What Really Matters in Technical SEO

What Really Matters
in Technical SEO
Web Savvy Marke,ng & iThemes Media LLC Copyright © 2016, All Rights Reserved

Basics of Technical SEO
q  It simply refers to “things” that are related to code, se7ngs, and servers.
q  It includes things you can see and things you can’t see. Today we’re going to primarily
focus on those things you can discover and fix.
q  It focuses on discovering issues and fixing these problems.
q  The goal is to make it easy for search engines to crawl, digest, understand and index
your website or blog’s content.
q  It doesn’t always require programming skills as there are lots of tools available to assist
in audits, noCficaCons, and ulCmate resoluCon of the issue.
Technical SEO can sound really intimidating.
But don’t worry, because it doesn’t have to be scary at all!
Highlights of Technical SEO
Web Savvy Marketing & iThemes Media LLC Copyright © 2016, All Rights Reserved

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: Missing H1 tags
MulCple H1 tags
Why It’s an Issue: Missing or mulCple H1’s makes it diﬃcult for search
engines to understand the content’s subject maIer
Root Cause: Poorly coded WordPress theme
User override through WordPress editor
Way to Discover: Review source code or editor
Use third party tools like Mozbar
Resolu,on Op,ons: Change to a new WordPress theme
Fix the code within the exisCng WordPress theme
Remove manual overrides within content

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: Missing meta or mulCple meta
Same meta across enCre website
Too short or overly long meta
Why It’s an Issue: Makes it diﬃcult for search engines to understand the
content’s subject maIer
Root Cause: Lack of SEO plugin or incorrect plugin se7ngs
User override through plugin se7ngs in editor
Way to Discover: Review source code
Mozbar, Google Search Console
Resolu,on Op,ons: Install and properly conﬁgure All in One SEO or Yoast
User educaCon on best pracCces and proper usage

SEO Friendly URLs
SEO friendly URLs help search engines understand a website’s architecture and
the structure of the content.
Problem: Set to numbers and not words
Funky characters
Lack of hierarchy
Why It’s an Issue: Makes it diﬃcult for search engines to understand the
hierarchy and nature of content, diﬃcult to crawl
Root Cause: Outdated technology or bad plugins
Incorrect se7ngs in WordPress
Way to Discover: Review website in browser
Check WordPress se7ngs
Use Dynomapper or Screaming Frog to crawl website
Resolu,on Op,ons: Set permalinks to post name in WordPress
Use SEO plugins to further clean and opCmize

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: Missing enCrely
Incorrect usage and errors
Why It’s an Issue: Causes sensiCve content to be indexed
Incorrectly blocks search engines from searchable content
Root Cause: Lack of educaCon
Outdated conﬁguraCons
Way to Discover: Google Search Console
Resolu,on Op,ons: Review periodically
Monitor Google Search Console

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: Missing
Wrong version (HTML) submiIed to search engines
Unstructured and without hierarchy or segmentaCon
Errors
Why It’s an Issue: Makes it diﬃcult for search engines to locate all content
and/or understand the hierarchy of a website
Root Cause: No plugins
Unknowledgeable users
Way to Discover: Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
Resolu,on Op,ons: Install and properly conﬁgure All in One SEO or Yoast
Upload to GSC and BWT
Review for errors in GSC and BWT

Duplicate Content
Duplicate content (in this case) refers to the same content displayed under
different URLs.
Problem: www vs. non-www
hIp vs. hIps
Session IDs
Online pages + printer friendly pages
Why It’s an Issue: Confuses search engines and forces them to select one
version while also being messy for human visitors
Root Cause: ConﬁguraCon issues, low quality website so`ware, plugins
Way to Discover: Dynomapper, Google AnalyCcs, Google Search Console
Resolu,on Op,ons: WordPress
All in One SEO or Yoast SEO plugins
Canonical URLs

Unreadable Content
On-page content is not readable by search engine spiders. This happens much
more then people realize or care to admit.
Problem: Search engines cannot access and/or read content within a
page or website as a whole
Why It’s an Issue: If search engines cannot read the page, they cannot
ascertain the submit maIer and will simply ignore
Root Cause: iFrames
Flash
Poor coding (i.e. JavaScript, mobile responsiveness)
Robot.txt ﬁle issues
Way to Discover: Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
Resolu,on Op,ons: Monitor GSC and BWT
Modern code base and quality developers

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: Deleted content without 301 redirects
Website redesign without 301 redirects
Why It’s an Issue: Loss of SEO ranking and history
Loss of human website traﬃc
ReducCons in indexed content
Root Cause: Lack of educaCon on part of website owner
Lack of educaCon on part of digital agency
Way to Discover: Google Search Console, Google AnalyCcs
Resolu,on Op,ons: User educaCon
Quality digital agency with basic knowledge of SEO
WordPress plugins like RedirecCon

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: Fixed width website that doesn’t adapt to mobile devices
Responsive themes that display poorly on mobile devices
Why It’s an Issue: Reduced search ranking in search engines
Poor experience for human visitors
Root Cause: Outdated website code or theme
Poorly coded responsive themes
Way to Discover: Browse your website on a smartphone or tablet
hIp://ami.responsivedesign.is
Resolu,on Op,ons: Switch WordPress themes
Update exisCng theme code to be responsive

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: Lack of schema
Incorrectly used schema
Why It’s an Issue: Fails to showcase your content to search engines
Confuses search engines
Root Cause: Outdated themes
Poorly coded plugins
Way to Discover: Google’s Structured Data TesCng Tool
Resolu,on Op,ons: Update theme or framework
Add schema rich plugins
User educaCon

Code Bloat
Code bloat is a term describing a HTML page that is mostly markup and not
much content.
Problem: Page’s code is greater than the actual content
Why It’s an Issue: Slows search engine crawling
Limited amount of content digested and indexed
Could degrade ranking
Root Cause: Lack of user educaCon
Copy and past from Word or outside websites
Old content and websites
Poor coding by developer
Way to Discover: WordPress editor review
Pingdom Tools
Resolu,on Op,ons: User educaCon
Quality themes and developers
Code reviews

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: Slow and sluggish websites and/or content
Why It’s an Issue: Makes it diﬃcult for search engines to crawl content
Creates a poor user experience for human visitors
Root Cause: Themes, hosCng, user entry errors
Way to Discover: Google PageSpeed Insights and Pingdom Tools
Resolu,on Op,ons: Reduce image sizes
OpCmize MySQL database
OpCmize theme code
Use a cache plugin
Switch themes
Switch hosCng companies or upgrade hosCng plan

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: Content modiﬁcaCons, content addiCons, phishing,
loss of administraCve control, redirects
Why It’s an Issue: Loss of traﬃc from human visitors, loss of ranking in
search, loss of credibility
Root Cause: Poor passwords
Outdated so`ware
Low grade hosCng
Way to Discover: Google Search Console, web-based scans, onsite plugins
Resolu,on Op,ons: WordPress plugins (i.e. iThemes Security)
High quality hosCng

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS?

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