What Really Matters in Technical SEO

What Really Matters in Technical SEO

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Basics of Technical SEO

q  Itsimplyrefersto“things”thatarerelatedtocode,se7ngs,andservers.

q  Itincludesthingsyoucanseeandthingsyoucan’tsee.Todaywe’regoingtoprimarilyfocusonthosethingsyoucandiscoverandfix.

q  Itfocusesondiscoveringissuesandfixingtheseproblems.

q  Thegoalistomakeiteasyforsearchenginestocrawl,digest,understandandindexyourwebsiteorblog’scontent.

q  Itdoesn’talwaysrequireprogrammingskillsastherearelotsoftoolsavailabletoassistinaudits,noCficaCons,andulCmateresoluConoftheissue.

Technical SEO can sound really intimidating. But don’t worry, because it doesn’t have to be scary at all!

Highlights of Technical SEO

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Strong SEO is only possible when it is combines good content with high quality WordPress themes, plugins, developers, and hosting.

!


H1 Tags The header tag, or the <h1> tag in HTML, will usually be the title of a page or post. It should be the largest text and towards the top of the content.


Problem: MissingH1tagsMulCpleH1tags

WhyIt’sanIssue: MissingormulCpleH1’smakesitdifficultforsearchenginestounderstandthecontent’ssubjectmaIer

RootCause: PoorlycodedWordPressthemeUseroverridethroughWordPresseditor

WaytoDiscover: ReviewsourcecodeoreditorUsethirdpartytoolslikeMozbar

Resolu,onOp,ons: ChangetoanewWordPressthemeFixthecodewithintheexisCngWordPressthemeRemovemanualoverrideswithincontent

Meta Titles and Descriptions Meta titles and descriptions give Google and other search engines an idea of what the page is about and what they should expect to see as they digest the content. These data points appears in search engines result pages.


Problem: MissingmetaormulCplemetaSamemetaacrossenCrewebsiteTooshortoroverlylongmeta

WhyIt’sanIssue: Makesitdifficultforsearchenginestounderstandthecontent’ssubjectmaIer

RootCause: LackofSEOpluginorincorrectpluginse7ngsUseroverridethroughpluginse7ngsineditor

WaytoDiscover: ReviewsourcecodeMozbar,GoogleSearchConsole

Resolu,onOp,ons: InstallandproperlyconfigureAllinOneSEOorYoastUsereducaCononbestpracCcesandproperusage

SEO Friendly URLs SEO friendly URLs help search engines understand a website’s architecture and the structure of the content.


Problem: SettonumbersandnotwordsFunkycharactersLackofhierarchy

WhyIt’sanIssue: Makesitdifficultforsearchenginestounderstandthehierarchyandnatureofcontent,difficulttocrawl

RootCause: OutdatedtechnologyorbadpluginsIncorrectse7ngsinWordPress

WaytoDiscover: ReviewwebsiteinbrowserCheckWordPressse7ngsUseDynomapperorScreamingFrogtocrawlwebsite

Resolu,onOp,ons: SetpermalinkstopostnameinWordPressUseSEOpluginstofurthercleanandopCmize

Robot.txt Files The robots exclusion protocol (REP), or robots.txt is a text file webmasters create to instruct robots (from search engines) how to crawl and index website content.


Problem: MissingenCrelyIncorrectusageanderrors

WhyIt’sanIssue: CausessensiCvecontenttobeindexedIncorrectlyblockssearchenginesfromsearchablecontent

RootCause: LackofeducaConOutdatedconfiguraCons

WaytoDiscover: GoogleSearchConsole

Resolu,onOp,ons: ReviewperiodicallyMonitorGoogleSearchConsole

XML Sitemaps A sitemap is a file where you can list the content within your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your content.


Problem: MissingWrongversion(HTML)submiIedtosearchenginesUnstructuredandwithouthierarchyorsegmentaConErrors

WhyIt’sanIssue: Makesitdifficultforsearchenginestolocateallcontentand/orunderstandthehierarchyofawebsite

RootCause: NopluginsUnknowledgeableusers

WaytoDiscover: GoogleSearchConsoleandBingWebmasterTools

Resolu,onOp,ons: InstallandproperlyconfigureAllinOneSEOorYoastUploadtoGSCandBWTReviewforerrorsinGSCandBWT

Duplicate Content Duplicate content (in this case) refers to the same content displayed under different URLs.


Problem: wwwvs.non-wwwhIpvs.hIpsSessionIDsOnlinepages+printerfriendlypages

WhyIt’sanIssue: Confusessearchenginesandforcesthemtoselectoneversionwhilealsobeingmessyforhumanvisitors

RootCause: ConfiguraConissues,lowqualitywebsiteso`ware,plugins

WaytoDiscover: Dynomapper,GoogleAnalyCcs,GoogleSearchConsole

Resolu,onOp,ons: WordPressAllinOneSEOorYoastSEOpluginsCanonicalURLs

Unreadable Content On-page content is not readable by search engine spiders. This happens much more then people realize or care to admit.


