TECHNICAL SEO FTW!

Andrew Isidoro#CardiffSEO

■ Work for Gocompare.com as SEO and Social Media Manager

■ Written for some places:

■ Tried to build some stuff:

About me

@Andrew_Isidoro

Quick question…

Who already does SEO now?

@Andrew_Isidoro

What is SEO?

■ Title Tags■ Meta descriptions■ URLs■ H1 headers■ H2 headers■ Alt tags for images

■ Digital PR■ Anchor text■ Do-follow link building■ Citations/NAP■ Link removal■ Compelling content etc.

@Andrew_Isidoro

What is SEO?

■ Title Tags■ Meta descriptions■ URLs■ H1 headers■ H2 headers■ Alt tags for images

■ Digital PR■ Anchor text■ Do-follow link building■ Citations/NAP■ Link removal■ Compelling content etc.

NOPE!

@Andrew_Isidoro

What is technical SEO?

“Technical SEO involves the optimisation of webpage elements that users can't

necessarily see without looking at the source code.”

@Andrew_Isidoro

Less of this…

@Andrew_Isidoro

More of this…

@Andrew_Isidoro

@Andrew_Isidoro

Well, I think Google does…

Well optimised websites are:■ Easy to index■ Easy to crawl■ Give more information■ Have less code and image bloat

■ Easier to parse■ Require less crawl budget■ Make it easier to classify■ Take up less data-center space

@Andrew_Isidoro

Well, I think Google does…

Well optimised websites are:■ Easy to index■ Easy to crawl■ Give more information■ Have less code and page bloat

■ Easier to parse■ Require less crawl budget■ Make it easier to classify■ Take up less data-center space

@Andrew_Isidoro

…which means your boss does too.

Technical audit implementation for a client has led to a 48.25% increase in organic traffic and growing…

@Andrew_Isidoro

Tip 1.

Sitemaps

@Andrew_Isidoro

Sitemaps

■ Usually XML based■ Sitemaps allow 50,000 URLs■ Should be kept under 50MB■ Up to 500 sitemaps per account■ Submit to Google and Bing via webmaster tools

dashboards.■ Always submit something!

@Andrew_Isidoro

Media sitemaps

■ Don’t forget your images! Utilise image sitemaps.■ Mobile URLs? Use a mobile sitemap.■ Newsworthy? Use a news sitemap.■ Got video? Get a video sitemap in.

More info at: https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2048706/the-site-map-gateway-optimization @Andrew_Isidoro

Keep them clean!

■ Clear out duplicated URLs■ Remove 404 /broken pages■ Remove redirecting pages■ Remove un-canonicalised/no-indexed pages ■ Remove irrelevant pages (e.g.. tag pages or search result

pages)

Remember: less wastage = more efficient crawl = happy Google

@Andrew_Isidoro

Pro tip! – Divide and conquer

■ Split sitemaps into different site sections or products:

■ Better site indexation■ Can help highlight site section hierarchy■ More accurate indexation data at a glance!

More info at: https://moz.com/blog/multiple-xml-sitemaps-increased-indexation-and-traffic @Andrew_Isidoro

Tip 2.

Site modelling

@Andrew_Isidoro

Model a site structure

■ Make use of force directed diagrams ■ Create broad to narrow content silos■ Stay topical■ Keep the structure as flat as possible

■ Pro tip – Try using gephi.org to model out new structures

More info: https://www.portent.com/blog/seo/seo-force-directed-diagrams.htm @Andrew_Isidoro

Tip 3.

Page speed

@Andrew_Isidoro

Page speed

■ Page speed is a ranking factor.■ Larger pages take up more of your crawl budget■ Slow loading pages may make users bounce back to the SERPS known

as pogo-sticking.

Don’t make Google waste crawl on “bulky” pages

@Andrew_Isidoro

Shed the (page) weight!

■ Install GZIP for server compression – around 70% savings■ Compress HTML, CSS & JS – ■ Reduce redirects■ Use a content distribution network■ Optimize images

Beginner tip – Use GTMetrix to get a good overview of where you can optimisePro tip – Install sitespeed.io via NPM to run a page speed audit across multiple URLs

@Andrew_Isidoro

Using a common CMS?

You’re in luck!

■ WordPress W3 total cache - https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/

■ Drupal Advagg - https://www.drupal.org/project/advagg

■ Joomlajch-optimize - http://extensions.joomla.org/extension/jch-optimize

@Andrew_Isidoro

Tip 4.

Crawl optimisation

@Andrew_Isidoro

Log file analysis

■ Server logs are analytics on acid…■ Dive into the logs!■ Find spider traps■ Where is Googlebot visiting most often?■ Where is there a crawl deficiency?

■ More info: https://builtvisible.com/log-file-analysis/

@Andrew_Isidoro

Robots.txt

■ Don’t give them junk - Limit Googlebot/Bingbot’s diet■ Block non-organic landing pages■ Use noindex in robots.txt to remove blocked pages from the index -

http://ohgm.co.uk/de-index-pages-blocked-robots-txt/ ■ Add your sitemap URL for indexing:

Sitemap: http://www.gocompare.com/sitemap.xml

@Andrew_Isidoro

Redirects

Redirects can be a major cause of wasted crawl

■ Know your redirects – 301 vs 302 vs 307■ Use if absolutely necessary■ Never link to an internal redirect – there’s no need!

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Housekeeping

■ Eliminate links to 404 error pages - both internal and external■ Limit links to non-ranking pages (about us, contact us etc.)■ Eliminate excess pages■ Manage URL parameters within GSC /Bing WMT■ Don’t forget your HTML sitemap – Highlight your most important

pages

@Andrew_Isidoro

Tip 5.

Canonical pages

@Andrew_Isidoro

What does that even mean?

■ Canonicalising URLs is just a fancy way of saying:

“Content should only ever be available at one URL”

@Andrew_Isidoro

Canonicalise!

■ Site run over www. and non-www versions? That’s a problem!■ Site run over http and https versions? That’s a problem!■ Site run over uppercase and lowercase URLs? That’s a problem!■ Site run trailing slash URLs and non-trailing slash versions? That’s a

problem!

■ Make sure all of these redirect to the canonical version!■ Use rel-canonical to catch any stragglers.

@Andrew_Isidoro

Tip 6.

Semantic mark-up

@Andrew_Isidoro

Semantic mark-up

■ Think about implementing Schema.org■ Google has great guidelines available at:

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data

■ Google is in the process of adding JSON-LD support for all major rich snippets

Pro tip – Implement Schema.org in bulk via JSON-LD through Google Tag manager. More info at: https://moz.com/blog/using-google-tag-manager-to-dynamically-generate-schema-org-json-ld-tags

@Andrew_Isidoro

That should get you started…

@Andrew_Isidoro

Thanks for listening

Get in touch: @Andrew_IsidoroAndrew@seofosho.comhttp://www.andrewisidoro.co.uk