How-to

Step-by-step procedures for the jobs a website actually needs

64 procedures across technical SEO, performance, accessibility, security, legal pages and hiring. Each states what you need first, what each step accomplishes, and how to check it worked.

These 64 pages are ordered procedures, not explanations. Each one lists what you need before starting, gives numbered steps with the outcome of each, and ends by telling you how to verify the change actually took effect on the live site.

Technical SEO

18
How to check if AI crawlers can reach your site Fetch your home page with each AI crawler user-agent and read the status code. Every line should return 200. A 403 means an e… 6 steps → How to check what a crawler actually sees on your page View the page source rather than the Elements panel, and count the words. DevTools shows the DOM after JavaScript has run; vi… 5 steps → How to submit a sitemap to Google Verify your site in Search Console, open Sitemaps in the left menu, enter the sitemap path and submit. The sitemap must conta… 7 steps → How to verify Search Console by DNS Add a TXT record to your domain’s DNS with the value Google provides, then confirm in Search Console. DNS verification surviv… 7 steps → How to find orphan pages on your site Crawl your site starting from the home page, list every URL the crawl reached, and compare that against your sitemap. Anythin… 6 steps → How to audit your internal links Crawl the site, count inbound internal links per page, and compare that against which pages you actually want to rank. Most s… 7 steps → How to fix a noindex tag left in production Remove the noindex, confirm it is gone from the live HTML rather than only from your source, then request indexing in Search … 7 steps → How to set up redirects for a site migration Crawl every URL currently returning 200, map each to its closest equivalent on the new site, and deploy them as single-hop 30… 8 steps → How to move a site from HTTP to HTTPS Install a certificate, fix every mixed-content reference, redirect all HTTP URLs to HTTPS in one hop, update canonicals and s… 7 steps → How to add structured data to a page Write a JSON-LD block describing what the page is, put it in a script tag, link the nodes with @id references, and validate w… 7 steps → How to add FAQ schema correctly Publish the questions and answers visibly on the page first, then mark them up as a FAQPage with matching text. Expect no Goo… 6 steps → How to set up Bing Webmaster Tools Sign in at bing.com/webmasters and import your verified properties from Google Search Console — it takes about two minutes an… 6 steps → How to create an XML sitemap Generate it from your build or CMS rather than writing it by hand, include only canonical indexable URLs that return 200, spl… 7 steps → How to write a robots.txt file Put it at the root of the domain, allow everything you want crawled, disallow only paths that genuinely should not be request… 7 steps → How to add hreflang tags correctly Add a link rel="alternate" hreflang element for every language or regional variant, including a self-reference, on every page… 7 steps → How to add breadcrumbs to a website Render a visible breadcrumb trail in a nav element with an ordered list, mark the current page with aria-current, and emit ma… 7 steps → How to recover from a search traffic drop Establish when it started and whether it is technical, algorithmic or seasonal before changing anything. Check for manual act… 7 steps → How to handle a Google manual action Read the notice in Search Console to see exactly what was flagged, fix the underlying cause completely rather than partially,… 7 steps →

Content

7
How to fix keyword cannibalisation Find queries where the ranking URL changes over time in Search Console, decide which page should own each term, then consolid… 6 steps → How to find keywords in Search Console Open Performance, set the date range to 12 months, enable the Average Position column, and sort by impressions. Queries with … 7 steps → How to build a topic cluster Choose one broad subject, write a pillar page covering it completely, then write spoke pages each covering one part in depth.… 7 steps → How to write an answer-first page Put a question-shaped heading at the top, answer it completely in 40 to 60 words directly beneath, then add the depth. The an… 7 steps → How to write a service page that converts Name the service the way buyers say it, state what it costs, say what is included and excluded, show proof, and give one clea… 8 steps → How to write meta titles and descriptions Write a title under about 60 characters with the primary keyword near the front, and a description under about 155 characters… 7 steps → How to consolidate duplicate pages Decide which page should survive, merge anything worth keeping into it, redirect the others to it with a 301, and update ever… 7 steps →

Local SEO

4
How to add LocalBusiness schema Add a LocalBusiness node with your name, address or service area, geo coordinates, opening hours and contact details — matchi… 7 steps → How to set up a Google Business Profile Claim the profile, verify it, choose the most specific correct primary category, declare honest service areas, and complete e… 7 steps → How to fix NAP inconsistency Decide the canonical version of your name, address and phone number, then update every place they appear until all are byte-i… 7 steps → How to ask customers for Google reviews Ask in person at the moment the work is finished, then follow immediately with a message containing a direct review link. Nev… 6 steps →

Ownership

3
How to check who owns your domain Run a WHOIS lookup and read the registrant field. It should name your business. If it names your developer, an agency, or a p… 6 steps → How to take a full site backup Export the files, the database and the DNS zone, store them somewhere your host does not control, and restore one to a test e… 7 steps → How to choose a domain name Pick something short, sayable over the phone, and spelled the way it sounds. Prefer your country code TLD for a local busines… 8 steps →

