why did you do that!? seo mistake developers make- and how to fix them
TRANSCRIPT
SEO MISTAKES DEVELOPERS MAKE
Alicia Hale@aliciahalevp#seomistakes#wcri
WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?
TODAY’S FLOW•Who am I?•What brings us here?•14 Mistakes & Fixes•Resources•Questions
WHO ARE YOU?
HI! I’M ALICIA.•Alicia Hale•VP, Digital Marketing Services @emagineusa•Over a decade of SEO experience•@aliciahalevp
WHAT BRINGS US HERE?
SEO. IT MATTERS.•SEO is complicated•Best practices•Common mistakes•Fixes•Technical SEO tools
WHAT ARE THOSE BEST PRACTICES?
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT•Keyword research•Optimization of onsite content elements•Optimization of onsite & server level technical elements•Tracking, measuring, reporting
14 MISTAKES & FIXES
MISTAKE #1:MISSING H1 / TOO MANY H1S ON A PAGE
#1: THE FIX•H1 tags have more value than many other content elements on a page•Add one- and only one to each page on your site (especially your homepage)! •And make sure your H1s are optimized
MISTAKE #2: NOT DEVELOPING WITH POTENTIAL FUTURE TRACKING IN MIND
#2: THE FIX•For marketers, tracking is essential•Assign classes to on-page elements that are clickable, or use CSS selectors •Unique thank you page with a unique URL after a form completion. •Say no to light boxes
MISTAKE #3: NOT OPTIMIZING YOUR IMAGES FOR LOAD TIME AND SEO
#3: THE FIX•Site speed is a ranking factor•Compress your images•Utilize keywords in their file names•Add alt text•Develop responsively
MISTAKE #4: NOT IMPLEMENTING PAGE-TO-PAGE AND TOP LEVEL 301 REDIRECTS
#4: THE FIX•Perform top level 301 redirect(s) at the server level•Implement one-to-one redirects via a plugin like the Redirection plugin
MISTAKE #5: BLOCKING GOOGLE FROM CRAWLING YOUR WEBSITE
#5: THE FIX•Under settings ensure “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is unchecked.•Allow search engines in the robots.txt
MISTAKE #6: INCORRECT TRACKING CODE IMPLEMENTATION
#6: THE FIX•Implement code where directed.•GA code should be right before </head>•GTM code should be placed just inside <body>•Remarketing code before </body>•Adwords conversion code on “Thank You” pages
MISTAKE #7: NO ROBOTS.TXT/DISALLOWING TOO MUCH
#7: THE FIX•Add robots.txt at the root•Careful with the disallow•Don’t block CSS or Javascript
•Reference sitemap.xml
MISTAKE #8: NO SITEMAP.XML
#8: THE FIX•Needed to crawl a site properly•Create one with:•Crawl frequencies & crawl priorities•Set it to auto-update
•Add to the root•Upload to Google Search Console
MISTAKE #9:INCORRECT SSL CERTIFICATE IMPLEMENTATION & REDIRECT
#9: THE FIX•Improper indexing and duplicate content•Ensure that both your SSL certificate and redirect are appropriate
MISTAKE #10: USING UNCRAWLABLE TEXT AND IMAGES
#10: THE FIX•AJAX and Flash elements can often cause Google to be unable to crawl•Stop using Flash•Fetch and render your code through Google Search Console
MISTAKE #11: ALLOWING ALL PAGES TO BE INDEXED
#11: THE FIX•Noindex/nofollow landing pages and thank you pages•Blog/archive pages•Pages with no content•This maintains data integrity•Also, don’t include these pages in the sitemap
MISTAKE #12: ALLOWING YOUR STAGING SITE TO BE INDEXED
#12: THE FIX•Limit access to staging via: •An htaccess rule•A disallow all in the robots.txt and •Meta noindex/nofollow tags applied to the head of each page
MISTAKE #13: NOT BREAKING LONG CONTENT INTO SEPARATE PAGES DURING SITE BUILD
#13: THE FIX•Larger site = More SEO value•Break lengthy content into separate pages•Add sub-pages if appropriate
MISTAKE #14:DUPLICATE CONTENT DUPLICATE CONTENT
#14: THE FIX•Duplicate content triggers a Google Penalty•Tell the client•Use canonical tags
RESOURCES
THE HELP•Google Search Console: https://www.google.com/webmasters/
THE HELP (CONT.)
10/1/2016 | SLIDES: https//goo.gl/V8kd2D
THE HELP (CONT)•Screaming Frog: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/•Moz: https://moz.com/•Sitemap Generator: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/•Yoast: https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/
SEO MISTAKES DEVELOPERS MAKE
QUESTIONS?
Alicia HaleVP Digital Marketing Services@emagineusa