ReadingSEO Master Deck - 30th May 2019

Reading SEO
@ReadingSEO
Hosted by Blue Array
Organisers: Matt Williamson (@MattWSEO) & Nicky Elson (@nickynoises)
Speakers: Sean Butcher (@SeanButcher) / Faisal Anderson (@FaisalAnderson) / Daniel Cartland (@DanielCartland)

6:40 pm: Take your seats
6:45 pm: Managing filters and facets on your e-
commerce website
7:10 pm: *Short Break*
7:15 pm: Spying On Google: How To Use Log
File Analysis To Reveal Invaluable SEO Insights
7:40 pm: *10 Minute Break*
7:50 pm: How to use SEO tools to save time,
money, & effort
8:05 pm: *Questions/Networking/Drinks/Food*
Schedule: Sean Butcher - Head of SEO
(Blue Array)
@SeanButcher
Faisal Anderson - SEO Consultant
(Screaming Frog)
@FaisalAnderson
Daniel Cartland - SEO Manager
(iCrossing)
@DanielCartland
@ReadingSEO

Understanding the problems
House Rules
- Please save your questions for the end
of all the talks.
- Must be questions - not comments
- Max 5 questions per speaker
(Feel free to chat to them afterwards)
- Please put your mobile on silent!
@ReadingSEO

Reading SEO
Up First: Managing filters and facets on
your e-commerce website
Sean Butcher - Head of SEO
(Blue Array)
@SeanButcher
@ReadingSEO

Managing filters and
facets on your e-
commerce website
@seanbutcher #ReadingSEO

Sean Butcher
Head of SEO @ Blue
Array

Sean Butcher
Head of SEO @ Blue
Array
Oversee day-to-day goings-on at
Blue Array

Sean Butcher
Head of SEO @ Blue
Array
Blue Array
Particular interest in crawling &
indexing

Sean Butcher
Head of SEO @ Blue
Array
Blue Array
Particular interest in crawling &
indexing
Spoken at Brighton SEO x 2 and
run technical training with Tom
Pool (Technical SEO Manager)

We’ve
gone
from this

To
this(plus a few)

We’re recruiting!!
(bluearray.co.uk/jobs)

Filters & Facets?

Used to refine lists
of products

Good for usability

Good for usability
(generally)

More conversions

More conversions
More sales

More conversions
More sales
More money

IF you get it right!

LOTS of SEO
considerations

LOTS of things can
go wrong

Just SOME
of the
issues...

Creating huge numbers
of pages

Crawl budget

Duplicate content

Thin content

Or not using them
effectively

What I’m hoping
today...

We’ll all carefully
consider which
facets/filters to ‘use’

So how do we get
this right?

Important point:

This is a really
complex area!

Two primary issues:

1)Blocking too much

2) Not blocking
enough

1)
Blocking too much

For example...

Doing this on all filters

Doing this on all filters
(or large numbers
of them)

Even (potentially) very
valuable pages

OR...

Blanket canonicalising
back up to
category level

Either/Or = Same
outcome

= Makes filter pages
non-indexable

I’ve even seen sites
going to this
extreme...

Blocking crawlers
from accessing filter
pages altogether

Disallow: /?/

Potential 200+ customers not seeing a
URL containing relevant products

So much potentially
useful content missed

Particularly impactful
on ability to rank on
long-tail queries

Example of big site
ignoring the long-tail

The big issues with
this approach:

No dedicated page for
search query intent

Reduces ability to
rank to full potential

Or incorrect page
ranks (providing poor
experience)

Not making active use
of NoIndex /
canonical tags

Or letting Google
crawl everything ever

Do this on:

Pages of thin content

Created by individual
filters

Created by multiple
filters

@seanbutcher #BrightonSEO@seanbutcher #ReadingSEO

“Televisions”

“50 inch
televisions”

“Panasonic
50 inch
televisions”

“Panasonic
50 inch
televisions
under £500”

Pages of duplicate
content

With filter order
selection issues

@seanbutcher #BrightonSEO
/men/mens-
footwear/trainers/brand/nike/size/8-
10,8-11,8,7-8,8-
9/colour/black/

/men/mens-
footwear/trainers/brand/nike/col
our/black/size/8-10,8-
11,8,7-8,8-9/

1
2

@seanbutcher #BrightonSEOhttps://www.seroundtable.com/google-noindex-rel-canonical-confusion-
26079.html@seanbutcher #ReadingSEO

A suggested
approach...

Data is your friend!

Keyword research

Use multiple keyword
sources (tools, GSC,
PPC)

Consider filters used
by your close
competitors

Create your ‘keyword
universe’

Cluster keywords into
topical themes

There’s no getting
around this...

It’s boring(as f**k)

https://marketbold.com
/KeywordGrouperPro/
app/

Conduct an analysis
of what you have

Do this filter by filter

3 questions your KW
research & clustering
should tell you...

1)Could this filter help
deliver targeted
organic traffic?

2) Is this filter
optimised as well as it
could be?

3) Does the filter
really need to be
used?

