Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Checklists

Overview

This document provides reference materials and recommended steps you can take, related to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and other digital marketing efforts, before and after going live with your new eCommerce site. It includes the following:

Get Educated – Some SEO-related best practices and reference material
Implementation Checklist – SEO-related tasks to complete during implementation
Pre-Launch Checklist – SEO-related tasks to complete / verify right before go live
Post-Launch Checklist – SEO-releted tasks to complete after go live

The tactics listed here are considered to be critically important if you are replacing an existing ecommerce website that gets a material portion of it’s existing traffic from search engine placement and other digital marketing initiatives. It was written to share practices that have proven to help reduce the risk of losing earned search engine rankings during a platform switch. These tactics can also be helpful if you are new to ecommerce and wanting to grow your online traffic.

Target Audience for This Article

This article applies to any CIMcloud customer that is implementing the CIMclould platform with public-facing content (i.e. anonymous users can access a retail catalog and/or store that is available without having to log in).

This includes companies that are:

Implementing CIMcloud for the first time, or
Executing a Classic-to-Current Migration project

Prerequisite Articles

We strongly recommend reviewing these two articles first.

Launching Your Website – for a high-level list of go-live action items.
Ecommerce Platform Replacement Risk Management (if you are replacing an existing ecommerce platform) – for a quick risk assessment and a set of steps you can take to mitigate the risks associated with an ecommerce platform replacement.

General Disclaimer

CIMcloud is not a search engine optimization specialist/firm, and we do not offer search engine or marketing services. Switching platforms has inherent risk. Building and executing a plan, along with periodic post launch progress checks and adjustments, can materially reduce your risk. While CIMcloud can be hired to provide any on-site changes that you request, you are solely responsible for managing that risk associated with the potential impact on search engine rankings or any other business generating initiatives.

We strongly recommend that you seek the advice of internal (to your company) and/or 3rd party experts to formulate and execute your plan to launch a new ecommerce site, particularly if the new site is replacing an existing site that currently has high and/or business-critical rankings in search engines. This document was compiled from experiences shared by our customers and advice provided from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) professionals and is intended to be a supplemental source of information for you to consider.

Get Educated

Below are related articles on best practices for SEO related to launching your site:

Implementation Checklist

Below are related tasks to complete during implementation:

Pre-Launch Checklist

Below are related tasks to complete/verify before go live:

Setting your Domain URL

Post-Launch Checklist

Below are related tasks to complete after go live:

Verify that Google Analytics is collecting data.
Watch your Real Time Analytics: The Real Time report is a fast way to if there are major issues and react. If nothing else, you’ll see right away if there is a problem in your Analytics setup.
Configure Search Console
1. Account for your domain and submit a new sitemap.xml
  1. Note: configure domain for https://
2. Run your robots file through the robots.txt tester
3. Check your sitemaps.xml file
  1. Submit your sitemap.xml (if not already submitted) and check for Crawl Errors
  2. After the sitemap passes, select Crawl > Fetch as Google, then enter the domain and click “Fetch and Render.” Confirm the site loads as expected in the Render screen.
4. Select Search Appearance > Sitelinks, then “demote” the URLs for any pages that you do not wish to appear in search results pages in searches for your brand.
Check the site’s pages to make sure they are NOT set to noindex, nofollow.
Check robots.txt file to make sure it is NOT set to noindex, nofollow.
Have your SEO professional re-review the entire site and provide any punch list items to CIMCloud
1. See “Outside SEP Professional Review…” steps above
2. We recommend conducting this review at 2 to 4 week intervals until you are satisfied the transition has achieved your desired results

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