what really matters in technical seo
TRANSCRIPT
What Really Matters in Technical SEO
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Basics of Technical SEO
q Itsimplyrefersto“things”thatarerelatedtocode,se7ngs,andservers.
q Itincludesthingsyoucanseeandthingsyoucan’tsee.Todaywe’regoingtoprimarilyfocusonthosethingsyoucandiscoverandfix.
q Itfocusesondiscoveringissuesandfixingtheseproblems.
q Thegoalistomakeiteasyforsearchenginestocrawl,digest,understandandindexyourwebsiteorblog’scontent.
q Itdoesn’talwaysrequireprogrammingskillsastherearelotsoftoolsavailabletoassistinaudits,noCficaCons,andulCmateresoluConoftheissue.
Technical SEO can sound really intimidating. But don’t worry, because it doesn’t have to be scary at all!
Highlights of Technical SEO
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Strong SEO is only possible when it is combines good content with high quality WordPress themes, plugins, developers, and hosting.
!
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H1 Tags The header tag, or the <h1> tag in HTML, will usually be the title of a page or post. It should be the largest text and towards the top of the content.
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Problem: MissingH1tagsMulCpleH1tags
WhyIt’sanIssue: MissingormulCpleH1’smakesitdifficultforsearchenginestounderstandthecontent’ssubjectmaIer
RootCause: PoorlycodedWordPressthemeUseroverridethroughWordPresseditor
WaytoDiscover: ReviewsourcecodeoreditorUsethirdpartytoolslikeMozbar
Resolu,onOp,ons: ChangetoanewWordPressthemeFixthecodewithintheexisCngWordPressthemeRemovemanualoverrideswithincontent
Meta Titles and Descriptions Meta titles and descriptions give Google and other search engines an idea of what the page is about and what they should expect to see as they digest the content. These data points appears in search engines result pages.
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Problem: MissingmetaormulCplemetaSamemetaacrossenCrewebsiteTooshortoroverlylongmeta
WhyIt’sanIssue: Makesitdifficultforsearchenginestounderstandthecontent’ssubjectmaIer
RootCause: LackofSEOpluginorincorrectpluginse7ngsUseroverridethroughpluginse7ngsineditor
WaytoDiscover: ReviewsourcecodeMozbar,GoogleSearchConsole
Resolu,onOp,ons: InstallandproperlyconfigureAllinOneSEOorYoastUsereducaCononbestpracCcesandproperusage
SEO Friendly URLs SEO friendly URLs help search engines understand a website’s architecture and the structure of the content.
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Problem: SettonumbersandnotwordsFunkycharactersLackofhierarchy
WhyIt’sanIssue: Makesitdifficultforsearchenginestounderstandthehierarchyandnatureofcontent,difficulttocrawl
RootCause: OutdatedtechnologyorbadpluginsIncorrectse7ngsinWordPress
WaytoDiscover: ReviewwebsiteinbrowserCheckWordPressse7ngsUseDynomapperorScreamingFrogtocrawlwebsite
Resolu,onOp,ons: SetpermalinkstopostnameinWordPressUseSEOpluginstofurthercleanandopCmize
Robot.txt Files The robots exclusion protocol (REP), or robots.txt is a text file webmasters create to instruct robots (from search engines) how to crawl and index website content.
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Problem: MissingenCrelyIncorrectusageanderrors
WhyIt’sanIssue: CausessensiCvecontenttobeindexedIncorrectlyblockssearchenginesfromsearchablecontent
RootCause: LackofeducaConOutdatedconfiguraCons
WaytoDiscover: GoogleSearchConsole
Resolu,onOp,ons: ReviewperiodicallyMonitorGoogleSearchConsole
XML Sitemaps A sitemap is a file where you can list the content within your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your content.
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Problem: MissingWrongversion(HTML)submiIedtosearchenginesUnstructuredandwithouthierarchyorsegmentaConErrors
WhyIt’sanIssue: Makesitdifficultforsearchenginestolocateallcontentand/orunderstandthehierarchyofawebsite
RootCause: NopluginsUnknowledgeableusers
WaytoDiscover: GoogleSearchConsoleandBingWebmasterTools
Resolu,onOp,ons: InstallandproperlyconfigureAllinOneSEOorYoastUploadtoGSCandBWTReviewforerrorsinGSCandBWT
Duplicate Content Duplicate content (in this case) refers to the same content displayed under different URLs.
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Problem: wwwvs.non-wwwhIpvs.hIpsSessionIDsOnlinepages+printerfriendlypages
WhyIt’sanIssue: Confusessearchenginesandforcesthemtoselectoneversionwhilealsobeingmessyforhumanvisitors
RootCause: ConfiguraConissues,lowqualitywebsiteso`ware,plugins
WaytoDiscover: Dynomapper,GoogleAnalyCcs,GoogleSearchConsole
Resolu,onOp,ons: WordPressAllinOneSEOorYoastSEOpluginsCanonicalURLs
Unreadable Content On-page content is not readable by search engine spiders. This happens much more then people realize or care to admit.