Determine filters to:

Keep

Keep
Add

Keep
Add
Merge

Keep
Add
Merge
Re-optimise

Keep
Add
Merge
Re-optimise
Remove/Block

Technical (& content)
setup

Ensure ‘popular’ filters
are crawlable
(Googlebot can
access)

Ensure ‘popular’ filters
are indexable (not
NoIndexed/
canonicalised)

Create unique value
on pages you do
make indexable

Optimise the pages you want
indexed with unique value

Ensure these filters
have sufficient
product inventory

‘Thin’ pages should be
non-indexable

We usually suggest
below 2-3 products

Use data to determine
number of filters
before blocking from
indexing

We find a max of 2-3
filters applied is usually
sufficient (depending on
industry)

Use canonical tags to
declare sub-set of
wider category

Manage crawling of less
desirable filters through
robots.txt Disallow

Set filter order rules
to prevent multiple
URLs being created

NoIndex/canonicalise
duplicates if not
possible to set rules

Push most valuable
filters through
additional internal
linking

E.g. of better
optimisation
suggestion

Look for crossover in
your keywords intent

E.g. of filter merging
suggestion

Consolidate filters to
avoid ‘paradox of
choice’

https://www.slideshare.net/DawnFitton/dawn-anderson-seo-
consumer-choice-crawl-budget-optimization-conflicts@seanbutcher #ReadingSEO

Implementation

Roll out changes
gradually

Prioritise by opportunity
(search vol.,
competition, best
converters)

When it goes right...

Implementation started

32.8% traffic uplift in Q4 vs. Q3

No. of
keywords
domain
appearing
for
No. of
keywords in
positions 1-
10
No. of
keywords in
positions 1-
20
End Q3 14,190 1,239 2,728
End Q4 18,403 1,593 3,617
% Increase 29.68% 28.57% 32.58%

@seanbutcher
85.86% increase in daily
organic entrances (7
months to May 6th 2019)
#ReadingSEO

Finishing thoughts...

See filters as an
opportunity to grow
your long-tail traffic

Put in the groundwork -
do lots of keyword
research & make data-
led decisions

Make sure you have the
set up correct from a
technical and content
perspective to ensure
best chances of success.

Thanks for listening!
Any questions?

BlueArray.co.uk | 0800 0119 123

Short Break
Up Next: Spying On Google: How To Use
Log File Analysis To Reveal Invaluable
SEO Insights
(Screaming Frog)
@FaisalAnderson
@ReadingSEO

Spying on Google
How to Use Log File Analysis to Reveal Invaluable
SEO Insights

Who should use Log File Analysis?

Clients Vs Log Files
https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/requesting-logs-for-the-log-file-analyser/

Analysing Log Files
copy *.log mylogfile.csv
bash$ cat file*.log > mergedfile.csv

Types of Log Files
● W3C
● Apache and NGINX
● Amazon Elastic Load Balancing
● HA Proxy
● JSON

Quick Checks
See Crawled URLs by User Agent
Find Low Value-Add URLs that are being crawled
(parameters etc.)
Find Duplicate URLs
Crawl Frequency by Content Type
Crawl Frequency by Subdirectory

Quick Checks
Find Low Value-Add URLs that are being crawled
(parameters etc.)
Find Duplicate URLs
Crawl Frequency by Content Type

Crawl Frequency by Subdirectories
=IF(RIGHT(C2,1)="/",SUM(LEN(C2)-
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(C2,"/","")))/LEN("/")+SUM(LEN(C2)-
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(C2,"=","")))/LEN("=")-2, SUM(LEN(C2)-
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(C2,"/","")))/LEN("/")+SUM(LEN(C2)-
LEN(SUBSTITUTE(C2,"=","")))/LEN("=")-1)

Understand Crawl Behaviour
See Most and Least Crawled URLs
Crawl Frequency per Day, Week or Month
Crawl Frequency by Directive (meta-robots etc.)
Analyse Crawl Frequency by Depth and Internal
links

See Most and Least Crawled URLs

Crawl Frequency by Day, Week or Month

Crawl Frequency by Directive
Internal Tab > “Filter: HTML”

Filter Indexability Status:

VLOOKUP Magic

Understand Crawl Behaviour
See Most and Least Crawl URLs
Crawl Frequency per Day, Week or Month
Crawl Frequency by Directive (meta-robots etc.)
Analyse Crawl Frequency by Depth and Internal
links

Analyse Crawl Frequency by Depth and Internal links

Analyse Crawl Frequency by Depth and Internal links
Number of URLs should not outweigh
the number of requests

Better data than Search Console? Identify Crawl Issues
Discover Crawl Errors
Find Inconsistent server responses
Find errors by subdirectory (identify
problematic areas)
View errors by user-agent (e.g. bing
performance vs google-bot)

Find Inconsistent Server Responses

Does Link Building = More Crawling?

