ensuring your site is technically sound for spiders and visitors alike by anthony piwarun
Post on 22-Nov-2014
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@apiwarun
C O N Q U E R I N G T O D A Y ’ S S E O
Ensuring your site is technically sound for spiders and visitors alike.
ANTHONY PIWARUN @apiwarun
Manager, Search Engine Marketing Zeon Solutions
C H A L L E N G E S
Slides: mesr.me/SMXEast14
@apiwarun
AGENDA
ü I n t r o d u c t i o n
ü W a i t . . W h y d o e s t h i s m a t t e r ?
ü O h , t h e r e a r e b e s t p r a c t i c e s ?
ü F i n a l T h o u g h t s
ü Q & A
@apiwarun
HELLO!
ü Practice Lead, Search & Content @
Zeon Solutions
ü 7+ years digital marketing experience
ü Contributing Editor / Author for Search
Engine Journal and MarketingProfs
ü SMX East, SMX West, Outdoor Retailer &
LavaCon Speaker
@apiwarun
QUICK SURVEY!
A Little Participation Never Hurt ;)
@apiwarun
THE SURVEY SAYS…
ü Who here is responsible for “digital marketing”?
@apiwarun
THE SURVEY SAYS…
ü Who here is responsible for “digital marketing”?
ü How many of you do “search marketing”?
@apiwarun
THE SURVEY SAYS…
ü Who here is responsible for “digital marketing”?
ü How many of you do “search marketing”?
ü Who can guess the difference?
@apiwarun
We’re Technical GEEKS, duh!
@apiwarun
INTRODUCTION
So… Why Are We Here?
@apiwarun
SO… WHY ARE WE HERE?
ü Whether we’re optimizing a lead generation or ecommerce
site, let’s face it… technical factors matter…
ü Regardless of the server, out-of-the-box platforms just don’t cut
it when it comes to “plug and play”
ü If we want to weather the storm, we need to first recognize
that…
@apiwarun MILLENNIALS!
@apiwarun
HOLD UP…
WINTER IS COMING?!?!
@apiwarun
HOW CAN WE WEATHER THE STORM?
ü Utilize technical best practices to ensure search engines can
effectively crawl, index and of course rank the pages relevant to
a user’s query
ü Taking a proactive approach to guiding search engines in the
right direction
ü Board up the windows, lock the doors and buckle up for the ride!
@apiwarun
HOW WE’LL DO IT
ü URL Structure
ü Gateways & Mall Directories
ü Mobile & International
ü Redirects
ü Structured Data Markup (i.e. schema.org & microformats)
ü Rel=Canonical & Next/Prev (The never-ending battle)
@apiwarun
GATEWAYS & MALL DIRECTORIES
I.E. Robots.txt and Sitemap.xml
@apiwarun
ROBOTS.TXT
ü Critical to managing access to content as well as indexation
ü No one-size fits all robots.txt file
ü Highlights ü On-Site Search
ü Sitemap.xml File
ü Assets of Value Directory!
@apiwarun
SITEMAP.XML
ü Segmented sitemaps allow for increased visibility into what bots are indexing
ü Add index & subfiles to webmaster tools to measure crawl-to-indexation ratio
ü Identify areas needed for improvement
@apiwarun
MOBILE OPTIMIZATIONS
Walking Through The Options
@apiwarun
MOBILE EXPERIENCE OPTIONS
ü For mobile browsing, three primary options:
ü Responsive – desktop view & functionality shrunk to device size. Full, desktop experience is kept intact.
ü Adaptive – experience is tailored to mobile or tablet. Focus on efficiency & navigation. Like a “new” site.
ü Hybrid Responsive – incorporates elements of both Responsive and Adaptive design
@apiwarun
MOBILE OPTIONS – THE RUNDOWN
ü Caution – controversy ahead!
ü Google says you should use responsive design
ü My take? Adaptive OR Hybrid Responsive almost always
preferred…
ü It’s about the experience… remember?
@apiwarun
Why make it harder to convert?
Source: Monetate eCommerce Quarterly 2014
@apiwarun
RESPONSIVE & HYBRID CAVEATS
ü Since content & experience is altered dynamically, need to tell the G what’s going on
ü VARY: User-Agent HTTP header status does the trick
Image Credit: Google
@apiwarun
ADAPTIVE CAVEATS
ü Separate desktop & mobile experiences cause duplicate
content
ü Eliminate the potential by utilizing the one-two punch of
rel=canonical and rel=alternate
ü Implementation can be easy or complex.. It’s entirely
dependent on the platform
@apiwarun
ADAPTIVE CAVEATS (CONT.)