Performance

5
How to audit your page speed properly Run PageSpeed Insights and read the field data at the top before the lab score. Field data is what real visitors on real devi… 7 steps → How to fix a slow Largest Contentful Paint Identify which element is the LCP, then remove everything delaying it: preload it, stop lazy-loading it, serve it in a modern… 8 steps → How to stop layout shift on a page Set explicit width and height on every image and iframe, reserve space for anything injected after load, and never insert con… 7 steps → How to compress images for the web Resize to the largest dimension actually displayed, convert to AVIF or WebP with a JPEG fallback, and serve responsive sizes … 8 steps → How to reduce JavaScript on a page Measure what is actually shipping with the Coverage panel, remove libraries used for one feature, defer everything non-critic… 8 steps →

Accessibility

4
How to write good alt text Describe what the image conveys in the context it appears, in one sentence. Skip "image of" — the screen reader already says … 7 steps → How to run an accessibility audit Run an automated scanner to catch the mechanical failures, then test with a keyboard and a screen reader for the ones no tool… 8 steps → How to fix colour contrast failures Measure every text and control colour against its actual background with a contrast checker, then adjust lightness until it p… 8 steps → How to make a form accessible Give every field a real label element, mark required fields in text rather than colour alone, associate errors with their inp… 8 steps →

Build

7
How to add spam protection to a contact form Start with a honeypot field and a submission timing check — together they stop most automated spam, cost nothing and never in… 7 steps → How to move a site to new hosting Set the new host up completely and test it on a temporary address, lower your DNS TTL a day ahead, then switch the record. Do… 8 steps → How to upload a static site to cPanel Zip the built output, upload it to public_html through File Manager, extract it, and delete any default index file. The conte… 8 steps → How to set up analytics without cookies Use a privacy-respecting analytics tool that aggregates without identifying individuals, and you remove the consent banner al… 7 steps → How to test a website on a real phone Open the site on an actual mid-range phone over mobile data, not on desktop Chrome resized. Emulation gets the layout right a… 8 steps → How to set up a staging site Create a copy of the site on a separate subdomain or local environment, block it from search with both a noindex tag and pass… 7 steps → How to track conversions without cookies Use a server-side confirmation page as the conversion event and a cookieless analytics tool to count it. You get accurate tot… 6 steps →

Security

2
How to add security headers to a site Set five headers at the server or the CDN: a content security policy, a no-sniff directive, a referrer policy, strict transpo… 8 steps → How to set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC Publish an SPF record listing who may send as your domain, enable DKIM signing at your mail provider, then add a DMARC record… 7 steps →

Hiring

3
How to write a brief for a web developer State what the site must achieve, who it is for, what content exists, what must integrate, and how success will be measured. … 8 steps → How to choose between web developers Test their live work rather than reading their portfolio. Run three of their client sites through PageSpeed Insights, check w… 8 steps → How to review a website development quote Read what is excluded before what is included. Check for content, hosting, domain, SSL, post-launch support, revision limits … 8 steps →

E-commerce

2
How to plan an e-commerce product page Answer the buyer’s objections in order: what it is, whether it fits, what it costs delivered, when it arrives, and what happe… 8 steps → How to reduce cart abandonment Show the full cost including delivery before the checkout begins, allow guest checkout, cut the form to the fields you genuin… 8 steps →

Maintenance

2
How to keep a website maintained after launch Run a monthly cycle: apply updates on staging first, verify backups restore, check uptime and Core Web Vitals, review Search … 8 steps → How to find broken links on your site Crawl the site and check the status of every link, internal and external. Fix internal 404s immediately; for external ones, f… 7 steps →

Process

2
How to prepare content before a website build Write the copy for every page, gather photographs, and collect your legal and business details before the build starts. Conte… 7 steps → How to hand over a website to its owner Transfer every account into the owner’s name, hand over credentials in writing, confirm the intellectual property assignment,… 7 steps →

What makes something a how-to here

A genuine ordered procedure, with at least four steps, where each step is an action and a stated outcome. That is a build rule rather than an editorial preference — a subject that cannot be written that way fails the build and becomes a guide or a glossary entry instead.

The reason is that HowTo structured data describes a procedure. Wrapping it around a list of benefits is a structured-data violation and a common one, so the constraint is enforced where it cannot be forgotten.

Questions about these procedures

Are these written for beginners or developers?
For whoever has to do the job. Each one states what you need before starting and what each step accomplishes, so a business owner can follow the ones that need no code and a developer can skim to the command. Nothing assumes you already know the answer.
Why do some of these tell me the fix is not available?
Because sometimes it is not. The AI crawler procedure ends by saying that on most shared hosting the block is the provider’s rule and cannot be fixed from your account. A procedure that pretends otherwise wastes your afternoon.
Do you use these yourself?
These are the routines I run on client work, written down rather than invented for the page. Where a step exists because I got something wrong once — measuring contrast, retrying link checks — the page says so.

Want one of these done for you instead?

Send the brief and you get a reply within one business day — either questions, or a scoping call. If your project is not something I should take on, I will say so then.

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