SEO requirements and specifications for website development

SEO Requirements and Specifications

1. It is preferable that the domain name matches the niche it will be promoted in (for example: tile.net, kitchenware.biz, discount.com);
2. Each page should allow manually setting a human‑readable URL (SEO‑friendly slug);
3. Ability to set and edit the title, description, and keywords meta tags for each page;
4. The website must have a sitemap presented as sitemap.html plus a sitemap generated by the CMS as sitemap.xml. When new pages are added, they should automatically be included into the sitemap;
5. A robots.txt file must exist and be editable;
6. The site should define a primary mirror with or without "www" and implement a 301 redirect to the chosen version;
7. The home page must not be accessible via yoursite.com/, yoursite.com/index.php, or yoursite.com/index.html. A 301 redirect to yoursite.com should be implemented;
8. Decide how URLs will end: with a trailing slash (yoursite.com/someurl/) or without it (yoursite.com/someurl) (unless the page ends with .php or .html). Implement 301 redirects from all listed URL ending variants to the single selected style;
9. Promoted pages must be editable and support adding text. Without text, SEO timelines and costs increase dramatically, and in some cases promotion becomes impossible;
10. Pagination on the site must be marked with rel="nofollow". The first paginated page should support adding text and meta tags. For other pagination URLs, they may be generated, but must start with the word "pagination" (required for e‑commerce sites where the storefront is generated automatically);
11. If the site is an online store where a product can appear in multiple sections or categories, each product must have a single canonical link regardless of where it is accessed;
12. Breadcrumbs (if present) should be formatted using microdata and be visible to users (this improves content cohesion and navigation);
13. All images must support setting alt and title attributes. Image file names should be uploaded to the server using transliterated names;

14. If posts are tagged and tag archive pages are generated, then:

    • In all links to tag pages, add rel="nofollow" (more details on how to block links from indexing here);
    • At the beginning of the tag page code, include:

    <meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow"/>

    • At the beginning of the tag page code, add the attribute rel="canonical", pointing to the main page (see the details here);
    • Any link on the site that points to a tag page should be rel="nofollow" (ideally avoid using tags altogether);
    • If a post can be accessed via the headline (h1) link and a "read more" or "read all" link, one of these links must be rel="nofollow" (there should be no more than one link from one page to another). It is preferable to leave only a "read full article" link at the end of the article excerpt;
    • To protect posts from unwanted copying and to identify the original source, use the attributes rel="author" and rel="me". These are used to connect content pages with author pages on Google+;
    • Technical pages of the site must be blocked from indexing. This includes site search result pages, internal profile pages, personal accounts, admin panels, etc.;
    • The site should have or be able to install Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Yandex Metrica, and Yandex Webmaster codes;
    • Do not use the <h1>…</h1> tag multiple times on a page - it is important for SEO and should appear only once per page (to title the text).