Optimising SEO for WordPress - Lisa Davis - WordCamp Sydney 2012
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Transcript of Optimising SEO for WordPress - Lisa Davis - WordCamp Sydney 2012
Follow me on Twitter @seonounou #wordcampsyd
Optimizing SEO for Wordpress
How to include SEO in Wordpress Builds
Lisa Davis ~ Wordcamp
Sydney University ~ July 2012
Follow me on Twitter @seonounou #wordcampsyd
A bit about Me…
Many roads have led me to here, Including my obsession as a Geeky Chick & the love of Wordpress, I’m a Passionate Cook, Digital iPhone Photographer, Love
Listening to Air Traffic Control & Police Radio on my Phone, I have worked as a Developer for over 20 years
Worked at Opentec – as a Developer, & at ISP’s SEO Project Manager for Websalad
Involved in SEO & Social Media since 2005
Run my own Biz Developing Websites, & integrating e-Commerce
& Social Media & I LOVE my job
Privileged to work for Danny Sullivan's SMX Sydney Australia, NZ & Singapore
(Search Marketing Conference & Expo) Search Engine Bootcamp & Twitter Bootcamp
Sydney/Melbourne
With some bloody awesome SEO/SEM’s
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How to include SEO in Wordpress Builds
Follow me on Twitter @seonounou #wordcampsyd
Optimizing SEO for Wordpress
Wordpress is a super cool tool for developing Websites
Matt Cutts who heads up SPAM at Google suggests using WP
Wordpress has great Usability as a CMS to clients, friendly URL’S with updates occurring in the backend for most Plug-ins.
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What is SEO?
SEO refers to techniques that help your website
rank higher in the Organic/natural search
results.
Design Sites for People Not Google's’ Algorithm
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Its Like Baking a Cake
• SEO is like baking a Cake – You have ingredients, mixing & baking
• You need all the right ingredients to gain a final result
• Wordpress builds have no excuses For poor SEO, as you have so many attributes, Tags, Categories, Posts & Pages to contribute to the Search Engines
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Shocking Sites
Simply Frustra.ng
Poor Naviga*on
Links out to other Sites
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Great Sites
CTA – Call to Ac*on
Effec*ve clean Naviga*on Purchase/Sign Up/Language
Referrals
Footer contains Internal Links & Social Media
Links
Content & H1, H2’s
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Ranking Factors
• KEYWORDS IN TAGS H1, H2, H3, H4
• Keywords in the Title Tag
• KEYWORDS IN DOMAIN NAME
• INTERNAL LINK POPULARITY
• KEYWORDS IN IMAGE TITLES/ALT TEXT
• QUALITY OF YOUR WEBSITE CONTENT
• FREQUENCY OF CHANGE TO YOUR CONTENT
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404 Pages
• Create 404 Pages with a Navigation back to the Home Page, Contact Details
• Don’t make it boring – Have content on there
• + Site Map
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301 Redirects
• 301 redirect is the most efficient and Search Engine Friendly method for webpage redirection.
• If you move a Page or Post or Delete make sure you inform the Search Engines, Otherwise you will get 404 Pages.
• These Pages can site in the Search results for some time
• If you do Site Migrations – Look at your sites performance.
• Use a Plugin or Remove the page in Google Webmaster Tools
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Content
• Content & good SEO is how the SERPs interpret your site (SERP)= search engine results page
• SEO copywriting is the art of writing search engine friendly content and adding the right keywords, Title, tags & code.
• Keywords should appear in the first 2 paragraphs & should not go below the fold
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Contextual Copy
• Content is KING …..
• Add your essential Keywords & include the Longtail Keywords
• Keep your copy realistic & relevant
• Leverage your Header, Footer & Sidebars
• Google’s Algorithm will penalize you for not using natural language, so keep it real
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Keywords
• Keywords are essential in making your website be found by the Search Engines
• Keywords should be added into your Contextual Copy, Title Tags, Categories/Tags & Author on each page.~ without being Spamy
• Great WP Plugin – “Wordpress Meta Keywords” (this adds a really nice attribute on each Page/Post
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Longtail
The principle of the Long Tail is the opposite of focusing on the top 10-‐20 keywords for
Keyword Marke*ng
Be sure to think of all cultural & geographical local terms.
Also Include Typos ie. “Quantas” & “Qantas”
Hiking = Bushwalking Singlet = Vest
Thongs = Flip Flops Tea = Dinner Mobile = Cell
Fanny = Bum (Bum Bag in OZ/Fanny Bag in US
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Essentials of SEO
• Keywords & Longtail • Image Alt Attributes • Contextual Copy • URL Structure • H1’s, H2’s • Crawling & Indexing • Title Tags & Anchor Text • Linking • XML Sitemaps & Robot.txt Files • Webmaster Tools & Goolge Analytics • Meta Descriptions
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Images & Alt Text
Include a Keyword when you save Images & upload
an image into Posts/Pages/Widgets
This one on the right I have saved as “sheldon-big-bag-theroy.jpg” as
opposed to 33558790.jpg
<img src="sheldon-big-bag-theroy.jpg" alt=”Sheldon" width="304" height="228" />
Images can be searched for by a term as much as contextual data
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Lets get to the basics…..
