technical seo best practices
TRANSCRIPT
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A practical guide to building SEO compliant websites
Presented By:
NISHANTH STEPHEN Digital Marketing & SEO Specialist 23rd September 2015
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A Bit About Me
NISHANTH STEPHEN • SEO Manager – Fairfax Media (March 2015 – Present)
• Junior SEO Manager – Razorfish Australia (November 2013 – February 2015)
• Digital Performance Analyst - iProspect Australia (March 2013 – October 2013)
• Web Developer & SEO Strategist - Big Picture Group (February 2011 – January 2013)
• Passion for Technical SEO • 4 Years Agency & Client Side Experience • Proud Member of Online Marketing Sydney
nishanthstephen
@nishanthstephen
+NishanthStephen
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Who Can Benefit From This Talk?
Every Persona Has A Different Goal
BUSINESS OWNERS MARKETING CONSULTANTS
WEB DEVELOPERS
If you are responsible for the development of your company’s website, this guide will help you deal with web developers, showing you the right questions to ask so that you are sure your site is built correctly and that you’re getting your money’s worth.
If you are an internal developer for a company or are part of a development agency, following this guide will help you create search-engine-friendly websites for all of your clients, potentially saving you from re writing code when your client brings in a web marketer to analyse the website later.
Whether you are consulting during the development stage or picking up the ball after the site is fully developed and rolled out, focusing on the issues noted here first will allow other optimisation and promotion activities to be far more effective.
INCREASE TRAFFIC GOT THE BEST IDEAS MAKE MONEY
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Let’s Stop Putting Money On the Table
“A metaphor referring to the eventual
consequences of poor or evolving
architecture or SEO problems &
dependencies within a website.”
…It can cost you a lot of
Technical Debt (if paraphrased)
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Let’s Stop Putting Money On the Table
Technical Debt – Why Does It Happen?
Doing things in a quick & dirty way (“…..just ship it”)
Small technical slip-ups lead to catastrophic effects on a website's search engine performance
Web developers have little experience in SEO and it is often given a low priority
Too much focus on design leads to misunderstanding of even the most simplistic technical SEO concepts
Size or position of a web development agency does not reflect quality of application build in terms of SEO
Worst offenders are usually proprietary platforms owned by the development agency themselves
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It’s All About That Base
Technical SEO Is The Foundation Of Organic Marketing
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It’s All About That Base
So Stop Building Links & Fix Your Website
Technical Issues Fixed
Historical development of a domain's visibility in search engines.
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Understand the important aspects of technical SEO & show you the right questions to ask
Help you make your website Search Friendly before you hire an SEO
Agenda
What’s In Store For Today
Look at things you can do to improve your website’s organic visibility through technical SEO
Not going to show many code examples – “Too Boring”
Hopefully have time to to run through some of your questions
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Domain & Hosting
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Domain & Hosting
Domain Structure
Protocol
Domain vs Sub-Domains
EMDs vs Branded
TLDs & cTLDs
http vs https • Consider using HTTPS encryption (its now a Ranking Factor) • Secure a valid SSL certificate
https://www.example.com vs https://example.com • Choose one format & 301 redirect the other to the preferred version • Commonly results in duplication issues if not chosen correctly • Decide on having an m. website or go Responsive
Keyword Rich vs Branded Domains • Strike a balance between brand friendly domain name & having a domain name that contains keywords • Avoid hyphens as they detract from credibility & can indicate spam • Keep domain names less than 15 characters & make it memorable
Domain Extensions (.com, .co.uk .com.au etc..) • Choose TLDs to match the location you wish to target • Avoid uncommon & low quality top-level domains (TLDs) such as .info, .cc, .ws, .name
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Domain & Hosting
Arranging Hosting for A Website
Potential hosting issues could affect your site if a wrong decision is made.
Location of the Server
Available Bandwidth Capacity & Limitations
Operating System & Supported Technology
Technical Support Offered By The Provider
Provides 99.9% Uptime Minimum
Avoid Cheap & Free Hosting Providers
Ideally Located In The Right Territory To Match TLD
Should Handle a Possible Overflow of Traffic
Compatible to the Technical Specifications
Known for Their Quality Services
Offers Load Balancing Facilities
Cheap is not always the best
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Website Architecture
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Website Architecture
Poor Information Architecture Affects A Site’s Organic Visibility
IA’s Goal – “Structure & Organisation of
your website which helps users achieve
their goals quickly.”
Identify your users’ goals and expectations
Give visitors the information they're looking for
• Are they in the right place? • Do I have what they are looking for? • Is there anything better I can offer? • What do I do if this isn’t what they wanted?
