Intermediate SEO in Webflow: What to Do After the Basics

Intermediate Webflow SEO

Webflow SEO covers the measures that help Google read your site correctly: keyword targeting, proper HTML tags, image alt text, internal links, sitemap and RSS registration, and load-speed optimization.

Hi, I'm Masato — I run a business specialized in Webflow. This article covers one of the questions I'm asked most: SEO in Webflow, at the intermediate level.

Basic SEO settings were covered in our SEO settings walkthrough; this article collects what to do after the basics are done.

Intermediate SEO in Webflow

The full checklist — do all of these:

1. Set your keywords
2. Use HTML tags correctly
3. Give images alt text
4. Set titles and descriptions
5. Connect internal links
6. Set up the sitemap
7. Set up RSS
8. Speed up page loads

Set your target keywords

SEO starts with one question: which keyword is this targeting? Without a keyword decided at writing time, SEO isn't possible. Decide first, then write.

Use HTML tags correctly so Google reads you right

Because Webflow builds by clicking elements in, sections, links, and H1–H6 often end up scattered with no relation to their purpose.

Start with three disciplines: delete pointless link tags, delete Heading tags that aren't actually headings, and respect heading order. And put your target keyword into the headings (H1 and H2 are enough to start).

Unsure how an element should be used? Google the tag — Webflow names its elements after real HTML, so answers are one search away.

Titles and descriptions

Set these in each page's settings, keywords included. CMS pages can auto-populate them from CMS fields.

Give images names

Add alt text — Webflow warns you when images lack it. The right name is the answer to "what is this a picture of?" Including your keyword is good too.

Connect internal links

Add a recommended-articles block at the bottom of posts, or picks in a sidebar, linking articles to each other. You're recommending to users — and to Google at the same time, giving its crawler a path through the site.

Sitemap

Webflow's settings → SEO section generates the sitemap. Register it with Google Search Console; the URL is your site's address plus /sitemap.xml.

RSS

Scroll down from the same place you set CMS titles and descriptions to add an RSS feed. Register it with Google alongside the sitemap.

Speed up page loads

Mostly this means shrinking image and video files. Webflow supports WebP, so convert every image. The CMS has no built-in conversion, so use an external converter such as Squoosh for CMS images.

[2026 update] Beyond intermediate — what we actually do on our own blog

An update from the other side of this checklist: our own blog (this site) was fully rebuilt keeping the domain and every URL — and by the next day nearly every article's index position held. Our main keyword "webflow" still holds around #3 in Japan. Rebuilding a site while defending rankings is possible.

On top of that, four things we run in 2026:

• Key-takeaways boxes, FAQs (FAQPage structured data), and one-sentence definitions on every article (for AI search and AI Overviews — AIO)
• An llms.txt (a site guide for AI crawlers)
• Merging articles with identical search intent into one with 301 redirects (fixing keyword cannibalization)
• Changing the updated date only when an article is genuinely updated (an update date readers and Google can trust)

None of this needs special tools — all of it works in Webflow.

The implementation details and the numbers that moved are running as an AIO measurement series — early access goes out through the newsletter (Japanese).