PLR Domination The Key To Private Label Rights
There are few things in digital marketing that are less misunderstood and less debated than technical SEO (which some folks like to call on-page SEO). Technical SEO is that critical collection of tasks that will set an SEO specialist apart from a marketer and a developer while combining their skillsets.
Last week, SEO consultant Peter Mead joined us from Melbourne, Australia to discuss SEO audits and on-page tweaks yet again (we never seem to have enough of technical SEO here on #SEMrushchat!). He had a lot to share on quick-win tactics, keeping up with trends, tracking performance, and other SEO nuances. Here are some of the key takeaways from the chat, so, grab a coffee and read on…
Q1. What is the most overlooked technical SEO tactic that is a quick win? Why?
Peter advises refocusing on your primary content pages and improve your internal linking structure to point more relevant, contextual links at these pages. If needed, you can also restructure your URLs for added effect.
A1. Adding Internal links from related content to primary content pages. 1st identify primary content pages / primary category content, restructuring URLs where needed, then placing contextual links can increase internal link equity #semrushchat https://t.co/cloAF3MtSm
— Peter Mead (@petermeadit) September 12, 2018
Dawn Anderson had similar advice: Focus on your canonicalization. Pagination and redirects (which lead to protocol conflicts in the sitemap and incorrect mapping of URLs to query clusters) are areas where it is easy to go wrong with canonicalization which could result in huge SEO fails.
A1) Canonicalization and accurately done canonicalization plus pagination implementation on rel next / rel prev. Loads of areas where incorrect implementations are carried out #semrushchat
— Dawn Anderson (@dawnieando) September 12, 2018
A1) Also see a lot of canonicalization to pages which then redirect which then invalidates the canonical tag plus canonicals conflict with inclusion of wrong protocol in XML sitemap #semrushchat
— Dawn Anderson (@dawnieando) September 12, 2018
A1) Redirects folded up to categories and home page of a site. URLs are mapped to query cluster. If the query clusters of the page you then redirect to don’t map the associated document query clusters it’s a soft 404. Fail #semrushchat
— Dawn Anderson (@dawnieando) September 12, 2018
Dawn is seconded by Angie Schottmuller, who added trailing slashes to the list. Ruthlessly weed out technical errors that result in duplicate content.
A1: Missing rewrite rules for canonical domain and consistent forced trailing slash use. (Duplicate content killers for analytics and SEO.) #SEMrushchat
— Angie Schottmuller (@aschottmuller) September 12, 2018
404s and 301 redirects are the usual suspects – the most common errors that are simple to fix.
a1. My faves are no sitemapxml file or one that has 404s and 301. Have a clean map to your site. #SEMRushChat
— Marianne Sweeny (@msweeny) September 12, 2018
Cleaning up your code is always an option if you are looking for quick technical SEO wins. And if you don’t know where to start, look no further than Google Search Console!
A1 Check for an fix crawl errors that are showing up in GSC. Fix the stuff Google sees and reports first. #SEMrushchat
— JM Thomson (@CrucibleDesigns) September 12, 2018
The point of all SEO efforts is not just to rank higher but to get clients to click through to your site. So, remember to optimize your titles, meta descriptions and URLs in ways that will entice searchers to click on your listing in the SERPs. More organic traffic = bigger SEO wins.
A1 Make sure that title/Snippets/URLs are persuasive and engaging. Why Rank highly if no one selects your Page from SERPs? #SEMRushChat
— Bill Slawski ⚓ (@bill_slawski) September 12, 2018
Page loading speed is a ranking factor (confirmed by Google) that matters for both desktop and mobile devices, and it is easily measurable, and there are multiple ways to improve it. What is stopping you from lowering page size and rendering time?
A1: Overall page size specifically image too large and taking too much to render in browsers? #semrushchat
— Val Vesa | Social Media & Travel Photography (@adspedia) September 12, 2018
Q2. When it comes to technical SEO, which data should marketers measure and analyze regularly? What can they skip?
Peter emphasizes the importance of using tools like Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, and our SEMrush Site Audit to check for errors and inconsistencies in crawling and indexing. Schedule these audits frequently for best results.
The three tools mentioned above will take you through pretty much all the technical SEO issues that matter for your site. Cross-checking the impact of these issues on organic traffic in Google Analytics is a good habit to get into.
A2: Page load time and crawl time & issues – via Analytics, Search Console, Screaming Frog, and SEM Rush. #SEMRushChat
— Marccx Media (@marccxmedia) September 12, 2018
A2: Check tools such as GSC on a regular basis for crawling & indexing issues. I always like to do double checks with tools like Screaming Frog to look out for anything that sticks out as an issue.
Also do a manual check against your analytics data for insights.#SEMrushchat
— Heather Harvey (@Fizzle_Up) September 12, 2018
A2) I keep an eye on @semrush’s Site Audit, and to a lesser extent, GSC. I’m also experimenting with Lighthouse.