• Provide high-quality relevant content • Organise content in groups & follow a broad to narrow organisation • Let visitors know their options (links like “Related products” etc..) • Create a logical site architecture that reflects user intent & behaviour
Things to Remember
• Always avoid the “In My Opinion” approach • Do not deceive the search engines • SEO efforts should never conflict with IA best practices & vice versa • Search Engines care a lot a about “Engagement” so don’t break it
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Website Architecture
Information Architecture Outcome
Group content into groups to build the website’s IA
1 2
3
Do not place high converting pages several clicks away from the homepage
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Structuring URLs
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Structuring URLs
URLs Are The Bridges Between A Website & A Search Engine's Crawler
Readability - The more readable by humans, the better - Compelling enough to visitors seeking its content
1
Including target keywords is still best practice. - Results in keywords acting as link anchor texts
2
Avoid dynamic parameters when possible - Leads to duplicates & low CTRs (more on this later)
3
Keep URL length between 60 to 115 characters - Not a ranking factor but good for UX & social sharing
4
Match URLs to Page Topic: - Provides a sense of what the user might find on a web page
5
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Structuring URLs
URLs Are The Bridges Between A Website & A Search Engine's Crawler
Drop stop words where necessary - It’s ok till it makes sense
6
Use proper punctuation - Could break parsing of URLs in certain browsers
7
Fewer the folders, the better it is - Helps search engines to crawl web pages efficiently
8
Use hyphens & underscores as keyword separators 9
Be careful with case sensitivity & file extensions - Leads to duplicate content otherwise
10
Keyword stuffing and repetition are pointless - Makes the website look spammy to search engines
11
No need to repeat keywords
It’s common for developers to charge more for correcting existing platforms & generate user friendly URLs, so its important to decide URL structures from the start & maintain consistency.
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Accessibility
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Accessibility
Robots.txt
The robots.txt file tells search engine spiders which pages to crawl when they come across a website.
Useful for preventing certain directories, files or file types from being crawled by search engines.
Ensure the robots.txt file is correctly formatted
Ensure that the staging website is not crawled by search engines Tip: Use site:domain.com inurl:stage. –inurl:www to find if the test website is being indexed
Identify pages that represent real destinations for SEO & block all other publically available pages
Kicking your own website out of Search Engines is the biggest SEO mistake you can make.
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Code Optimisation
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Code Optimisation
Code Optimisation - Best Practices
Use Valid HTML/CSS Code - Not a ranking factor but helps in proper translation of source code by browsers & search engines
1
Separate Content from Presentation - Do not use inline styles within HTML code. - Always create a separate CSS files for styling
2
This will still work but is BAD PRACTICE
Do Not Block CSS & JS from Search Engines - These files allow search engines to decently render your website so don’t block them
3
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Code Optimisation
Code Optimisation - Best Practices
Do Not Hide Content Behind JS/CSS - Content hidden behind tabs or accordions will be devalued by Google - Pages may still rank but hidden content will not show up in the SERPs
4
Product description will not appear in search results thereby causing a drop in click through rates
Content is displayed only when the user clicks on this link
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Code Optimisation
Code Optimisation - Best Practices
Use Absolute Links for Navigation - Helps in mitigating duplicate version issues - Reduces the possibility of content being scrapped
6
<a href=“/category/product-page” >
<a href=“http://www.example.com/category/product-page” >
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Internal Links
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Internal Links
Internal Link Structure
Access to search engines to a crawlable website architecture 1
Help establish information hierarchy for the given website 2
Helps in spreading link juice (page rank) around a website 3
These pages are not crawled by the search engines
Links Accessible via Submission-Required Forms – Invisible to search engines
Hidden Links Only Accessible Through Internal Search – Crawlers don’t perform search to find links
Links on pages blocked via robots.txt
Links in Flash or Other Plug-Ins – Embedded links are invisible to search engines
Pages with Hundreds & Thousands of Links – Dilutes Link Juice
Links with in Un-Parseable Javascript or iFrames - Devalued based on the implementation
Things To Avoid
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Internal Links
Broken Links & 404 Errors
If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer
If you’re already working with a web developer
• Mention creation of 404 pages in your initial brief? • Ask if it is it included in the budget? • How will you stop broken links from occurring?
• Are you sure my site has no broken links? • Do you have a method to check for broken links? • Do you carry out these checks as standard practice? • What can be done to stop broken links from occurring?
If your site is live
• Test to see if a custom 404 page is implemented • Try to visit a URL that doesn’t exist • You should see a 404 error page that supports your branding
Next Steps
404 Pages
Broken Links
Lead to pages that no longer exist 1
Annoying for users & offer bad user UX 2
Cause users to loose trust in your brand 3
A 404 error is returned when a user tries to visit a URL that doesn’t exist.
