates when a new page is added to the site, including all product detail pages. The exception would be any page that is part of the checkout process.
- A rel=canonical meta tag on all pages. Each piece of content should only have ONE canonical URL and all other instances of that content, whether as part of a query string (?search=product), A/B split testing (?version=b) will still use that one canonical URL in this meta tag.
- Minimal use of flash, javascript or ajax and no use of frames.
- Product images on directory-level pages should use the product name as alt text and the links below these images should use the product name as link text.
- A properly installed analytics program that allows us to track all KPIs and diagnostic metrics, including but not limited to the ones we often have trouble with: revenue by referring domain; top internal searches; internal searches that returned 0 results for the user; and keywords segmented by paid Vs organic.
- Primary page content should be editable inside the CMS for all pages.
- Custom 404 Page
- Must return a 404 Error Code in the http header.
- Must have a custom design
- Must appear whenever a non-existing URL is accessed, AS WELL as when a non-existing product URL is entered.
- A sitewide footer to be used for site interlinking and possibly footer text, such as appears on current site.
- This should be editable without submitting a ticket.
Nice-To-Haves:
- New product feeds
- Blog with feeds
- Ability to change robots.txt file without submitting ticket
- Ability to perform page-to-page redirects without submitting a ticket.
- Allow header tags (eg H1) on category pages to be editable independently of the category name.
- Example: We might want the header tag on the /DVD.html page to say “Action Adventure DVDs” instead of just “DVDs,” which is the name of the category.
- A FAST website that uses tools like server-side caching on non-dynamic pages and content delivery networks to serve up images.
- Note: CDN should use ourdomain.com to show images. For instance, they could show them from images.ourdomain.com or perhaps www.ourdomain.com/images but NOT from something like OurDomain.Akamai.com .
- Header logo image should link to absolute path of home page minus the index file (eg http://www.ourdomain.com/) and should contain the alt text: “Our Domain: Keyword Rich Tag Line”.
- Preferably, this alt text on the home page logo would be editable without a ticket, as our keyword targeting is subject to change.
- Footer link area that appear on the home page only. This would be editable in the CMS and would be used for the purpose of sending additional page-rank into our top product and category pages that we are trying to rank higher for specific keywords. Note: This is NOT a site-wide footer.
- SEO-friendly pagination IF pagination is to be used at all (eg category pages). Pagination should follow these guidelines: www.seomoz.org/blog/pagination-best-practices-for-seo-user-experience
- Some form of user-generated content. The easiest would be blog comments, but other examples would include user reviews, member blogs…
- Integrate social media better into the site.
- Use social media buttons for Twitter and Facebook that go to the existing fan page/profile
- Consider implementing Facebook Connect.
Transition Considerations for SEO
Redirects
As one of the must-haves is a taxonomy that does not include superfluous folders like /html/main/, we will likely run into a situation in which every URL on the website needs to be redirected. Assuming you keep the same file names, we should just be able to redirect the pages to their appropriate counterpart by rewriting the URL to remove those three folders. In other words, www.ourdomain.com/html/main/file.html would be rewritten and would redirect to www.ourdomain.com/file.html and www.ourdomain.com/html/p/file2.html would redirect to www.ourdomain.com/file2.html .
Don’t Transfer Everything at Once
It is ok if a site is redesigned and moves to a new server at the same time as long as 301 redirects are in place and the content does not substantially change between the two iterations. But avoid situations in which all of these change at the same time: Platform, URL, Server, Whois Owner/s, and Content. This makes it look like the domain was sold to a new entity, in which case you would run the risk of losing page rank into the old links.
Move Over Existing Content and Meta
As much as possible, move over the existing content and meta data. While a new SEO Audit will be done after the re-launch, the old keyword targeting on these pages and in the meta data and links was all based on keyword search volume, conversion rates and other metrics. Remember that there is a reason each page links to other pages with that specific text; a reason why specific text appears on each page; and a reason why each page is titled one way or another. Moving to a new platform should not mean dismantling existing SEO work.
The Ol’ XML Sitemap One-Two Punch
The best way to ensure a quick re-indexing of the website is to first get search engines to crawl the old URLs (so they see the 301 code and adjust their index of all old URLs) before getting them to crawl the new URLs. You can do this by simply leaving the old XML sitemap up for a few days after moving to the new URLs. Resubmit the old XML sitemap, wait until it has been crawled, then delete it and verify the new XML sitemap in its place.
Very nice, comprehensive list. No matter how many times I might move a site, I’ll always forget something. I’ll bookmark and print this for the next time.
Thank you for this SEO check list.
I think that you must enter all the Nice-to-haves list under the Must-to-Haves list because most of the list is essential:
I can NOT think, these days, on a web site without “follow us on facebook, twitter, LinkedIn…”
You have to take control on your H tags content – that’s essential.
Good post. I’m dealing with new redesigned sites and find this post really useful.
Thanks.
(((PS: I’m a comment spammer who likes to put my SEO company URL in the URL field, make my name “something SEO” so it shows up as the link text, and leave a lame comment that is probably copied and pasted or put in by a robot.))))