Finally, I use Custom Alerts in GA to flag up potential problems, if not tell me what they are!#semrushchat
— David Rosam (@davidrosam) September 12, 2018
Other than crawl errors, the metrics that you should be looking at improving include impressions, CTRs, average positions, bounce rate, page views, session duration, organic traffic, and conversion rates. Also, keep an eye on whether these figures are rising or falling. There are some metrics that you don’t need to measure manually or frequently; you should be automating data collection, tracking, and reporting wherever possible.
A2: For technical SEO
Look at crawling errors – you want to know if your pages are not being discovered
Impressions and CTRs – to identify trends and the overall performance of your site/pages.Do not measure avg. positions alone. You won’t get the whole picture.#semrushchat
— Ime (Israel Medina) (@by_Ime) September 12, 2018
A2: Bounce rate and page views should be measured regularly, page load speeds can be skipped after the first initial check unless changes to the pages have been made. #SEMRushChat
— iPages CMS (@iPagesCMS) September 12, 2018
A2: when i think of things to skip, i spend my time automating data collection and reporting. skip the time you need to reanimate the same report week over week #semrushchat
— JP Sherman (@jpsherman) September 12, 2018
While on the subject of technical SEO, marketers tend to sideline the importance of content. However, all SEO revolves around content, so focus on understanding what content converts better and creating more of the same, identifying the sources that bring you more traffic and targeting them better in ways that maximize your ROI.
A2 Marketeers should focus in on the content that s is creating traffic that converts and understanding why it does so that they can produce more of it.
#SEMRushChat
— Simon Cox (@simoncox) September 12, 2018
A2: If you are using many search engines and promotional’s, you should be checking the contribution of each traffic source to see which one’s are the most beneficial and which are costing you more than you are profiting. #semrushchat
— Makayla Hall (@MakaylaNHall) September 12, 2018
Q3. What is the most surprising site speed or performance related SEO ranking anomaly that you have come across?
WordPress is the most popular platform for building websites while Cloudflare is the most used content delivery network (CDN). However, certain caching plugins for WordPress cause conflicts with Cloudflare and need special configuration.
Plugins can cause conflicts and result in dragging down speed. This problem persists across multiple CMSs with add-ons/plugins.
A3) Clashing plugins in WordPress. Or plugins that add more weight than they add speed.
They can be a nightmare!#semrushchat
— David Rosam (@davidrosam) September 12, 2018
A3: using Drupal as a primary CMS that imports multiple content types from other CMS’s – then wrapping a design skin around the imported content for consistency can wonk the hell out of site speed metrics #SEMrushchat
— JP Sherman (@jpsherman) September 12, 2018
Optimizing images for the web is a quick and easy win most sites inexplicably ignore.
A3) Optimise your images. Often the win which is the easiest for untechnical team members to carry out and without having to get signoff or heavy governance layers to contend with #SEMrushchat
— Dawn Anderson (@dawnieando) September 12, 2018
A3: Optimizing images/saving for web! So many websites I audit don’t do that and it makes their websites super slow. They often don’t understand why but this is the first thing I check. #SEMRushChat @SEMRush #SEO
— Kat Hammoud (@KatHammoud) September 12, 2018
A variety of technical SEO issues might be affecting your rankings. Pages blocked by robots.txt is a common error. The wrong hreflang markup may result in content from other countries ranking above local content. But keep in mind, even with correct markup and speed optimization, you might be outdone by a competitor who has more and better links.
A3) The quickest win has got to be ‘unblocking robots.txt’. Seen too many robots.txt files blocking important folders (including home pages) 🤣🤣🤣🤣 #semrushchat
— Dawn Anderson (@dawnieando) September 12, 2018
A3. Argentinian or Mexican content ranking higher than local Colombian local content even with the right hreflang markup. This also happens for other markets and it’s a major pain for international SEO #semrushchat
— Blas Giffuni (@BGiffuni) September 12, 2018
A3: It’s already been mentioned a few times already: websites with slow load times showing up on the first page of SERPs.
Seriously. What’s THAT all about? (Must have stellar backlink profiles!)#semrushchat https://t.co/qFlOaEUyFq
— ThinkSEM (@ThinkSEM) September 12, 2018
Pay special attention to optimization glitches on smartphones. Speed becomes far more critical when browsing from mobile devices. Android phones are also slow to render JavaScript, which adds another layer of complexity to mobile optimization. That brings us to the next question…
A3: Keep in mind that 70% of mobile users will be on 3g until 2020.. if you want to reach a wider market.. keep those images compressed and cut down on the third party calls – just because it’s fast on YOUR network.. it’s not necessarily fast on your visitors phone #SEMrushchat
— Donna ‘SnowWrite’ Snow #techseo (@SnowWrite) September 12, 2018
A3:1 of 2 JavaScript is the enemy of most smartphones. High-end newer smartphones like iPhones & the androids do not have as much of a problem with this. However, the avg Android is extremely slow to render JavaScript so slow it makes the users experience terrible #semrushchat
— Thomas Zickell (@thomaszickell) September 12, 2018
Q4. What can SEOs do to ensure a great mobile experience for their site users?
