Technical SEO Best Practices

1. TechnicalSEOBestPractices-AMarketers'Guide 101GuideSeries Abest-practiceguidetobuildinganSEO-compliantwebsite FirstEdition = 1 PhilRobinson,PeterPhillpot&OliverPyper

2. CONTENTS ABOUTTHEAUTHORS 3 INTRODUCTION 4 THE PROBLEMWITHWEB DEVELOPERS 5 SOLUTIONS 6 15-POINTTECHNICAL SEO CHECKLIST Canonicalization 404 ErrorsBroken Links RedirectsandSiteMigrationURL formatting Robots.txtTitlesandDescriptionsDuplicate ContentHeadingtags On-Page TextImageTags Internal LinkingandAnchorTextSearchEngineInclusion XML SitemapsHosting 7 7 9 10 10 12 14 16 18 21 22 24 26 28 29 30

3. ABOUTTHEAUTHORS ClickThroughMarketingisadigitalmarketingagency, providingwebdevelopment,searchengineoptimisation,payperclickmanagement,conversionoptimisationandcontentmarketingservices. Since2004,ClickThroughMarketinghashelpedmanycompanies – frombigbrandstosmallstart-ups–growGooglerankings,boostconversions,increasereturnondigitalmarketinginvestment,andstretchbudgetstogetvalueformoney. Weprideourselvesongivinghonestadvicebasedonthelatestdigital marketingbestpractices. OurRITEcorevaluesofResults,Innovation,TrustandExcellencedriveeverythingwedo. Aproven&trustedagencysince2003 CreatorsofBidCops.com-Europe’sleadingfreeAdWordsAuditingTool WeareaTop100AgencyonRecommendedAgencyRegisterWehavepublishedseveralbooksondigital marketing,soldonAmazon Proventrackrecord fromourworkwithclientsincludingPeugeot,Triumph,Nectar, ComicRelief,ScottishPowerandHalfords Ourpeopleallreceiveourindustry-leading,DigitalAcademytrainingActivemembersoftheIAB,eConsultancyandSEMPO Thoughtleaders,givingclientstheinsidetrack onwhatmattersinsearch,socialmediaandthedigitalmarketplace...before it happens! Ifyou’restrugglingwithtechnicalSEOissues,oryourwebdeveloperjustdoesn’tknowSEO,oursearchandwebdevelopmentexpertscanhelp. Findoutwhatwecandotogrowandprotectyourbusiness.Calluson 08000887486orvisitwww.clickthrough-marketing.com Phil Robinson is a digitalmarketingconsultant with over 19 years’ experience. In 2004, he founded ClickThrough - an agency focused on searchenginemarketingandconversionoptimisation. In addition to his role as Founder & CEO of ClickThrough,Philalso providesbestpracticetraining for businessesand writes books on digitalmarketingstrategies. Peter Phillpot is ClickThroughMarketing’s director of SEO. A recognised innovator and all-round searchexpert, his passionanddedication to searchengineoptimisation translates into winning searchmarketing solutions for our clients.Peter’s approachblendsbest-practicetechniques with an intrepidandcreative attitude,driving him to developstrategiesahead of the rest of the digitalmarketingindustry. Oliver Pyper is ClickThroughMarketing’s senior contentanddigitalPRexecutive. He has worked in digitalmarketingsince2010, writingcopyandcreatingcontentstrategies for clientsas diverse as online chemists,automobilemanufacturers andtheatre companies.

4. INTRODUCTION Let’sgetstraighttothepoint:SEO-unfriendlyweb developmentcancostyouyourbusiness. Itgoeswithoutsayingthatthisisbadnewsformarketing managers.Aswebbuildsbecomemoreandmorecomplex,technicalSEOisbecomingincreasinglyimportant–andeven smalltechnicalslip-upscanhavecatastrophiceffectsonyour searchengineperformanceandbottomline. Our15-pointtechnicalSEOchecklistcanhelpyouprevent technicalissuesandprotectyourprofits.Itwillhelpyou understandtechnicalissuesandshowyouhowtotestyour sitetocheckifitiscompliantwithSEObestpractice.Itcanalsohelpyoudealwithwebdevelopers,showingyoutherightquestionstoasksoyoucanbesureyoursiteisbuiltcorrectlyandthatyou’regettingyourmoney’sworth. We’ve auditedhundreds of websitesincluding some of the UK’s most popular. We frequently see the same types of mistakes beingmadebywebdevelopers.Thisguidecovers15 of the most commontypes of error and shows you how to prevent or fix them. • This guide is designed for marketers who are: • Planninganewwebsitebuild,andneedto findawebdeveloperwhocanprotecttheir searchenginerankingsandtraffic. • Employingawebdeveloper,andworriedthattheir businesswillsufferasaresultoftechnicalSEOmistakes. • Sufferingdropsintrafficorrankingson anewsite,andwanttoknowwhy.

