SEO-in-2022-final.pptx
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Presentation for the Asheville WordPress meetup group
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SEO-in-2022-final.pptx
- 1. SEO in 2022 Rich Owings https://localiswhereitsat.com https://localiswhereitsat.com/presentations/
- 3. WordPress specific topics Free tools How Google ranks Things to avoid Things that don’t matter What matters most What I’ll Cover
- 4. Google Other search engines Caveats
- 5. Google Analytics Google Search Console Yoast SEO plugin Free tools
- 6. Crawl XML sitemap How Google Ranks
- 7. Crawl XML sitemap Must be crawlable How Google Ranks
- 8. Crawl > Index How Google Ranks
- 9. Crawl > Index > Rank Algorithm Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Two most important ranking factors How Google Ranks
- 10. Content in 2022 No minimum or ideal length A page for every search term In-depth pages How Google Ranks
- 11. Links Page rank algorithm “PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is.” Backlinks/external links Internal links How Google Ranks
- 12. 2-3 times per year Match query/user intent Is it useful to the reader? Who outranks you Recovery Kitchen sink Core algorithm updates
- 13. Search Quality Rater Guidelines https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluator guidelines.pdf
- 14. Your money or your life (YMYL) Expertise, authority & trust (EAT) signals Much more in SQRG Search Quality Rater Guidelines
- 16. Page experience
- 17. = User experience (UX) Minor ranking factors Conversions Page speed Core Web Vitals Page experience
- 18. Cumulative Layout Shift Largest Contentful Paint First Input Delay Core Web Vitals Mcal2015, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- 20. Mobile Skimmable H tags (H1,H2, H3, etc.) Conversions and SEO
- 21. Multiple websites Slow hosts Overdependence upon Google Too many pages on a single topic Little to no text / junk content Things to avoid
- 22. Things to avoid
- 23. Things to avoid
- 24. Multiple websites Slow hosts Overdependence upon Google Too many pages on a single topic Little to no text / junk content Botched redesigns and migrations Things to avoid
- 25. Too many changes at once Lost landing page traffic and backlinks Redesigns and migrations
- 27. Too many changes at once Lost landing page traffic and backlinks Blanket redirects Post-migration Redesigns and migrations
- 29. Multiple websites Slow hosts Overdependence upon Google Too many pages on a single topic Little to no text / junk content Botched redesigns and migrations Things to avoid
- 30. Toxic links Things that don’t matter
- 31. No tricks SEO is incremental Useful to the searcher/meet intent Be better than your competitors Constant improvement Content and links Search Quality Rater Guidelines Be careful with redesigns and migrations What matters most
- 34. Multiple websites Slow hosts Overdependence upon Google Too many pages on a single topic Little to no text Junk content (thin content, blank pages, etc.) Things to avoid
- 35. Things to avoid
- 36. Things to avoid
Editor's Notes
- Good evening! I’ve got links to various resources scattered thru the slides Which are posted at SLOW I’ll show that URL again at the end of the program
- 1.Stands for Simple definition but in reality is quite complex in terms of implementation We’re going to dig into that
- I’m going to try and balance things and have it be user friendly but really dig into some meatier topics as well.
