Now JavaScript is becoming handled better and better by search engines the opportunities for web design & development are really beginning to grow. More than that, however, is that SEOs may be able to benefit from using JavaScript when optimising their content. In this presentation, Chris Green shows you the Do's and Don'ts of JavaScript Content optimisation.

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Do’s and Don’ts of JavaScript
Content Optimisation
Digital Olympus

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Imagine this...

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You have 150 titles to upload

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But you can’t get into the CMS

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Worse still, the CMS won’t let you make
those changes

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Or you need a new heading on a category
page

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And the development queue for that is
12 weeks

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Who’s had this or
similar?

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[The whole of the SEO community]

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How do you get around it?

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1)Wait?
2)Complain?
3)Sulk?

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1)Wait?
2)Complain?
3)Sulk?
All three?

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#DigitalOlympus
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Maybe it’s time
you try
JavaScript?

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Content Optimisation
Via JavaScript

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“Excuse me ma’am
have you ever
thought about
JavaScript
SEO?”

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This is not a sales pitch!

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#DigitalOlympus
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It has come a
long way!

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Google IO 2018 was another
great step forward

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Google IO 2018 was another
great step forward

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We can take the learnings from
our own experiments, Google & the
community

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I’m going to show you the Do’s and Don’ts
of JS Optimisation

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Why are we all getting
excited by JavaScript
now?

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For a long time JavaScript
was the enemy of SEO

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Because Google couldn’t handle it

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JavaScript has some massive web
design/development advantages

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But until very recently, SEOs had to fend
certain implementations away

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“If it doesn’t render in Lynx (browser) it’s not
going on my site”

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Google uses their Web Rendering Service
(WRS) to “view” JavaScript
http://www.thesempost.com/google-indexes-ranks-javascript-pages-two-waves-days-apart/

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Meaning a “truer” version of
the site is now ranked.

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The Opportunity

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We can embrace more dynamic websites
(yay!)

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But it is more than that

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JavaScript can be used to aid SEO

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By working around CMS/Design limitations

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Being more agile

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GTM can do it

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What Does Work

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Content optimisation

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Injecting content where there was none
before (or over existing content)

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Titles

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Titles

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Titles
Rendered page
Source

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Headings & Content

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Headings & Content

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Headings & Content
With JS Content
Without JS Content

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Structured Data

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Structured data

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Structured data

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It’s relatively easy

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Combine with Tags/Triggers
& Variables GTM for greater effectiveness

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Some more innovative tools are moving in
this direction

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Some caveats

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In our experience this can be effective

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Fetch & Render in GSC can show you
JavaScript
via GTM

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Although it is slower

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Control
Indexed
JS Test
Indexed
< 1 hr 12 days

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And less reliable

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http://bit.ly/js-drag-race

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http://bit.ly/js-drag-race

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(And Google says don’t use GTM for this)
http://bit.ly/no-gtm

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Content via GTM doesn’t work in all
circumstances

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What Doesn’t Work

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More “heavy-duty” SEO

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Canonical Tags

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http://bit.ly/dom-dom-canoical

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http://bit.ly/js-surprise

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http://bit.ly/JS-surprise2

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W.W.J.M.D?
(What Would JohnMu Do?)

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Robots directives

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“… JS wouldn't be able to
overwrite a noindex tag”
Andrew Allen, The Web Shed

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People are still contesting these -
more testing needed!

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But given how unpredictable this can be

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Canonicals & meta robots is risky

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Don’t doubt the
damage you could do!

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Screwed up a test here

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Screwed up a test here Fixed it here

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A Word of Warning

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The WRS (Chrome 41), whilst useful, is very
out of date
It’s over 3 years old & 26 versions behind ours!

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Lots of unsupported
elements
http://bit.ly/can-chrome-41

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And doesn’t treat JavaScript
exactly like our browsers do

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So we can’t get complacent

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You Can Check Yourself
In Browser Stack

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There is no substitute
for building it right

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JavaScript optimisation shouldn’t be the
first choice

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It can be unreliable and slow

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But it’s much better

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than doing
But it’s much better

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than doing
But it’s much better

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Thank you.
@chrisgreen87