Webflow is one of the CMS that offer the best web performance (Core Vitals) to websites. The performance of a website directly influences its user experience (UX) as well as its natural referencing (SEO). By choosing Webflow, you are already one step ahead of your competitors. However, to be sure to reach the top positions on search engines, it is necessary to perform a few tasks and check that they have all been completed before publishing your website online.

Today, we are going to offer you a checklist (task list) that will guide you in optimising your site for organic referencing.

The different SEO tasks to check in Webflow

1. Structure Headings

On each of your pages, it is important to check that there is only one H1 and that the rest of your headings respect a logical order. There should be no heading jumps.

2. Title & Meta Description

On each of your pages, you must remember to fill in the SEO Title (about 60 characters) and the Meta Description (about 160 characters). These two fields are essential for positioning on your target queries. It is therefore necessary to optimise them with keywords without using too many and remaining natural.

Find out how to optimise the SEO of your pages in Webflow

3. Optimization of slugs

Slugs are a little less important in SEO, but it is still important to optimise them for each page with the main keyword of the page and by removing articles or determinants. Your slugs should be short for better readability and impact.

4. Open Graph Image

The open graph is the image that will appear when you share the link of a page of your site. This one can be customized for each page of your site. To do this in Webflow, simply go to the page parameters and add the link that refers to your image. This is an important element that allows you to increase the click rate.

Find out why you should add an open graph to your website

5. Favicon + Webclip

The Favicon and Webclip are graphic elements that appear in the tab of your pages on your browser or as a shortcut on different devices. You can set them up in the settings of your project. These elements add value to your website.

6. Image optimization

6.1 Almost all images are compressed

Image compression reduces the weight of your page and therefore its loading time. A fast loading time reduces the bounce rate and improves the UX of your site.

6.2 All images are renamed

Renaming your images is very important for your online visibility. Indeed, the words that you add in the name of your image allow you to position yourself and to stand out on search engines (especially on Google Image).

6.3 All images have an Alt Text

Alt text has two interests. First of all, they give information to the indexing robots and therefore favour the ranking of your images on search engines. In addition, they also promote web accessibility because it is the texts that will be read (instead of the images) for visually impaired people for example.

Find out how to optimise images for SEO

7. Page 404

You have personalised the 404 page (with a link to your home page) of your site for people who come across a wrong URL.

8. Redirections

Redirects are used to prevent users from landing on a 404 page. If you migrate your site or if you delete a URL, you should think about redirecting it.

Find out how to set up 301 redirects on Webflow

9. Test the responsive

Again, to improve the user experience, you should make sure that your site is suitable for all types of devices.

Find out how to make a Webflow site responsive

10. Delete unused classes and animations

In order to avoid loading the code of your website unnecessarily, Webflow offers you the possibility to delete the classes and interactions you no longer use. This will improve the web performance of your pages.

11. Minimize CSS + HTML + JS code

In the general settings of your site, you can check options to minify (remove unnecessary spaces) the code of your site to improve its performance.

12. Optimization of the Webflow project structure

Just as important as minimising your code, having a "clean" development structure allows you to optimise your site. To do this, we recommend that you use the Client-first method, with precise class naming and the use of combo classes. The aim is to reuse classes that you have already used to avoid overloading your code unnecessarily.

Discover the Client-First Method

13. Add an SSL certificate

Webflow allows you to generate an SSL certificate for free if you use one of its paid plans. This will allow you to secure your site and to reassure the Internet users.

14. Language of the site

In the global settings of your project, you can define the language code of your site. This will allow browsers, translation applications and other tools to perform operations according to it.

15. Add a canonical tag

Still in the general settings of your Webflow project, you can define a canonical tag to allow the indexing robots to index the right URL and avoid considering a page as duplicated content.

16. Remove the indexing of the site in webflow.io

When you develop on Webflow, the tool offers you a domain name under a webflow.io version. It is important before publishing a site on a custom domain to prohibit the indexing of pages on the Webflow version to avoid duplicate content.

17. Add a sitemap

The sitemap is a list of URLs that allows search engines to have access to all the pages of your website. Webflow offers you the possibility to generate one automatically or to add a custom one.

18. Adding structured data

Structured data are interesting to put on a site. It gives additional information to search engine algorithms. It will allow you to stand out better in the search results.

19. Google Analytics and Search Console integration

Before publishing your site, it may be worthwhile to connect your Google Analytics and Search Console account to your website. This will allow you to follow the evolution of your SEO results.

Find out how to add your Webflow site to Search Console

20. Content optimization

Optimising content is not a one-time task. Indeed, SEO is a work in progress. Adding content to your website will keep it alive and therefore improve your online ranking. However, you can already optimise your static pages with tools like 1.fr for example.

The complete SEO checklist

With this comprehensive list, you will already be able to get results fairly "quickly" and climb up the SERPs. However, SEO is a recurrent work, to be sure to reach the results you want, it will be necessary to update your site frequently with the addition of content for example.

If you need help with your SEO on Webflow, our agency can help you with your online visibility goals!