Dynamic Websites: Beyond the
Basics
SES London 2009
Richard Baxter
SEOgadget.co.uk

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

Dynamic site challenges
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
SEOgadget.co.uk

Organise your team
Define a strategy
Record / document your changes
Write specifications for SEO
ORGANISATION
SEOgadget.co.uk

Organise your team
Build an SEO team in-house
– Onsite technical
– Onsite content
– Offsite SEO
– Metrics / Analytics / Reporting
SEO Manager
Onsite /
Offsite SEO / Analytics / Onsite content
Technical SEO
Links team Reporting SEO
team
SEOgadget.co.uk

Define a strategy
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Onsite Project Project Project Project
technical
title title title title
SEO
Onsite Project Project Project Project
content
title title title title
SEO
Offsite Project Project Project Project
SEO title title title title
Define success metrics eg:
KPI’s /
Metrics / X% increase in site visibility
Site traffic growth
Analysis Revenue
SEOgadget.co.uk

Record your changes
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”
SEOgadget.co.uk

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!
SEOgadget.co.uk

Reporting / Metrics
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
SEOgadget.co.uk

Pagination
Duplicate content
How to fix duplicate content with internal links, onclick and noindex
Recession proofing – handling product pages and vacancies
TECHNICAL SEO
SEOgadget.co.uk

Case study - Pagination
Product page: Cameras
Unique Paginated
H1
text links...
– http://www.outdoorpros.com/Cat/Cameras/1241/List
SEOgadget.co.uk

Case study - Pagination
Product page: Cameras
Same Not so
H1 unique text
– http://www.outdoorpros.com/Cat/Cameras/1241/List?first_answer=13
SEOgadget.co.uk

Diagnose duplicate content
site:www.outdoorpros.com
site:www.outdoorpros.com inurl:first_answer
Case study: http://zi.ma/278965
SEOgadget.co.uk

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
SEOgadget.co.uk

Rel=“canonical”
Add this <link> tag to specify your preferred
version:
<link rel=\"canonical\"
href=\"http://www.example.com/product.php?i
tem=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
SEOgadget.co.uk

Recession proofing: Long tail
Keep your pages alive, but make the user
experience valuable
The vacancy’s been placed,
but we’ve got plenty of
others!
SEOgadget.co.uk

A Few Useful Tools
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
SEOgadget.co.uk