technical seo best practices

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Technical SEO Best Practices -A Marketers' Guide

A best-practice guide to buildingan SEO-compliant website

First Edition =

Phil Robinson, Peter Phillpot & Oliver Pyper

101 Guide Series

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CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS 3

INTRODUCTION 4

THE PROBLEM WITH WEB DEVELOPERS 5

SOLUTIONS 6

15-POINT TECHNICAL SEO CHECKLIST 7Canonicalization 7404 Errors 9Broken Links 10Redirects and Site Migration 10URL formatting 12Robots.txt 14Titles and Descriptions 16Duplicate Content 18Heading tags 21On-Page Text 22Image Tags 24Internal Linking and Anchor Text 26Search Engine Inclusion 28XML Sitemaps 29Hosting 30

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Phil Robinson is a digital marketing consultant with over 19 years’ experience. In 2004, he founded ClickThrough - an agency focused on search engine marketing and conversion optimisation.

In addition to his role as Founder & CEO of ClickThrough, Phil also provides best practice training for businesses and writes books on digital marketing strategies.

Peter Phillpot is ClickThrough Marketing’s director of SEO. A recognised innovator and all-round search expert, his passion and dedication to search engine optimisation translates into winning search marketing solutions for our clients. Peter’s approach blends best-practice techniques with an intrepid and creative attitude, driving him to develop strategies ahead of the rest of the digital marketing industry.

Oliver Pyper is ClickThrough Marketing’s senior content and digital PR executive. He has worked in digital marketing since 2010, writing copy and creating content strategies for clients as diverse as online chemists, automobile manufacturers and theatre companies.

ClickThrough Marketingis a digital marketing agency, providing web development, search engine optimisation, pay per click management, conversion optimisation and content marketing services.

Since 2004, ClickThrough Marketing has helped many companies – from big brands to small start-ups – grow Google rankings, boost conversions, increase return on digital marketing investment, and stretch budgets to get value for money.

We pride ourselves on giving honest advice based on the latest digital marketing best practices. Our RITE core values of Results, Innovation, Trust and Excellence drive everything we do.

A proven & trusted agency since 2003

Creators of BidCops.com - Europe’s leading free AdWords Auditing Tool

We are a Top 100 Agency on Recommended Agency Register

We have published several books on digital marketing, sold on Amazon

Proven track record from our work with clients including Peugeot, Triumph, Nectar, Comic Relief, Scottish Power and Halfords

Our people all receive our industry-leading, Digital Academy training

Active members of the IAB, eConsultancy and SEMPO

Thought leaders, giving clients the inside track on what matters in search, social media and the digital marketplace... before it happens!

If you’re struggling with technical SEO issues, or your web developer just doesn’t know SEO, our search and web development experts can help.

Find out what we can do to grow and protect your business. Call us on 0800 088 7486 or visit www.clickthrough-marketing.com

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INTRODUCTION

Let’s get straight to the point: SEO-unfriendly web

development can cost you your business.

It goes without saying that this is bad news for marketing managers. As web builds become more and more complex, technical SEO is becoming increasingly important – and even small technical slip-ups can have catastrophic effects on your search engine performance and bottom line.

Our 15-point technical SEO checklist can help you prevent technical issues and protect your profits. It will help you understand technical issues and show you how to test your site to check if it is compliant with SEO best practice. It can also help you deal with web developers, showing you the right questions to ask so you can be sure your site is built correctly and that you’re getting your money’s worth.

We’ve audited hundreds of websites including some of the UK’s most popular. We frequently see the same types of mistakes being made by web developers. This guide covers 15 of the most common types of error and shows you how to prevent or fix them.

This guide is designed for marketers who are:

• Planning a new website build, and need to find a web developer who can protect their search engine rankings and traffic.

• Employing a web developer, and worried that their business will suffer as a result of technical SEO mistakes.

• Suffering drops in traffic or rankings on a new site, and want to know why.