- 1. Google doesn’t tell us the details of their algorithm 2. In a way it’s like reading tea leaves So what you’ll hear tonight is based on my own experience, best practices, research 3. When Google does tell you something, it’s best to take it with a grain of salt… may be technically correct but often misleading 4. Almost everything applies to other search engines as well (research Apple)
- 0. I’m going to be mentioning a few tools tonight so I wanted to go ahead and discuss those; these are all free 1/1a. GA – A great deal of info - Where site visitors are coming from social media vs PPC ads vs search engine traffic that you see here, AKA organic traffic; geog. info, first & last pages, etc. To complicate matters, transitioning to GA4; present version is sunset on June 30 next year Get GA4 in place now to be able to do YOY comparisons; as of July 1, prior data in old version & everything going forward in new version New sites or sites without GA – just install the new version Existing site with existing version of GA - Add GA4 but leave current version in place; They walk you through these options in setup They give you a snippet of code to add to your site/plugins 2. Theme 3/3a. GSC – more exclusively about search and indexing; keywords, etc. -other features later on 4. GSC setup; verify ownership; use GA option; easiest way for most people 5/5a – Yoast is most popular SEO plugin; we’ll be looking at a few features of it as well Links in slides to each
- 0. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s dig into how Google ranks web pages; there are a couple of preliminary steps before ranking 1. First they have to crawl websites - Program that visits websites and follows links 2. Another way they discover pages is via your site’s XML sitemap 3. These are often generated by an SEO plugin; showing Yoast here Note the URL A simple one would list every URL on a site, but on many sites it more common to have an index sitemap that leads to separate sitemaps. For example, we can click to see the page sitemap… 4. And it will show you a list of all the pages on my website; the post sitemap would show all blog posts 5. Here is an example of a more complex index sitemap; if we have time we can dig into sitemap issues later on because it can be a good troubleshooting tool for indexing issues, which we’ll touch on in a moment
- During development, Says don’t crawl
- 0. Once Google crawls the site and hopefully discovers all the pages you want them to They then index content, deciding which pages are worth showing in SERPs 1. In GSC you can go in and see what pages are indexed and which ones aren’t Not unusual 2. 404, noindex (we’ll look at an example a little later), redirect We could spend all evening on this (know them all) Learn more link
- 0.After they crawl and index content, they then have to decide how to rank it 1. 200+ ranking factors in their algorithm, but they don’t provide much detail on them and how they are weighted But in a round about way, they actually tell us a lot, and we’ll get to that shortly 2.There are so many ranking factors that many SEOs suspect they are using ML/AI to determine the weight of each This is the type of content we’re looking for; use ML to tweak the weight of each ranking signal 3. In terms of ranking signals, Google has said that the two most important factors are content and links
- 0. This has changed quite a bit over the years You used to hear people say you needed a minimum of 250-300 words, and then there were studies showing better ranking if you had at least 2200-2400 words, so we started seeing more in-depth pages But there is no minimum/ideal length (e.g., - sunset time in Asheville today) 2. It used to be that you could rank well by having a page for every search term, for variations of a keyword or a page for every subtopic 3. Now many pages seem to rank better if they cover a topic in detail and include those variations and subtopics in the page These are general rules and it will vary depending upon your topic
- 0. We noted that Google says links are the other most important ranking factors. How links affect rankings Google’s original algorithm; is still part of their algorithm A simplified description; READ; There are a couple of implications to this… Backlinks (links from other websites to a page) are very important (e.g., NYT, Southern Living, etc.) But what many people don’t realize is how important internal links are Links from within your own site to other pages on your site When you link to a page over and over, it does send a ranking signal to Google So you want to link to important pages from your menu, home page, from blog posts, etc. Improving internal linking can be an easy way to boost rankings Say you have a lot of blog posts, and in them you mention a lot of your main products or services. Always includes links to those important pages. And we’ll talk more about that.
- 0. Another thing to be aware of is that in recent years, Google has started rolling out these things they call Core Algorithm Updates They test many tweaks to their algorithm and then they roll out major changes all at once; they do this 2-3 times/year 2. Click and discuss image/early July 2021 Current year blue 3. Often they seem to be tweaking things so they do a better job of matching query/user intent Not punishing you Just that other sites may do that better; they are improving their algo to match the query 4/5 - DISCUSS THESE 6. Recovery can be difficult and usually won’t happen until next core update, so you don’t want to make one or two little changes and wait 4-6 months 7. Throw kitchen sink at it. Anything and everything. My audits often 20-30+ pages of prioritized recommendations. So let’s talk about improvements (whether or not you’ve been hit). I told you Google doesn’t give us the details of their algorithm but in a way they do with the…
- 0. SQRG 1/1a. This is the closest thing we have to a key to solving ranking issues 167 pages of pure gold, straight from Google What this is about… Employs humans and has them test search results (elaborate) How did we do at returning good search results QRG says what they are trying to accomplish Doesn’t tell us the weight of ranking factors but it does tell us EXACTLY what they are after 2. Some examples
