Introduction
A beautiful website keeps the user on the page, but SEO gets them to your site. There is no point in putting all this effort into your website if no one can find it.
That's why we put together a comprehensive Webflow SEO checklist to help you get discovered on the web. We cover everything from technical SEO to keyword research and content management.
Here are the chapters this guide covers:
- Basic SEO
- Technical SEO
- Keyword research
- Content management
- On-page SEO
Use this guide as a reference to boost your organic traffic in 2024.
Disclaimer: This is a transparent guide that is based on our experience as a Webflow agency. You can implement every single tip right away without relying on external help. Following this guide will help you climb the search engine rankings, but you must understand that SEO is a long-term game and you might not see results immediately. However, if you follow the recommendations, your pages will rank better on Google.
How to use this SEO guide
SEO is an ongoing process and not something you only do once. This checklist helped us go from unranked to the first page of Google in less than three months.
SEO is a marathon and not a sprint. It requires constant iterations and a lot of effort, like writing new content, improving your page performance and tracking progress.
Thankfully, Webflow makes it really easy. It's one of the most powerful content management systems and allows you to manage your complete SEO strategy from A to Z, while also providing the best performance.
Let's dive in and help you get more organic traffic with this checklist.
Take care of the basics
Set up Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free and essential tool by Google for tracking organic search activity of your site. Its role is to help you understand and improve how Google sees your website.
Google Search Console will help you:
- See the best-performing pages.
- See keywords that bring in the most traffic.
- Fix website errors.
- Submit indexing for new pages.
- Submit website errors.
- See ranking positions.
Set up Bing Webmaster Tools
Alternatively to Google Search Console, you can also use Bing Webmaster Tools which is essentially the same. Although Bing is not as popular as Google, it still gets around 1 billion visitors per month.
Set up Google Analytics
Google Analytics collects data from your website and gives you all the insights and reports to help you better understand your customers.
Google Analytics helps you understand:
- How much traffic you get from Google.
- Where are the visitors coming from.
- Which pages bring in the most traffic.
- Bounce rate, time on site, and many more.
But setting up and understanding Google Analytics 4 can be complex and confusing. Still, businesses that configure it and track their users have a bigger chance of making a website that converts and retains.
Is there an easier way to add GA4 to Webflow? Yes.
It's an app called Data Goat which integrates natively and bridges the gap between Google Analytics and Webflow.
The setup takes only a couple of minutes and it’s very user-friendly. It simplifies all the complex data and helps you understand better what's happening on your Webflow pages.
Create and submit a sitemap
Submitting a sitemap is crucial because it helps Google spiders show where to find important content and how to crawl your site.
There are two different ways to create a sitemap in Webflow.
Enable an auto-generated sitemap for each project:
- Open Site settings -> SEO tab -> Sitemap section
- Toggle Auto-generate sitemap to Yes
- Click Save changes
- Publish your website
Write a custom sitemap.xml and add it to your project:
- Open Site settings -> SEO tab -> Sitemap section
- Toggle Auto-generate sitemap to No
- Paste your custom sitemap in the Custom sitemap.xml field
- Click Save changes
- Publish your website
You can find your sitemap at: your-site.com/sitemap.xml
Create a robots.txt file
A robots.txt file tells search engines where they can and can’t go on your site. This prevents search engines from crawling certain pages like the ones containing sensitive or confidential information, or pages that are still under construction and are not ready for public view.
Robots.txt file helps you with:
- Locking up parts of your website from Google.
- Preventing the crawling of duplicate pages and content.
- Preventing the crawling of internal search results pages.
- Preventing server overload.
- Preventing Google from wasting crawl budget.
Webflow gives you easy access to your site’s robots.txt file via the SEO tab of your project settings.
How to create a robots.txt file:
- Open Site settings -> SEO tab -> Indexing section
- Add the robots.txt rules you want
- Click Save changes
- Publish your website
Disable indexing of your Webflow subdomain
One of Webflow's great features is that it enables you to use the "webflow.io" subdomain when building your website. It's a staging subdomain provided for every new project not yet ready to go public.
Having the same content on your domain and subdomain can lead to trouble - Google punishes duplicated content. To prevent Google from indexing your subdomain, you have to disable subdomain indexing.
How to disable indexing of the webflow.io subdomain:
- Open Site Settings -> SEO tab -> Indexing section
- Toggle Disable Webflow subdomain indexing to Yes
- Click Save changes
- Publish your website
Technical SEO
Make sure Google can crawl your website
Google can only index content that is crawlable. If your site can't be crawled, it means it won't have any chance to rank and you're literally throwing away your effort. It will have zero impact.
To make sure, inspect Index Coverage reports in Google Search Console for any warnings or exclusions relating to your robots.txt file. The report shows status of all URLs that Google has discovered for your website.
Check that Google can index your website
Google must first index your page to be able to rank it in search results. If it can’t fully access your page, it won’t rank no matter how good the page is or how much traffic it gets otherwise.
