BrightonSEO 2017 - SEO quick wins from a technical check

@chloebodard | #brightonseo
Technical Check???
@chloebodard | #BrightonSeo

Quick Wins??

Your Go-To Tools

301
REDIRECTS
ROBOTS.TXT
FILE
OPTIMISATION SITEMAPS
Top Technical SEO Quick Wins
CANONICAL
TAGS

+1,010%
Organic transactions YOY
What Results To Expect?
● Amount of keywords ranking has
increased by 90% over last 6 months
● This lead to a massive jump in
transactions from organic traffic.

+138%
Increase in organic goal
completions
What Results To Expect?
● Page 1 rankings for local terms.
● Organic traffic is up 49% year on year
● Goal conversion rate increased 60%
YoY

301 Redirects

● New site?
● Older domains?
● URL structure changes?
● Https migrations?
● Relative links?
When Could You Have Issues?

● Missing 301s
● Redirect chains
● Broken 301s
● 302s
● Unnecessary Redirects
What To Look For?

Analyse & Fix the issues.

@chloebodard | #brightonseo@chloebodard | #BrightonSeo

Site migration
rushed - resulted
in lots of redirect
chains/broken
redirects
Redirect chains
and broken
redirects fixed
301s Case Study

● Set up 301s from old & 404 pages to new ones
● Prevent redirect chains - URLs should 301 redirect straight to the final
version.
● Update all internal links to point to the final destination URL to prevent
unnecessary redirects
● Ensure site-wide 301 redirects are set up from non-preferred to
preferred versions (www, https & trailing slashes)
● Ensure all redirects are permanent 301s and not temporary 302s
UNLESS the move is temporary
Redirection Tips

Don’t just check and fix the redirects in your web crawl!
Look way back…
● Gather backlink URLs via tools such as Majestic
● Gather previous domain URLs
● Gather top landing page URLs from Analytics
● If you’re not sure of the old URLs, check websites like Wayback
Machine which store domain website snapshots.
● Gather 404s from Search Console
Consider old website versions too

Use Screaming Frogs List Mode to
crawl your list of URLs.
Make sure ‘Always Follow Redirects’ is ticked in Settings.
(Configuration > Spider > Advanced)
● Update Redirects which have multiple Redirect Chains
● Create Redirects for key 404s (esp. Backlink or Landing Page 404s)
● Fix broken/incorrect Redirects
Crawl your URLs

Robots.txt
File

User-agent: *
Disallow:
Sitemap: https://www.yourwebsite/sitemap.xml
“Make use of the robots.txt file
on your web server.”
Google Webmaster Guidelines

● Disallowing full site post migration
● Disallowing CSS/JS files
● Disallowing unexpected URLs
● Not disallowing staging site
What Issues Could You Have?

● Site Disallow
● Unexpected URLs Disallow
● Disallowing CSS/JS files
What To Look For?
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
User-agent: *
Disallow: /index.php/
User-agent: *
Disallow: */js/

Category page!!!

Robots sorted
Technical actions implemented
Robots.txt File Case Study

Improve your crawl
budget.

What is a Crawl Budget?

How to optimise your crawl budget?
1. Crawl your website.
2. Excessive URLs for users rather than search engines being
crawled? i.e Add to Basket / Wish List / Parameterised URLs
Eg: /claim/?action=claim_listing&listing_id=33910
/claim/?action=claim_listing&listing_id=33911
/book-an-appointment/997
/book-an-appointment/223
3. Disallow these via robots.txt (after testing!)

Add pages irrelevant to search or that you
don’t want crawled!
How to Fix It?
User-agent: *
Disallow: /blog/tag/
Disallow: /whishlist/

Option 1:
Use the robots.txt tester in Search
Console - this requires the robots.txt file
to be actually updated.
Option 2:
Use the custom robots.txt tool in
Screaming Frog to test then and there.
Check the commands you are adding will
work for the URLS you want to block.
How to test your robots?

For more info check out
Liam’s blog on
How to Improve Your Crawl
Budget !

Optimisation

Optimisation Quick Wins?
● Page titles
● H1s
● Meta descriptions for CTR.

● Missing page titles/meta descriptions/ H1s
● Duplicate page titles/meta descriptions/ H1s
● Lack of keyword targeting
● Meta tags improvement potential
● Internal cannibalisation
What To Look For?