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THE PROBLEM WITH WEB DEVELOPERS

Often when companies hire web developers or engage with

an agency they have an expectation that the work on their

site will incorporate SEO best practice. The truth is that

the majority of web developers have very little experience

of SEO, and it is given a low priority. Incorporating best-

practice SEO into a web build often means more care is

needed and costs increase. In essence, the old adage ‘you

get what you pay for’ applies.

Despite this, our experience has shown that the size or position

of a web development agency does not impact quality of builds

in terms of SEO. We’ve seen websites produced by some of the

most respected developers in the UK which have seriously hurt

businesses because of basic SEO mistakes. And we’ve seen

plenty of bad builds from smaller developers too.

As a rule, this is because web developers are entirely focussed

on design. It’s in their interest to create beautiful, user-friendly

websites that they can show off in their portfolio. But often this

design focus comes with a lack of understanding of even the

most simplistic technical SEO concepts.

It’s important, if possible, to tackle these problems as early as

possible. Seemingly simple decisions like the choice of CMS or

e-Commerce platform can leave you ‘locked in’ and unable to

correct technical problems later on.

The worst offenders are usually proprietary platforms owned by

the agency themselves, but big-name, respected platforms often

require a great deal of work to become compliant with SEO

best-practice. And even customisable open-source platforms

won’t pass our SEO audit ‘out of the box’.

THE WORST OFFENDERS ARE USUALLY PROPRIETARY PLATFORMS OWNED BY THE AGENCY THEMSELVES

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If you’re planning a new website and choosing a web

developer, it’s important to take steps to protect your

business. Our checklist includes key questions to ask

developers to ensure you employ a team who understand

the importance of technical SEO. You may also wish to ask

an SEO expert to put the developer’s previous sites through

a technical audit.

If your website is in the process of being built, you can use this

checklist to spot issues and steer the build in the right direction

- before it’s too late.

If your site is already live and you’ve experienced problems,

it’s important to make your site compliant with technical best

practice as soon as possible. Using this checklist can help

you understand where issues may be impacting on your

site’s performance.

SOLUTIONS

IF YOUR WEBSITE IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING BUILT, YOU CAN USE THIS CHECKLIST TO SPOT ISSUES

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Please note: This guide only covers some of the most

frequent errors found in websites. If you are concerned

about the performance of a site, or you’re building a new

site, it is always wise to seek professional advice.

CANONICALIZATION

In a technical context, ‘canonicalization’ means ‘specifying the

correct version of your URL’.

For example, your homepage may show up if you type ‘www.

example.com’ or ‘example.com’. Whilst the same content may

be displayed, they are technically different URLs, so search

engines have to decide which one to display to searchers.

SEO-wise, it makes no difference whether you decide to have

‘www’ at the start of your website’s URL – but it is important

that you make the decision, and even more important that

you stick to it.

Well-managed websites have only one version, and the non-

canonical version will redirect to the correct version. You can see

this when you visit an incorrect version on a site like http://bbc.

co.uk/ - when you click on the link, you’ll see that it takes you to

the version with ‘www’ at the start.

Another example is Twitter, which has a canonical version

without the ‘www’ (https://twitter.com) – if you put the wrong

version into a browser address bar (https://www.twitter.com/)

you’ll see you’re redirected to the correct version.

This is important for users and SEO. If somebody links to your

site using the incorrect version of the URL, putting a redirect

in place will ensure that the ‘strength’ of this link will go to the

correct page.

Canonicalization is important for all of the pages on your

site, not just the home page. In a fully SEO-friendly site you

should be able to go to any page and test the canonicalization.

Twitter never uses ‘www’ so if you put https://www.twitter.com/

clickthrough into a browser you can see that it correctly redirects

to a version without the ‘www’.

15-POINT TECHNICAL SEO CHECKLIST

http://bbc.co.uk/

http://bbc.co.uk/

https://www.twitter.com/

https://www.twitter.com/clickthrough

https://www.twitter.com/clickthrough

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REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

Just over ten per cent of websites we audit don’t have

canonicalization implemented at all, and it’s only partially

implemented on around 60 per cent of builds.

It’s often the case that developers building a site will implement

canonicalization on the core pages, but miss the blog or other

sections, so it’s important the website is thoroughly checked.

