On Thursday 28th November the group of search experts and business owners, who blog together as "the SEO Chicks" conducted a panel discussion at The Digital Marketing Show at Londons' Excel.
The presentation outlines each of the main considerations each of the presenters discussed; including critical concerns, best practise and common mistakes.
The SEO Chicks are Lisa Myers, Jackie Hole, Julie Joyce, Judith Lewis, Annabel Hodges, Hannah Smith, Bridget Randolph and Nichola Stott
2. Who dat SEO Chicks?
Lisa Myers:
Founder & CEO of Verve Search + Founder SEOChicks.com
Nichola Stott
Founder & MD of TheMediaFlow + SEO Chicks blogger
Hannah Smith
Principal Consultant, Distilled + SEO Chicks Blogger
Jackie Hole
SEO & PPC Consultant /Owner 22M + SEO Chicks Blogger
Judith Lewis
Head of Search, Beyond + SEO Chicks Blogger
Bridget Randolph
Consultant , Distilled + SEO Chicks Blogger
3. Technical SEO Elements
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Crawling and indexing
Common but “lethal” Technical issues
International Domain Strategy
Mobile SEO
Large Site Migration
Structured Data mark-up
Tools we love
@SEOChicks
#DigitalMarketingShow
30. How to fix it
You have options:
- Use 301 (permanent) redirect
- Canonical meta tag
31. 301 redirects
This is a permanent redirect that:
spiders
Redirects human visitors
Redirects search engine
302 redirects (temporary redirects) on the
other
hand will ONLY redirect human visitors and
not
carry “link juice”.
32. Canonical Meta Tag
In the HTML of all duplicate URLs insert a
code
like this:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.canonicalURLhere.com/” />
This code tells the search engine spiders
that all
link authority should be allocated to the
canonical URL. Does not redirect VISITORS!
34. Tools to diagnose
• Manually check non www
• 301 redirect checker
• Use Open Site Explorer to check link
values www.opensiteexplorer.com or
• MajesticSEO www.majesticseo.com
40. International Domain Strategy
Considerations to International SEO
Strategy.
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Domain Structure
Server Location
Countries or Languages?
Local / Global Content
Translation / Native Input
Link Building
Regional Design /
Usability
45. Domain Variations
Prevent Future Headaches
• Purchase ALL of
them
• www.brandsite.in taken?
• Other variations can hurt
your brand and confuse
customers
www.brand-site.in
46. Markup for Multilingual Content
hreflang element
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Multilingual / Multi-regional
Different Country – Same Language
Duplicate Content Issues
Serve Appropriate Landing Pages
47. Markup for Multilingual Content
rel="alternate" hreflang="x“
<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-gb"
hreflang="en-gb" /> <link rel="alternate"
href="http://example.com/en-us" hreflang="en-us" /> <link
rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/" hreflang="x-default"
/>
• http://example.com/en-gb: For English-speaking users in the UK
• http://example.com/en-us: For English-speaking users in the USA
• http://example.com/: The homepage shows users a country
selector and is the default page for users worldwide
49. International Domain Tips
• Make things obvious – one language
nav/content
• Use robots.txt to block crawling/auto translate
• Different Language Content on Separate URL
• Avoid auto re-direct for language versions
• Use Geo-Location Settings in Webmaster Tools
• Buy ALL Domains
• Tie up Local Info
• Server Location
51. Mobile isn’t separate.
• 77% of mobile searches happen near a PC.
– Source: Google Databoard
• People use devices interchangeably.
• Your website needs to be mobile-friendly.
55. 5 common pitfalls (and solutions)
• Duplicate content issues: use ‘switchboard tags’ on pages which
duplicate desktop content
• Slow site speed: use Google’s Pagespeed Insights tool to check your
site
• Irrelevant redirects: redirect to the most relevant mobile page,
don’t redirect everything to the mobile homepage
• One-way redirects: use two-way redirects by user agent
– but make sure users can override it (if links are used, they should point
to most relevant version, rather than homepage)
• Interstitial pop-up ads: instead, use a banner at the top of the page
61. Migrating - What We Did First…
• Mapped the old site
• Determined the IA of the new site
• Set rules on what URLs could and could not change and
why based on MOZ page strength analysis
• Mapped the inbound links on the old site for contacting
• Mapped the dozens of domains bought to prevent others
buying/using them or which had been used in the past
• Determined what wasn’t moving to new site and the
impact of loss of content
• Created a .htaccess file in preparation for the move
• Set Screaming Frog against the old site & site on staging
• Set up Webmaster Tools on Google
62. Migrating - What We Did Then…
• All content uploaded on to new CMS using new tagging
rules
• All images uploaded to new CMS with new naming
rules
• Stopped auto-population of meta description
• New analytics account launched along side old one
• Set Screaming Frog against new site to check 404, 301,
302, 500 response codes
• Fixed 404s mainly resulting from typos
• Automated sitemap
• Blocked crawling undesirable pages