CONTROL WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL IN WORDPRESS.

ON PAGE SEO FTW!(FOR THE WIN)

A Talk By:Saravanan “Sud” Shanmugabaskaran of

Tuna Traffic@saravanan_sud

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WHO AM I?Saravanan “Sud”

ShanmugabaskaranDirector of Client Solutions

at

Tuna Traffic

@saravanan_sud

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WHAT WILL WE COVER?• Natural Keyword Rich Content

• Open Graph Tags

• Title Text

• SEO Friendly URLs

• Why the Meta Description still matters

• Meta Keywords are useless but can be useful

• Semantic Markup & Heading Tags

• Microdata, Microformats, RDFa & Rich Snippets

• Google+ Authorship

• Canonical URL

• Anchor text & Title Text for Links

• Alt Text, Title Text & File Naming 

• How to use Nofollow and Noindex

• XML Sitemaps

• Why comments are gold

• Social Authority

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Content was the PAST. Context is the PRESENT.4

Context

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Context

Context

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Enhanced Google Search VS Normal Google Search

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TAKING CONTROL

Quality Content

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Optimized On Page SEO

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Social Authority

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Controlling What You Can Control

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NATURAL KEYWORD RICH CONTENT

• There is a point in Google’s Bell Curve where your SEO will be hurt by over optimization.

• Follow the guideline of using a variant of your keyword 1-3 times a paragraph.

• Fresh Tuna

•Gourmet Fresh Tuna

• Fresh Tuna for Sale

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SEO FRIENDLY URLS•Set your permalinks to: /%category%/%postname%

•Other variants will work depending on how much content you have or will have.

• Strip the category base from category URLS using WordPress SEO.

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How to set your Permalinks to be SEO Friendly.11

SEMANTIC MARKUP & HEADING TAGS• Use your target keyword phrase in your <title> and <h1> but

use variations.

• WordPress SEO makes it easy to customize both separately.

• <H1> is your page title and <title> is set under SEO Title in the WordPress SEO settings.

• Use <hgroup> tag to create Semantic Headings when using multiple heading tags.

• Use your Heading Tags to make your content easy to read for Search Engines and visitors.

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WHY THE META DESCRIPTION STILL MATTERS

• The Meta Description does NOT impact your SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position).

• The Meta Description DOES impact a user’s decision on what link a user decides to click on and used for other items such as Open Graph Tags.

• Use %%excerpt%% to auto generate a meta description in the Titles & Metas settings in WordPress SEO.

• Use this as a safe guard for when you forget to write one.

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How to have WordPress SEO auto generated Meta Descriptions.

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OPEN GRAPH PROTOCOL• Customizes what platforms such as: Facebook,

Google Plus, LinkedIn, etc use to determine what to share with users on their network.

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OPEN GRAPH

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OPEN GRAPH

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How To Enable Open Graph in WordPress SEO18

META KEYWORDS ARE USELESS BUT CAN BE USEFUL

•Google & Bing do NOT use them so neither should you...BUT...

• If you know your competitors are watching your every move, you can use Meta Keywords to throw them off...

•OR BETTER YET...Look at what keywords your competitors “think” they are optimizing for.

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MICRODATA, MICROFORMATS, RDFA & RICH SNIPPETS

• This topic goes very deep because of competing technologies.

•Microdata - HTML5 http://schema.org & Preferred Method

•Microformat - Old format http://microformats.org

•RDFa - (Resource Description Framework – in – attributes) W3C Recommendation

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Examples of Rich Snippets on Google21

HOW TO ADD MICRODATA IN WORDPRESS

•Use the Schema Creator by Raven Plugin.

•Add detailed data about events, places, movies, music, & more.

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Add Custom Microdata to your content using the Schema Creator by Raven Plugin.

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Google+ Authorship24

THE GOOGLE+ AUTHORSHIP SETUP•On Google+ add your site as a site you contribute

to.

• In WP, go to your WordPress profile and paste in your Google+ url.

• In WordPress SEO settings Under Titles & Metas set the Google+ Author highlighting for your home page.

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CANONICAL URL• Tells Search Engines which URL is the absolute correct URL

to use.

• Prevents you from having duplicate content.

• example: www.google.com, google.com or, google.com/?foo...Canonical lets you define which one is Google should consider the absolute url.

• Canonical URLs are set by WP core for post/pages and WordPress SEO handles tags, categories, etc. WordPress SEO allows you to set a different Canonical URL for a specific post/page

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ANCHOR TEXT & TITLE TEXT FOR LINKS• Title text tells the search engine what the linked url

is about.

•Anchor text tells the search engine what the link is about.

•Link Example:

•<a href=”http://google.com” title=”World’s Best Search Engine”>the world’s best search engine</a>

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ALT TEXT, TITLE TEXT & FILE NAMING•Name your files with spaces (or %20) or dashes.

• Underscores appear as onelongword to Search Engines. (NOTGOODBRO!)

•Alt text describes an image.

• You can use title text on an image.

• IMG Example

• <img src=”http://google.com/logo.jpg” title=”Google Logo” alt=”Google’s Red, & White, Blue Logo”>

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HOW TO USE NOFOLLOW AND NOINDEX•Nofollow prevents links from passing “link juice” to

the page they are linking to.

•Noindex prevents the Search Engine from indexing content.

• Tips

•Nofollow & Noindex your goal tracking pages.

•Seriously consider no indexing your tag and/or category pages to prevent duplicate content.

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XML SITEMAPS•Gives Search Engines a road map across your site.

This includes your content, how frequently it changes, when it was last updated, and relative priority for your site.

•You can create Sitemaps specifically for: video, images, mobile, & news.

•Make sure you submit to Google via Google Webmaster Tools

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How to Create a Sitemap With WordPress SEO31

WHY COMMENTS ARE STILL GOLD•Commentators create content for you

•Some Third Party Comment Systems like Facebook or Livefyre allow visitors to post their comments on their social network

•Asking commentators to opt in to your email list still works well for building your email lists

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SOCIAL AUTHORITY•Search Engines use Social Indicators to influence

users clicks and SERP

•Bing: Facebook Integration

•Google: G+ Integration

•Social Share Counts add credibility to your content to Search Engines & visitors.

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HOW TO ADD SOCIAL SHARING •Use a Plugin that you can trust and loads your

social sharing buttons FAST. My top 3 are:

•Jetpack

•Digg Digg 2.0

•Share This

•Must Use Networks: Google Plus, FB, Twitter

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THE WORDPRESS PLUGIN SETUP•WordPress SEO by Yoast

• Jetpack, Digg Digg 2.0, or Share This

• Schema Creator by Raven

• SEO Friendly Images

• SEO Smart Links

• Redirection

•Google Analytics for WordPress

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PREMIUM WORDPRESS PLUGINS•SEO Smart Links – Premium Edition

•Video SEO for WordPress

•Local SEO for WordPress

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TOOLS•http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/

•https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool

•https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug

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RESOURCES •http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

•http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

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THANKS FOR COMING!Have questions?

Tweet us: @tunatraffic

tunatraffic.com

(psssst.... we are hiring...)

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