Typically, canonicalization is very straightforward to implement,

and can often be done simply by adding a few lines of code to

the server.


NEXT STEPS:

If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer,

it’s imperative to ensure they understand the importance of

canonicalization, and know how to implement it properly.

If you’re already working with a web developer, ask

them to implement 301 redirects to ensure users who visit

the incorrect version of your website are sent to the correct

version – as well as making sure your internal linking

structure is consistent. This will help search engines display

the canonical version, and ensure link strength is properly

distributed.

If your site is live, it’s easy to test whether canonicalization

is properly implemented. Open a web browser, and type the

‘wrong’ version of your URL. If the wrong version redirects to

the correct version, this is a good sign.

If a redirect does not happen, you have a problem on your

hands, as you essentially have two versions of the same site

which are competing against each other in search engines.

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404 ERRORS

A 404 error is returned when a user tries to visit a URL that doesn’t

exist. Your web developer should create a 404 page to deliver

a message to the user when things go wrong, otherwise they’ll

see boring, bland text without any of your beautiful branding.

When things do go wrong its important that your users see a well-

formatted page to encourage them to continue using your site.

Your 404 page can be fun, functional, sensible or silly. The

important thing is that it presents a clear call to action for users to

return to the homepage and continue their conversion journey.


NEXT STEPS:


make sure you mention 404 pages in your initial brief.

If you’re already working with a web developer, ask your

web developer if they’ve budgeted for 404 page creation

– it is standard practice to provide 404 error pages when

creating a new site.

If your site is live, then test to see if a 404 page is

implemented. Bring your website up in a browser, then

try to visit a URL that doesn’t exist (like www.example.

com/blahblahblah). You should see a 404 error page that

supports your branding, and directs your users back to the

homepage.

It’s important to note that you should never come across 404

errors when following internal links within your website. (See

‘Broken links’ below)

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BROKEN LINKS

Broken links lead to URLs that have been removed, or that

never existed in the first place. Websites tend to develop broken

links through time, but it’s not uncommon to find them on brand-

new builds too.

These bad links are annoying for users, and go against

technical SEO best practice. Good web developers should

test their sites fully prior to launch to ensure that there are no

broken links.

Questions to ask your web developer:

• 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?

REDIRECTS AND SITE MIGRATION

So we know you should always avoid broken links within your

site’s internal inking structure. But if you decide to remove a

page or change its URL, you have to consider external links too.

This is a common problem with site rebuilds – if lots of people

link to an outdated URL, you’ll miss out on valuable link

strength, and direct a whole bunch of otherwise-interested users

to a 404 page.

These outdated URLs should be rerouted to the new, correct

version using a 301 redirect. 302 redirects exist too, but these

are used for temporary changes and don’t pass link strength.


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It’s bad practice to link to redirected pages within the internal

linking structure of your site. Redirects should be only used

to point old URLs to the correct location. Some content

management systems (CMS) use redirects as standard in the

way they handle internal links. You should talk to your web

development agency to find a way round this issue.

As a rule, the biggest problems with redirects arise when an

agency has carried out a whole-site rebuild. When we build

websites, we ensure that old URLs which are no longer used

in the new site structure are redirected to an appropriate

current version.

Migrating the old URLs

to good alternative URLs

in the new structure is an

important part of a new

web build, but unless it’s

specifically requested,

many developers will not

carry the work out at all.


• Have you budgeted to map all my old URLs to my new URLs?

• Do you have a way to check for unwanted redirects within my site’s structure?

• Does our CMS use redirects as standard, and if so, can you correct this?

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

We have seen lots of examples of poor site migration. We dealt

with the case of an SME that suffered a severe traffic drop after

a site rebuild. Its new site had a very different structure to the

old, and no redirects were in place. Amongst the links that were

lost was a feature article from the Independent newspaper and

a link from the BBC, all going to pages that no longer existed.

Even blue chip companies can forget about site migration. We

found that a web developer building a new site for one of the

UK’s largest retailers had not included site migration in the site

build, and had no plans to redirect the old URLs.