How to check?
● Crawl your site
● Look at overview report tab
● Download the SERP Summary report which you
can then filter:
MISSING, DUPLICATED & LENGTH

How to check?
● Main phrase at beginning
of Page title?
● Main phrase/ variation in
the H1?
● H2s semantically
relevant?
● Close rankings for
different pages?
● Organic traffic drop to
one page & increase for
a similar one?
KEYWORDS
TARGETING
INTERNAL
CANNIBALISATION
● Use SC Search Analytics
report
● Check CTR - is rank high
and CTR low?
● Do you have KW ranking
on top of page 2?
METAS OPTIMISATION

Search Console Search Analytics Report

Page Titles, H1s & Meta
descriptions Updated
+46% increase in
organic traffic
since!
Optimisation Case Study

● Ensure ALL pages have a unique Page title, meta description and H1s.
○ Targeted keyword should be at the start of the page title & in the H1
○ Look at top rankers !!
○ Seize improvement opportunities from SC
○ Make meta descriptions engaging & with a CTA.
○ Include KW & semantic variations in H2s
● Ensure page titles & meta descriptions are within recommended length (up to 61-63
characters now)
● Ensure each page targets a different phrase to avoid internal cannibalisation
● Push pages ranking on top of page 2 to page 1
Optimisation Quick Wins

Be a Flamingo in a flock
of Pigeons.

Canonical
Tags

● Relative URLS
● 404s and 301s
● Non-preferred domain
● Listing URLs canonicalised to the first page
Issues To Look For?

Tech changes made and canonicals set to non
preferred (http) version
Canonicals updated to
avoid 301s and point
to preferred version
(https)
Canonical Tags Case Study

How to check?
Run a DeepCrawl Canonical Report to highlight:
● canonical errors,
● orphaned canonical URLs
● pages without a valid canonical tag
Use Screaming Frog to:
● Identify canonicalised URLs
● Check for errors by exporting the Canonical Errors report

● Use absolute rather than relative URLs
● Make sure your canonical matches your preferred domain (http or
https)
● Update canonical tags if you migrate.
● Don’t canonicalise listing URLs to the first page - they are not
duplicate content, use rel=”prev” & rel=”next” tags
● Canonical tags should not point to a 404 or 301 redirect
● Add self-referencing canonical tags to non canonicalised pages
Implementing Canonical Tags

Sitemaps

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2005-01-01</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
<priority>0.8</priority>
</url>
</urlset
A standard sitemap as shown within Sitemaps.org looks like this:
● Does not improve rankings
● Does provide a key list of your important pages to Google.
● There can be lots of hidden issues within your sitemap.

● Errors in your sitemap, such as 404, 301s or canonicalised
URLs
● Orphaned URLs that you may / may not want to be indexed
● Missing/inaccurate Last Modified Date
● Missing key pages
● Noindex pages & URLs blocked by robots.txt file
Issues To Look For?

How to check?
Use DeepCrawl to analyse your sitemap. Sitemap report will:
● Highlight any orphaned URLs to be linked
● Pages missing from your sitemap to be added
● Errors within its pages to be fixed
Use Search console to submit it & check for errors:
● Check for warnings & follow recommendations
● Look at number of URLs submitted vs indexed

● Best type of Sitemap is dynamic - automatically updates!
● Check for errors in your sitemap, don’t include 404, 301s or
canonicalised URLs
● Beware of orphaned URLs that you may not want to be indexed
● Include an accurate Last Modified Date
● Make sure your key pages are in there & use child sitemaps to
separate sections/large list of URLs.
● If multiple types of content, use additional sitemap types (image,
video & mobile )
Sitemap.xml Guidelines & Quick Wins

Choose Yoast for beautiful dynamic sitemaps, but...
Default settings include EVERYTHING that isn’t set to noindex!
● URLs you never knew existed like layout & slider sections? Likely to be in the
sitemap.
● PPC pages that you’ve created but not linked internally? Likely to be in the sitemap.
● Old pages you’ve used but haven’t redirected? Likely to be in the sitemap
● Test pages you’ve made for fun? Likely to be in the sitemap
Using Wordpress?

● Always check your sitemap settings, crawl your
sitemap for the list of URLs that you’ll be submitting to
Google.
● Any URLs you don’t agree with?
Remove via settings or noindex them (will remove
them from Yoast).
Optimising Yoast Sitemaps

Check out Michelle’s
AWESOME
Sitemap Guide!

BRAUMGroup 56
301 Redirects
● Don’t forget about 301s for
migrations & preferred version
site-wide rules
● Eliminate redirect chains, check
for redirects from internal links
● Don’t forget about old domains!!
Key Takeaways
Top Technical SEO Quick Wins (Part 1)
Robots.txt File
● Check & test your robots.txt
file
● Optimise your crawl budget
Optimisation
● Optimisation should be unique,
strategic, user friendly &
tailored to competition
● Overuse SC’s search analytics
report

BRAUMGroup 57
Canonical Tags
● Use absolute links for canonical
tags
● Beware of canonicalising
pagination links
Key Takeaways
Top Technical SEO Quick Wins (Part 2)
Sitemaps
● Beware of hidden errors within
your sitemap(s)
● Ensure all important pages are
included in the sitemap, that there
are no orphaned pages, nor
unwanted pages
● Use Last Modified date to notify
Google of page updates

Thank You!

BrightonSEO 2017 - SEO quick wins from a technical check

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