- 1. I want to point out a couple of other things discussed in the SQRG… YMYL - financial advice, ecommerce, health care; there is a higher standard here where disreputable sites can do significant harm 2. EAT – EA &/or T signals can be important for medical, news, financial sites, etc. but they also talk about hobbies and exceptions 3. There’s so much more in the guidelines We don’t have time tonight to dig into these in depth If you are serious about SEO, I encourage you to read the entire SQRG Once again, Google is telling us exactly what kinds of sites they want to rank well and they are giving us lots of clues about ranking signals
- I’d also like to explore a few ranking factors that impact both SEO and conversions
- 0/1…Google Search Console now includes a page experience report It looks at mobile usability, HTTPS (whether or not your site uses this secure communication protocol), and core web vitals which measures some components of page speed I’m not going to dig into all of these because most sites are on HTTPS and are mobile responsive
- 0. But basically what Google is trying to look at here are some factors that impact user experience (another topic worth digging into) Relatively minor ranking factors but worth paying attention to because they impact… Conversions, which are often easier to improve conversions than rankings Quicker 3. One thing Google has looked at for several years now is page speed, but it is hard to estimate or measure 4. CWV
- 0. Things that really impact the UX/ three factors CLS – among the worst in my mind LCP –typically first and largest image on page 3. FID – how long between when someone tries to interact with the site until the browser can respond 4. GSC - CWV tab/mobile – 0 good URLs 5. Whack-a-mole warning – You can think you’ve improved it and the issue can reappear, or it can just be very difficult to improve these scores, so I want to point you towards a resource…
- 0/1/2 This is the best one I’ve seen and it’s always the one I refer developers to Patrick Stox – Raleigh SEO Meetup/IBM/ Ahrefs Discusses each CWV component, and specific steps to take CWV issues can be very difficult to resolve This will help minimize the time spent going down non-productive rabbit holes Again, CWVs is a minor ranking factor but can have a significant impact on UX and conversions which is why I’m including it in tonight’s discussion
- 0. Let’s look at a few other ways user experience impacts both conversions and SEO 1/1a - GA – look at mobile percentage (Audience > Mobile); 2/3 Mobile friendliness is a ranking factor, albeit minor, but very important for conversions As Web devs, SEOs and business owners, we tend to spend more time on desktop or laptop than the public Look at your phone; look at your site; look at search results 2 – Digestible/most people don’t want to read a wall of text (short sentences and paragraphs, bullet points, call outs, images with captions, etc.) 3. Header tags play into this and can be a more significant ranking factor (as well as impacting UX & conversions) Logical layout H1 headline, H2 major subtopics, H3 break it down further Think of it as an outline… Makes it easier for Google to understand your content and can significantly affect rankings I’m not talking about stuffing keywords in these. I’m talking about a logical layout, outlining the breakdown of your content to help Google understand it better
- 0. Things to avoid Mult. websites for the same business – costs, maint., etc.;, links; dilutes ranking power; very different topics then OK 2/2a – Slow hosts – if you’re paying $5 a month and it’s slow to load; well, you get what you pay for 3/3a. Defensible traffic/all about risk 4. Too many pages can be problematic depending upon how you do it. It can result in what we call keyword cannibalization (blue widgets); Blog post examples; it’s fine to blog about your major products or services, but rather than trying to get each of those blog posts to rank, you want to link from those blog posts back to the main page about that product or service. Use the power of internal linking to boost that page. You want it to rank, not each of those blog posts. 5. This is a place that Yoast can get you into trouble – they ask you to enter a keyword you want to rank for. Many business owners will use the same oe over and over and try to get those bullets green. Again, don’t create multiple pages in an attempt to get them each to rank for the same term; instead use internal linking to let Google know which page on the subject is the important one you want to rank 6. Enough for Google to understand what the focus of that page is about/ speaking of little to no text, let’s talk about junk content
- 0. One thing I do in an SEO audit is to check each individual sitemap 1. And then check out a few of the URLs they link to 2. If you see pages in there that don’t make sense, that you wouldn’t want the public to see, you want to get rid of them Typically you’re looking for junk pages with little to no content Sometimes themes will cause this Your sitemap tells Google, these are pages you should consider for indexing You don’t want to confuse Google by directing them to pages like this Keep their focus on real pages and the pages you want to rank
- 0.If you see a page like this, here’s how to remove it from your sitemap, if you’re using Yoast Look under Search Appearance > Taxonomies and Archives tabs, look for the name of the sitemap (I don’t have access to that site, but we’d be looking for something like project here), expand that and 1. Click Off Takes it out of sitemap Gives those URLs a noindex tag, which tells Google not to index them or show them in search results There’s never a case where you want someone going to a page like that Cleaning things like this up does two things: It keeps Google’s focus on the pages you want But perhaps more importantly, it can make it easier to diagnose indexing issues. 2. In GSC you can look at pages they aren’t indexing that are in your sitemap. Instead of trying to figure out why they aren’t indexing 2300 pages, you’ve narrowed it down to 48 that you can look at in more detail. Why is Google not indexing these? Are there any of these pages that are important to me?
