technical seo - an introduction to core aspects of technical seo best-practise
Post on 14-Sep-2014
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Technical SEO with
#DigitalMarketingShow
Who dat SEO Chicks? Lisa Myers: Founder & CEO of Verve Search + Founder SEOChicks.com
Nichola Stott Founder & MD of TheMediaFlow + SEO Chicks blogger Hannah Smith Principal Consultant, Distilled + SEO Chicks Blogger
Jackie Hole SEO & PPC Consultant /Owner 22M + SEO Chicks Blogger
Judith Lewis Head of Search, Beyond + SEO Chicks Blogger
Bridget Randolph Consultant , Distilled + SEO Chicks Blogger
Technical SEO Elements
• Crawling and indexing • Common but “lethal” Technical issues • International Domain Strategy • Mobile SEO • Large Site Migration • Structured Data mark-up • Tools we love
@SEOChicks #DigitalMarketingShow
Crawling & Indexing Hannah Smith @hannah_bo_banna
if your content is
not crawled
it will
not be indexed
if your content is
not indexed
it will
not rank
image credit
do you have
indexation issues?
common issues
poor architecture image credit
aim for just 3 to 4 navigation levels
so any given page is
just 4 or 5 clicks from the
homepage
duplicate content (or substantially similar content)
image credit
every page should have
unique content
or rel=canonical
Lisa will explain
how…
Common but “lethal” Technical Issues Lisa Myers @LisaDMyers
Canonicalisation
Canonicalisation is the process of choosing
one URL when there are several choices! Canonical URL = Preferred URL
Multiple URLs – Same Content
Potential Link Dilution
Transferring “Link Juice”
http://www.vervesearch.com
http://vervesearch.com
http://vervesearch.com/index.php
Increased Link Authority
982 Links Canonical URL http://www.vervesearch.com
=
How to fix it
You have options:
- Use 301 (permanent) redirect - Canonical meta tag
301 redirects
This is a permanent redirect that: Redirects human visitors Redirects search engine
spiders 302 redirects (temporary redirects) on the
other hand will ONLY redirect human visitors and
not carry “link juice”.
Canonical Meta Tag In the HTML of all duplicate URLs insert a
code like this:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.canonicalURLhere.com/” />
This code tells the search engine spiders
that all link authority should be allocated to the canonical URL. Does not redirect VISITORS!
Nike
- JUST DO IT!
clucking bell
Tools to diagnose
• Manually check non www
• 301 redirect checker
• Use Open Site Explorer to check link values www.opensiteexplorer.com or
• MajesticSEO www.majesticseo.com
pagination - when 1 becomes 100s
Pagination Issues
The system of which pages are numbered: An article divided into several pages Forum thread Category/group of products
Solutions for Pagination Issues
Rel=“next” or Rel=“prev” (Google’s official guide to these) Or “View all” page option
International Domain Strategy Jackie Hole @JackieHole
International Domain Strategy
• Domain Structure • Server Location • Countries or Languages? • Local / Global Content • Translation / Native Input • Link Building • Regional Design /
Usability
Considerations to International SEO Strategy.