1
Developer should create a custom 404 page to deliver the error message
2
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Page Speed
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Page Speed
Why Page Speed Optimisation Important for SEO?
Slow Pages Kill Conversions Slow Pages Affect Rankings
Slow Pages Affect Crawling & Indexation
Increase in page load speed can affect your revenue
Decrease in time spent downloading a page results in an increase in the number of pages crawled
Correlation between decrease in search rankings & increasing time to first byte.
If you are investing lots of time & money into acquiring the rankings you desire, you shouldn't be blowing it by having a slow website.
People Expect the Website to load in 2 secs
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Page Speed
Ways to Improve Page Speed
Minify Code (HTML/CSS/JS)
- Each tab, space, additional comma, line break & comment adds to the file size - Keep an original copy for the developers to work in & have them minify the code for the live website
Minimise File Requests
- The more request made slower the page load speed - Think about how to avoid using JS for effects or navigation and use plain HTML/CSS
Hmm…Can this menu be built using HTML/CSS?
Leverage Browser Caching
- Make the browser download & use a local copy of the files rather than reloading them each time - Set the “expires header” to a reasonable time (1yr atleast) if the website does not change frequently
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Page Speed
Ways to Improve Page Speed
Minimise Redirections
Optimise Images
Enable Compression
Use a CDN
- Do not let the visitors faces additional time waiting for the HTTP request-response cycle to complete
- Make sure that images are no larger than they need to be & they are in the right file format - Use CSS sprites to combine images into one large image that loads all at once & show only what’s required
- Reduce the size of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files that are larger than 150 bytes through Gzip compression
- Distribute the load of delivering content by using CDNs based on target geographical area
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Keyword Targeting
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Keyword Targeting
META DESCRIPTIONS PAGE HEADINGS
IMAGES ON PAGE CONTENT
PAGE TITLES
LINKS & ANCHOR TEXTS
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Keyword Targeting
Page Titles & Meta Descriptions
If you’re already working with a web developer
• Ensure that they are well versed in creating optimised page page title tags & meta descriptions • Request that they create unique title tags and descriptions for every page on your site • Ask that they check for missing & duplicate title tags & meta
descriptions before the site goes live.
If your site is live
• Check how title tags and meta descriptions appear in Google • Use the ‘site:’ modifier, followed immediately by the URL you wish to check • For example: site:http://www.example.com/web-design-services/
Next Steps
Issues can be corrected after launch, but for the best results it’s important to ensure best-practice title tags and descriptions are in place before Google indexes your site.
Place keywords close to the
start of the <title> tag
Separate relevant
keywords and variations with a hyphen ( - )
Keep the <title> tag under
55 characters
Descriptions should be 512 pixels or less (approximately 150 characters) long
Include strong call to actions
Include target keywords in descriptions
1
2
3
4
5
6
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Keyword Targeting
Headings & Sub Headings
Ask the developer to not use Heading tags just for styling purposes but follow the above hierarchy.
Help search engines make sense of the content on a page.
Ensure all pages use relevant keywords in H1 tags
1
2
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Keyword Targeting
Images
If you’re already working with a web developer
• Ask them questions relating to image tags and accessibility standards • Request them to write optimised alt tags for all images • Make sure that there are no broken images on your website
If your site is live
• Check a few images across your website to make sure image tags are properly implemented • If you don’t see ‘alt’ tags, or the associated text is not relevant to or descriptive of the images, ask your web developer or external SEO experts to properly optimise your images in line with SEO best practices.
Next Steps Good images can help improve the user experience especially on product-driven websites. But it’s important to think beyond the pretty pictures and consider search engines.
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Keyword Targeting
On Page Content
How Does Google define ‘quality content’?