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Problem: Searchenginescannotaccessand/orreadcontentwithinapageorwebsiteasawhole
WhyIt’sanIssue: Ifsearchenginescannotreadthepage,theycannotascertainthesubmitmaIerandwillsimplyignore
RootCause: iFramesFlashPoorcoding(i.e.JavaScript,mobileresponsiveness)Robot.txtfileissues
WaytoDiscover: GoogleSearchConsoleandBingWebmasterTools
Resolu,onOp,ons: MonitorGSCandBWTModerncodebaseandqualitydevelopers
301 Redirects A 301 redirect is a status code that instructs search engines that a page/post has permanently moved to a new location. It transfers SEO history to the new piece of content and at the same time it routes website traffic to this new location.
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Problem: Deletedcontentwithout301redirectsWebsiteredesignwithout301redirects
WhyIt’sanIssue: LossofSEOrankingandhistoryLossofhumanwebsitetrafficReducConsinindexedcontent
RootCause: LackofeducaCononpartofwebsiteownerLackofeducaCononpartofdigitalagency
WaytoDiscover: GoogleSearchConsole,GoogleAnalyCcs
Resolu,onOp,ons: UsereducaConQualitydigitalagencywithbasicknowledgeofSEOWordPresspluginslikeRedirecCon
Mobile Responsive Google now sees more search traffic from mobile devices than it does for desktop computers. It is becoming more and more focused on mobile, while also adjusting the algorithms to handle mobile differently then desktop.
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Problem: Fixedwidthwebsitethatdoesn’tadapttomobiledevicesResponsivethemesthatdisplaypoorlyonmobiledevices
WhyIt’sanIssue: ReducedsearchrankinginsearchenginesPoorexperienceforhumanvisitors
RootCause: OutdatedwebsitecodeorthemePoorlycodedresponsivethemes
WaytoDiscover: BrowseyourwebsiteonasmartphoneortablethIp://ami.responsivedesign.is
Resolu,onOp,ons: SwitchWordPressthemesUpdateexisCngthemecodetoberesponsive
Schema and Rich Snippets Structured data helps Google understand the content on your site, which can be used to display rich snippets in search results.
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Problem: LackofschemaIncorrectlyusedschema
WhyIt’sanIssue: FailstoshowcaseyourcontenttosearchenginesConfusessearchengines
RootCause: OutdatedthemesPoorlycodedplugins
WaytoDiscover: Google’sStructuredDataTesCngTool
Resolu,onOp,ons: UpdatethemeorframeworkAddschemarichpluginsUsereducaCon
Code Bloat Code bloat is a term describing a HTML page that is mostly markup and not much content.
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Problem: Page’scodeisgreaterthantheactualcontent
WhyIt’sanIssue: SlowssearchenginecrawlingLimitedamountofcontentdigestedandindexedCoulddegraderanking
RootCause: LackofusereducaConCopyandpastfromWordoroutsidewebsitesOldcontentandwebsitesPoorcodingbydeveloper
WaytoDiscover: WordPresseditorreviewPingdomTools
Resolu,onOp,ons: UsereducaConQualitythemesanddevelopersCodereviews
Speed and Performance Site speed is part of Google’s algorithm. While site speed is not a high ranking factor, this is changing and the importance of fast websites is a growing concern to Google and other search engines.
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Problem: Slowandsluggishwebsitesand/orcontent
WhyIt’sanIssue: MakesitdifficultforsearchenginestocrawlcontentCreatesapooruserexperienceforhumanvisitors
RootCause: Themes,hosCng,userentryerrors
WaytoDiscover: GooglePageSpeedInsightsandPingdomTools
Resolu,onOp,ons: ReduceimagesizesOpCmizeMySQLdatabaseOpCmizethemecodeUseacachepluginSwitchthemesSwitchhosCngcompaniesorupgradehosCngplan
Malware The term “malware” covers all sorts of malicious software designed to harm a computer, website, or network. While there are lots of different kinds of malware, the common ones include: viruses, worms, spyware, or trojan horses.
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Problem: ContentmodificaCons,contentaddiCons,phishing,lossofadministraCvecontrol,redirects
WhyIt’sanIssue: Lossoftrafficfromhumanvisitors,lossofrankinginsearch,lossofcredibility
RootCause: PoorpasswordsOutdatedso`wareLowgradehosCng
WaytoDiscover: GoogleSearchConsole,web-basedscans,onsiteplugins
Resolu,onOp,ons: WordPressplugins(i.e.iThemesSecurity)HighqualityhosCng
Strong SEO is only possible when it is combines good content with high quality WordPress themes, plugins, developers, and hosting.
!
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