Domain Names
• www.mywebsite.com gTLD
• www.mywebsite.is ccTLD
Top Level Domains (TLDs)
Domain Structure
• www.mywebsite.com/en • www.mywebsite.com/jp • www.mywebsite.com/es
Domain Directories
Pros: One Domain, Link Authority, Cost
Cons: Load Speeds, Geolocalisation signals, Complex
Domain Structure
• www.brandsite.co.uk • www.brandsite.fr • www.brandsite.ca
Separate TLD’s
Pros: Local IP, SERP Recognition, Relevancy, Localised branding
Cons: Diluted Authority, Increased SEO Costs, Brand Consistency
Domain Structure
• en.brandsite.com • de.brandsite.com • es.brandsite.com
Subdomains
Pros: … Cons: Authority does not flow between subdomains, more work
Domain Variations
• Purchase ALL of them
• www.brandsite.in taken? • Other variations can hurt
your brand and confuse customers www.brand-site.in
Prevent Future Headaches
Markup for Multilingual Content
hreflang element
• Multilingual / Multi-regional • Different Country – Same Language • Duplicate Content Issues • Serve Appropriate Landing Pages
Markup for Multilingual Content
rel="alternate" hreflang="x“
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-gb" hreflang="en-gb" /> <link rel="alternate"
href="http://example.com/en-us" hreflang="en-us" /> <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/" hreflang="x-default"
/>
• http://example.com/en-gb: For English-speaking users in the UK • http://example.com/en-us: For English-speaking users in the USA • http://example.com/: The homepage shows users a country
selector and is the default page for users worldwide
Hreflang Tools
www.internationalseomap.com/hreflang-tags-generator/
www.themediaflow.com/resources/tools/href-lang-tool/
International Domain Tips • Make things obvious – one language
nav/content • Use robots.txt to block crawling/auto translate • Different Language Content on Separate URL • Avoid auto re-direct for language versions • Use Geo-Location Settings in Webmaster Tools • Buy ALL Domains • Tie up Local Info • Server Location
Mobile Strategy – Bridget Randolph @BridgetRandolph
Mobile isn’t separate.
• 77% of mobile searches happen near a PC. – Source: Google Databoard
• People use devices interchangeably. • Your website needs to be mobile-friendly.
3 approaches: • responsive
– rearranges the layout
• dynamic serving – serves different HTML on same URL
• separate mobile subdomain – e.g. m.domain.com
SEO considerations for mobile sites
• Responsive design: – you don’t need to do anything extra.
• Dynamic serving:
– use a vary HTTP header
Separate mobile site?
5 common pitfalls (and solutions) • Duplicate content issues: use ‘switchboard tags’ on pages which
duplicate desktop content
• Slow site speed: use Google’s Pagespeed Insights tool to check your site
• Irrelevant redirects: redirect to the most relevant mobile page, don’t redirect everything to the mobile homepage
• One-way redirects: use two-way redirects by user agent – but make sure users can override it (if links are used, they should point
to most relevant version, rather than homepage)
• Interstitial pop-up ads: instead, use a banner at the top of the page
Large Site Migration Judith Lewis @JudithLewis
How do you migrate something like this…
…to something like this…
…without lots of this?
PLANNING
http://landp-ifa.co.uk.gridhosted.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/services_planning-e1361898902182.jpg
Migrating - What We Did First… • Mapped the old site • Determined the IA of the new site • Set rules on what URLs could and could not change and
why based on MOZ page strength analysis • Mapped the inbound links on the old site for contacting • Mapped the dozens of domains bought to prevent others
buying/using them or which had been used in the past • Determined what wasn’t moving to new site and the
impact of loss of content • Created a .htaccess file in preparation for the move • Set Screaming Frog against the old site & site on staging • Set up Webmaster Tools on Google
Migrating - What We Did Then… • All content uploaded on to new CMS using new tagging
rules • All images uploaded to new CMS with new naming
rules • Stopped auto-population of meta description • New analytics account launched along side old one • Set Screaming Frog against new site to check 404, 301,
302, 500 response codes • Fixed 404s mainly resulting from typos • Automated sitemap • Blocked crawling undesirable pages
Structured Data Mark-Up – Nichola Stott
@NicholaStott
Why?
• Semantic learning & understanding • Often generates a rich snippet (in
SERPs) • Much more real-estate (in-SERP) • Much higher CTR
How?
• Schema (convention and protocol) • Alone or in combination with other
micro-data (microformats, RDFa)
prepTime
cookTime
Help • http://Schema.org
• http://Microformats.org • https://developers.google.com/webmasters/richsnippets/ • http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets • http://schema-creator.org/ • http://www.microdatagenerator.com/
Tools We Love
Technical SEO Tools We Love
• Screaming Frog (software, free & paid) • Ayima Redirect Path (chrome plugin) • WooRank (chrome plugin) • DeepCrawl (Web, paid) • OpenSiteExplorer and/or MajesticSEO
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