Average text length of the top 30 pages increased by 25% since 2014 Top five ranking pages contain far fewer keywords in the body text
Make it relevant and readable - Focus on UX Think in terms of topics not keywords - Use Variations
‘Quality Content’ should keep the users engaged
Should be linkable & shareable
Should fulfil a demand & target single search intent
Provides authentic value beyond self promotion
Must stand apart from the competition
Must be uniquely available
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Duplicate Content
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Duplicate Content
How Do Search Engines Determine Duplicate Content
When content is
discovered by search
engines, they compare
to everything else that
was previously found
01 Discover 02 Discard
They then dissect
similar pages based on
inbound links &
content quality
03 Dissect
Lastly, they determine
which page they
consider as original
content
04 Determine
Group similar content
& then discard content
that was found
elsewhere on the
website
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Duplicate Content
Duplicate Content Causes & Examples
Product Variations
- http://www.example.com/product/iphone/gold/ - http://www.example.com/product/iphone/silver/
Sessions ID’s
- http://www.example.com/product/red-shoes - http://www.example.com/product/red-shoes?SESSID=4567
Tracking Parameters In URLs
- http://www.example.com/product/red-shoes - http://www.example.com/product/red-shoes?source=Sidebar
Order of Parameters
- http://www.example.com/product/?id=1&cat=2 - http://www.example.com/product/?cat=2&id=1
File Extensions
- http://www.example.com/product/red-shoes - http://www.example.com/product/red-shoes.html
URL Formats
- http://www.example.com/product/red-shoes - http://www.example.com/product/red-shoes/
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Duplicate Content
Solutions
301 Redirect
Duplicate Page Actual Page
rel=“canonical”
Actual Page
Duplicate Pages
1 2
Place this in the <head> tag of the actual page
Robots.txt 3
NOINDEX NOFOLLOW 4
rel=“next” & rel=“prev” 5
Place this in the <head> tag of the duplicate page
Ask your developer to use the right solution according to the issues discussed before
Block Duplicate Files or Folders
Avoid Paginated Duplicates
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Schema Markups
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Schema Markups
Helps you provide extra information that search engines need to understand your content
The users are shown better search results & you have a better experience on the web
Making The SEPRs Richer
It’s a simple markup language understood by major search engines
What Search Engine Crawlers See.
What Search Engines Display
Better UX leads to increased CTR = More Conversions & Revenue Increase
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Schema Markups
Use It To Achieve Intent Driven Search Results
Reviews & Ratings
Chef ‘s Name & Preparation Times
Testimonials
Upcoming Event Information
Videos
Breadcrumbs
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Perfectly Optimised Page
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Perfectly Optimised Page
Optimised Page Titles & Meta Description
Target Keyword in <h1> tag
Target Keyword in image alt attribute
Target Keyword within on page content
Testimonial Schema Markup
N.A.P Schema Markup
Target Keyword in Page URL
Clear Call To Actions
Links with Optimised Achor Texts
Ask your web developer to build your site like this!!
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Search Engine Inclusion
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Search Engine Inclusion
XML Sitemaps
XML Sitemaps are important because…
Consider which part of your entire site should be indexed by search engines
- Lists all the pages you want search engines to find - Helps to get the pages on the website crawled - It’s only a suggestion but a good suggestion
• Ensure the developer generates a valid XML sitemap to be submitted to the search engines
Next Steps
If you’re already working with a web developer
• Ask the developer to provide a list of all the URLs on the website
• Find the number of pages currently being indexed by search engines
• If you see far fewer or many more pages are indexed than the number of URLs in your site, then you have a problem
• Fix any issues & submit the XML sitemap to search engines
If your site is already live
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Resources
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Resources
Web Developer SEO Cheat Sheet
Download it Here --> http://bit.ly/1S5fiyo
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Resources
Preferred Reading
http://blog.codinghorror.com/paying-down-your-technical-debt/ https://moz.com/blog/whiteboard-friday-the-seo-fundamentals-pyramid https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2219759/multiple-domain-choice-seo-considerations-of-single-vs-multiple-domains https://moz.com/learn/seo/cctlds http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-your-domain-name-will-impact-seo-social-media-marketing/ http://dailyseoblog.com/cdn-seo/ http://melissamerriam.com/hosting-and-seo/ https://moz.com/blog/information-architecture-for-seo-whiteboard-Friday https://blog.kissmetrics.com/site-structure-enhance-seo/ http://www.coconutheadphones.com/website-architecture-for-seo-the-complete-guide/ http://searchengineland.com/seo-friendly-url-syntax-practices-134218 https://moz.com/blog/15-seo-best-practices-for-structuring-urls https://moz.com/learn/seo/robotstxt http://www.freshegg.co.uk/blog/technical-seo/google/how-does-google-treat-hidden-content https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-friendly-design-and-development https://moz.com/blog/relative-vs-absolute-urls-whiteboard-friday https://moz.com/learn/seo/internal-link https://moz.com/ugc/why-site-speed-optimisation-should-be-part-of-your-seo-strategy https://moz.com/blog/how-website-speed-actually-impacts-search-ranking https://moz.com/blog/15-tips-to-speed-up-your-website https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag https://moz.com/learn/seo/meta-description https://econsultancy.com/blog/66787-how-google-defines-quality-content/ https://builtvisible.com/micro-data-schema-org-guide-generating-rich-snippets/ https://moz.com/blog/schema-examples http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2048706/the-site-map-gateway-optimization http://www.hmtweb.com/marketing-blog/xml-sitemaps-advanced-seo/ http://www.siegemedia.com/title-tags
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Q&A