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URL FORMATTING

Short, easy-to-read URLs create a positive user experience and

are in line with technical SEO best practice. Wherever possible,

bespoke URLs should be created for each page, with each

word separated by hyphens (http://www.example.com/this-is-an-

example-page/).

Consistency is important too. URLs are case sensitive, so if you

link to the above page as http://www.example.com/This-is-an-

Example-Page/, rather than http://www.example.com/this-is-an-

example-page/ you are in fact linking to a different URL.

The same goes for inconsistency in trailing slashes (/) - http://

www.example.com/this-is-an-example-page is not the same as

http://www.example.com/this-is-an-example-page/

Some content management and e-Commerce platforms use

dynamically generated URLs which are unnecessarily lengthy,

or otherwise increase the length of URLs through their built-in

taxonomy. SEO-savvy web developers will be able to correct

these issues on most platforms.

However, it’s not uncommon for developers to charge more for

correcting platforms to show user friendly URLs, so it’s important

to ask what you get out of the box, and what costs extra.


IT’S NOT UNCOMMON FOR DEVELOPERS TO CHARGE MORE FOR CORRECTING PLATFORMS TO SHOW USER FRIENDLY URLS, SO IT’S IMPORTANT TO ASK WHAT YOU GET OUT OF THE BOX

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REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

It’s unusual to see a rebuild that moves from friendly URL

formats to non-friendly formats. But where we have seen this,

we have observed a drop in the page’s ability to rank.

We worked with a major UK retailer that saw traffic to a key

product page drop by around 60 per cent after switching to a

non-friendly URL. There were other issues on the site which

could have contributed to this traffic drop, but it nonetheless

illustrates the importance of using user-friendly URLs for

technical SEO.

NEXT STEPS:

If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer, make sure you discuss URL formatting with them, and make clear that you want user-friendly URLs throughout the site.

If you’re already working with a developer, or your site

is live, you can test the length of your URLs by clicking around your site or test server and checking in the address bar. Pay special attention to product URLs, as these are most likely to be dynamically generated.

Use your own judgement – look for readability, memorability and a clean, user-friendly appearance. Avoid non-standard characters (like apostrophes, colons, and semi-colons), as well as long strings of nonsensical numbers or letters.

If your URLs are too long, or don’t include text that describes the page, you should ask your web developer if they have a way to correct them. If lengthy URLs are a standard ‘feature’ of your CMS, then additional plugins and/or coding may be required to implement user-friendly, SEO-friendly URLs. Make sure your developer has budgeted for this.


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ROBOTS.TXT

The robots.txt file tells web robots (including search engine

spiders) what to do when they come across a website. It’s not

essential, but can be useful for preventing certain directories,

files or file types from being crawled by search engines.

It’s important to ensure your robots.txt file is correctly formatted,

or your website could end up shutting out search engine spiders

altogether. Kicking your own website out of Google is just about

the biggest SEO mistake you can make!

When a new website is being built its important to ensure that

the test server is not indexed by search engines. We commonly

see instances where developers have failed to block the test

server in the robots.txt file. In these cases, search engines are

likely to index the incomplete, test version of your site and thus

see it as the ‘original’.

Later, when your website proper appears on a different URL,

the search engine may penalise your site because it sees it as

copying the content from another site.

This issue can be very damaging – but it takes only a few lines

of code to safeguard against it.


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REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:

We worked with a UK retailer with over 300 branches

nationwide. They asked us for help after noticing a major traffic

drop after the launch of their new website. Upon investigation,

we found that their developers had accidentally blocked their

entire website from being crawled by search engines.


NEXT STEPS:


you should talk to prospective developers to ensure you’re

both clear on which pages you don’t want to be indexed by

search engines. Make it absolutely clear that the test server

must be blocked from search engines.

If you’re already working with a developer, or your site

is live, you can check whether the test server is indexed

by Google using the ‘site:’ search string. Enter ‘site:’ into the

search bar followed by the test server domain. If you see

results from this page, then the test server has been indexed

– this is bad.

In these cases, it’s worth bringing in external SEO

consultants to correct issues and/or work with your

developers to guide the build.

