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

crawling how search engines discover content

image credit

indexing how search engines store content

image credit

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

crawl errors

image credit

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