hands on wordpress seo mozinar - june 4, 2013

Hands On Answers To The Most Asked WordPress Ques6ons

By Dan Shure

Join us on Twi2er at #Mozinar Ques8ons or problems? Email [email protected]

WordPress – Happy 10th Birthday!

http://ma.tt/2013/05/dear-wordpress/

Congrats To Moz

This is the first Tuesday Mozinar on the new Moz! (didn’t plan that – but cool!)

I’m Dan.

Evolving SEO – Owner Moz Associate

I’m Dan.

Evolving SEO – Owner Moz Associate

www.evolvingseo.com

@dan_shure

Resources.

Set Up WordPress For SEO Success – Dan Shure (me) http://moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success

Advanced WordPress SEO (Mozinar) – Nick Herinckx http://moz.com/webinars/advanced-wordpress-seo

Top 100 WordPress Resources http://whdb.com/blog/2012/top-100-resources-for-wordpress-tips-tricks-and-tutorials/

WordPress Codex http://codex.wordpress.org

No Plugin Will “SEO Optimize” Your Site For You.

Plugins Do Something With Forms & Checkboxes You Would Normally Have To Code.

Have a test site or two where you can break a few things and experiment.

URL Structure – Architecture Matters

Source: www.home-‐desinging.com

URL Structure – Architecture Matters

Source: someone in need of help

Don’t let your site become a franken-house.

URL Structure – Three Site Setups

1. Blog

2. Site w/Blog In It

3. Site w/Blog In It + Special Section/Pages

URL Structure – Blog

Page URL Content

Home site.com Recent post excerpts

Pages site.com/page-‐name/ Page content

Posts site.com/2013/05/31/post-‐name/ Individual posts

Category Archives site.com/category/name/ Post excerpts

Tag Archives site.com/tag/name/ Post excerpts

Date Archives site.com/2013/05/ Post excerpts

Author Archives don’t use unless custom

Site where blog is 80% or more of all content. Very few ‘pages’.

URL Structure – Site w/Blog In It

Page URL Content

Home site.com Sta8c Homepage


Child Pages site.com/page-‐name/child-‐page/ Page nested under parent

Blog site.com/blog/ Recent Post Excerpts

Posts site.com/blog/2013/05/31/post-‐name/ Individual posts

Category Archives site.com/blog/name/ Post excerpts

Tag Archives site.com/blog/tag/name/ Post excerpts

Date Archives site.com/blog/2013/05/ Post excerpts


Very common small business setup. The main content of the site is static pages, and a blog is within it.

URL Structure – Site w/Blog Plus Special Pages/Sections

Page URL Content

Home site.com Sta8c Homepage


Child Pages site.com/page-‐name/child-‐page/ Page nested under parent

Blog site.com/blog/ Recent Post Excerpts

Posts site.com/blog/2013/05/31/post-‐name/ Individual posts

Category Archives site.com/blog/name/ Post excerpts

Tag Archives site.com/blog/tag/name/ Post excerpts

Date Archives site.com/blog/2013/05/ Post excerpts


Special Sec8on site.com/news/ News excerpts

News Ar8cles site.com/news/2013/06/01/ar8cle-‐name/ Individual Ar8cle

These will be your larger and more complex sites. You might have two blogs, or a news section (which functions like a blog) or an artist portfolio.

URL Structure – Implementation

Let’s go from franken-house to nice house.

Setting Up URL Structure

Site Type Homepage Displays As

Permalink Custom SeCngs

Op6onal Category Base

Yoast Permalink SeCngs Category

Blog Latest posts Day and name* Leave blank Unchecked

Site w/Blog Sta8c Page Day and name* Leave blank Checked

Site, Blog, Special Sta8c Page Day and name* Leave blank Checked

*Day and name = /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

Crawling WordPress Sites

http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/

Crawling WordPress – Start With A Wide Net

This will crawl everything. Careful with really large sites.

Crawling WordPress – Start With A Wide Net

These are settings under Configure->Spider

Crawling WordPress – Cast A Realistic Net

These are “normal” crawl settings. Good to get a feel for how Google is likely spidering your site.

Crawling WordPress – Not Done Yet

Crawling WordPress – Get A “Clean Crawl”

Goal: Get a “clean crawl” we can export of just actual URLs of content – pages, posts, categories, etc.