Problem: Searchenginescannotaccessand/orreadcontentwithinapageorwebsiteasawhole

WhyIt’sanIssue: Ifsearchenginescannotreadthepage,theycannotascertainthesubmitmaIerandwillsimplyignore

RootCause: iFramesFlashPoorcoding(i.e.JavaScript,mobileresponsiveness)Robot.txtfileissues

WaytoDiscover: GoogleSearchConsoleandBingWebmasterTools

Resolu,onOp,ons: MonitorGSCandBWTModerncodebaseandqualitydevelopers

301 Redirects A 301 redirect is a status code that instructs search engines that a page/post has permanently moved to a new location. It transfers SEO history to the new piece of content and at the same time it routes website traffic to this new location.


Problem: Deletedcontentwithout301redirectsWebsiteredesignwithout301redirects

WhyIt’sanIssue: LossofSEOrankingandhistoryLossofhumanwebsitetrafficReducConsinindexedcontent

RootCause: LackofeducaCononpartofwebsiteownerLackofeducaCononpartofdigitalagency

WaytoDiscover: GoogleSearchConsole,GoogleAnalyCcs

Resolu,onOp,ons: UsereducaConQualitydigitalagencywithbasicknowledgeofSEOWordPresspluginslikeRedirecCon

Mobile Responsive Google now sees more search traffic from mobile devices than it does for desktop computers. It is becoming more and more focused on mobile, while also adjusting the algorithms to handle mobile differently then desktop.


Problem: Fixedwidthwebsitethatdoesn’tadapttomobiledevicesResponsivethemesthatdisplaypoorlyonmobiledevices

WhyIt’sanIssue: ReducedsearchrankinginsearchenginesPoorexperienceforhumanvisitors

RootCause: OutdatedwebsitecodeorthemePoorlycodedresponsivethemes

WaytoDiscover: BrowseyourwebsiteonasmartphoneortablethIp://ami.responsivedesign.is

Resolu,onOp,ons: SwitchWordPressthemesUpdateexisCngthemecodetoberesponsive

Schema and Rich Snippets Structured data helps Google understand the content on your site, which can be used to display rich snippets in search results.


Problem: LackofschemaIncorrectlyusedschema

WhyIt’sanIssue: FailstoshowcaseyourcontenttosearchenginesConfusessearchengines

RootCause: OutdatedthemesPoorlycodedplugins

WaytoDiscover: Google’sStructuredDataTesCngTool

Resolu,onOp,ons: UpdatethemeorframeworkAddschemarichpluginsUsereducaCon

Code Bloat Code bloat is a term describing a HTML page that is mostly markup and not much content.


Problem: Page’scodeisgreaterthantheactualcontent

WhyIt’sanIssue: SlowssearchenginecrawlingLimitedamountofcontentdigestedandindexedCoulddegraderanking

RootCause: LackofusereducaConCopyandpastfromWordoroutsidewebsitesOldcontentandwebsitesPoorcodingbydeveloper

WaytoDiscover: WordPresseditorreviewPingdomTools

Resolu,onOp,ons: UsereducaConQualitythemesanddevelopersCodereviews

Speed and Performance Site speed is part of Google’s algorithm. While site speed is not a high ranking factor, this is changing and the importance of fast websites is a growing concern to Google and other search engines.


Problem: Slowandsluggishwebsitesand/orcontent

WhyIt’sanIssue: MakesitdifficultforsearchenginestocrawlcontentCreatesapooruserexperienceforhumanvisitors

RootCause: Themes,hosCng,userentryerrors

WaytoDiscover: GooglePageSpeedInsightsandPingdomTools

Resolu,onOp,ons: ReduceimagesizesOpCmizeMySQLdatabaseOpCmizethemecodeUseacachepluginSwitchthemesSwitchhosCngcompaniesorupgradehosCngplan

Malware The term “malware” covers all sorts of malicious software designed to harm a computer, website, or network. While there are lots of different kinds of malware, the common ones include: viruses, worms, spyware, or trojan horses.


Problem: ContentmodificaCons,contentaddiCons,phishing,lossofadministraCvecontrol,redirects

WhyIt’sanIssue: Lossoftrafficfromhumanvisitors,lossofrankinginsearch,lossofcredibility

RootCause: PoorpasswordsOutdatedso`wareLowgradehosCng

WaytoDiscover: GoogleSearchConsole,web-basedscans,onsiteplugins

Resolu,onOp,ons: WordPressplugins(i.e.iThemesSecurity)HighqualityhosCng

Strong SEO is only possible when it is combines good content with high quality WordPress themes, plugins, developers, and hosting.

!


QUESTIONS & ANSWERS ?


Rebecca Gill RebeccaGill.com Web-Savvy-Marketing.com diySEOcourses.com SEObootcamp.com

@rebeccagill

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What Really Matters in Technical SEO

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