- Botched redesigns and migrations
- Redesigns often change a lot of things -- content, links on the page, order, site structure, (URLs, menu, categories); CMS or domain even more; the more changes you throw at Google at once, the easier it is to confuse their algorithm; most people don’t want to do it incrementally though, but the more you change, the more cautious you should be In this case, they had a new site rolled out on August 30 that completely changed their home page, dropping all their main products from the home page. Nor did they include them in the main menu. 60% traffic decline. Have to be careful about major changes Another issue in redesigns and migrations is lost landing page traffic and lost backlinks
- Prior to redesign or migration, check both your landing pages and pages with backlinks. If high traffic pages or URLs with backlinks do not exist on the new site, redirect to a similar page. To determine which pages to redirect… - In GA go to Behavior > Site Content > Landing pages (1st page people visit). if it’s a small site, you may be able to retain or redirect all URLs. Two pages here = 95%. For large sites (1000s of pages) I try to account for at least 90% of landing page traffic. In other words, I go though this report until cumulatively I’ve gotten to 90% of landing page visits. There are redirection plugins you can use to redirect URLs once you identify them (John Godley’s) 2. You also want to check for backlinks to important pages; you’ll need to use a tool like SEM Rush, but they offer a free trial; You want to retain or redirect almost all pages with backlinks. If you redirect, they need to go to a similar page. URLs returning 404 errors do not pass page rank. If NYT links to you and that page 404s, it’s like saying to Google, just disregard that link from the NYT. Don’t use it help us rank better.
- No blanket redirects to home page. You don’t want a rule that says, if it 404s, just send them to the home page. It is a bad user experience but also know that it can cause Google to stop trusting your redirects, which can result in a loss of ranking power. So if they don’t trust or ignore your redirects, any URLs with backlinks that you’ve redirected won’t pass page rank. They won’t get that ranking power that comes from backlinks. Post-migration, there are few tasks you should perform, to make sure there are no major hiccups
- 0. Check for top traffic pages, landing pages and 404 errors First, look at your top traffic pages in GA, comparing the pre-migration and post-migration periods. Behavior > Site Content > All Pages. You’re looking for big drops in pageviews Then check landing pages for the same thing. You also want to check for 404 errors and redirect any with significant traffic. (This is a good thing to do with any site). In this case, you would be looking at post-migration dates. In GA, Behavior > Site Content > All Pages > Page Title > and search for 404/page not found Click on the result and you can generally see what pages are returning 404 /page not found errors. You can see which ones are returning high volumes of those and redirect them.
- Botched redesigns and migrations
- 1. Have you ever heard of toxic links? These are links from spammy sites, links you have bought, etc. Basically not legitimate links you have earned from reputable sites because you’ve created good content 2. I use SEM Rush, a paid tool, and they keep sending me notices like this – “Penalty risk is high” But I’m not concerned Google is very good at ignoring these links So unless you’ve received a manual penalty and were notified of that via GSC, I wouldn’t worry
- 1. Used to be able to trick Google into ranking you well (keyword stuffing, buying links) Much more difficult now; some things may work briefly (emojis in title tags and meta descriptions) Best approach is to actually improve your site 2. No one thing/ There are many ways to improve your site and while some things matter more than others, it’s best to take a comprehensive approach and improve everything you can 6. Internal and external links (internal links you have complete control over and they provide a strong ranking signal) 7. SQRG – Google is telling you what kind of pages they want to rank well; read them 8. Be careful with redesigns and migrations; they are an SEO minefield Local SEO notes – GBP, et al; home page text
- 0. May matter more for troubleshooting indexing issues but it drives me crazy- Junk content – thin content (one or two sentences); also blank content (nothing but a title) Let’s look at a couple of examples of inadvertently created “junk content” you might not want Google to index
- 0. Here’s another example You’ll sometimes see an image attachment sitemap In this case it leads to a sitemap with 232 URLs I turned this on briefly on my own site to show you an example 3. It takes every image on a site and turns it into something that looks like a blog post with nothing but a title 4. Here’s the URL with the actual image But you want to get rid of this page on the left that looks like a blank blog post
- 0. If you are using Yoast, you simply go here (Search Appearance > Media) and choose this setting to redirect those URLs to the image itself Cleaning things like this up does two things: - It keeps Google’s focus on the pages you want them to focus on It can make it easier to diagnose indexing issues 1.