We need to weed out this junk!!


Use excludes on /wp-content/ to start Surround anything with .* to exclude from crawl.

Crawling WordPress – Go Here For More

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/screaming-frog-guide

Migrating From All In One To Yoast

(Or from most other SEO Plugins). http://bit.ly/toyoast

Migrating From All In One To Yoast

Basic Steps (full instructions in video). http://bit.ly/toyoast

1.  “Snapshot” Yoast Se^ngs

2.  Install & Ac8vate Yoast

3.  Match Yoast se^ngs to old plugin se^ngs so site looks the same.

4.  Decide to use Yoast’s Sitemap

5.  Import Old data into Yoast

6.  Once everything looks the same as it did before, then you can make the changes.

WordPress Tags

We get this question all of the time.

WordPress Tags

Should we index tags?

WordPress Tags

(don’t index tags)

NO

WordPress Tags


But Dan…

WordPress Tags


WordPress Tags – If Already Indexed

http://www.evolvingseo.com/2012/08/10/clean-sweep-yo-tag-archives-now/


To leave only a few tags indexed that still get traffic (short of 301ing them to a specific post etc)


Edit that specific tag and you can override global setting with Yoast.

Use Google Analytics For WordPress

http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

Analytics – Basic Settings


Entering UA code accomplishes same thing as normal manual JS installation.


Why not.


We’ll need that.


Help out @yoast.

Analytics – Custom Variables


Ya know… THESE!


These work pretty well.

Analytics – Ignore Users

Important.


Selected Role & Higher Are Not Tracked In Analytics


(Your Copywriter)

Use WP Super Cache

http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/

Need Convincing On Importance Of Site Speed?


Need Convincing On Importance Of Site Speed?


SEO, Site Performance – Jon Coleman, REI http://www.slideshare.net/jcolman/seo-site-speed-and-battlestar-galactica-searchfest-2012-11735155

How We Made Portent.com Really Freakin’ Fast – Ian Laurie, CEO http://www.portent.com/blog/design-dev/how-we-made-portent-com-really-freaking-fast.htm

Improving UX Through Front End Performance – Lara Swanson, A List Apart http://alistapart.com/article/improving-ux-through-front-end-performance

Use WP Super Cache

All of what you need is in the “advanced” tab.

Use WP Super Cache

Follow this for more details: http://www.maxminzer.com/how-to-install-and-setup-wp-super-cache/

Use WP Super Cache

Check: you should see code at very bottom of HTML

Help!! Duplicate Content In Crawl Report!

(Cute cat picture promised).


Yoast->Titles/Meta->General


Just check that box.

Prevent Images Being Indexed On Their Own URLs

Example.


See that URL?


Prevent at the time the image is added to the page/post.


Four Options.


Custom URL – If you want to link to another post or something.


Media File – to the image file itself (ie: simple ‘enlarge’ function)


Attachment Page – THIS IS THE CULPRIT.


None – you will not be able to click image at all.

Image URLs - If It’s Too Late

Whoops. 69 Image Pages Indexed.


If they are ?attachment use Webmaster Tools URL Parameter Settings.


Noindex media under Titles/Meta->Post Types w/Yoast Plugin

Schema.org In WordPress

http://wordpress.org/plugins/schema-creator/

Content & Editorial Help

Search interest for “content marketing” www.google.com/insights/search/


Use the editorial calendar plugin http://wordpress.org/plugins/editorial-calendar/


Share your drafts with anyone http://wordpress.org/plugins/shareadraft/

Content – Q&A Forum Plugin

http://wordpress.org/plugins/question-and-answer-forum/

Follow.

http://wordpress.org/plugins/question-and-answer-forum/

https://twitter.com/yoast - Yoast

https://twitter.com/perishable - Jeff Star

https://twitter.com/paulund_ - Paulund

https://twitter.com/smashingmag - Smashing Magazine

Q&A.

www.evolvingseo.com

@dan_shure

Email: [email protected] TwiLer: @dan_shure

Website: www.evolvingseo.com

Find this recorded #Mozinar and slide deck at hLp://moz.com/webinars very soon!

hands on wordpress seo mozinar - june 4, 2013

Technology

page page

dont index

url structure

parent blog

wordpress

crawling wordpress

duplicate

prevent images