common pitfalls

SEO

Organic digital marketing

GGlobal Campaigns

GCreativity & Connection

GDelight & Inform

Recent Credits

Awards Credits

2. Best Use of Search - Wirehive

3. Fast Growth -Wirehive

2. Econsultancy: SEO Best Practise Guide

3. Co-Authored: Hit Me!

Best Use of Search – Retail*

Econsultancy Buyers Guide

*UK Search Awards 2013

Attention to detail

Almost doubled within one week period

Common Pitfall

Don’t plan the site around the

product

Start with “how” and “why” research

x

Advanced Keyword Research

GSite Search Logs

GGoogle Keyword

Planner GMarket

Research

Query Types

INFORMATIONALTRANSACTIONALNAVIGATIONALCONNECTIVITY

INFORMATIONAL

TRANSACTIONAL

NAVIGATIONAL

research informs information architecture, on-page SEO and content strategy...

Common Pitfall

Messy Site Architecture

Route Users, Crawlers and

Equity

x

Pick A Favourite

301

Redirects humans &

agentsG

Rel=canonicalPreferred above

others

funnels equityRetains any required functionality/security

• Natural journey in file structure

• Succinct real words in URLs/files

• Home > Category > Sub-category > Product

Filters for options, sizes, styles… not sub-pages

HOME

FRAGRANCES

P1 P2 P3 P1 P2 P3 P3P2P1

SOFT FURNISHINGS

CANDLES

www.examplesite.com/candles/ginger-fig

Common Pitfall

Crawl Budget -Waste

Clean, Efficient, Error Free

x

Query URLsCurrencySort order

PaginationCategory landingSearch results

Search resultsMost cases (not all)

Parameter Handling

Let Googlebot decide?

Advanced feature – be very sure…

Keep It Clean

GFix All 404 GRe-Point 301 to link cleanly

GCheck all return 200

Screaming Frog SEO Spider (Crawling Tool)

Common Pitfall

No strategy for maintenance or

out of stock

Header status codes

x

503 Maintenance

Out of Stock

• Stick a sign on it

• Pre-order/reserve

• DON’T 404!

Discontinued

• 301 to Direct Equivalent

• 301 to Optimised Custom Landing page

• Consider 410 to reduce index wastage

Common Pitfall

International Strategy – Not

One Size Fits All

Business Resource Comes

First

x

Best Practise

GSub-domain GDomain GTop Level Domain

www.example.com

ccTLD

• Natural language translations and resource

• Content, mark-up, meta, URLs

Sub-domain

• Natural language translations and resource

• Content, mark-up, meta, URLs

• Leave folder for language

Hreflang=“X”

Link element - headerHTTP headerSitemaps

confers equityRight page, in right index increases conversion

Common Pitfall

Making do for mobile

Optimise mobile experience

x

17.4% global web traffic is mobile...

Data source: Statcounter

Responsive

Optimised App

“Mobile” site

Whatever resource constraint there are choices...

Common Pitfall

Thin/duplicate content

Clever use of tags + content

x

82%Average

visibility drop from the TOP 100 losers when Panda rolled out to the UK

Data: SearchMetrics

• Never duplicate your entire

database in a feed

• Never duplicate your entire

database in a feed

• Never Give that feed to affiliates

hold backKeep optimised attributes, detailed descriptions, consider UGC...

Thank youfor listening

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