making technical seo the foundation of performance content

Making Technical SEO The Foundation of Performance Content

Darren Konskier - DeepCrawl

Introduction To

How Technical SEO Fits In To Performance Content

How to achieve optimum Search Engine performance

MAKING TECHNICAL SEO THE FOUNDATION OF PERFORMANCE CONTENT

Our mission: Improve the web by providing data that helps people make their web presence accessible, relevant and effective."

Founded in 2012 by three SEOs working on a site migration for Prime Location who wanted to find a way to make sure they weren’t fired!

Cloud based Crawler that analyses every page of your website to identify gaps in technical SEO performance

Currently work with over 850 clients worldwide


CRAWL BUDGET

META TAGS

SITE ARCHITECTURE

DATA DRIVEN

CREA

TIVE

TECHNOLOGY

ENABLED

OPTIMISATION

DISTRIBUTION

CONTENT CREATION

STRATEGY

Why do we need to look at Technical SEO performance?

Making Technical SEO the Foundation of Performance Content

Crawl BudgetThe amount of time Google spends crawling and indexing your pages


• GOOGLE DOES NOT WANT TO UNNECESSARILY CRAWL URLS THAT POINT

TO NEAR IDENTICAL OR DUPLICATE CONTENT

• GOOGLE HATE CRAWLING UNIMPORTANT PARTS OF YOUR WEBSITE (CAN BE

MEASURED BY PAGERANK, ENGAGEMENT)

• GOOGLE IS HIGHLY UNLIKELY TO BE INDEXING ALL of THE CONTENT ON YOUR

WEBSITE

Avoiding Crawl Waste


REMOVE DUPLICATES

• SEARCH ENGINES WASTE TIME CRAWLING DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE

SAME PAGE

• SEARCH ENGINES DON'T KNOW WHICH VERSION OF YOUR PAGES TO SHOW IN

SEARCH RESULTS

• WEAKENS THE AUTHORITY OF THE MAIN PAGE YOU WANT TO GET INDEXED


• ALLOWS YOU TO TELL GOOGLE WHICH PAGES ARE ESSENTIALLY THE SAME AND

WHICH ONE TO INDEX

• GOOD FOR INDEXING ISSUES, NOT CRAWLING ISSUES

• NON-INDEXABLE DOES NOT MEAN NON-CRAWLABLE

AVOID EXCESSIVE USE OF CANONICALS


• REDIRECT CHAINS/LOOPS MAKES CRAWLERS WORK HARDER THAN THEY

NEED TO IN ORDER TO FIND THE CORRECT PAGE

• USE REDIRECTS SPARINGLY AND ONLY KEEP IF ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY

• REDIRECTED LINKS SHOULD BE POINTED DIRECTLY TO THE TARGET PAGE

KEEP REDIRECTS TO A MINIMUM

Other considerations for avoiding Crawl Waste

• Create Sitemaps and ensure the correct URLs are highlighted to Search Engines in them

• Identify and remove any broken links

• Ensure pages are fast loading - target yourself on less than 1 second

Meta TagsProviding search engines with the

correct information about your content


Titles & Descriptions

‒ Together, these two elements determine how your content looks in search results

‒ Without either, you let the search engine decide how your brand will look

Other Types

‒ Schema (Ratings & Reviews)‒ App Integration


Meta Tag Guidelines:

‒ Page title – 50 to 60 characters (512 Pixels)

‒ Meta description – 140 to 160 characters


OpenGraph & Twitter Cards

‒ These tags determine how your content looks on social sites

‒ Without either, you let the social site decide how your brand will look


USE ANALYTICS DATA TO IDENTIFY POTENTIAL HIGH VALUE SOCIAL PAGES

Site StructureEnsuring your content pages have direct, and crawlable, links

MAKE SURE YOUR SITE STRUCTURE FOLLOWS YOUR NAVIGATION HIERARCHY


Importance of site structure for SEOIndexing - helping search engines find all your pages.

Page Authority – Search Engines rank pages based on perceived authority. Site structure plays a huge role in determining this.

Usability - helping users find what they want quickly (with as few clicks as possible)


OK! MAGAZINE HAD AN ISSUE WITH A ‘DEEP WEBSITE’


GOAL WAS TO MAKE ANY PIECE OF CONTENT NO MORE THAN THREE CLICKS FROM THE HOMEPAGE


The Result

86% UPLIFT IN SEO TRAFFIC IN SIX WEEKS

20% INCREASE IN PAGE VIEWS PER VISIT

TRAFFIC REMAINED CONSISTENT AT THE NEW LEVEL

Summary• Location, Location, Location

• Technical SEO helps set up your content for long term success

• Use as part of an integrated approach

making technical seo the foundation of performance content

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