A Practical SEO Checklist for Technical Teams

SEO is often reduced to “content and keywords,” but the technical work done by developers has a huge impact on how a site performs in search. The good news is that most of these technical factors are measurable and can be checked with the right tools.

In this article, we will walk through a practical SEO checklist from a developer’s perspective. We will use the JrDevTools SEO Score Calculator as a helper for many of these checks.

1. Basic Metadata Checks

At a minimum, every important page should have consistent, well‑formed metadata:

• Title (<title>) – Clearly describes the page’s purpose, ideally 50–60 characters.
• Meta description – A 1–2 sentence summary that encourages clicks without being misleading.
• Canonical URL – For similar or duplicate content, rel="canonical" should point to the preferred URL.

Running a URL through the SEO Score Calculator can quickly surface missing or weak metadata, so you know where to start improving.

2. Heading Hierarchy

Your heading structure (H1, H2, H3…) is important for both users and search engines. Technically, aim for:

• Exactly one H1 per page where possible.
• H2s for major sections, H3s for subsections, and so on, forming a clear hierarchy.
• No heading spam or unnecessary keyword stuffing.

When you analyze a page with the SEO tool, pay attention to whether headings reflect the real structure of the content, and adjust your templates or components if needed.

3. Performance and Core Web Vitals

Search engines, especially on mobile, care a lot about speed and responsiveness. As a developer, focus on:

• Compressing or converting large images to modern formats (such as WebP).
• Reducing unused JS/CSS and applying code‑splitting where appropriate.
• Improving metrics like First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Time to Interactive (TTI).

The SEO Score Calculator can highlight obvious performance concerns. For deeper analysis, you can combine it with tools like Lighthouse, but this checklist keeps performance visible in your day‑to‑day work.

4. Mobile Experience

A large portion of traffic now comes from mobile devices. Check that:

• Your viewport meta tag is correctly configured.
• Critical components do not break or overflow on small screens.
• Interactive targets (buttons, links) are large enough and well spaced.

Use the tool regularly after layout changes to ensure you have not accidentally regressed the mobile experience.

5. Internal Linking Strategy

SEO is not only about external backlinks. Internal linking also plays a big role:

• Link related content together to keep users on the site longer.
• Point to your most important pages (such as key tools or product pages) from relevant content.
• Use descriptive anchor text instead of generic “click here.”

From a technical standpoint, you also want to make sure internal links are not broken and do not constantly redirect. Periodic crawls or link‑checkers help here.

6. Structured Data Support

Schema.org‑based structured data can earn you rich snippets in search results. As a developer, consider:

• Using Article or BlogPosting schema for blog posts.
• Using SoftwareApplication or Product schema for tools or product pages.
• Marking up navigation with BreadcrumbList where relevant.

After your basic SEO health looks good, structured data is one of the best next steps for strengthening search visibility.

7. Continuous Monitoring and Improvement

SEO is not a “set it and forget it” task. Especially on the technical side:

• Re‑check key metrics and metadata as you add new pages.
• Re‑run checks on critical URLs after large layout or infrastructure changes.
• Review Search Console reports regularly for warnings or coverage issues.

The JrDevTools SEO Score Calculator can serve as a lightweight trigger for this habit. In just a few clicks, you get a snapshot of a page’s technical SEO health.

When you combine these practices with good content, you give your site a strong foundation to grow search traffic over time, without leaving technical issues as an afterthought.