SEO cheat sheet: the one page reference for page checks, status codes, directives and monthly routine

An SEO cheat sheet is a short reference of the checks that decide whether a page can be found, understood and chosen. This one has five parts: a pre publish page check, a table of status codes, the robots and meta directives, the structured data types worth knowing, and a monthly routine. It follows Google's SEO Starter Guide, so each line matches what the search engine documents. For definitions of the terms used here, see the glossary of SEO terms.

Part one: the pre publish page check

Run this list on every page before it goes live. Each line takes under a minute.

Check	Pass condition
One query	The page answers one main query, named in a sentence you can say aloud
Title	Unique, puts the main phrase first, reads as a promise a person would click
H1	One per page, matches the title in meaning
First paragraph	Holds the direct answer, so a reader and a search system see it first
Subheadings	H2 and H3 follow the questions a reader would ask next
Meta description	Written for the searcher, one clear benefit, not the same as another page
URL	Short, lower case, words separated by hyphens, no dates or ids
Images	Descriptive file name, alt text that says what the image shows, sized for the layout
Internal links	At least two links in from related pages and two links out, with plain anchor text
Canonical	Points to itself, or to the preferred version if a duplicate exists
Mobile	Readable without zoom, buttons tappable, no content hidden on phones
Speed	Main content appears quickly on a mid range phone

Google does not set a length for titles or descriptions. Long ones are cut in results, so put the words that matter at the start. Anchor text should describe the destination: "pricing page" works and "click here" does not. Google documents this in its guidance on crawlable links.

Part two: status codes

Code	Meaning	Action
200	Page served normally	Nothing to do
301	Moved permanently	Use when a URL changes for good; link directly to the new address
302 or 307	Moved temporarily	Use for short term moves only
404	Not found	Fix links that point at it; leave it if the page is truly gone
410	Gone on purpose	Use for removed content you want dropped quickly
429	Too many requests	Check rate limits on your server, because crawlers read this as a signal to slow down
500 or 503	Server error or unavailable	Fix at once; 503 is the right code for planned downtime

Part three: directives that control crawling and indexing

Crawling and indexing are two separate steps, and different tools control them.

Tool	Where	What it does
robots.txt	Site root	Tells crawlers which paths they may fetch. It does not remove a page from the index
noindex	Meta robots tag or X-Robots-Tag header	Tells search engines not to show the page. The crawler must be able to fetch the page to see it
nofollow, sponsored, ugc	Link attributes	Mark links you do not endorse, paid links, and user content links
canonical	Link tag in the head	Names the preferred URL among duplicates
hreflang	Head or sitemap	Maps language and country versions of a page
XML sitemap	Listed in robots.txt and Search Console	Lists the URLs you want crawled. See how to submit a sitemap to Google

The common mistake is to block a page in robots.txt and add noindex to the same page. The crawler never fetches it, so it never reads the noindex. Choose one tool for one job. Google explains robots.txt in its introduction to robots.txt.

Part four: structured data worth knowing

Structured data is markup, usually JSON-LD, that labels what a page contains. It helps search systems read the page. It does not push it up the results. Google lists supported types in its structured data introduction.

• Organization: name, logo, official profiles, contact details.
• Article: headline, author, dates, image.
• Product: name, price, availability, reviews, where the data is on the page.
• LocalBusiness: address, hours, phone, service area.
• BreadcrumbList: the path from the home page to this page.

Mark up only what a visitor can see on the page. Test each page with Google's Rich Results Test after editing.

Part five: the monthly routine

1. Search Console, Pages report. Look for new errors and pages that dropped out of the index.
2. Search Console, Performance report. Sort by queries with many impressions and a low click rate; rewrite those titles.
3. Crawl the site. Find broken links, redirect chains and pages with missing titles.
4. Review top pages. Update dates, figures and screenshots that have aged.
5. Add one thing. One new page, or one real improvement to an existing page, on a query you chose from data.
6. Record the results. Log clicks, impressions and the pages you changed, so next month you can see what moved. How to measure organic traffic shows a reporting layout.

The ten line summary

1. One page, one main query.
2. Answer in the first paragraph.
3. Unique title and description.
4. Descriptive URL.
5. Internal links with plain anchors.
6. Fast, readable on a phone.
7. Status codes that match intent.
8. Robots.txt for crawling, noindex for indexing.
9. Structured data that matches visible content.
10. Monthly check, logged.

New to all of this? SEO basics for beginners explains why each line matters before you use the list.

One line to add for assistants

The list above gets a page found in a search results list. A reader who asks an assistant the same question sees no list, just a short answer built from a handful of sources. The same pre publish check serves both, since a direct first paragraph and clear headings are what the assistants quote, but the result is worth looking at separately. AI Knows Us (aiknowsus.com) asks the assistants the questions behind your target queries and records whether your page is named, so the cheat sheet gets one extra check: search the query, then ask the assistant, and compare.

Questions about using an SEO cheat sheet

What should be on an SEO cheat sheet?

A page check, status codes, crawl and index directives, structured data types and a monthly routine cover most of the daily decisions.

How often should I use it?

Run part one on every page before publishing and part five once a month.

Is a cheat sheet enough to rank?

It prevents avoidable errors. Ranking also depends on the quality of the content, how well it matches the query, and the sites that link to you.

Does meta keywords tag still matter?

No. Google has said it does not use the meta keywords tag. The page on meta keywords in WordPress shows what to fill in instead.

Where do I check a page after I publish it?

Use the URL Inspection tool in Search Console, which shows whether Google has fetched and indexed the page and which version it chose as canonical.