The other important thing to consider is that, when your

site’s live, your robots.txt file allows search engines to reach

all the right places.

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TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS

Title tags and meta descriptions are HTML elements that are

commonly used by search engines on the search engine results

pages (SERPs). To use Google as an example, the title tag is

often the blue link that appears within a search result, and the

meta description is often the longer text below it.

The consensus within the SEO community is that title tags are

used by search engines as a ranking factor. Wherever possible,

every page on your site should have a unique and descriptive

title tag that encourages readers to click on your page in the

SERPs, includes keywords relevant to the page content, and

reinforces your branding.

Meta descriptions are not a ranking factor for Google, and

are unlikely to be used by other search engines. They should

include clear calls to action and be relevant to the content of the

page in order to encourage clicks. It’s best practice to include

keywords too, as these appear in bold when a user searches

for the relevant term, and can help to improve click-through rate

(CTR). Every page should have a unique and descriptive meta

description.

At the time of writing, Google’s character limits for title tags and

meta descriptions are around 64 characters and 156 characters

respectively. Any longer, and they are likely to be truncated

within the search results.

WHEREVER POSSIBLE, EVERY PAGE ON YOUR SITE SHOULD HAVE A UNIQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE TITLE TAG THAT ENCOURAGES READERS TO CLICK ON YOUR PAGE.


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NEXT STEPS:

If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer, or are already

working with one, you should ensure that they are well versed in creating

title tags and descriptions that are optimised for users and search engines.

You should also request that they create unique title tags and descriptions

for every page on your site, and ask that they check for missing and

duplicate title tags and descriptions once the build is complete and before

the site goes live.

If your site is already live, then you can check how title tags and meta

descriptions appear in Google, provided the site is already indexed (this

may take some time if the site has only recently been put live).

Use the ‘site:’ modifier, followed immediately by the URL you wish to check

(with no spaces). For example: ‘site:http://www.clickthrough-marketing.

com/web-design/web-design-services/ ‘

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. If you find problems, an SEO agency

will be able to audit your titles and descriptions and provide unique,

SEO-friendly replacements.

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DUPLICATE CONTENT

Duplicate content means on-page text that appears elsewhere

on the web – either within your own site or on another site

entirely. Duplicate content is an SEO no-no.

Google says it “tries hard to index and show pages with distinct

information,” the implication being that it also tries hard not to

index and show pages without distinct information. This means

these pages will be filtered out of search results, or may not be

indexed at all.

Most of the time, duplicate content is non-malicious. And it’s

reasonable to assume Google is quite good at displaying the

‘correct’ version of a page.

However, we can’t trust Google to get

it right every time. So it’s best practice

to avoid duplication of text wherever

possible. (Obviously some duplicate

content can’t be avoided, such as text

in menus.)

Worst case scenario: If Google

decides your use of duplicate content

is produced with “intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive

our users,” it could slap a penalty on your site. This means you’ll

lose rankings and could disappear from the search engine

results altogether.

This is why we always aim to provide unique content when

developing websites, and carry out thorough checks for

duplication when carrying out technical SEO audits.

It is common to find pages that are duplicated in a website. It

is often the case that an internal page will display the same

content with or without a slash.

http://www.example.com/my-page

http://www.example.com/my-page/

Test your webpages to ensure you cannot get the same

content by adding or removing a slash. If you can see the

same content on two different URLs you should designate a

‘correct’ version, and redirect the incorrect version to this one.

You should also ensure that there are no links in your website

going to the wrong version.


http://www.example.com/my-page

http://www.example.com/my-page/

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NEXT STEPS:

If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer, you

should stress the importance of content during your initial

conversations. Ask prospective developers whether they

provide unique and relevant SEO content as part of their

service – if not, plan how this content could be produced and

implemented. A digital marketing agency can help you put

a content plan together and write keyword rich, conversion-

friendly copy.

If you’re already working with a developer, then now is the

time to get your content right. If your developer has provided

similar blocks of content across multiple pages, or worse, has

taken copy from a competitor’s site, you should request new,

unique content for each page. You may wish to engage third-

party SEO content writers to help you.