Fin
https://builtvisible.com/log-file-analysis/
https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/22-ways-to-
analyse-log-files/
https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/log-file-
analyser/user-guide/

10 Minute Break
Up Next: How to use SEO tools to save
time, money, & effort
(iCrossing)
@DanielCartland
@ReadingSEO

@DanielCartland
Using SEO Tools to Save Time,
Money, & Effort

@DanielCartland
I HATE REPORTING

@DanielCartland
Google Data Studio

@DanielCartland
You vs the report she told you not to worry about
Static, clunky, hard to read, hard to
share
Automated, flexible, replicable, downloadable
Automated, shareable, scalable

@DanielCartland
All Your Core Sources in One Place

@DanielCartland
Brand vs Non-Brand
Set your “brand” criteria as a new
Dimension using regex:
CASE WHEN
REGEXP_MATCH(Query,".*celeb.*|.*rity.*")
THEN “Brand“
ELSE “Non-Brand“
END
Break down your data in
whichever way you want!
Or the way your clients want...

@DanielCartland
Who has ever received and email like this...

@DanielCartland
Flexible Filters
Add a filter
Style>Filter control>Search All
Anybody can access their
information easily without
changing the report.
Data is interactive!

@DanielCartland
Interactive Data
Date ranges
Also accessible via graphs
(Data>Interactions>Apply Filter)

@DanielCartland
Spend your time analysing your
data, instead of preparing it

@DanielCartland
Define Content Clusters Section Using Regex
Split your site into topic areas, to explore their performance

@DanielCartland
Traffic & conversion data
broken down by content
clusters.
Which are performing well?
Which are slipping?

@DanielCartland
Okay that’s kind of cool...
...but what else can it do?

@DanielCartland
Update & Track Commentary
Easily shareable, without losing
valuable insight.
No more trawling through emails
sent months ago to explain data.

@DanielCartland
Add Data Source >Google Sheets
Give Unique Name
Select Spreadsheet & Worksheet
Use first row as headers
Connect
How to Update & Track Commentary
Set up Google Sheets Connect in Data Studio Set up commentary

@DanielCartland
Link to other pages or sites
Link to your other Data Studio pages,
dynamic pages, or to external URLs.
Glossary page
More detailed report page
Link back to homepage
Link from images using text
box
● Fill with text
● Add link to page
● Set to 0% opacity

@DanielCartland
URL Embed
Show clients what is happening, as
well as telling them!

@DanielCartland
Schedule Email Delivery

@DanielCartland
Let’s Get Real
Steal other people’s reports (with
permission)
“This is great Daniel, but I have 18 clients and I don’t have time to make new reports for all of them.”
Ctrl C + Ctrl V
Copy your report
Match your Data Sources
Add in any bespoke elements
Top tip!
Remember to change the logo before sending it over to the new
client.

@DanielCartland
5 Employees
£12,000 per year
1 Day of reporting £400/day
Automating reporting saves 0.5 days
per employee = 2.5 days/month
How much can Data Studio
save…?

@DanielCartland
Screaming Frog

@DanielCartland
CAPTCHA Preventing Crawl
Crawling https://www.wayfair.co.uk/ 302s to a CAPTCHA
Enter CAPTCHA using Forms Based Authentication
(Configuration>Authentication>Forms Based) & crawl!

@DanielCartland
James Bond uses Forms Based
Authentication Confirmed?
Hello is that Spider support?

@DanielCartland
Featured Snippet Opportunities
Pre-selected = SEO on
easy mode

@DanielCartland
4678
Featured Snippet opportunities
in 5 minutes

@DanielCartland
Other Tools to Optimise Your Time
Search Analytics for Sheets – Uses Search Console API to pull data without interface limit
Redirect Path (Ayima) – Returns page status code & path to URL
Keywords Everywhere – Returns search volume of keywords in Google search

Time Savings Add Up
Save 10 minutes/day
277
43.5 hours/year
Work 261days/year
2610 minutes/year
87 beers/year

@DanielCartland
Thank You
Any questions?

@DanielCartland
Regex Examples
BRAND VS NON BRAND
CASE WHEN
REGEXP_MATCH(Query,".*celeb.*|.*rity.*")
THEN “Brand“
ELSE “Non-Brand“
END
CONTENT CLUSTERS
CASE WHEN
REGEXP_MATCH(Landing Page,".*oprah.*")
THEN "Oprah“
WHEN REGEXP_MATCH(Landing Page,".*ramsay.*") THEN "Gordon Ramsay“
WHEN REGEXP_MATCH(Landing Page,".*evans.*") THEN "Chris Evans“
ELSE "Other“
END

@DanielCartland
Data Studio Sources
https://twitter.com/wissi_analytics
https://www.wissi.fr/blog/
https://www.wissi.fr/blog/analytics/20190529/google-data-studio-
internal-links/
https://twitter.com/PatStrickler
https://michaelhoweely.com/
https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider-companion-tools/

Managing filters and facets on your e-commerce
website
- Sean Butcher
Spying On Google: How To Use Log File Analysis
To Reveal Invaluable SEO Insights
- Faisal Anderson
How to use SEO tools to save time, money, &
effort
- Daniel Cartland
Sean Butcher - Head of SEO
(Blue Array)
@SeanButcher
(Screaming Frog)
@FaisalAnderson
(iCrossing)
@DanielCartland
Final Questions?
@ReadingSEO

ReadingSEO Master Deck - 30th May 2019

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