On the desktop page:
<link rel=“canonical” href=“http://www.DOMAIN.com/DESKTOP-VERSION-OF-PAGE.html” >
<link rel=“alternate” href=“http://m.DOMAIN.com/MOBILE-VERSION-OF-PAGE.html” >
On the mobile page:
<link rel=“canonical” href=“http://www.DOMAIN.com/DESKTOP-VERSION-OF-PAGE.html” >
@apiwarun
REDIRECTS
A Tale of Two Hosts…
@apiwarun
LINUX - APACHE
ü 301 redirects and RewriteRules handled in one of two (sometimes
three) files:
ü HTACCESS – file used for one-off redirects if a URL changes, product is
discontinued, etc.
ü HTTPD.conf – file used to batch process rewrite rules and redirects.
ü Use HTTPD.conf for massive quantities of redirects / rules to
prevent hit on server performance
@apiwarun
MICROSOFT - IIS
ü Two methods to 301 URLs:
ü Redirects – one-to-one mapping in web.config or IIS manager
implementing client-side 301s
ü Rewrites – server side configuration utilizing regular expressions and
patterns
ü Rewrite rules are ideal as they are server-level and can cast a wider
net using regular expressions… plus, there’s a lot less manual work ;)
@apiwarun
REDIRECT CAVEATS
ü Everyone knows the difference between 301’s, 302’s, 307’s etc…
BUT… redirect chains?
ü Redirect chains occur due to rewrite rules implemented server
side that execute in order
ü So… a non-www to www, force lower case, force trailing slash
and remove file extension could potentially amount to FOUR
redirects!
@apiwarun
REDIRECT SOLUTIONS
ü First we need to identify chains… use one-off tools like
WhereGoes.com or a crawler like Screaming Frog to follow
redirects
ü After they’re identified, regex wizardry must ensue to stop
execution of rewrite rules in IIS and Apache if matches are found
ü After the call is stopped, combine rules into one to remove chains
@apiwarun
CANONICAL VS. NEXT/PREV
Let’s Do This…
@apiwarun
REL=CANONICAL VS. NEXT/PREV… FIGHT!
ü Rel = canonical should be the standard for
eCommerce websites
ü This is in stark contrast with Google’s suggestions
ü Let’s think logically, however…
@apiwarun
REL=CANONICAL VS. NEXT/PREV… FIGHT!
ü Rel=Canonical is simply a recommendation
ü Yet, it’s critical for eCommerce sites with faceted
navigation / filterable attributes
ü Too many sites take “recommendations” on setting
canonical to ViewAll state
ü What suffers? Page load speed = user experience.
@apiwarun
SPEAKING OF CANONICAL…
Cross-Domain Canonicalization FTW!
@apiwarun
CROSS-DOMAIN CANONICALIZATION
ü Cross domain canonicalization is like the standard
rel=canonical tag, but points to a page on another domain
ü Markup is structured as so:
ü Main Site: <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.DOMAIN1.com/page-1" />
ü Duplicate Site: <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.DOMAIN1.com/page-1" />
@apiwarun
ECOMMERCE USE CASES
ü Brands / Distributors that have either a B2B & B2C site with the
same catalog or a separate content site with duplicate
articles on the store’s blog… that’s duplicate content, right?
ü Identify which category/subcategory/product is most relevant
to audience of each site and implement accordingly
@apiwarun
CONTENT USE CASES
ü Hosted Content
ü Let’s say you’re hosting content on a site like WP.com or Tumblr and you decide to self-
host
ü If you don’t have access to the server, you can’t 301
ü Cross-domain canonicalization will help send those soft 301 signals to Google
ü Original Content
ü Say, for example, you write a post and publish it on your corporate blog or a news site.
If you own a personal blog, you want to publish your work without rewriting, right?
ü Cross-domain canonical can help YOU get the message out without duplicating
content and impacting potential traffic for the original site
@apiwarun
HREFLANG
Saving The Best For Last!
@apiwarun
HREFLANG IN A NUTSHELL
ü International / global websites often struggle with with
duplicate content post-translation. Even if it’s in another
language, it could still potentially be viewed as duplicate
ü At a high-level, it tells search engines “Hey, the canonical tag says
THIS PAGE is relevant, however, there are other versions that are
language-specific so please don’t discard those.”
@apiwarun
Note: rel=alternate and ISO language call need to be ON EVERY SINGLE PAGE of EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE language option. Canonical tag should
accurately self-refer.
IMPLEMENTATION
@apiwarun
MISC. TIPS & NOTES
ü HREFLang will NOT geotarget. That’s what GWT is for. This will
only handle duplicate content issues with localization
ü If you have a language selector page, you can assign
hreflang=“x-default”, meaning there’s no specific language
and to consider it the default
ü Track international indexation / implementation success in
GWT -> Search Traffic -> International Targeting report
@apiwarun
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Concluding Thoughts…
@apiwarun
C O N Q U E R I N G T O D A Y ’ S S E O
Ensuring your site is technically sound for spiders and visitors alike.
ANTHONY PIWARUN @apiwarun
Manager, Search Engine Marketing Zeon Solutions
C H A L L E N G E S
Slides: mesr.me/SMXEast14
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