On Thursday 19th June 2014 I gave a talk at Unified Diff (a monthly web/software development meet-up) in FoundersHub in Cardiff.
The structure of the talk allowed the audience to choose the topics of their choice. We only had time for 4 out of a possible 12, which were (in order):
- URL Parameters
- Canonicalisation
- Titles & Metadata Best Practice
- Status Codes / Redirects Best Practice
However this version of the deck contains the slides for all 12 topics, so if you were there on the night and were hoping that I'd cover a particular topic, well now you can see the slides at least!
14. 3 Main Areas of SEO
•1) Off-site (links)
•2) On-site – copy
•3) On-site – technical
15. 3 Main Areas of SEO
•1) Off-site (links)
•2) On-site – copy
•3) On-site – technical
16. Facebook
Open Graph
& Twitter
Cards
Titles &
Metadata
Best Practice
Webmaster
Tools
Status Codes /
Redirects
Best Practice
URLs Best
Practice
Canonica
l-isation
URL
Parameter
s
Robots
Commands
Google+
Authorship
& Publisher
hreflang
(Internationa
l SEO)
Rich
Snippets, e.g.
Schema.org
Pagination,
aka
rel="next"
Facebook
Open Graph &
Twitter Cards
17. Titles & Metadata Best Practice
• Page Title:
• Now determined by pixel width, not character limit (but still about 60-ish)
• Text is bigger following Google’s recent redesign:
• Make them unique site-wide
• [Source: http://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool]
18. Titles & Metadata Best Practice
• Meta description:
• 155-160 characters – Google truncates the rest (similar to title tag)
• Google may not use it… Case in point:
• …Or Google may mix part of the meta description with a snippet from the
page:
http://seono.co.uk/2012/08/05/google-showing-combination-of-meta-description-body-snippet-in-
serps/
• Make them unique site-wide
19. EndReturn
Titles & Metadata Best Practice
• Meta keywords:
• …
• Don’t bother (seriously…!)
• Google ignores it
• If Yahoo!, Bing, etc. care, it’s not much
• Works against you – competitors can see what keywords are important to
you…
20. Webmaster Tools
• Google Webmaster Tools
• Submitting XML sitemaps
• Discovering 404 pages
• Seeing if you’re affected by
a manual penalty
• Setting URL parameters
• Demoting Sitelinks
• Requesting URL removals
• “Fetch as Google”
• Restore ‘dropped’ links
quickly
• And so much more…!
22. Status Codes / Redirects Best Practice
• Redirects
• Put simply:
301s = GOOD
302s = BAD!
• More info here: http://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
23. Status Codes / Redirects Best Practice
• Soft 404s
• http://seono.co.uk/2014/04/23/4-examples-of-soft-404s-on-big-websites/
• When your Page
Not Found page
isn’t a 404…
• …So Google
indexes it.
• [Server header
checker tool link]
EndReturn
25. URLs Best Practice
• Other factors:
• Dashes > Underscores
• all lowercase > Capitalisation Throughout
• Feel free to remove the file extension (e.g. .html at the end)
• Therefore…
domain.com/example-page > domain.com/Example_Page.htm
28. Canonicalisation
• Useful for:
• www. vs. non-www.
• http:// vs. https://
• Duplicate homepage (e.g. www.domain.com vs.
www.domain.com/index.htm)
• With and without a slash at the end (e.g. /about-us vs. /about-us/)
• Search parameters (e.g. …?color=blue)
• Referral parameters
(e.g. …?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=profile&utm_campaign=website)
• Be careful not to:
• Canonicalise everything into the homepage
• Canonicalise a sub-domain into the main domain
EndReturn
30. URL Parameters
• In Google Webmaster Tools:
• https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/crawl-url-parameters
EndReturn
31. Robots Commands
• Remove a page from search engines (more effective than robots.txt):
<meta name="robots" content="noindex"/>
• Some other robots commands:
• NOFOLLOW = prevents SE bots from following any links on the page
• NOARCHIVE = prevents SEs from showing a cached copy
• NOSNIPPET = prevents SEs from showing a description alongside
the result
• NOODP = blocks the Open Directory Project description of the
page from being used in the description
• Can be combined (e.g. "noindex,nofollow")
• [Source: http://searchengineland.com/meta-robots-tag-101-blocking-spiders-cached-pages-more-10665]
EndReturn
32. Facebook Open Graph & Twitter Cards
• Facebook Open Graph meta tags:
• [Source: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/open-graph-meta-tags/]
33. Facebook Open Graph & Twitter Cards
• Facebook Open Graph meta tags:
• [Source: http://moz.com/blog/meta-data-templates-123]
<!-- Open Graph data -->
<meta property="og:title" content="Title Here" />
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:url" content=" http://www.example.com/" />
<meta property="og:image" content=" http://example.com/image.jpg" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Description Here" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Site Name, i.e. Moz" />
<meta property="fb:admins" content="Facebook numeric ID" />
34. Facebook Open Graph & Twitter Cards
• Twitter Card meta tags:
• [Source: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/open-graph-meta-tags/]
35. Facebook Open Graph & Twitter Cards
• Twitter Card meta tags:
• [Source: http://moz.com/blog/meta-data-templates-123]
<!-- Twitter Card data -->
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@publisher_handle">
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Page Title">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Page description less than 200
characters">
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@author_handle">
<-- Twitter Summary card images must be at least 200x200px -->
<meta name="twitter:image" content=" http://www.example.com/image.jpg">
EndReturn
36. Google+ Authorship & Publisher
• Google Authorship, a.k.a. rel="author"
• Adding your face to Google’s search results:
• Benefits:
• No immediate ranking benefit* (yet), but…
• It’s eye-catching – increased click-through rate
• …Especially if you’re well-known in your industry
• * Personalisation – if you follow someone, you may see them higher(?)
