Website maintenance isn't sexy but it's important. Think of it as the "blocking and tackling" of digital marketing. Here are the things you MUST do to begin, monthly tasks, and semi-annual plans to succeed.

1. img: Nasa
Life after launch
Keep your website fast, discoverable,
and secure

2. John Gough
Principal, Skyhook Interactive
Jim Bader
Senior Director of SEO, Vertical Measures
@john_gough @jambad

3. 966M
https://hostingfacts.com/internet-facts-stats-2016/
Websites online in 2016
You need to be
discoverable.

4. 47%
https://econsultancy.com/blog/10936-site-speed-case-studies-tip
s-and-tools-for-improving-your-conversion-rate/
Of people expect a page to
load in less than 2 seconds
You need to be
fast.

5. 37,000
https://hostingfacts.com/internet-facts-stats-2016/
Sites are hacked every day
You need to be
secure.

6. Here’s what’s next:
What to do when you launch
Monthly tactical review
Semi-annual strategic review
SEO for ROI

7. Click here to download
Download the
free ebook
With a 20 item checklist and schedule

8. First things first
What to do when you launch
Google Analytics
SEO Considerations
404 page
Social sharing
Forms and CTAs
Training and documentation
Automatic backups
Benchmark reports

9. Google
Analytics is
active
Track user activity across your
site and enable interaction with
other Google products.
Plugins: All In One SEO or Yoast
SEO

10. 1
2
3

11. 2
3
1

12. The foundation of good marketing
is good measurement.

13. SEO
considerations
It’s harder to get found than it seems.

14. Indexing and “Rank-ability”
Did you build your website to be a marketing tool? Then you probably want
search engines like Google and Bing to be able to read it.
● Indexable content
● Navigation
● Linking in content
● XML Sitemap

15. SEO Best Practice: XML Sitemap
<?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>2016-01-01</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
<priority>0.8</priority>
</url>
</urlset>

16. SEO Best Practice: noindex Category, Tag Pages
To noindex pages:
1. Install and Activate the Yoast SEO
plugin for Wordpress
2. Click Yoast SEO
3. Click Titles & Metas
4. Click Taxonomies (tab)
5. Slide Meta Robots to “noindex”
6. Save changes
Bonus:
Also, noindex
● Author pages /author/christinah/
● Paginated pages /blog/page/2/
● Print-Friendly pages /post-name/print/

17. Anatomy of a Well-Optimized Page
LOGO | Navigation Menu
Headline 1
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, invenire efficiantur cu eum, sit eu quem
veri theophrastus. Liber harum an nam. In dolorum petentium
consectetuer cum, quas nostrum ullamcorper te eos, ad minim
mandamus sed.
● Te per discere rationibus definitiones
● Cu sed aliquam contentiones
● Ne sea ignota facilis
● Falli tacimates te eum
Search
Headline 2
Docendi consetetur ea ius, nam
volutpat similique persecuti in, eam
augue discere ad. At per affert
mnesarchum, porro malis mucius no
vim.
Title: Shop Living Room Furniture - Free Shipping - Brand.com
Description: Affordable quality living room furniture at Brand.com. Buy online, free
shipping on orders over $200. Huge selection of sofas, sectionals, tables & accessories
URL: http://www.brand.com/furniture/living-room/
Canonical tag: http://www.brand.com/furniture/living-room/
Meta Data Elements
Valuable
Shareable
Great UEx
ResponsiveCrawlable
Accessible

18. SEO Best Practice: One Keyword, One Page
Target Keyword Page URL
sectionals https://www.example.com/furniture/living-room/sectionals
chairs https://www.example.com/furniture/living-room/chairs
sofas, couches https://www.example.com/furniture/living-room/sofas
Target Keyword Page URL
living room furniture https://www.example.com/furniture/living-room/sectionals
living room furniture https://www.example.com/furniture/living-room/chairs
living room furniture https://www.example.com/furniture/living-room/sofas
DODON’T

19. 404 page is
present and
informative
Make sure it’s on brand, friendly,
and helpful.
● Links to intended content
● Search
● Check your analytics

20. Social
sharing tags
in place
Open Graph is a standard used
across the web to integrate rich
content into social feeds.
Twitter has it’s own markup
that goes beyond the Open
Graph schema.

21. Yoast SEO Premium
does both.
Open Graph:
https://wordpress.org/pl
ugins/opengraph/
Twitter plugin:
https://wordpress.org/pl
ugins/twitter/

22. SSL installed
& configured
Critical for e-commerce,
recommended for everyone.
It’s a search signal!
Most hosts can help you add
an SSL, WP Engine has a great
walkthrough.

23. Forms and calls
to action
● Who receives the form when
it’s submitted?
● Is there a grateful, on-brand
message thanking the user
(and tracking submission in
Google Analytics)?
● Is there an anti-spam measure
in place? (Try Google’s
reCaptcha with Gravity Forms
or a Honeypot)

24. Training and
documentation
img: @elifrancis
Put it all in one place!
Someday you’ll need it again, or
your new hire will.

25. Automatic
backups
Most hosts can do this for you,
but you need to make sure it’s
enabled.
Backup the files, databases,
and everything else!

26. Every month
Check these items to keep flying high
Update CMS and
plugins
Confirm backups
Scan for malware or hacks
SEO review

27. Update CMS
and plugin
software
The number one way
sites get hacked is
exploiting vulnerable,
out-of-date software.

28. Confirm
automatic
backups
Make sure these are still in place - if
they are disabled for any reason, you
will be sad.

29. Scan for
malware or
hacks
Some hosts offer this as a
service. Sitelock, Sucuri,
ManageWP, WPEngine all
have good offerings.

30. SEO Review
● Check metrics against the baseline
○ Rankings
○ Traffic
○ Conversions
● Broken links

31. Page load
speed
It’s a ranking factor!
Time to first byte
Speed index
Time until fully loaded Google PageSpeed Insights -
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
Web Page Test -
http://www.webpagetest.org

32. Every 6 months
Strategic review and direction
Content Review
Strategic roadmapping

33. Content
review
Be protective of the pages on
your site, especially landing
pages!

34. Content
checklist
Download the checklist on our
website:
www.verticalmeasures.com
>> Learning Center >> Content Resources

35. Manage a
strategic roadmap
Maintain a list of features and
improvements that would improve user
experience, sales and marketing.
Download an example Google Sheet.
img: @andrewtneal

37. SEO for ROI
Where to spend your time for
best results

38. Ongoing
Re-optimization
“Striking Distance” efforts - bump page two
rankings to page one
Review optimization, content, and backlinks
for opportunity to improve

39. Review Google
Search Console
Also Bing Webmaster Tools
Great resource to identify issues with
current website performance

40. Backlinks are
still important
Find high authority sites to get links from
If any “gray hat” tactics were used in the
past, try and get those removed

41. Keep creating
great content!
Search engines love fresh content that
visitors find valuable and consume.
They will reward you with better
results.

42. What we covered
What to do when you launch
Monthly tactical review
Semi-annual strategic review
SEO for ROI

43. John Gough
Principal, Skyhook Interactive
Jim Bader
Senior Director of SEO, Vertical Measures
@john_gough @jambad
Thank you!