Best-Practices Articles
Looking to strengthen your website’s SEO foundation? Our Best Practices section highlights essential elements like meta tags, headings, and canonical links core tactics that boost discoverability and authority. At ScanMySEO, we break down each topic into clear, manageable steps, so you’re never stuck wondering what to do next. Explore the articles below to master SEO’s building blocks.
Check your site’s performance now!Under the hood: how ScanMySEO works
Why Hansel built ScanMySEO, how Cozmo turns a crawl into useful decisions, and why the ambition goes beyond the report.
B2B Service Pages and Resource Centres: A Planning Workflow for Small Organisations
Start with the buying questions your website must answer, then decide which need a service page, which belong in a resource centre, and which do not need…
Google Business Profile for WordPress: setup and optimisation roadmap
Google Business Profile is not a WordPress plugin or direct integration. This roadmap shows what to fix in GBP, what to fix on your WordPress site, how…
Mobile Rendering and JavaScript Discovery for Small Ecommerce Sites: A Practical Comparison
Google can render JavaScript, but small ecommerce sites can still lose product discovery when important content, links, metadata or error states depend on…
Internal Linking and Orphan Pages: A Risk Framework for Marketing Managers
A practical framework for finding true orphan pages, separating genuine SEO risks from deliberate exclusions, and prioritising internal-link fixes without…
Local Ranking Diagnostics for Small Ecommerce Websites: A Workflow
Start with eligibility, not keywords. Weak local visibility can come from an ineligible or misconfigured Google Business Profile, poor query relevance…
B2B Service Pages and Resource Centres: An Owner-Manager Planning Workflow
Use service pages to help prospects evaluate what you sell, and resource content to answer the questions that lead into that decision. This workflow helps…
Local Landing Pages for Small Ecommerce Websites: An Implementation Roadmap
A local landing page only earns its place when your ecommerce business has a real local proposition: a shop customers can visit, store-specific stock or…
Small Ecommerce Catalogue Optimisation: A Before-and-After SEO Workflow
A small ecommerce catalogue does not need an elaborate “AI SEO” layer. It needs product pages that are easy to reach, accurate product data, sensible…
Service-Page Search Intent: An Implementation Roadmap for Small Businesses
Use first-party query, page and conversion data to work out what searchers need from a service page, fix genuine mismatches, and verify the result without…
Canonical URLs and Duplicate URL Control: A Practical Comparison for Small Businesses
Duplicate URLs are not automatically an SEO penalty. The practical job is to decide what each duplicate URL should do, choose the right control, make your…
Category and product-page optimisation: an implementation roadmap for small agencies
Treat category pages as discovery hubs and product pages as the source of truth for individual products. This roadmap shows small agencies how to diagnose…
Category and Product Page Optimisation: A Before-and-After Workflow for Small Businesses
A practical way to decide which ecommerce pages should be crawlable and indexable, fix category-to-product discovery, control filter URL growth, validate…
Website Traffic Dropped? Diagnose B2B Title and Meta Description CTR Problems
Do not rewrite metadata just because organic traffic fell. Use Search Console to separate lost visibility from lost clicks, inspect the title links and…
Google Business Profile Setup and Optimisation: A B2B Checklist
Use this B2B Google Business Profile checklist to confirm eligibility, represent your location correctly, choose categories and service areas, verify…
SEO Agency Handoff Checklist: Developer-Ready Briefs for Small Businesses
A safe SEO handoff transfers control, context and testable implementation details—not just a task list. Use this risk framework to secure access, write…
Small ecommerce catalogue optimisation: a practical before-and-after example
For a small catalogue, start with product discovery and data consistency—not a wholesale URL rewrite. This guide shows how to audit product pages…
Schema Markup for Small Organisations on WordPress: a Marketing Manager’s Guide
Most WordPress sites do not need “more schema”. They need accurate structured data, a clear implementation owner, and the right type for the business.…
Category and Product Page Optimisation: A Practical SEO Roadmap for Small Businesses
Improve ecommerce category and product pages in the order that saves the most effort: make the right URLs discoverable, control filters and variants…
SEO made simple: WordPress redirects, broken links and URL migrations
If a WordPress URL changes, the right response depends on what happened to the content. Update broken internal links directly, use a permanent redirect…
WordPress Redirects, Broken Links and URL Migrations: What to Fix and How to Verify It
If a WordPress URL moves permanently, redirect the old URL directly to its closest relevant replacement with a 301 or 308. If content is gone and has no…
Google Business Profile Setup and Optimisation for B2B Businesses: A Practical Checklist
A Google Business Profile can help an eligible B2B company appear across Google Search and Maps, but it is not available to every B2B business. The first…
B2B Service Pages and Resource Centres: A Planning Framework for Small Businesses
Use this framework to decide which B2B services deserve their own page, what belongs in a resource centre, how to avoid overlapping content, and how to…
