Today we're excited to make freely available the new Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet 3.0.
Ever since the indelible Danny Dover created the original version in 2008, the SEO Cheat Sheet has been downloaded tens of thousands of times by developers and marketers alike.
Countless beginner and advanced SEOs have printed it out, laminated it, and hung it on their walls as a quick reference to the most impactful best practices in search engine optimization. Web developers and software engineers also find it handy to easily reference SEO technical standards.
New for 2015
Lots has changed in SEO since 2008 (even since 2013 when we published version 2.0.) To keep pace, we updated version 3.0 to reflect best practices in SEO today.
- Updated information in several places, most notably in User Agents, Social Metadata, and Mobile Web Development
- Eliminated sections with reduced relevance, such as Authorship and Publisher markup
- Simplified sections to make them easier to understand, such as User Agents
- Made the "best practice" advice clearer and easier to understand throughout
- Added entirely new important material such as Schema and Rich Snippets
All together, we incorporated close to 100 new changes in this edition, some big, some small.
If you can wait to dive in and print it out, feel free to download it right now:
Details and SEO information covered
Page one
- Important HTML Elements
- HTTP Status Codes
- Canonicalization
- URL Best Practices
- Webmaster Tools
Here you'll find the basics of creating webpages that can be understood by search robots. From title tag best practices to the ideal URL structure, page one will get you up and running in no time. We've also included all the major Webmaster Tools of the primary search engines to register and monitor your site.
Page two
- Robot Control Syntax
- Important User Agents
- Sitemap Syntax
- Pagination
Beyond having a page that search engines understand, you want to ensure search robots crawl your site effectively for optimal performance. Use these tips and best practices to avoid unwanted crawling or to stop accidentally blocking important bots from your top pages.
Page three
- Social Metadata
- Rich Snippets
- Structured Data
After your site is crawled and indexed, you may want to focus on how your content is displayed in search engine results and across social media. Both social metadata and rich snippets can improve your visibility, and structured data can add additional meaning to your content for search engines to understand.
Page four
- Targeting Multiple Languages
- Mobile Web Development
As both search engines and users evolve, you likely want to optimize for different devices, or target users of a different region or language. The final page of the SEO Cheat Sheet introduces you to the basics of International and Mobile SEO.
Always free, always changing
At Moz, we're dedicated to the principal that SEO knowledge should be free and accessible to all (in contrast to the often secretive nature of search engines and their algorithms).
We also believe in supporting a community that shares and exchanges information for the betterment of all. We've made version 3.0 of the SEO Cheat Sheet the best it can be, and it's been great fun watching it evolve to this point, but we also can't wait for it to change again.
Thanks to everyone in the SEO community who has contributed to this body of knowledge and to all of you who have downloaded and shared the Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet to make it a success!
Cyrus, this looks amazing! It makes me really happy to see you take the torch and thrive :-) You and the team did an absolutely fantastic job on this resource.
You have been a huge asset to the Moz and I have really enjoyed seeing you take content to the next level. You da man! :-)
I still remember when Danny Dover worked and published the first SEO Cheat Sheet... and you don't know how many time I needed to reprint it and its first update published few years ago.
The SEO Cheat Sheet should be used in every post/deck/talk about Content, because it is a shiny example of doing Content Marketing that pays off:
Did you hang it on the wall like both Jen Lopez and I did? Ah... SEO memories. Funny how content can bind us!
Oh yes, I did that :-)
I also printed it out and hung it on the wall of all our developers too. When I first started at Moz I was so excited to meet Danny because he had created this.
Wow, was that really 2008? Time flies. :-) I remember staying up all night working on the original version of this and posting it on the blog without telling anyone. I walked to work that day thinking maybe I shouldn't have done that. :-p
I LOVE the new version. Cyrus (and team!) well done on an extremely useful resource!
Gianluca, thank you for continuing to be a positive and extremely valuable resource for all of us. :-)
Superb Cyrus, excellent job :)
Loving the different background colours to signify the different topics on each page.
I have a suggestion (shoot me if it's a poor one!):
For many small businesses who don't have the budget or means to work with a developer and will be trying to implement SEO themselves, could you either:
1) Highlight the elements most important to them, via a key such as "(asterisk) Small Business SEO Must-Haves!"
or
2) Add a 5th sheet, that shows all the elements that they should have as a minimum and call it "Small Business SEO Must-Haves!"