37. Google+ Authorship & Publisher
• Google Authorship – three ways to implement (Step 1):
• 1) In the <head> (on any articles you’ve written)
<link rel="author" href="https://plus.google.com/109807087957970967076"/>
• 2) Add a parameter to an in-page link
<a href="https://plus.google.com/109807087957970967076?rel=author">Steve
Morgan</a>
• 3) Verify your email
• No longer an option…?
• Clunky as hell anyway…
38. Google+ Authorship & Publisher
• Google Authorship – three ways to implement (Step 2):
• Add the site to your Google+ profile’s ‘Contributor to’ section
(which is found under the Links sub-section of the About section)
My sites
Local society
Non-SEO
guest post
SEO social
media site
Old employer’s
blog
SEO guest posts
39. Google+ Authorship & Publisher
• Test it – http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
40. Google+ Authorship & Publisher
• Google Publisher, a.k.a. rel="publisher"
• Equivalent for Google+ Brand pages for branded searches…
41. Google+ Authorship & Publisher
• Google Publisher – two ways to implement:
• 1) In the <head> (homepage only)
<link rel="publisher" href="https://plus.google.com/109733829658465862616"/>
• 2) On-page? (possibly new – only just spotted)
<a href="https://plus.google.com/112544075040456048636" rel="publisher">Google+</a>
42. Google+ Authorship & Publisher
• Want to learn more?
• My talk from April 2013:
http://seono.co.uk/2013/04/22/getting-your-face-in-google-my-cardiff-internet-talk/
or
• My upcoming talk at Port80 Localhost,
Newport, August 2014 (date TBC)
http://port80events.co.uk/localhost-events/
EndReturn
43. hreflang (International SEO)
• Use Google Webmaster Tools to geo-target domain…
• If a ccTLD (e.g. .co.uk) then already designated for you (United Kingdom)
• But… If gTLD (e.g. .com), you can choose!
• Choose your target country, or:
• ‘Unlisted’ = Global
• Working with a UK-based .com that only wants/needs UK traffic?
Be sure to change it!
• You can even geo-target sub-folders via GWT (e.g. domain.com/uk/)
44. hreflang (International SEO)
• Also: consider hreflang
(full name: rel="alternate" hreflang="x")
• Useful for side-stepping duplicate content issues for multinational
sites:
• English, UK (GBP £)
• English, Australian (AUD $)
• Potentially 99% identical content
• Implement via:
• <head>
• XML sitemaps - http://www.themediaflow.com/tool_hreflang.php
45. hreflang (International SEO)
• hreflang example:
• Top line: Global (English)
• Middle line: UK (English)
• Bottom line: Australian (English)
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://www.example.com/page.html" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="http://en-gb.example.com/page.html" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-au" href="http://en-au.example.com/page.html" />
EndReturn
46. Rich Snippets (e.g. Schema.org)
• Rich snippets summarised in 5 words:
THEY
MAKE
GOOGLE
LOOK
PRETTY
48. Rich Snippets (e.g. Schema.org)
• Example of implementation via Schema.org – before:
<h1>Beachwalk Beachwear & Giftware</h1>
A superb collection of fine gifts and clothing to accent your stay
in Mexico Beach.
3102 Highway 98
Mexico Beach, FL
Phone: 850-648-4200
49. Rich Snippets (e.g. Schema.org)
• Example of implementation via Schema.org – after:
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/LocalBusiness">
<h1><span itemprop="name">Beachwalk Beachwear & Giftware</span></h1>
<span itemprop="description"> A superb collection of fine gifts and clothing
to accent your stay in Mexico Beach.</span>
<div itemprop="address" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/PostalAddress">
<span itemprop="streetAddress">3102 Highway 98</span>
<span itemprop="addressLocality">Mexico Beach</span>,
<span itemprop="addressRegion">FL</span>
</div>
Phone: <span itemprop="telephone">850-648-4200</span>
</div>
50. Rich Snippets (e.g. Schema.org)
• Test it – http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
52. Pagination (a.k.a. rel="next"/"prev")
• Tags to improve Google’s understanding of paginated content
• Example for http://seono.co.uk/category/seo/page/2/
• Built into WordPress as standard (not sure about other platforms…)
EndReturn