Google Search Console enables you to inspect URLs and see whether your page has been indexed or not. If not, you can request indexing.
How to request indexing in Google Search Console:
- Open Google Search Console
- Go to the URL inspection tool
- Paste the URL you'd like indexed into the search bar
- Wait for Google to check the URL
- Click the Request indexing button
This process is good practice for newly published posts or pages. You're basically telling Google "Hey, I added something new, check it out."
However, requesting indexing is unlikely to solve problems that are preventing Google from indexing older pages. If you have issues with that, there are other ways to diagnose and try to fix the problem:
- Remove crawl blocks in your robots.txt file.
- Remove rogue noindex tags.
- Add the page to your sitemap.
- Remove rogue canonical tags.
- Check that the page isn't orphaned.
- Fix nofollow internal links.
- Add more internal linking (this sends signals to Google).
- Remove low-quality pages (related to crawl budget).
Make your site accessible from one domain
Using more than one domain for your website can lead to indexing, crawling, and security issues. Your website should be accessible only from one domain.
When using more than one domain at the same time, you should set up a permanent 301 redirect.
How to set up a 301 redirect in Webflow:
- Open Site Settings -> Publishing -> 301 redirects
- Enter the old URL in the Old path field (/old-url)
- Enter the new URL in the Redirect to path field (/new-url)
- Choose Add redirect path
- Publish your website
Secure your site with HTTPS
HTTPS is one of the most important ranking signals for Google. If you haven’t launched your site yet, set it up with HTTPS on day one.
If your site is live and not yet on HTTPS, move it as soon as possible.
Learn how to connect a custom domain to your Webflow site.
Optimize your page speed
Here's a "fun" fact: 40% of your visitors will leave your website if it takes them more than 3 seconds to load. No wonder page speed is another ranking factor on Google.
It's been an important ranking factor on desktop since 2010 and mobile since 2018. Google strongly encourages developers to create fast websites to enhance user experience.
Webflow provides you with a handful of features that make your website perform better. We also created the Webflow speed optimization ebook that leads you through all the steps necessary to make your site faster.
To get started, you can use the PageSpeed Insights or GT Metrix to check how fast your page loads and where the problems are.
Convert and replace images with WebP format
Webflow developed a built-in tool that allows you to automatically convert and replace all images with a WebP format.
You just have to select the images in the asset manager and click the compress button at the top of the panel.
Make your website mobile-friendly
More than 60% of web searches happen on mobile devices, so this is one thing that should not be overlooked.
Responsive means that your website will adjust to every platform and screen size used by your visitors and it's more important than ever.
A responsive website will:
- Get the mobile-friendly tag in the search.
- Provide a better experience for every user on any device.
- Improve the time spent on-site and reduce the bounce rate.
Webflow makes it easy to design responsively without having to know any code. Webflow writes CSS underhood as you build your site in a visual canvas. The resulting code is streamlined and clean, ensuring seamless responsive changes.
Read this article to learn more about mobile responsiveness.
Keyword research
Find the keywords to target
Optimizing your website for specific keywords will help you rank higher on Google. Each page you build should target a primary keyword.
The best way to choose a keyword is to analyze what is the most popular way of searching for the topic. Let's say you are in ecommerce selling e-bikes.
There are different ways people could search for your store:
- E-bike online shop
- Where to order e-bike
- High-performance e-bike
As you can see, "e-bike" here is the main short tail keyword. All other words attached to the keyword "e-bike" form long tail keywords.
To find the best keywords use tools like:
Here's an example in Ubersuggest for the keyword "webflow agency":
Analyze the competition
One of the best ways to find the best keywords is to analyze your competition. Learn what keywords they rank for and which bring the most traffic so you can iterate your strategy effectively.
To find out what works best for your competition use the same tools as mentioned above. They can offer a lot of valuable insight into what you can do to show up on the first page of Google.
Assess search intent
Your content must align with search intent to rank high in Google. Search intent is one of the most important ranking factors and a crucial part of a successful SEO strategy.
Search intent is the “why” behind every query. Do the users want to learn something? Are they looking to purchase a product or service? Is the reason behind their search intent something else?
Here is an article to learn more about search intent.
Content management
Understand your key audience
There is more than just a specific keyword your potential audience is looking for. To create great content, you must understand your audience.
Research is the single most important step of content creation:
- What questions do they have?
- What are they trying to achieve?
- What problems are they trying to solve?
Analyze your audience on different platforms like Twitter (X), Facebook, Reddit, Quora, Slack, Discord, etc. Find out about the hot topics and what information your audience is searching for so you can address the right questions on your website.
Add a table of contents
We live in a busy world where every single second counts. A table of contents helps the user navigate quickly through your articles and lets them jump to parts they are interested in.
Here's an example of our Webflow-related blog:
Moreover, a properly optimized table of contents helps Google better understand the structure of your content, which results in faster crawling and indexing of your pages.
