Get Found: Raise Your Visibility Through Organic Search (Part 1)

Get Found: Raise Your Visibility
through Organic Search
The Ultimate Series on WordPress SEO - Part 1
September 23rd, 2015
#wpeseo

Make sure to stay engaged...
Use the “Questions” pane
throughout the webinar
Have questions about WP Engine?
Call 877-973-6446 or chat with a rep at wpengine.com

Two seasoned SEOs covering 6 great topics!
David Vogelpohl
VP Web Strategy, WP Engine
❖ Optimizing themes
❖ Mobile SEO
❖ Permalinks & URLs
Michael David
Author, “WordPress Search
Engine Optimization”
(Packt Publishing)
❖ Meta Titles & Descriptions
❖ Categories, Tags, Archive pages,
site structure
❖ Yoast plugin tuneup & Open
Graph

What you’ll learn from David V’s segment
How to audit themes, optimize for mobile,
and create search engine friendly URLs
@davidvmc

Picking out a pre-made theme
Go premium, reputable, & active
@davidvmc

HTML Smoke Test
@davidvmc
validator.w3.org

H Tag Smoke Test
View Source
Control + F
One H1 per Page
H tags in order
wpeng.in/multih1
H1
H2
H3
H2
H3
H4
H1
H7
H5
H2

Why is mobile SEO important?
Overall Mobile Usage is 60%!
@davidvmc

Three governing rules for mobile SEO
@davidvmc
Responsive not
subdomains
Usability is key
Speed = rankings

Test mobile friendliness with Google
@davidvmc

What is an SEO friendly URL?
URL that expresses context using natural
language and hierarchical structure
@davidvmc
pets.com/cats/heart-worms
pets.com/?pid=3122

Why are friendly URLs important to SERPs?
Keywords in URL affect algo
Highlighted keywords affect CTR
Context usability
@davidvmc

Setting up your permalink structure
Post name is safest
Optimize on per post level

Setting up your permalink structure
Category pros:
Hierarchical content
Easier page naming
Clear Analytics
301 redirects if changing!
Category cons:
Category pages matter
Longer URL path
Alphabetically chosen
wordpress.org/plugins/wp-category-permalink/

What you’ll learn from MD’s segment
● Enlightened look at Meta Titles &
Descriptions
● Expert look at Categories & Tags &
Archive pages & site architecture
● Yoast plugin tuneup & Open Graph
Michael David @tastyplacement

Title Tags/Meta Tags
Goals:
● Yes, use keywords
● But also sell your product and brand, create
interest, and draw the click

Only 50-54 characters
display, the rest get cut
off
When Everyone Else is
Writing Long TTs...Your
Compact, Organized TT
Stands Out!

Elegance Works
● You still want to
draw the click on
SERPS
● You can set a
"tone" for your
brand

Another lesson:
Avoid the pivot!

Do more than
mindlessly repeat
your site name
Don't "write" titles &
metas, "craft" them

"Crafting"
Example

Use Snippet Optimizer to craft cool title tags
http://www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html

Expert Site Architecture
Matt Cutts, 2012: “We’ve done a good job of
ignoring boilerplate, site wide links.”

Expert Site Architecture: Categories/Tags/Archive/Links
“When a site doesn't link to itself in the
content, it's not natural and that's a spam
signal”
-Mike King

Your on-site goal for site architecture should
be to:
●leverage contextual links--in content
●Minimize “link clutter” in footers & sidebars
●Better for search
●Better for users

Your site architecture, your internal linking
patterns, are a signal to Google what is
important on your site.

Date Archives
●Non-contextual
●99% of the time,
it's wrong

Blog Categories
●For users, won't
help with search
●Don't stuff with
keywords
●Keep it taut

Definitions:
Indexing is getting a page in google's index
Noindex is a robots tag we can apply in head to keep page
out of the index
Follow is a robots tag we can apply in head to say "but follow
links on this page"
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, FOLLOW">

Do we want google to index category pages?
...tag pages?
...date-based archives?
● Are they really content?
● Wordpress is simply going to repeat your
content here=Duplicate

Do we want google to index category pages?
If you choose to index Category Pages:
● No spam
● Display excerpts, not full posts
● Make custom Category Page text

Custom category pages:
-Your premium template
-”WP Custom Category
Pages Plugin”

Cat.
Descriptions
are built in.
Yoast adds
title & Meta
box...

Expert Yoast Approaches & OG
“WordPress SEO by Yoast”
-Leading all-around plugin for WordPress
-Mature
-Stable

“WordPress SEO by Yoast”
Does opengraph
Tethers Categories Tags Archives

Open Graph (ogp.me) is a metadata
standard for social sharing
Open Graph "tags" elements on your
website, like a meta description to feed those
elements into social

Open Graph (ogp.me) is a metadata
standard for social sharing
Image
Description
site_name

Yoast: “noindex” Categories & Tags

Yoast: “noindex” Author & Date Archives

Post webinar questions in GTW
Have questions on WPE?
Call 877-973-6446 or chat with a rep at wpengine.com
Questions for speakers:
michael@tastyplacement.com
@davidvmc
Q&A

Next
Get Found: Raise your Visibility through Organic Search
The Ultimate Series on WordPress SEO - Part 2
Wednesday, September 30th, 12 pm EDT/ 11 am CDT/ 9 am EDT
Tell friends and colleagues: http://wpeng.in/getfound/
Next Up...
❖ Speed ❖ HTACCESS Hacks
❖ Security ❖ Reducing your Google Index
❖ SSL ❖ Rank Checking Software

Get Found: Raise Your Visibility Through Organic Search (Part 1)

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Get Found: Raise Your Visibility Through Organic Search (Part 1)