The SEO Checks view can be used to see what projects are currently in the SEO Checks status.

1. Identify project in #checks_fhs Slack Channel via “SEO Check – SBMM” workflow submissions

2. Claim SEO check

   a) For SEO – If below tier 4, claim a project in Slack workflow. (Copy can handle all tiers)

   b) Set an emoji onto the Slack workflow to signal that an SEO checker has claimed / is working on the SEO check.

3. Navigate to AirTable Task

   a) Click AT Link provided in Slack workflow

   • SEO specialist will add themselves as “SEO Checker” in the SBMM Onboarding Project attached to the Airtable task.

   • Once an AirTable task status has been changed to “SEO Pre Sweep Check,” the SEO specialist can begin their check. The SEO specialist will add their name in the “Assigned” field before beginning to work.

4. Begin SEO site check

1. Navigate to the AirTable task’s “SEO Pre-sweep” field / link

2. Open Site Check help doc and AirTable SEO check form

3. Analyze the Pre Sweep and log applicable feedback in the SEO Check form.

   • Compare the Page Optimization tab to the All Pages tab to decide if the SOPHI SEO kept all well-positioned, relevant content

   • Keywords should be provided for each page, with more attention given to “main” pages on the site like the Homepage, activity and segmentation pages. Please bold the primary keywords for copy to implement.

   • If the previous site brought over little ranking or is going live on a new domain, confirm the SOPHI SEO’s keyword research targets attainable keywords based on location, activity type, etc.

   • If the SOPHI SEO proposed to combine any pages, ensure they are related content somehow

   • Examine the nesting (if any) of the new site’s proposed pages and activities to keep it to a minimum (ex: example.com/all-activities/location/single-activity/ could be example.com/location/single-activity/)

   • If SOPHI SEO proposed to change page URLs, check that they will not abandon important rankings or change the URL without reason

   • Look for appropriate keyword usage in title tags, meta descriptions, and headings, making sure to avoid repeated keyword targeting between pages or unnatural keyword placement

   • Confirm appropriate length and format for title tags and meta descriptions

   • Any other improvement as SEO sees fit

4. Duplicate the Page Optimization tab and title “Specialist Recommendations”.

5. For pages the SEO Specialist believes could be optimized (noted in check form), implement recommendations directly to the new tab, completing keyword research and rewriting URLs, metadata, or headings as needed

6. Submit the form.

   5. Finish SEO check

   a) AirTable

   • Go back into AirTable task and make sure that the SEO check form has attached to card (sometimes reloading the page helps). The form should populate on the project card for the SOPHI SEO to review any feedback.

   • Change status to “SEO Check Complete” and make sure the SOPHI SEO is assigned in AirTable’s “assigned” field

   b) Slack

   • Go back into the #checks_fhs channel and submit a comment in the workflow’s thread, letting the SOPHI SEO know that the check has been completed / submitted (i.e. “SEO feedback submitted”)

The Copy Checks view can be used to see what projects are currently in the Copy Checks status.

1. Identify project in #checks_fhs Slack Channel via “FHS 1st round check” workflow submissions

2. Claim 1st round check

   a) Set an emoji onto the Slack workflow to signal that a copy checker has claimed / is working on the 1st round check.

3. Navigate to AirTable card

   a) Click AT Link provided in Slack workflow

   • Note that a site project that’s ready for first round check will first be tagged in the “First Round Check” status. The FHS team will check the website for errors / best practices in this step before changing the status to “Copy Checks”.

   • Once the status is moved to “copy checks” and the “SEO Pre-sweep Task” field says “completed” the content owner can add their name to the “assigned” field and begin their copy check.