A table of contents can also help you win site links in the SERPs.
Create a heading hierarchy
Heading hierarchy in your long posts helps break your content into multiple sections. This makes it easier to read and understand it.
Breaking down your content is not just user-friendly. It also helps search engines understand what your page is all about.
Webflow enables you to use 6 different options for headings, ranging from the largest (titles) to the smallest: H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6.
Write compelling copy
If you want the visitors to stay on the page as long as possible, you must write a compelling copy. Convince the readers that you have exactly what they are looking for in a few seconds.
It all starts with the winning title and intro. If you don’t catch the reader's attention by the end of the introduction, you can be sure they will exit your page, resulting in higher bounce rates on your website.
But the intro is not everything. Keep your content interesting to the bottom and deliver on your promise. Content on your pages should:
- Deliver the solution to your visitor's problems.
- Build trust and credibility.
- Connect with your visitor.
- Educate your visitors on a specific problem.
Some tools that can help you write compelling copy:
But keep in mind that no matter which tool you use, it will only help you streamline the process - not write copy instead of you. Google focuses more and more on ranking helpful and informational content based on experience (Google E-E-A-T), so don't be salesy and promotional.
On-page SEO
Add SEO titles on all pages
You see both meta titles and meta descriptions after you type in your search query in Google. It's the text you see before opening the actual website, so make sure it tells exactly what to expect.
The meta title acts as a name tag in the HTML and helps Google understand what your page is really about. To create the best meta title possible, follow those guidelines:
- Stick to a 60-character limit.
- Be specific but concise.
- Make the keyword obvious.
- Be engaging (people need to click).
Add meta descriptions to all pages
A page's meta description tag is displayed as part of the search snippet in a search engine results page (SERP). It gives the user an idea of the content within the page and how it relates to their search query.
To create the best meta description possible, follow those guidelines:
- Keep it up to 155 characters.
- Use active voice and make it actionable.
- Include a call-to-action.
- Use your focus keyword.
- Show specifications where possible.
- Make sure it matches the content of the page.
- Make it unique, but don't overcomplicate.
Here you can learn more about meta descriptions.
Optimize your URLs
Create short and descriptive URLs that will be friendlier to your visitors and web crawlers crawling your site. The best practice is to mimic your page title by dropping some filler words.
Example of how to structure a great URL:
Full title: The Future of Webflow Developers on Demand
URL: www.flowout.com/blog/webflow-developers-future
Take care of 301 redirects
As you build and develop your website, content, URLs and other website elements change along the way. Lots of pages get deleted or switch the original URL in the process.
Whenever this happens, make sure to redirect the old URL to a new one with a 301 redirect. Every user that tries to access the old URL will be automatically sent to the new one.
301 redirects are important to let Google engines know where your content is. 301 redirect preserves the link juice your page has built over time. The new page will enjoy the same rank the old page had.
301 redirects on Webflow:
- Open Site settings -> Publishing -> 301 redirects
- Add the old URL in the Old path field
- Add the new URL in the Redirect to path field
- Publish your website
- Test if the redirect works
Add alt tags to all visual elements
Adding alt tags to your visual elements like photos is a much underrated asset in enhancing SEO optimization.
Alt tags are written descriptions that tell Google what the image shows.
Follow this to optimize your images for SEO:
- Use a descriptive image file name before uploading it to Webflow (search engines read file names to better understand the content - an example would be red_sports_car.jpg).
- Add alt text to every image and explain the content it shows (keep it short and sweet, don't overcomplicate things).
- Convert images to WebP format to boost your page speed.
Link to relevant resources
Add links where it makes sense in your articles. Trustworthy and relevant links add credibility to your website and boost your SEO. External links serve as references and will improve your website’s authority, especially if they are experts in the field you're writing about.
Pro tip: When you add a link to an external source, select that the link opens in a new tab. You want to keep users on your website.
Add internal links
The next thing you need to do is to add internal links to your website.
They help Google understand what your page is about and where to find more information about the topic. It also helps users navigate your site through different types of content.
A good practice is to add relevant internal links from other pages when you publish new content - it sends important signals to Google.
Conclusion
SEO is an ongoing process. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Keeping that in mind, it's also not something you do once and forget about it, because if you do that, your pages won't progress.
It's also much more than what is included in this checklist since it would be impossible to consider every single factor affecting your SEO score.
The purpose of this checklist is to give you only the actionable tips that you can implement straight away in your Webflow projects. Completing this list alone will boost your Google rankings and help you get ahead of your competition - but to continue climbing and showing on the first page of Google, you will have to put in a lot of effort.
But it's well worth it. For us as a Webflow agency, SEO is the strongest channel and it pays off - by building landing pages, adding new content and creating helpful resources, we are able to rank first or second for a lot of Webflow-related keywords, which bring us clients in the end.
And a lot of that experience is also included in this checklist, so make sure you read it thoroughly and implement the tips as soon as possible.