If your site is already live, there’s a simple way to check

for duplicate content. Copy a sentence from a page on your

website, and paste it into Google, with the text enclosed in

quotation marks. (For example, “this is an example sentence

that may be duplicated online”.)

If you get any results for this search (other than the page itself,

if it’s live), then the content is duplicated elsewhere on the web.

Repeat this process for a few pages, paying special attention to

things like product text, which is most likely to be scraped from a

manufacturer’s site.

IMPORTANT: Duplicate content is an on-going concern. Never

take sections of your website copy and paste it to external sites

(such as business directories). The content on your site should

be unique.

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REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

We see a very common (and very avoidable) example of

duplicated content when carrying out SEO audits. This is when

the root home page (www.example.com) and the html file that

sits within that root (www.example.com/index.html) are indexed

as separate pages and thus flagged as duplicate.

If your server is set up properly, it shouldn’t display duplicate

versions of this page.


http://www.example.com/

http://www.example.com/index.html

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HEADING TAGS

You know how newspapers have a big, bold headline to grab

your attention, then several sub-headings to break up the story

as you read?

On-page content works in a similar way, but the headings and

paragraphs are coded into a page’s html. Headings start with a

tag like <h1>, <h2> and <h3>, whilst paragraphs start with <p>.

Each tag has a matching closing tag, like </h1> or </p>.

It’s important to use heading tags and paragraph tags correctly

because they help search engines make sense of the content

on a page. The most important heading should be contained in

<h1> tags (the ‘headline’), and subheadings should be contained

in <h2>, <h3> and so on, in descending order of importance.

Typically, you should only have one <h1> tag on a page.

Web developers who don’t understand SEO often use heading

tags purely for stylistic purposes. This often means you’ll end

up with search engine-unfriendly headings like ‘<h1>Learn from

the best</h1>’ and ‘<h3>More Information</h3>’.

These don’t give search engines very much information at all.

We would use heading tags like ‘<h1>SEO Training Courses</

h1>’ and ‘<h3>More SEO Advice</h3>’. Instantly we know this

page is about SEO training – and so will search engines.

We never use heading tags in the header or footer of a page.

This creates duplicate heading tags across a site and makes it

more difficult for search engines to understand the content of

individual pages.

WEB DEVELOPERS WHO DON’T UNDERSTAND SEO OFTEN USE HEADING TAGS PURELY FOR STYLISTIC PURPOSES.


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ON-PAGE TEXT

We could write dozens of eBooks on content writing best-

practice. But for SEO, there’s one rule that takes precedence

over all others: write as your users write.

Writing using your users’ language helps to improve your

chances of ranking and creates a conversion-friendly user

experience.

For example, say you work in the residential lettings industry. It

may seem to make sense to write content using all the industry

lingo and office shorthand that you use every day – including

terms like ‘to let’.

However, those searching for a property are much more likely to

use the term ‘to rent’. They’re thinking of what they can get out

of the service, not what you do as a company.

If you don’t include terms like ‘to rent’ on the page, you’re

much less likely to appear in search results for relevant

keywords and phrases.

If your web development agency provides copywriting services but doesn’t consider SEO or conversion, you might end up with lots of content that describes your business in perfect detail, but doesn’t help you rank in search engines or convert users into sales.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

It’s not uncommon for underwritten or plagiarised placeholder

copy to end up being used in the final version of a website –

through breakdowns in communication or a lack of emphasis on

content quality.

Don’t let this happen. The words your users see are just as important

as the layout and appearance of your page. So if you’re relying on

your web developer to produce content, you need to start discussing

your tone of voice and SEO goals with them from the get go.


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If your site’s already gone live, it’s worth investing in a full SEO

content audit. Creative SEO content can improve your chances in

the search engines, and improve conversion rates on your site.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:

We worked with a long-established UK brand that fell victim to

the trap of referring to products by the industry-standard name,

rather than the names used by customers. In this case, it was a

simple mix-up between ‘candle sticks’ and ‘candle holders’.