4. CHECKS PROCESS VARIES BASED ON TIER – please check the AirTable card for the client’s tier before proceeding:

   a) Small Business (SB) (Tiers 0-1)

   • No heading check on foundational pages
   • Activity pages – Most popular activity page only (labeled by “most popular” badge)
     1. Summary, description/headline length
     2. Spot check 2 other activities
   • Homepage

   b) Mid Market (MM) (Tiers 2-3)

   • Tier 2

     1. H1 & H2 on all foundational pages
     2. H1 & H2 on all category pages

     3. Activity pages – 50% of activity pages, maximum 5 (including “most popular” badge)

        a) Summaries, description/headline length

        b) **Sites with all similar activities that are hard to individually rank (rentals mainly) – only check category pages

     4. Homepage

   • Tier 3

     1. H1 & H2 on all foundational pages
     2. H1 & H2 on all category pages

     3. Activity pages – 75% of activity pages, maximum 10 (including “most popular” badge)

        a) Summaries, description/headline length

        b) **Sites with all similar activities that are hard to individually rank (rentals mainly) – only check category pages

     4. Homepage

   c) Enterprise (ENT) (Tiers 4-5)

   • Check all

5. Getting started

   a) Look over SEO check on Airtable for notes on copy and keywords.

   b) Look over pre-sweep to make sure keywords are relevant and ready to implement.

   c) Get familiar with the company/site by checking out about section, location, and any other relevant info. Answer the “who, what, why, where” of the business so you know where they’re located, what they offer, and anything else that sets them apart.

   d) Login to FH.me WordPress site backend.

   e) Starting with the homepage, keep one tab open with the website front-end and one with the WordPress backend.

   f) Using the front-end as a guide, go through the headings and copy of the site to check for grammar and style errors based on the FHS guide.

6. Homepage

   a) Look for opportunities to implement keywords for the given page from the SEO pre-sweep, especially in the heading and about us section.

   • Expand upon any copy that is unclear or needs more relevant information.

   b) Heading / hero unit answers the “who, what, why, where” of the business

   c) Make sure the homepage layout is logical, including menus, etc.

   • Check the menus for capitalization, spelling and logic (wrong categorization / groupings).

   d) Check for copy errors.

7. All Activity / Category pages varies based on tier, follow tier breakdown process above

   a) After checking the homepage, move onto category and all activity pages

   • Sweep over the frontend, making sure they have:

     1. Copy is optimized

        a) Keywords from SEO pre-sweep present in heading.

        b) A short paragraph of copy at the top with relevant keywords from pre-sweep.

     2. A broad description of the activities offered on the page.

     3. Check copy for errors.

8. Single activity pages varies based on tier, follow tier breakdown process above

   a) First sweep over the front end, making sure the headings are optimized with keywords, the activity name is correct throughout the copy and that copy contains keywords from the pre-sweep.

   b) Make sure the summary copy is different from the activity page description and includes relevant keywords. Ensure activity summaries are enticing and consistent in length.

   c) Check pricing tab for common capitalization issues – make consistent throughout.

   d) Check taxonomies for capitalization issues and make them consistent..

   e) Check copy for errors.

9. Foundational pages varies based on tier, follow tier breakdown process above

   a) Contact page

   • Switch “Contact Us” to “Contact (name of company)” then add a short intro graph with relevant keywords, company name, location, and CTA to “book online” then reach out with any questions.

   b) About / other informational pages

   • Change “About Us” to “About (company name)” and optimize headings and copy with keywords.

   • For informational pages, focus more on clarity of copy and user experience than keywords.

   • Tier 0-2 – ignore excessive foundational pages that don’t contribute to booking flow.

     1. Ignore anything labeled as “Call to Book” (make sure the dashboard item isn’t in the process of getting built first).

   • Tier 3+ – provide a grammar style check that’s focused on a good user experience.

   • Add any relevant keywords from pre-sweep.

   • Check copy for errors.

10. Final overview

    a) Check page titles and meta descriptions / title tags on the backend of “all pages” and “all activities”.

    • Keywords and location in titles

    • Clear message

    • CTA (“Book now” / “Book with us today!” etc.) and keywords in meta description (no need to stuff though)

      1. Make sure CTA is sentence case (not all caps).

    b) Is it easy to gather the “who, what, where, why” from the site?

    c) Make sure changes implemented on the backend are visible on the front-end of the site.

    d) Leave any relevant notes and questions for WCS in Copy Checks form

    • Things that need clarification, unsure of how to edit suggestions, etc.

      1. Do I have questions about activities the site doesn’t answer?

11. Airtable

    a) Fill in all necessary / required fields within the copy checks form

    b) When filling out the Copy checks form, go back into AirTable and make sure that the Copy check form has attached to the card (sometimes reloading the page helps). The form should populate on the project card for the Web Content Specialist to review any feedback.

