Magento is SEO friendly shop engine that allows you to get more traffic from search engines. However it is very important to configure Magento SEO features correctly from very beginning.

In this article we gathered all default Magento SEO features. Use this article as SEO guide or SEO checklist for every new store you launch, and your Magento will be search engine optimized.

Magento SEO checklist

SEO features Description
General
1. Store name Don't forget to enter your store name. Store name is used in different parts of Magento
System -> Configuration -> General -> Store information -> Store name
2. Home page title and meta data Don't forget to enter "Page title" and "Meta data" for your CMS pages, including Home page
CMS -> Pages -> Home
3. Logo image Alt description Alt description of the store image logo
System -> Configuration -> Design -> Header -> Logo Image Alt
4. SEO Friendly URLs (SEF URLs) SEO Friendly URLs is one of the most important features of every eCommerce store, don't forget to enable and test it
System -> Configuration -> Web -> Search Engines Optimization -> Use Web Server Rewrites -> "Yes"
Base URL
5. Unsecure and secure base URLs Enter HTTP and HTTPS path to your store, e.g. http://www.example.com/store/ or https://www.example.com/store/
System -> Configuration -> Web -> Unsecure -> Base URL
System -> Configuration -> Web -> Secure -> Base URL
6. Auto-redirect to Base URL Use only one WWW or non-WWW URL for your store. I.e. redirect from http://example.com/store/ to http://www.example.com/store/
System -> Configuration -> Web -> URL options -> Auto-redirect to Base URL -> "301 redirect (Moved permanently)"
Products and categories
7. Products meta data and URL key Your products should have SEO friendly URL keys and correct meta data values
Catalog -> Manage Products -> [Product] -> General -> URL Key
Catalog -> Manage Products -> [Product] -> Meta data
8. Categories meta data and page title Enter URL Key, page title, Meta information for each category
Catalog -> Manage Categories -> [Category]
9. Canonical link for categories and products Enter URL Key, page title, Meta information for each category
System -> Catalog -> Catalog -> Search Engine Optimizations -> Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Categories
System -> Catalog -> Catalog -> Search Engine Optimizations -> Use Canonical Link Meta Tag For Products
10. Structure of product URLs Preferred structure of product URLs
System -> Catalog -> Search Engine Optimizations -> Use Categories Path for Product URLs -> "Yes"
Sitemap
11. Google sitemap Google sitemap configuration
System -> Google Sitemap
12. Magento sitemap Magento sitemap configuration settings
System -> Catalog -> Sitemap -> Use Tree Like Category Sitemap -> "Yes"
System -> Catalog -> Sitemap -> Search Engine Optimizations -> Autogenerated Site Map -> Enable
Advanced
13. Remove SID from Magento URLs Be careful, this feature allows customers to stay logged in when switching between different multi-stores
System -> Configuration -> Web -> Session Validation Settings -> Use SID on Frontend -> No
14. Permanent redirect rules Permanent redirect rules for renamed products or categories
System -> Catalog -> Search Engine Optimizations -> Create Permanent Redirect for URLs if URL Key Changed -> "Yes"
Default values
15. Default SEO values Default values for title, Meta tags and robots directives
System -> Configuration -> Design -> HTML head -> Default Title
System -> Configuration -> Design -> HTML head -> Default Description
System -> Configuration -> Design -> HTML head -> Default Keywords
System -> Configuration -> Design -> HTML head -> Default Robots -> "INDEX, FOLLOW"
16. Default title separator Default page title separator on storefront
System -> Catalog -> Search Engine Optimizations -> Page Title Separator -> "-"
17. Default product URL suffix Default product URL suffix for all pages
System -> Catalog -> Search Engine Optimizations -> Product URL Suffix -> ".html"
System -> Catalog -> Search Engine Optimizations -> Category URL Suffix -> ".html"