The company had created content using ‘candle holders’ as

a keyword, without realising that half of its target market was

searching for ‘candle sticks’. Although there are technically

subtle differences between candle sticks and candle holders,

many customers will not realise this when beginning their

product research. This meant that they were missing out on

valuable search traffic – ideally, they should have used both

variations within their product copy.


CREATIVE SEO CONTENT CAN IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES IN THE SEARCH ENGINES, AND IMPROVE CONVERSION RATES ON YOUR SITE.

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IMAGE TAGS

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.

HTML allows developers to associate text with images so that

search engines can understand what the image shows. The

text associated with an image is stored in an HTML tag called

an ‘alt tag’. This alt tag text is shown if the desired image can’t

be displayed for some reason, and is also used by certain

software designed to facilitate web browsing for people with

visual impairments.

Using image tags across your website is important for both

search engine optimisation and accessibility best practice.


NEXT STEPS:


then ask them questions relating to image tags and

accessibility standards – if they’re not working to best-

practice standards, then they’re not building websites to be

technically watertight, and inclusive for all users.

If you’re already working with a developer, or your site is

live, it’s worth checking a few images across your website to

make sure image tags are properly implemented.

To do this, right click on an image within your browser and

select ‘Inspect element’. In the code that appears (which

should start with ‘<img src =’), you should see the tag ‘alt’,

with some relevant text enclosed in speech marks.

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 and usability best practice.

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REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:

We discovered that a major UK insurance company had

labelled all their images with text relating to stock photographs,

and the number of the supplier of the stock photograph ( i.e.

‘stock picture 183764653’). It goes without saying that this is

bad for visually impaired users and search engines.


A MAJOR UK INSURANCE COMPANY HAD LABELLED ALL THEIR IMAGES WITH TEXT RELATING TO STOCK PHOTOGRAPHS, AND THE NUMBER OF THE SUPPLIER OF THE STOCK PHOTOGRAPH

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INTERNAL LINKING AND ANCHOR TEXT

We’ve already covered consistency in internal linking. Now it’s

time to consider how internal links can help search engines

create a hierarchy of pages within your site structure.

For a start, every page on your site should have a link pointing

to it. If a page is particularly important, it should have many

other pages linking to it internally. If the page isn’t particularly

important, it should have fewer links.

Your web developer should also consider the ‘anchor text’ of

these links. Anchor text is the (usually) blue text shown to users

to indicate a link: This is an example link.

Search engines use anchor text in assessing the subject matter

of a page. For example, if a page has lots of links pointing to it

with anchor text related to ‘used cars’, it follows that the content

of that page is probably related to used cars too.

We strictly use clear and descriptive anchor text to help search

engines and users make sense of the websites we build.


• Do you understand the importance of anchor text in SEO?

• Have you considered how correct use of anchor text will support the structure and hierarchy of my site?

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REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:

We helped a major UK supplier of home goods improve

rankings through a simple change in anchor text.

The issue arose because the website had only one link pointing

in to any of their major product lines from their category pages,

and the anchor text used in their menu was not in line with

users’ search engine habits.

For example, their menu linked to a category page with the

anchor text ‘white goods’, which meant potentially thousands

of links were telling search engines this page was about white

goods. However, within this category page, there was one link

pointing to a page about ‘washing machines’, which is a far more

relevant keyword.

We changed the menu to link directly to the washing machines

category using the anchor text ‘washing machines’ – ensuring

valuable link strength was directed appropriately, using an

appropriate anchor text.

WE HELPED A MAJOR UK SUPPLIER OF HOME GOODS IMPROVE RANKINGS THROUGH A SIMPLE CHANGE IN ANCHOR TEXT.

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SEARCH ENGINE INCLUSION

It’s important to ensure your website is indexed by search

engines. If this sounds strikingly obvious, then consider whether

your entire site is indexed by search engines, and ask yourself:

“Do I know how many pages are in my website?”

Search engines don’t index every page on the web for a variety

of reasons. Sometimes they will not index a page because

its content is similar to another page. Sometimes a site has a

large number of pages, but hasn’t garnered much strength from

inbound links.