The reasons for suggesting this:
a) Many small business (sole trader's, consultants and professionals with a few staff max) don't know where to begin when they wish to implement SEO themselves, so additional information, using either 1 or 2 above, would probably help them greatly - at the very least to appreciate all that's involved. Indeed, they might realise that a web dev is the best option for them :)
and
b) As SEO consultants, we can refer them to their own page (or those marked as item 1 suggests) and help them understand that SEO is no longer about "keyword tags". Indeed, this document is an educational resource (IMO) more than a guide :)
I'll leave the above for you to ponder on.
Has to be said: the Moz community is very fortunate that you update this critically important document regularly and make it freely available. The whole approach is what signifies TAGFEE ;)
Well done champ!
Not a bad idea. I support you
Good suggestion Tony - thank you. We've also been playing with the idea of a Local SEO Cheat Sheet, which would fit in nicely with something for SMBs.
"Many small business ... don't know where to begin when they wish to implement SEO themselves"
Couldn't agree more. Time and time again I witness a knowledge gap between the professional marketers who visit this blog everyday, and the insatiable appetite of small business owners with limited SEO knowledge who want information that is easily acessable and simple to understand. The person who solves this market gap is going to be very, very rich.
2 thumbs up for the Local SEO Cheat Sheet idea
Great job.
Just one suggestion - can you make this cheat sheet "printer friendly"? Removing backgrounds and make boxes little bit wider can be ok.
This will help printing on monochrome laser printers and stop "ink flooding" on inkjet printers.
Nice work Cyrus, sharing this with my devs.
The new Site Name markup could go into the RichSnippet section.
Excellent suggestion. All in all, we cut dozens of potential markup types and web development tips, simply because we needed to keep the SEO Cheat Sheet brief and easy to use. To do this, when faced with multiple choices, we chose only the most common SEO challenges and development opportunities proven to increase search engine traffic and visibility.
Next up, we may need to write a book!
As if you were not already writing it, Cyrus ;-)
Thanks Cyrus for updating with the new version which is very rich and handy.
Ugh, i love it! Something about having all this information laid out in such a well organised and graphically pleasing way is very wonderful. Also very useful to have the structured data and language code easily to hand, and to share with our development team. Great work, and thanks. :)
Hi Cyrus,
isn't the combination in the section -rel="alternate" hreflang="x"- chosen somewhat unhappy -> <link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-ES" href="https://example.com/de-es/" /> (Specifies Language + Region)?
The combination of "de-ES" -> German speaking/written in Spain?
This reminds me of some common issues which Aleyda described lately in that http://searchengineland.com/auditing-hreflang-annotations-common-issues-avoid-219483.
Great point! We'll work to make that more consistent.
Awesome post Cyrus. Loved it.
Please sell a framed version of it, so that we can hang it above our desks!
Well done, it's simple and rich at the same time :-)
Great overview Cyrus, our intern got some stuff to read today! If I may pitch a suggestion for a next version, add a page for webshop development. I noticed developers struggle with all the schema markup available for it!
Great work Cyrus and team, A handy resource to keep in pocket whenever you want to refer something. Structured data and rich snippets are the things I want to explore more.
Hello Cyrus,
Again you came with an interesting topic, mix up the SEO and developing is always fantastic to implementing new things. I think this 3.0 cheat Sheet could be very helpful for beginner specially, I am always interested in "Open Graph", great advantage.
Thanks for the data :)
Very handy, feels like you have just compressed the last 4 years of my working life into 4 pages
Good work Cyrus and everyone involved in this. I think it's time to hang up some new decorations for the office now.
That's great!
Thanks Cyrus
Wow!!! This is an amazing tool!!! I am going to share it inmediatly so all my colleaghes can see it.
Thanks so much!!!
Great update! Always good to have on hand :)
Really informative and easy to breakdown for anybody, including clients. Thanks guys!! :)
I remember downloading the very first version of this way back when shortly after I got started professionally in SEO when this first came out. Man how the time flies...and how far we have come!
Very nice .. I sent that over to our lead programmer ... with the email tagline "encase you forget just do it like this" .. lol
A must have document for every software company and yes I just pasted it at my workplace :)
Thanks Cyrus and whole Moz team for keep working on Danny's fabulous idea.
I dig this -- although a bit surprised to not see JSON-LD in here. Seems to me that it'll be a much preferred method for adding in rich information/snippets going forward.
http://builtvisible.com/implementing-json-ld-wordpress/
JSON-LD makes things simple. It is mentioned as a "Popular Format" in the Structured Data section. At this time, Microdata is the preferred method of most developers (although this may change in the future. If JSON-LD becomes widely adopted, perhaps you will see it in version 4.0.
Cool Thanks for nice info (y)
Thank you for sharing this wonderful document guys. My new clients will love to understand why we rise pricing :)
Great post, every seo person need this:)
Thanks Cyrus, this is fantastic.