SEOgadget.co.ukSEOgadget.co.uk

Richard Baxter

Dynamic Websites: Beyond the Basics

SES London 2009

SEOgadget.co.uk

About

In house - UK SEO Manager at Cheapflights.co.uk

SEOgadget.co.uk

Technical SEO

– A look at some common SEO accessibility issues in large dynamic site SEO

Organisational SEO– Make a large website succeed with the right SEO team

Dynamic site challenges

SEOgadget.co.uk

ORGANISATION

Organise your teamDefine a strategyRecord / document your changesWrite specifications for SEO

SEOgadget.co.uk

Organise your team

Build an SEO team in-house

– Onsite technical– Onsite content– Offsite SEO– Metrics / Analytics / Reporting

SEO Manager

Offsite SEO / Links team

Onsite / Technical SEO

team

Analytics / Reporting

Onsite content SEO

SEOgadget.co.uk

Define a strategy

Q1

Project title

Project title

Project title

Q2

Project title

Project title

Project title

Q3

Project title

Project title

Project title

Q4

Project title

Project title

Project title

Onsite technical

SEOOnsite

content SEO

Offsite SEO

KPI’s / Metrics / Analysis

Define success metrics eg:X% increase in site visibility

Site traffic growthRevenue

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Produce an SEO Timeline

– Important when reviewing the impact of your work / justifying new spend

– Record every initiative / tweak idea you find

– Score development effort vs. likely traffic impact – Measure the impact of everything you implement, including

date, change in ranking, increase in traffic by keyword – “SEO Timeline”

Record your changes

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Write Specifications for SEO

New web developments won’t self optimise Get on the “project sign off” list

Categorise your specifications:

On page (header strategy, page templates)

Back end (supporting SEO tools, meta manager etc)

Server (canonical redirects, response headers)

Reference your tools and recommend books!

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Keyword research mashups– Google keyword tool data– Current ranking– Entries vs Exits by keyword (revenue)– Identify Seasonality– Identify search categories and subtypes

Link analysis– Anchor text distribution– Have we lost a link?– Competitor link activity– What terms are they targeting via their anchor text?– Link realignment opportunities – really important!– Try SEOmoz Linkscape and Advanced Link Manager

Reporting / Metrics

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TECHNICAL SEO

PaginationDuplicate contentHow to fix duplicate content with internal links, onclick and noindexRecession proofing – handling product pages and vacancies

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Case study - Pagination

Product page: Cameras

– http://www.outdoorpros.com/Cat/Cameras/1241/List

H1Unique

textPaginated

links...

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Case study - Pagination

Product page: Cameras

– http://www.outdoorpros.com/Cat/Cameras/1241/List?first_answer=13

Same H1

Not so unique text

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Diagnose duplicate content

site:www.outdoorpros.com

site:www.outdoorpros.com inurl:first_answer

Case study: http://zi.ma/278965

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Fix duplicate content

Make sure your internal links are consistent• Sitemaps, content and navigational links all lower case• 301 redirect your www – decide which way and stick to it• 301 your trailing slash in or out and stick to it

Hide analytics and tracking with onclick

Noindex,follow your paginated pages

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Rel=“canonical”

Add this <link> tag to specify your preferred version: <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish" />

Helps to solve this problem:

http://www.cheapflights.co.uk/book-flights-online/?source=goCheapflights-

ContOff_TopKeyword-Exact&srckeyword=cheap+flights&srctype=sea

rch

SEOgadget.co.uk

Recession proofing: Long tail

Handle your product pages nicely

Pages respond with a 200 server header, no

content on page, <title> and meta

description are gone

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Keep your pages alive, but make the user experience valuable

Recession proofing: Long tail

The vacancy’s been placed, but we’ve got plenty of

others!

SEOgadget.co.uk

Web Link Validator - http://zi.ma/89e682

Google webmaster tools

Web developer toolbar -

Advanced Link Manager - http://zi.ma/4797da

Snagit for screen captures!

Live http headers for Firefox - http://zi.ma/9a6d31

A Few Useful Tools