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My top 2 SEO Plugins for WP
All-In-One SEO Pack – This allows you to do Multiple titles & meta of Pages/Posts & Meta Data
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Ok, so now how they function
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The Plugin – SEO Yoast
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Meta Keywords ie
• Webdesign, Web Design, Web Design Manly, SEO, Search Engine Optimisation,website design sydney, website design sydney, web design manly, web design brookvale, Wordpress Developers, web design northern beaches,
• Have fun with your Meta Description & Keywords & look at your competitors page source
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Wordpress SEO Yoast
Title & Friendly URL
Meta Descrip.on
Organic Snippet Preview of what your result will look like. Add Keywords, Local info like Suburbs & Include some
Telephone Numbers so your Biz can be called from
Smart-‐phones
Yoast Report Card
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SEO Check List
Check on your site after its being launched to run
a check of how the Search Engines are viewing your code
Here I have used SEOmoz Tool bar for
Google Chrome as a quick snap shot
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Title Tags
• Title Tags are definitely one of the "big three" as far as the algorithmic weight given to them by search engines; they are equally as important as your visible Text copy and the Links pointing to your pages.
• Use strong Keywords
• Location & Company Name
• Create these uniquely by using SEO Yoast for each Page/Post
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Meta Tags
• Meta Tags can be hard Coded or added by adding to the Master of various Plug-ins
• Yoast WordPress SEO, has a very effective Titles and Meta Tags
• Once set up it remains the master but can be uniquely overridden on a Page
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Permalinks & Search Friendly URL’s
Set your Permalinks in the backend to
Custom Structure to create SEO Friendly
Titles
/%category%/postname%/ ie. www.frenhchomewares/frenchlinen/
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Sitemaps
1. Add your Sitemap through Google Webmaster Tools by adding the URL.
2. You must fist have the Site Verified By Google by adding a Verification html page in the root directory
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Directories & Other Tools
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Local Search
You can see here the term “computer
repairs manly” brings up
Paid & the Organic natural
results
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Add your Business to Google Places
Google Maps & Google Business is gr8 for Link Juice
• Add Business Info • Photos • Reviews • Google +
• Will appear in results Organically
• Be sure to monitor results for Nega*ve Reputa*on
Management??
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Google Sitemaps
Create an XML sitemap that can be submitted to Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines to
help them crawl your website better.
Include a Sitemap via SEO Plugins or Thru specific WP Plug-in “Google XML Sitemaps”
Or
Directly through Google Analytics
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Link Building
Its all about links
• Inbound, Outbound and internal Links create Link Juice to the Search Engines
• In Wordpress there is a Links Tab – Include high ranking links that a relevant to your site, & create links in your contextual copy
• These might not be visible and displayed on your site, Google will pick up the Link Juice
• Ask for reciprocal links to relevant Websites
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Importance of a Robot.txt file
• When a search engine crawler comes to your site, it will look for a specific file on your site.
• The robots.txt tells the search engine spider, which Web pages of your site should be indexed and which Web pages should be ignored.
• Google Webmaster Tools allows you to generate & download the file. (Some Plugin’s have generators)
• In Google Webmaster Tools-Under Site configuration, click Crawler access.
User-‐Agent: * Allow: / User-‐agent: * Disallow: /cgi-‐bin/
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White Hat vs Black Hat
• Cloaking = White Text on a white background
• Google can penalize you for this offence
• Keep your code clean
Ethical, Honest and Compliant
Manipula*ve, Shallow & somewhat devious
White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO techniques can determine where you website ranks in the search results for your targeted keyword phrases.
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Google Panda – Around April 36
• Blog Spamming • Content Farming • SPAM factors • Keywords Stuffing • Over Op.misa.on • Low Quality Content
According to Google’s official blog post when Panda launched
This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-‐quality sites—sites which are low-‐value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same @me, it will provide beAer rankings for high-‐quality sites—sites with original content and informa@on such as research, in-‐depth reports, thoughBul analysis and so on.
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Social Media
• Social media influence increases link sharing, which ultimately results in better search ranking.
• Search Engines love to see changes and regular updates on your Website. Update Posts/News
• Google’s crawling, indexing and rankings are directly influenced by Tweeted links and Facebook shares
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List your Local Biz with True Local & other Directories
List your Website and Business In Free Directories, Add as much information
including Photos & Logos.
Ask friends and for referrals on True Local as Directories with the most Reviews List
the highest.
Use Special Offers, such as “20% Off With any
Booking”
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Importance of Geo-Caching
• Make sure you include a an Address in your footer
• Google’s Algorithm will help your result list organically by suggesting Local Search Results
• This often occurs by the location of your IP Address
• When your logged into a GMAIL Account your search results will differ
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Tools to Check your SEO
• Screaming Frog – www.screamingfrog.co.uk
• Xenu’s - Xenu's Link Sleuth/Integrity – Download
• SEOmoz Tool Bar
• Adwords Planner - Google Traffic Estimator
• Google Chrome Web Develpoer Tools & Plugin to use through the Browser:- SEO for Chrome, MOZBar
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Keep up to date
Man Cuns – Google www.mancuns.com/blog/
www.seomoz.org
Danny Sullivan www.searchengineland.com/
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Thank you
Lisa Davis
Web Developer and SEO & Social Media Strategist
Email: [email protected] Mobile: 0405-‐236-‐021 Skype: nounou1964
Website: www.wisemonkeys.com.au
TwiNer: SEOnounou Facebook: hnp://www.facebook.com/SEOnounou Pinterest: seonounou/ Instagram: seonounou