WordPress SEO Maintenance: A Practical Before-and-After Example for Small Businesses
WordPress SEO maintenance is not a ritual for making a site look “fresh.” It is a repeatable way to keep the site recoverable, catch crawl and performance…
SEO Agency Handoffs: Developer-Ready Briefs for B2B Service Websites
A useful SEO handoff does more than describe a problem. It tells the developer what outcome is required, which URLs or templates are affected, what…
XML Sitemaps and Robots Directives: A Before-and-After Fix for Small Businesses
An XML sitemap helps search engines discover the URLs you want them to know about. robots.txt controls crawl access, while robots meta directives can…
The True Cost of Plugin and Dependency Maintenance: A Practical Workflow
Website maintenance is not just the price of a plugin licence or the time it takes to click “Update”. This workflow helps SME owners identify what their…
B2B Service-Page and Resource-Centre Planning: A Before-and-After Example
Give every page one primary job. Service pages help buyers evaluate an offering; resource pages help them understand, diagnose or compare. This guide…
Crawlability and Indexability for Small-Business Websites
If an important page is missing from Google, do not start by changing keywords. First work out whether Google has not discovered the URL, cannot fetch or…
Google Business Profile setup and optimisation for small businesses
A practical setup and optimisation workflow for small businesses: confirm eligibility, claim and verify the right profile, enter accurate customer-facing…
SEO made simple: schema markup for small organisations on WordPress
For most small organisations, schema markup is not about adding as many types as possible. It is about accurately describing the organisation or local…
E-E-A-T Audit Checklist: A Practical Trust and Credibility Review
E-E-A-T is not a score you can measure or a box you can tick. This audit shows how to review trust, authorship, experience, expertise, reputation and…
Canonical Confusion: Before-and-After Fix for Content Sites
Canonical confusion happens when duplicate or very similar URLs send mixed signals about which version should represent the content in search. A canonical…
Content Quality False Positives: A Diagnostic Guide for Content Sites
A content-audit warning is evidence to investigate, not a verdict that a page is poor. Use this guide to decide whether a flagged page is genuinely weak…
Ecommerce Crawl Budget: Myths, Diagnosis & Fix Matrix
Crawl budget is not a default explanation for ecommerce indexing problems. It becomes worth investigating when a large or fast-changing catalogue is not…
Duplicate Metadata Calculator for Small Business Websites
A practical way to find repeated title tags and meta descriptions, separate harmless duplication from real problems, and prioritise the pages worth fixing…
Robots.txt Mistakes That Block Crawling: Audit & Fix Guide
Robots.txt should control crawler access, not act as a deindexing or security tool. This guide shows how to audit accidental sitewide blocks, broad path…
Broken Links: Why They Matter and How to Fix Them
How to fix broken links for better SEO, user experience, and credibility.
The Ultimate Guide to XML Sitemaps
Learn why XML sitemaps are crucial for better indexing and how to build them effectively.
How and When to Use a Noindex Tag: The Straight-Talking Guide
A simple breakdown of noindex usage to hide unneeded or private pages from Google search results.
Deep or Lost? Mastering Your Site Structure, Internal Linking, and Orphan Pages
Conquer hidden orphan pages and enhance SEO with smarter site structure and internal linking.
E-E-A-T Essentials: Capturing Readers’ Confidence
Elevate site trust and authority by mastering E-E-A-T principles for long-term SEO success.
Hreflang Tags: Why They Matter and How to Get Them Right
Optimize multilingual and multi-country pages with proper hreflang implementation.
URLs Gone Wild: Tame Uppercase, Spaces & Parameter Overload for Better SEO
Learn how uppercase letters, spaces, and too many parameters can hamper your SEO. Our guide helps you fix them for a clean, search-friendly site.
Understanding The Canonical Tag
Learn how to fix canonical tag problems to unify your content and reduce SEO confusion.
Missing Required Schemas: What They Are and Why It Matters
Not providing essential structured data can hamper your brand presence in SERPs. Learn how to fix it.
Multiple Meta Descriptions: Why They Matter and How to Fix Them
Stop confusion and take control of your page snippets by avoiding multiple meta descriptions.
Meta Description Length: Why Size Still Matters (and How to Get It Right)
Learn how to pick the perfect meta description length to boost clicks and visibility.
Headings Best Practice: A Straightforward Guide to Structuring Your Pages
Learn how to use headings effectively for better SEO, clarity, and accessibility in this guide.
The Perfect Title Tag Length: How to Prevent Rewrites and Boost Your CTR
Learn how to craft the perfect meta title to avoid Google rewrites and boost CTR.
Resolving Duplicate Metadata: Why It Matters & How to Quickly Fix It
Learn how to quickly fix duplicate meta titles & descriptions for improved SEO & user clarity.
Missing Meta Descriptions: Why They Matter and How to Fix Them
Discover how to add compelling meta descriptions to boost your site's CTR and user engagement.
Missing Meta Titles: Why They Matter and How to Fix Them
Stop losing clicks! Learn how to quickly identify and fix missing meta titles with our thorough guide.
Finished exploring best-practices? See all articles or Run a Crawl to check your own site now.