how to fix and optimize all the things!
TRANSCRIPT
How to Fix and Optimize ALL THE THINGS!(on your site. I can’t help you with your life)
Jon Henshaw Co-founder of Raven Tools
@RavenJon
Been doing this stuff since 1994
I’m about to cover a lot of things
raven.link/copythis
WordPress plugin
☑ Let’s do this!
☑ Run an automated site audit
Address the critical things first
☑ Fix robots.txt & noindex
robots.txt & noindex at fault for most visibility problems
• Auto-generated robots.txt • Copied from dev version • CMS misconfiguration • CHF (Catastrophic Human Failure )
Reasons
Robots.txt File Generator & Analyzer
Robots.txt compared to
• link rel=nofollow • META Robots Noindex/Nofollow
☑ Fix broken pages
Fix broken pages to improve UX and resolve configuration errors
404 Page Not Found is the most common page error
You don’t have to fix 404s
• Accidental page removal • External sites link to page • Relevant content still exists on site
When to Fix 404s
Redirect to a relevant page
Doing nothing is acceptable too
Preventative maintenance ☑ Sanitize affiliate links
(…since we’re already talking about redirects and robots.txt)
Internally link to a disallowed folder and redirect to the destination
Choose a folder name like domain.com/go
Disallow the folder in robots.txt
Create a 301 redirect for the affiliate link
domain.com/go/timecapsule
☑ Fix Missing Page Titles
• Don’t leave it up to Google • Use to reinforce topic and content • Still influences rankings and CTR • Sorry about the clown
The Little Page Title That Could
• Keep within 40-60 characters • Don’t keyword stuff • Make it relate to content • Focus on bots and humans
Page Title Best Practices
☑ Fix Internal Broken Links
Just say no to 🔗🤢
(link rot)
Passes 🔗🍹 to other pages
(link cocktail is the new link juice)
May indicate a ↪⤵↩ ☹
(I’m determined to use emoji on these slides. This represents a navigation or redirect problem)
☑ Fix Broken Images
Don’t let your site get janky
Don’t miss out on image search traffic
☑ Remove nofollow from internal links
What does it say to Google if you can’t even trust
yourself?
Most internal nofollow links are self-referencing comment links
(not a big deal)
Nofollow used in templates or placed manually should be removed
🏎 ☑ Speed up ALL THE THINGS!
Consolidate code to make less calls
Use inline CSS
Use inline JS (put at end of page)
Cache and Compress
Gzip via .htaccess
Gzip via PHP
CDN and HTTP/2
HTTP/1 versus
HTTP/2
☑ Optimize images for mobile
Responsive images are not optimized images
Optimization is serving a different image
Do it with the SRCSET IMG attribute
SRCSET can deliver smaller and different images to improve speed and UX
Smaller versions for mobile
1024px800px
550px360px
Different versions for mobile
Versions optimized for UX
Mobile Desktop
Regular IMG code
<img src=“cat.png” alt="my cat">
SRCSET is an IMG attribute
<img src="cat.png"alt="my cat" srcset="cat-hd.png 2x, cat-med.png 640w, cat-med-hd.png 640w 2x" />
Specify device width
<img src="cat.png"alt="my cat" srcset="cat-hd.png 2x, cat-med.png 640w, cat-med-hd.png 640w 2x" />
Specify High DPI
<img src="cat.png"alt="my cat" srcset="cat-hd.png 2x, cat-med.png 640w, cat-med-hd.png 640w 2x" />
Reduce and compress image size
Use SVG for simple images
and icons
☑ Optimize HTML for bots
Code is how you communicate to bots
Use semantic HTML to communicate context and intent
<header>
<nav>
<article> <aside>
<footer>
Navigation
Advertising
Enhance SERPs with schema.org microdata
http://schema.org/Recipe
Old Way – Integrate in HTML
New Way – JSON-LD
Schema App
Optimize form inputs for mobile/UX
type=“number”
type=“date”
type=“tel”