12. Change status to “Checks Feedback” and assign the WCS in AirTable’s “assigned” field

This help doc is specific to the SEO team go-live responsibilities and processes only. You can find the full process involving the onboarding team / WCSs in this SEO Go-Live Sweep Process help doc.

Below are summaries of the responsibilities, followed by detailed steps.

1. Validate that the SOPHI SEO processed redirects for a new site properly within the pre-sweep document, then once that’s confirmed, make sure that the SOPHI SEO properly added the redirects to the new site.
2. Also make sure that the pre-sweep has been implemented correctly onto the site.
3. The SOPHI SEO will run a tech audit once the site is live and will only reach out to the project’s designated SEO specialist if they need help resolving any issues / have questions.

Part 1 – Redirect Check

1. Within live check workflow in #checks_fhs slack channel, the SEO Specialist who completed the SEO Pre Sweep check for a particular site project will be re-tagged in the live check. Once the SOPHI SEO has done the go-live sweep, they will tag the SEO specialist in the checks thread, signaling them to hop on and do their check just before go-live.

2. Next, navigate to the pre-sweep linked within the AT card from the workflow. Within the pre-sweep, visit the “FH.ME URL MATCHING TAB” to check if any URLs changed using the “Needs Redirect” function (column E). To do this we need to match the URL structure of Column A to Column D using the following steps:

   a) Highlight FH.me (all of column column D), and click edit > find and replace

   b) Use the find and replace function to get the Second Level Domain (SLD) and Top Level Domain (TLD) of the URLs matched up.

   • E.g. if the URLs in column A end in “.com” and URLs in column D end in “fareharbor.me/”, Find “fareharbor.me/” and replace with “.com”

   • Once you have the SLD and TLD matched, then click Replace all

   • Now you can see which pages need a redirect in the “Needs Redirect?” (colum E)

3. Located within the same pre-sweep, visit the “Redirects Tab” that the WCS created and verify that the pages that needed redirects received redirects, and that they are formatted correctly

   a) CORRECT REDIRECT SYNTAX: no column headers, column A contains relative URL (e.g. /contact/) and column B contains absolute URLs (e.g. https://fareharbor.com/contact/)

4. Finally, visit the FH.site URL, log in to the back and and visit the redirects section. Here you need to verify that the redirects from the “Redirects Tab” in the presweep were properly added to the backend of the site.

   a) If it is a short list of redirects, you should be able to scan and verify this by eye

   b) If it is a long list, or you want to be extra thorough:

   • Export the redirects from the backend as a csv.

   • Go back to the pre-sweep document, create a new tab, and import the csv you just downloaded to check that the redirects match the redirects you previously validated. You can use the “Needs Redirect?” formula to validate.

5. If there are any issues with the redirects in the site, you should correct them within the backend of the FH.site, and make an update with the correct redirect in the “Redirects” tab in the pre sweep.

   1. If there are no redirects that could mean:
      1. There was no live site previously
      2. The URL structure is the same for all pages on the new site vs the old site
      3. The client is changing to a new domain (in this case, the PC is responsible for setting up redirect rules in Cloudflare)
   2. Potential red flags/things to look out for:
      1. There should be no homepage redirect (/ as the source and domain.com as the target)
      2. There should be no redirects with the same url structure in the target and source URLs

6. Now that you’ve validated that the redirects are correct and have been uploaded to the site correctly, you will need to double check that the recommendations that were given during the initial SEO pre-sweep check have been implemented it onto the site.

Part 2 – Pre Sweep Implementation Check

1. Review the preview site and compare make sure that the “page optimizations” tab in the pre-sweep matches what’s on the site before go-live
   1. Optimized URLs / site structure
   2. Double check that recommendations that were given during the initial pre-sweep check made it onto the site (or that the SOPHI SEO left a comment with a reason why they didn’t apply certain recommendations).
2. Once you’ve validated that the pre-sweep recommendations from the SEO pre-sweep check have been implemented onto the site, comment on the SEO go-live sweep workflow that the SEO check is complete and tag the PC saying “Site is ready to go live!”

Part 3 – SEMRush Tech Audit Check

The SOPHI SEO will run the tech audit after the site goes live. The SEO specialist on the project will only be looped back in if they are having issues resolving any errors/warnings.