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

We worked with a clothing retailer that had a blog on a

subdomain of its site (e.g. blog.clothing-retailer.com). They

hadn’t linked to or used this blog for years, and in fact hadn’t

realised it was still there. However, there were thousands of

pages on the blog still being indexed by search engines.

NEXT STEPS:


or you’re already working with one, ensure your web

developer follows the linking and content best practices laid

out elsewhere in this eBook. This will ensure a high rate of

search engine inclusion.

If your site is live, your developer should be able to tell you

how many pages are on your website. Do a site: search on

your root domain (e.g. ‘site:example.com).

If you see far fewer or many more pages are indexed than

the number you believe is in your site, then you have a

problem. This either means pages aren’t being indexed that

should be indexed, or there are pages you don’t know about

being indexed – this could point to any number of potential

technical problems.

At this point, you may wish to work with specialist SEO

consultants to iron out any of the myriad issues that could

be affecting search engine inclusion rates.

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XML SITEMAPS

Search engines use a number of methods to understand the

structure of the site and the importance of individual pages within

it. You can use an XML sitemap to help facilitate this process.

An XML sitemap is a file that contains a list of the URLs on your

site. To help search engines to find this file, it should be linked to

within the robots.txt file.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

The location of your sitemap, if you have one, should be

referenced within your robots.txt file (http://www.example.com/

robots.txt). If you don’t see your sitemap there, you either don’t

have one or your web developer hasn’t formatted the robots.txt

file correctly.

If you’re using Google Webmaster Tools, you can check how

many pages are in your sitemap, and how many pages are

indexed by Google.

It’s not essential that you have a sitemap, but it’s best practice to

include one. So ask your web developer to implement a sitemap

if they haven’t already.

IF YOU’RE USING GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS, YOU CAN CHECK HOW MANY PAGES ARE IN YOUR SITEMAP, AND HOW MANY PAGES ARE INDEXED BY GOOGLE.

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HOSTING

Is your web developer arranging hosting for your site? If so, it’s

important to be aware of potential hosting/server issues that

could affect your site if the wrong decision is made.

Firstly, it’s important to consider server location. Selecting an

appropriate sever location can be a significant factor in securing

search engine rankings for certain localities. It’s often important

to have a server in the nation that is your primary market,

especially if you use a .com domain.

If you trade solely in the UK, and you have a .com address, but

host your site in the US or mainland Europe, search engines will

have difficulty knowing that your site is related to the UK. Lots of

businesses don’t realise that some of the UK’s largest hosting

providers aren’t UK-based at all. Instead, they locate their

hosting facilities in Germany.

Secondly, you should consider server speed. The shorter

the distance from your server to the end user, the faster the

response. If your servers aren’t up to the task of hosting your

website, your site speed could suffer, which in turn creates a

poor user experience. What’s more, a slow site could affect

your search engine rankings – from 2010, Google has used site

access speed as a ranking factor.

SELECTING AN APPROPRIATE SEVER LOCATION CAN BE A FACTOR IN SECURING SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS

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THINGS TO CONSIDER:

In the best-case scenario, you should discuss server options early

on in the build. Communicate with your web developer to ensure

your chosen server can accommodate your goals for your site, and

is located in the appropriate country for your target market.

If your site is already live on an inappropriate server, then you

can put plans in place to move. Keep in mind, however, that

server moves can be complicated and may require specialist

help. You also may be locked into a contract with a server

provider for a set period of time.

However, in certain circumstances (e.g. Magento hosting) if you

choose well, your new host may provide a free migration service.

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

One of our experts worked with a company that had an

incredibly convoluted server setup. They were a British-owned

firm selling properties in Spain to British ex-pats on a .com

domain based in Germany.

Needless to say, moving to UK servers improved site speed and

rankings.

32

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Search Engine Optimisation By Phil Robinson & Lindsey Annison

• Discover the essential SEO tips and tricks you need to maximise

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Foreword by Dave Chaffey

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• Find killer keywords your competitors have missed.• Write punchy ads that drive sales and conversions.• 101 Pay Per Click tactics to help you build successful

campaigns.