Technical SEO Best Practices

www.thedigitalgriff.com

A practical guide to building SEO compliant websites

Presented By:

NISHANTH STEPHEN Digital Marketing & SEO Specialist 23rd September 2015


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

[email protected]

http://www.meetup.com/Online-Marketing-Sydney/


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


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)


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


It’s All About That Base

Technical SEO Is The Foundation Of Organic Marketing


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.


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


Domain & Hosting


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


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


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



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


Structuring URLs


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


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.


Accessibility


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.


Code Optimisation


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


Code Optimisation


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


Code Optimisation


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” >


Internal Links


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


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


Page Speed


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


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


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


Keyword Targeting


Keyword Targeting

META DESCRIPTIONS PAGE HEADINGS

IMAGES ON PAGE CONTENT

PAGE TITLES

LINKS & ANCHOR TEXTS


Keyword Targeting

Page Titles & Meta Descriptions


• 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.


• 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


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


Keyword Targeting

Images


• 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


• 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.


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


Duplicate Content


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


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/


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


Schema Markups


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


Schema Markups

Use It To Achieve Intent Driven Search Results

Reviews & Ratings

Chef ‘s Name & Preparation Times

Testimonials

Upcoming Event Information

Videos

Breadcrumbs


Perfectly Optimised Page


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!!


Search Engine Inclusion


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


• 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


Resources


Resources

Web Developer SEO Cheat Sheet

Download it Here --> http://bit.ly/1S5fiyo

https://moz.com/blog/seo-cheat-sheet


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


Q&A

Technical SEO Best Practices

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