5. THEPROBLEMWITHWEBDEVELOPERS Oftenwhencompanieshirewebdevelopersorengagewith an agencytheyhaveanexpectationthattheworkontheir sitewillincorporateSEObestpractice.Thetruthisthat themajorityofwebdevelopershaveverylittleexperience ofSEO,anditisgivenalowpriority.Incorporatingbest- practiceSEOintoawebbuildoftenmeansmorecareis neededandcostsincrease.Inessence,theoldadage‘you getwhatyoupayfor’applies. Despite this, our experience has shown that the size or position of a web development agency does not impact quality of builds in terms of SEO.We’ve seen websites produced by some of the most respected developers in the UK which have seriously hurt businesses because of basic SEO mistakes.And we’ve seen plenty of bad builds from smaller developers too. As a rule, this is because web developers are entirely focussed on design.It’s in their interest to create beautiful, user-friendly websites that they can show off in their portfolio.But often this design focus comes with a lack of understanding of even the most simplistic technical SEO concepts. It’s important, if possible, to tackle these problems as early as possible.Seemingly simple decisions like the choice of CMS or e-Commerce platform can leave you‘locked in’and unable to correct technical problems later on. The worst offenders are usually proprietary platforms owned by the agency themselves, but big-name, respected platforms often require a great deal of work to become compliant with SEO best-practice.And even customisable open-source platforms won’t pass our SEO audit‘out of the box.’ THEWORSTOFFENDERSARE USUALLYPROPRIETARYPLATFORMS OWNEDBYTHEAGENCY THEMSELVES

6. SOLUTIONS Ifyou’replanninganewwebsiteand choosinga web developer,it’simportanttotakestepstoprotectyour business.Our checklistincludeskeyquestionstoask developerstoensureyouemployateamwhounderstand theimportanceoftechnicalSEO.Youmayalsowishtoask anSEOexperttoputthedeveloper’sprevioussitesthrough atechnicalaudit. If your website is in the process of being built, you can use this checklist to spot issues and steer the build in the right direction - before it’s too late. If your site is already live and you’ve experienced problems, it’s important to make your site compliant with technical best practice as soon as possible.Using this checklist can help you understand where issues may be impacting on your site’s performance. IFYOUR WEBSITEISIN THEPROCESS OFBEINGBUILT, YOUCANUSE THISCHECKLIST TOSPOTISSUES

7. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST Pleasenote:Thisguideonlycoverssomeofthemost frequenterrorsfoundinwebsites.Ifyouareconcerned abouttheperformanceofasite,oryou’rebuildinganew site,itisalwayswisetoseekprofessionaladvice. Another example isTwitter, which has a canonical version without the‘www’(https://twitter.com) – if you put the wrong version into a browser address bar (https://www.twitter.com/) you’ll see you’re redirected to the correct version. This is important for users andSEO.If somebody links to your site using the incorrect version of the URL, putting a redirect in place will ensure that the‘strength’of this link will go to the correct page. Canonicalization is important for all of the pages on your site, not just the home page.In a fully SEO-friendly site you should be able to go to any page and test the canonicalization. Twitter never uses‘www’so if you put https://www.twitter.com/clickthroughintoabrowseryoucanseethatitcorrectlyredirects to a version without the‘www.’  CANONICALIZATION In a technical context,‘canonicalization’means‘specifying the correct version of your URL.’ For example, your homepage may show up if you type‘www. example.com’or‘example.com.’Whilst the same content may be displayed, they are technically different URLs, so search engines have to decide which one to display to searchers. SEO-wise,itmakesnodifferencewhetheryoudecidetohave ‘www’atthestartofyourwebsite’sURL–butitisimportant thatyoumakethedecision,andevenmoreimportantthat yousticktoit. Well-managed websites have only one version, and the non- canonicalversionwillredirecttothecorrectversion.Youcansee this when you visit an incorrect version on a site like http://bbc.co.uk/ - when you click on the link, you’ll see that it takes you to the version with‘www’at the start.

8. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST REAL-LIFEEXAMPLE: Just over ten per cent of websites we audit don’t have canonicalization implemented at all, and it’s only partially implemented on around 60 per cent of builds. It’s often the case that developers building a site will implement canonicalization on the core pages, but miss the blog or other sections, so it’s important the website is thoroughly checked. Typically,canonicalizationisverystraightforwardtoimplement, andcanoftenbedonesimplybyaddingafewlinesofcodeto theserver. NEXTSTEPS: Ifyou’reintheprocessof choosingawebdeveloper, it’simperativetoensuretheyunderstandtheimportanceof canonicalization,andknowhowtoimplementitproperly. Ifyou’realreadyworkingwithawebdeveloper,ask themtoimplement301redirectstoensureuserswhovisit theincorrectversionofyour websitearesenttothecorrect version–as wellasmakingsureyourinternallinking structureisconsistent.Thiswillhelpsearchenginesdisplay thecanonicalversion,andensurelinkstrengthisproperly distributed. Ifyoursiteislive,it’seasytotestwhethercanonicalization isproperlyimplemented.Opena webbrowser,andtypethe ‘wrong’versionofyourURL.Ifthewrongversionredirectsto thecorrectversion,thisisagoodsign. Ifaredirectdoesnothappen,youhaveaproblemonyour hands,asyouessentiallyhavetwoversionsofthesamesite whicharecompetingagainsteachotherinsearchengines.

9. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST NEXTSTEPS: Ifyou’reintheprocessof choosingawebdeveloper, makesureyoumention404pagesinyourinitialbrief. Ifyou’realreadyworkingwithawebdeveloper,askyour webdeveloperifthey’vebudgetedfor404pagecreation –itisstandardpracticetoprovide404errorpageswhen creatinganewsite. Ifyoursiteislive,thentesttoseeifa404pageis implemented.Bringyour websiteupinabrowser,then trytovisitaURLthatdoesn’texist(likewww.example. com/blahblahblah).Youshouldseea404errorpagethat supportsyourbranding,anddirectsyourusersbacktothe homepage. It’simportanttonotethatyoushouldnevercomeacross404 errorswhenfollowinginternallinkswithinyour website.(See ‘Brokenlinks’below) 404ERRORS  A404erroris returnedwhenausertries tovisitaURLthatdoesn’t exist.Yourwebdevelopershouldcreatea404page todeliver amessage totheuserwhenthingsgowrong,otherwisethey’ll seeboring, bland textwithoutanyof yourbeautifulbranding. Whenthingsdogowrongitsimportantthat yourusersseeawell- formattedpage toencouragethem tocontinueusing yoursite. Your404pagecanbefun,functional,sensibleorsilly.The importantthingisthatitpresentsaclearcalltoactionforusersto returntothehomepageandcontinuetheirconversionjourney.

10. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST BROKENLINKS REDIRECTSANDSITEMIGRATION So we know you should always avoid broken links within your site’s internal inking structure.But if you decide to remove a page or change its URL, you have to consider external links too. This is a common problem with site rebuilds – if lots of people link to an outdated URL, you’ll miss out on valuable link strength,anddirectawholebunchofotherwise-interestedusers to a 404 page. These outdated URLs should be rerouted to the new, correct version using a 301 redirect.302 redirects exist too, but these are used for temporary changes and don’t pass link strength.   Broken links lead to URLs that have been removed, or that never existed in the first place.Websites tend to develop broken links through time, but it’s not uncommon to find them on brand- new builds too. Thesebadlinksareannoyingforusers,andgoagainst technicalSEObestpractice.Goodwebdevelopers should testtheirsitesfullypriortolaunchtoensurethatthereareno brokenlinks. Questions to ask your web developer: • Areyousuremysitehasnobroken links? • Doyouhaveamethodtocheckforbroken links? • Doyoucarryoutthesechecksasstandard?

11. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST It’s bad practice to link to redirected pages within the internal linking structure of your site.Redirects should be only used to point old URLs to the correct location.Some content management systems (CMS) use redirects as standard in the way they handle internal links.You should talk to your web development agency to find a way round this issue. Asarule,thebiggestproblemswithredirectsarisewhenan agencyhascarriedoutawhole-siterebuild.Whenwebuild websites,weensurethatoldURLswhicharenolongerused inthenewsitestructureareredirectedtoanappropriate currentversion. MigratingtheoldURLs togoodalternativeURLs inthenewstructureisan importantpartofanew webbuild,butunlessit’s specificallyrequested, manydeveloperswillnot carrytheworkoutatall. • Questionstoaskyourwebdeveloper: • Haveyoubudgetedtomapallmy oldURLstomynewURLs? • Doyouhaveawaytocheckforunwantedredirectswithinmysite’sstructure? • DoesourCMSuseredirectsasstandard, andifso,canyoucorrectthis? REAL-LIFEEXAMPLE: We have seen lots of examples of poor site migration.We dealt with the case of an SME that suffered a severe traffic drop after a site rebuild.Its new site had a very different structure to the old, and no redirects were in place.Amongst the links that were lost was a feature article from the Independent newspaper and a link from the BBC, all going to pages that no longer existed. Even blue chip companies can forget about site migration.We found that a web developer building a new site for one of the UK’s largest retailers had not included site migration in the site build, and had no plans to redirect the old URLs.

12. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST URLFORMATTING  Short, easy-to-read URLs create a positive user experience and are in line with technical SEO best practice.Wherever possible, bespoke URLs should be created for each page, with each word separated by hyphens (http://www.example.com/this-is-an-example-page/). Consistency is important too.URLs are case sensitive, so if you link to the above page as http://www.example.com/This-is-an- Example-Page/, rather than http://www.example.com/this-is-an-example-page/ you are in fact linking to a different URL. The same goes for inconsistency in trailing slashes (/) - http:// www.example.com/this-is-an-example-page is not the same as http://www.example.com/this-is-an-example-page/ Some content management and e-Commerce platforms use dynamically generated URLs which are unnecessarily lengthy, or otherwise increase the length of URLs through their built-in taxonomy.SEO-savvy web developers will be able to correct these issues on most platforms. IT’SNOTUNCOMMONFOR DEVELOPERSTOCHARGEMORE FORCORRECTINGPLATFORMSTO SHOWUSERFRIENDLYURLS,SOIT’S IMPORTANTTOASKWHATYOUGET OUTOFTHEBOX However,it’snotuncommonfordeveloperstochargemorefor correctingplatformstoshowuserfriendlyURLs,soit’simportant toaskwhatyougetoutofthebox,andwhatcostsextra.

13. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST REAL-LIFEEXAMPLE: It’s unusual to see a rebuild that moves from friendly URL formats to non-friendly formats.But where we have seen this, we have observed a drop in the page’s ability to rank. We worked with a major UK retailer that saw traffic to a key product page drop by around 60 per cent after switching to a non-friendly URL.There were other issues on the site which could have contributed to this traffic drop, but it nonetheless illustrates the importance of using user-friendly URLs for technical SEO. NEXTSTEPS: Ifyou’reintheprocessofchoosinga webdeveloper, makesureyoudiscussURLformattingwiththem,andmake clearthatyouwantuser-friendlyURLsthroughoutthesite. Ifyou’realreadyworkingwithadeveloper,oryoursite islive,youcantestthelengthofyourURLsbyclickingaroundyoursiteortestserverandcheckingintheaddress bar.PayspecialattentiontoproductURLs,astheseare mostlikelytobedynamicallygenerated. Useyourownjudgement–lookforreadability,memorabilityandaclean,user-friendlyappearance.Avoidnon-standardcharacters(likeapostrophes,colons,andsemi-colons),as wellaslongstringsofnonsensicalnumbersorletters. IfyourURLsaretoolong,ordon’tincludetextthat describes the page, you should ask your webdeveloperif they have a way to correct them. If lengthyURLs are a standard ‘feature’ of your CMS, then additionalpluginsand/orcoding may berequired to implement user-friendly, SEO-friendlyURLs. Make sure your developer has budgeted for this.

14. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST ROBOTS.TXT  The robots.txt file tells web robots (including search engine spiders) what to do when they come across a website.It’s not essential, but can be useful for preventing certain directories, files or file types from being crawled by search engines. It’s important to ensure your robots.txt file is correctly formatted, or your website could end up shutting out search engine spiders altogether.Kicking your own website out of Google is just about the biggest SEO mistake you can make! When a new website is being built its important to ensure that the test server is not indexed by search engines.We commonly see instances where developers have failed to block the test server in the robots.txt file.In these cases, search engines are likely to index the incomplete, test version of your site and thus see it as the‘original.’ Later, when your website proper appears on a different URL, the search engine may penalise your site because it sees it as copying the content from another site. This issue can be very damaging – but it takes only a few lines of code to safeguard against it.

15. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST NEXTSTEPS: Ifyou’reintheprocessof choosingawebdeveloper, youshould talktoprospectivedeveloperstoensureyou’re bothclearonwhichpagesyoudon’twanttobeindexedby searchengines.Makeitabsolutelyclearthatthetestserver mustbeblockedfromsearchengines. Ifyou’realreadyworkingwithadeveloper,oryoursite islive,youcancheckwhetherthetestserverisindexed byGoogleusingthe‘site:’searchstring.Enter‘site:’intothe searchbarfollowedbythetestserverdomain.Ifyousee resultsfromthispage,thenthetestserverhasbeenindexed –thisisbad. Inthesecases,it’s worthbringinginexternalSEO consultantstocorrectissuesand/or workwithyour developerstoguidethebuild. REALLIFEEXAMPLE: We worked with a UK retailer with over 300 branches nationwide.They asked us for help after noticing a major traffic drop after the launch of their new website.Upon investigation, we found that their developers had accidentally blocked their entire website from being crawled by search engines. Theotherimportantthingtoconsideristhat,whenyour site’slive,yourrobots.txtfileallowssearchenginestoreach alltherightplaces.

16. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST TITLESANDDESCRIPTIONS  Title tags and meta descriptions are HTML elements that are commonly used by search engines on the search engine results pages (SERPs).To use Google as an example, the title tag is often the blue link that appears within a search result, and the meta description is often the longer text below it. The consensus within the SEO community is that title tags are used by search engines as a ranking factor.Wherever possible, every page on your site should have a unique and descriptive title tag that encourages readers to click on your page in the SERPs, includes keywords relevant to the page content, and reinforces your branding. include clear calls to action and be relevant to the content of the page in order to encourage clicks.It’s best practice to include keywords too, as these appear in bold when a user searches for the relevant term, and can help to improve click-through rate (CTR). Every page should have a unique and descriptive meta description. Meta descriptions are not a ranking factor for Google, and are unlikely to be used by other search engines.They should WHEREVERPOSSIBLE,EVERYPAGE ONYOURSITESHOULDHAVEA UNIQUEANDDESCRIPTIVETITLETAG THATENCOURAGESREADERSTO CLICKONYOURPAGE. At the time of writing, Google’s character limits for title tags and meta descriptions are around 64 characters and 156 characters respectively.Any longer, and they are likely to be truncated within the search results.

17. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST NEXTSTEPS: If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer,or are already working with one, you should ensure that they are well versed in creating title tags and descriptions that are optimised for users and search engines. You should also request that they create unique title tags and descriptions for every page on your site, and ask that they check for missing and duplicate title tags and descriptions once the build is complete and before the site goes live. If your site is already live, then you can check how title tags and meta descriptions appear in Google, provided the site is already indexed (this may take some time if the site has only recently been put live). Use the‘site:’modifier, followed immediately by the URL you wish to check (with no spaces).For example:‘site:http://www.clickthrough-marketing. com/web-design/web-design-services/‘ Issuescanbecorrectedafterlaunch,butforthebestresultsit’s importanttoensurebest-practicetitletagsanddescriptionsareinplace beforeGoogleindexesyoursite.Ifyoufindproblems,anSEOagency willbeabletoaudityourtitlesanddescriptionsandprovideunique, SEO-friendlyreplacements.

18. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST is produced with“intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users,”it could slap a penalty on your site.This means you’ll lose rankings and could disappear from the search engine results altogether. This is why we always aim to provide unique content when developing websites, and carry out thorough checks for duplication when carrying out technical SEO audits. It is common to find pages that are duplicated in a website.It is often the case that an internal page will display the same content with or without a slash. http://www.example.com/my-pagehttp://www.example.com/my-page/ Testyourwebpagestoensureyoucannotgetthesame contentbyaddingorremovingaslash.Ifyoucanseethe samecontentontwodifferentURLsyoushoulddesignatea ‘correct’version,andredirecttheincorrectversiontothisone. Youshouldalsoensurethattherearenolinksinyourwebsite goingtothewrongversion. DUPLICATECONTENT  Duplicate content means on-page text that appears elsewhere on the web – either within your own site or on another site entirely.Duplicate content is an SEO no-no. Google says it“tries hard to index and show pages with distinct information,”the implication being that it also tries hard not to index and show pages withoutdistinct information.This means these pages will be filtered out of search results, or may not be indexed at all. Most of the time, duplicate content is non-malicious.And it’s reasonable to assume Google is quite good at displaying the ‘correct’version of a page. However, we can’t trust Google to get it right every time.So it’s best practice to avoid duplication of text wherever possible.(Obviously some duplicate content can’t be avoided, such as text in menus.) Worst case scenario:If Google decides your use of duplicate content

19. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST NEXTSTEPS: If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer, you should stress the importance of content during your initial conversations.Ask prospective developers whether they provide unique and relevant SEO content as part of their service – if not, plan how this content could be produced and implemented.A digital marketing agency can help you put a content plan together and write keyword rich, conversion- friendly copy. Ifyou’realreadyworkingwithadeveloper,thennowisthe timetogetyourcontentright.Ifyourdeveloperhasprovided similarblocksofcontentacross multiplepages,or worse,has takencopyfromacompetitor’ssite,youshouldrequestnew, uniquecontentforeachpage.Youmaywishtoengagethird- partySEOcontentwriterstohelpyou. Ifyoursiteisalreadylive,there’sasimplewaytocheck forduplicatecontent.Copyasentencefromapageonyour website,andpasteitintoGoogle,withthetextenclosedin quotationmarks.(Forexample,“thisisanexamplesentence thatmaybeduplicatedonline.)” Ifyougetanyresultsforthissearch(otherthanthepageitself, ifit’slive),thenthecontentisduplicatedelsewhereonthe web. Repeatthisprocessforafewpages,payingspecialattentionto thingslikeproducttext,whichismostlikelytobescrapedfroma manufacturer’ssite. IMPORTANT:Duplicatecontentisanon-goingconcern.Never takesectionsofyour websitecopyandpasteittoexternalsites (suchasbusinessdirectories).Thecontentonyoursiteshould beunique.

20. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST REAL-LIFEEXAMPLE: We see a very common (and very avoidable) example of duplicated content when carrying out SEO audits.This is when the root home page (www.example.com) and the html file that sits within that root (www.example.com/index.html) are indexed as separate pages and thus flagged as duplicate. If your server is set up properly, it shouldn’t display duplicate versions of this page.

21. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST HEADINGTAGS  You know how newspapers have a big, bold headline to grab your attention, then several sub-headings to break up the story as you read? On-page content works in a similar way, but the headings and paragraphs are coded into a page’s html.Headings start with a tag like <h1>, <h2> and <h3>, whilst paragraphs start with <p>. Each tag has a matching closing tag, like </h1> or </p>. It’simportanttouseheading tagsandparagraph tagscorrectly becausetheyhelpsearchenginesmakesenseofthecontent onapage.Themostimportantheadingshouldbecontainedin <h1> tags(the‘headline’),andsubheadingsshouldbecontained in<h2>,<h3>andsoon,indescendingorderofimportance. Typically,youshouldonlyhaveone<h1> tagonapage. h1>’and‘<h3>More SEOAdvice</h3>.’Instantly we know this page is about SEO training – and so will search engines. We never use heading tags in the header or footer of a page. This creates duplicate heading tags across a site and makes it more difficult for search engines to understand the content of individual pages. Web developers who don’t understand SEO often use heading tags purely for stylistic purposes.This often means you’ll end up with search engine-unfriendly headings like‘<h1>Learn from the best</h1>’and‘<h3>More Information</h3>.’ WEBDEVELOPERSWHODON’T UNDERSTANDSEOOFTENUSE HEADINGTAGSPURELYFOR STYLISTICPURPOSES. These don’t give search engines very much information at all. We would use heading tags like‘<h1>SEOTraining Courses</

22. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST However, those searching for a property are much more likely to use the term‘to rent.’They’re thinking of what they can get out of the service, not what you do as a company. Ifyoudon’tincludetermslike‘torent’onthepage,you’re muchlesslikelytoappearinsearchresultsforrelevant keywordsandphrases. Ifyourwebdevelopmentagencyprovides copywriting servicesbutdoesn’t considerSEOorconversion,youmight endupwithlotsofcontentthatdescribes yourbusinessin perfectdetail,butdoesn’t helpyourankinsearchenginesor convertusersintosales. THINGSTOCONSIDER: It’snotuncommonforunderwrittenorplagiarisedplaceholder copytoendupbeingusedinthefinalversionofa website– throughbreakdownsincommunicationoralackofemphasison contentquality. Don’tletthishappen.Thewordsyourusersseearejustasimportant asthelayoutandappearanceofyourpage.Soifyou’rerelyingon yourwebdevelopertoproducecontent,youneedtostartdiscussing yourtoneofvoiceandSEOgoalswiththemfromthegetgo. ON-PAGETEXT  We could write dozens of eBooks on content writing best- practice.But for SEO, there’s one rule that takes precedence over all others:write as your users write. Writing using your users’language helps to improve your chances of ranking and creates a conversion-friendly user experience. For example, say you work in the residential lettings industry.It may seem to make sense to write content using all the industry lingo and office shorthand that you use every day – including terms like‘to let.’

23. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST Ifyoursite’salreadygonelive,it’s worthinvestinginafullSEO contentaudit.CreativeSEOcontentcanimproveyourchancesin thesearchengines,andimproveconversion ratesonyoursite. REALLIFEEXAMPLE: We worked with a long-established UK brand that fell victim to the trap of referring to products by the industry-standard name, rather than the names used by customers.In this case, it was a simple mix-up between‘candle sticks’and‘candle holders’. The company had created content using‘candle holders’as a keyword, without realising that half of its target market was searching for‘candle sticks’.Although there are technically subtle differences between candle sticks and candle holders, many customers will not realise this when beginning their product research.This meant that they were missing out on valuable search traffic – ideally, they should have used both variations within their product copy. CREATIVESEOCONTENTCAN IMPROVEYOURCHANCESINTHE SEARCHENGINES,ANDIMPROVE CONVERSIONRATESONYOURSITE.

24. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST IMAGETAGS  NEXTSTEPS: Good images can help improve the user experience – especially on product-driven websites.But it’s important to think beyond the pretty pictures and consider search engines. HTMLallowsdeveloperstoassociatetextwithimagessothat searchenginescanunderstandwhattheimageshows.The textassociatedwithanimageisstoredinanHTMLtagcalled an‘alttag’.Thisalttagtextisshownifthedesiredimagecan’t bedisplayedforsomereason,andisalsousedbycertain softwaredesignedtofacilitatewebbrowsingforpeoplewith visualimpairments. Using image tags across your website is important for both search engine optimisation and accessibility best practice. Ifyou’reintheprocessof choosingawebdeveloper, thenaskthemquestionsrelatingtoimage tagsand accessibilitystandards–ifthey’renot workingtobest- practicestandards,thenthey’renotbuilding websitestobe technicallywatertight,andinclusiveforallusers. Ifyou’realreadyworkingwithadeveloper,oryoursiteis live,it’s worthcheckingafewimagesacrossyour websiteto makesureimage tagsareproperlyimplemented. Todothis,rightclickonanimagewithinyourbrowserand select‘Inspectelement.’Inthecodethatappears(which shouldstartwith‘<imgsrc=’),youshouldseethe tag‘alt,’ withsomerelevanttextenclosedinspeechmarks. Ifyoudon’tsee‘alt’tags,ortheassociatedtextisnot relevanttoordescriptiveoftheimages,askyour web developerorexternalSEOexpertstoproperlyoptimiseyour imagesinlinewithSEOandusabilitybestpractice.

25. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST REALLIFEEXAMPLE: We discovered that a major UK insurance company had labelled all their images with text relating to stock photographs, and the number of the supplier of the stock photograph ( i.e. ‘stock picture 183764653’).It goes without saying that this is bad for visually impaired users and search engines. AMAJORUKINSURANCECOMPANY HADLABELLEDALLTHEIR IMAGESWITHTEXTRELATINGTO STOCKPHOTOGRAPHS,ANDTHE NUMBEROFTHESUPPLIEROFTHE STOCKPHOTOGRAPH

26. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST INTERNALLINKINGANDANCHORTEXT  • Questionstoaskyourwebdeveloper: • DoyouunderstandtheimportanceofanchortextinSEO? • Haveyouconsideredhowcorrectuseofanchortext willsupportthestructureandhierarchyofmysite? We’ve already covered consistency in internal linking.Now it’s time to consider how internal links can help search engines create a hierarchy of pages within your site structure. For a start, every page on your site should have a link pointing to it.If a page is particularly important, it should have many other pages linking to it internally.If the page isn’t particularly important, it should have fewer links. Your web developer should also consider the‘anchor text’of these links.Anchor text is the (usually) blue text shown to users to indicate a link:This is an example link. Search engines use anchor text in assessing the subject matter of a page.For example, if a page has lots of links pointing to it with anchor text related to‘used cars’, it follows that the content of that page is probably related to used cars too. Westrictlyuseclearanddescriptiveanchortexttohelpsearch enginesandusersmakesenseofthe websites webuild.

27. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST goods.However, within this category page, there was one link pointing to a page about‘washing machines,’which is a far more relevant keyword. We changed the menu to link directly to the washing machines category using the anchor text‘washing machines’– ensuring valuable link strength was directed appropriately, using an appropriate anchor text. REALLIFEEXAMPLE: We helped a major UK supplier of home goods improve rankings through a simple change in anchor text. The issue arose because the website had only one link pointing in to any of their major product lines from their category pages, and the anchor text used in their menu was not in line with users’search engine habits. For example, their menu linked to a category page with the anchor text‘white goods’, which meant potentially thousands of links were telling search engines this page was about white WEHELPEDAMAJORUKSUPPLIER OFHOMEGOODSIMPROVERANKINGS THROUGHASIMPLECHANGEIN ANCHORTEXT.

28. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST SEARCHENGINEINCLUSION  NEXTSTEPS: It’s important to ensure your website is indexed by search engines.If this sounds strikingly obvious, then consider whether your entire site is indexed by search engines, and ask yourself: “Do I know how many pages are in my website?” Search engines don’t index every page on the web for a variety of reasons.Sometimes they will not index a page because its content is similar to another page.Sometimes a site has a large number of pages, but hasn’t garnered much strength from inbound links. REAL-LIFEEXAMPLE: We worked with a clothing retailer that had a blog on a subdomain of its site (e.g.blog.clothing-retailer.com).They hadn’t linked to or used this blog for years, and in fact hadn’t realised it was still there.However, there were thousands of pages on the blog still being indexed by search engines. Ifyou’reintheprocessof choosingawebdeveloper, oryou’realreadyworkingwithone,ensureyour web developerfollowsthelinkingandcontentbestpracticeslaid outelsewhereinthiseBook.Thiswillensureahigh rateof searchengineinclusion. Ifyoursiteislive,yourdevelopershouldbeabletotellyou howmanypagesareonyour website.Doasite:searchon yourrootdomain(e.g.‘site:example.com). Ifyouseefarfewerormanymorepagesareindexedthan the numberyoubelieveisinyoursite,thenyouhavea problem.Thiseithermeanspagesaren’tbeingindexedthat shouldbeindexed,ortherearepagesyoudon’tknowabout beingindexed–thiscouldpointtoany numberofpotential technicalproblems. Atthispoint,youmaywishto workwithspecialistSEO consultantstoironoutanyofthemyriadissuesthatcould beaffectingsearchengineinclusion rates.

29. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST XMLSITEMAPS  IFYOU’REUSINGGOOGLE WEBMASTERTOOLS,YOUCANCHECK HOWMANYPAGESAREINYOUR SITEMAP,ANDHOWMANYPAGESARE INDEXEDBYGOOGLE. Searchenginesusea numberofmethodstounderstandthe structureofthesiteandtheimportanceofindividualpageswithin it.YoucanuseanXMLsitemaptohelpfacilitatethisprocess. An XML sitemap is a file that contains a list of the URLs on your site.To help search engines to find this file, it should be linked to within the robots.txt file. THINGSTOCONSIDER: Thelocationofyoursitemap,ifyouhaveone,shouldbe referencedwithinyourrobots.txtfile(http://www.example.com/robots.txt).Ifyoudon’tseeyoursitemapthere,youeitherdon’t haveoneoryour webdeveloperhasn’tformattedtherobots.txt filecorrectly. Ifyou’reusingGoogleWebmasterTools,youcancheckhow manypagesareinyoursitemap,andhowmanypagesare indexedbyGoogle. It’snotessentialthatyouhaveasitemap,butit’sbestpracticeto includeone.Soaskyour webdevelopertoimplementasitemap iftheyhaven’talready.

30. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST businesses don’t realise that some of the UK’s largest hosting providers aren’t UK-based at all.Instead, they locate their hosting facilities in Germany. Secondly, you should consider server speed.The shorter the distance from your server to the end user, the faster the response.If your servers aren’t up to the task of hosting your website, your site speed could suffer, which in turn creates a poor user experience.What’s more, a slow site could affect your search engine rankings – from 2010, Google has used site access speed as a ranking factor. HOSTING  Is your web developer arranging hosting for your site? If so, it’s important to be aware of potential hosting/server issues that could affect your site if the wrong decision is made. Firstly, it’s important to consider server location.Selecting an appropriate sever location can be a significant factor in securing search engine rankings for certain localities.It’s often important to have a server in the nation that is your primary market, especially if you use a .com domain. If you trade solely in the UK, and you have a .com address, but host your site in the US or mainland Europe, search engines will have difficulty knowing that your site is related to the UK.Lots of SELECTINGAN APPROPRIATE SEVERLOCATION CANBEAFACTOR INSECURING SEARCHENGINE RANKINGS

31. 15-POINTTECHNICALSEOCHECKLIST THINGSTOCONSIDER: Inthebest-casescenario, youshoulddiscussserveroptionsearly oninthe build.Communicatewith yourwebdeveloper toensure yourchosenservercanaccommodate yourgoalsfor yoursite,and islocatedintheappropriatecountryfor yourtargetmarket. Ifyoursiteisalreadyliveonaninappropriateserver,thenyou canputplansinplacetomove.Keepinmind,however,that servermovescanbecomplicatedandmayrequirespecialist help.Youalsomaybelockedintoacontractwithaserver providerforasetperiodoftime. However,incertaincircumstances(e.g.Magentohosting)ifyou choose well,yournewhostmayprovideafreemigrationservice. REAL-LIFEEXAMPLE: One of our experts worked with a company that had an incredibly convoluted server setup.They were a British-owned firm selling properties in Spain to British ex-pats on a .com domain based in Germany. Needless to say, moving to UK servers improved site speed and rankings.

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