Peter advocates an all-around strategy that sticks to the basics for mobile optimization. Implement responsive design and keep improving loading speed. Employ AMP pages if you are a news or timely content publisher. Constantly stay on top of crawl errors reported by Google Search Console.
A4. At least implement good responsive design for different devices. There’s conflicting opinions about AMP, but consider it if publishing News & timely content frequently. Keep an eye on GSC for mobile related crawl errors. Focus on improving mobile site speed #semrushchat https://t.co/WGGTOtPoW3
— Peter Mead (@petermeadit) September 12, 2018
Start with search intent. Mobile intent might differ entirely from desktop. Speed and responsive design are essential requirements. Your mobile audience is far more inattentive and has far less patience than your desktop audience; they have and use limited resources while browsing your site. Therefore, you need to put even more efforts in conveying a clear message while keeping it concise.
A4:
1. Understand that search intents on mobile may differ from desktop search intents.
2. Mobile sites MUST load fast.
3. AMP may not be the best option.#semrushchat— Ime (Israel Medina) (@by_Ime) September 12, 2018
A4: Please build your sites with RWD. Not only that, realize that mobile users’ behavior differs from desktop: less patience, more scanning, etc. Optimize the mobile “version” with just the highlights and don’t overwhelm them with tons of data right away.#semrushchat https://t.co/Kx7pyglJt6
— ThinkSEM (@ThinkSEM) September 12, 2018
Think about how people will consume your content on mobile devices. Make your content crawlable, optimize for voice and long-tail keyword searches, use responsive design, simplify navigation, make tapping and pinching easier with better spacing, optimize images, use AMP, and make sure your landing pages are fully functional. Test every aspect of mobile browsing on different devices – and test it using a mobile network, not Wi-Fi!
A4
1. Think of how you mobile content is going to be consumed and how quickly distractions appear on you mobile
2. QA on a phone using your mobile network not wifi
3. Use regular phones, not everyone cares about having the latest device up to date
4.Optimize images #semrushchat— Blas Giffuni (@BGiffuni) September 12, 2018
A4: Use icons that are mobile friendly and do not require pinching, but can navigated easily by the use of one finger (thumb). Also use responsive framework design so that the site can be formatted based on what device is being used. #semrushchat
— Makayla Hall (@MakaylaNHall) September 12, 2018
A4 Test, Test, and Test some more. Make sure your design works well on different devices, is usable and fast. Don’t defeat yourself by putting something out in the world that people have trouble using #SEMRushChat
— Bill Slawski ⚓ (@bill_slawski) September 12, 2018
While the browser intent for mobile may be different than desktop, the user experience you provide must be consistent across devices. While you can offer coupons, offers and trust signals on mobile just like desktop, you should be doubly wary of using popups. Marketing should drive the purpose of every webpage.
A4. Really it is the UX / CRO guys, Web developers etc. that can influence a ‘great mobile experience’. SEOs should focus on ensuring that the right pages can be indexed, and driving the direction of what pages are created. #semrushchat
— Neil Yeomans (@neil_yeomans) September 12, 2018
A4: Add your coupons, offers, and specials. Build digital trust by giving shoppers what they want. #SEMRushChat
— Eric Miltsch (@emiltsch) September 12, 2018
Q5. When it comes to learning and keeping up with the latest technical SEO trends, what are your favorite resources (i.e., blogs, courses, Facebook groups, etc.)?
There is no single pathway to SEO mastery. Peter recommends a multi-point strategy:
Some useful blogs and resources to follow are:
Twitter is hands down the most popular platform for staying updated on SEO and marketing news. After all, this awesome #SEMrushchat community wouldn’t be there without Twitter in the first place! Great people and handles to follow include @ElephateSEO, @BruceClayInc, @dumbseoqs, @DeepCrawl, @MobileMoxie, @Suzzicks, @Marie_Haynes, and @GoogleAds.
If you want to geek out and get amazing SEO abilities, go check out the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office (stalk Google there), Google Developer Pages, the Semantic Search Marketing community on Google+, the Google AI Blog, Google’s DeepMind blog, and various other research teams working on search and answer related projects.
Thank you to these participants for their awesome suggestions on books, courses, people, and blogs that can help you to keep up on the all of the latest Technical SEO tips and trends: @petermeadit, @dawnieand, @bill_slawski, @flexoid, @ExpWriters, @pairnetworks, @KatHammoud, @SnowWrite, @BGiffuni, @davidrosam, @JLFaverio, @micahfk, @MattShanley, and @adspedia!
Q6. In your opinion (not Google’s :)), what do you think will be the next step ahead for technical SEO in 2018?
Peter strongly believes that voice search and answering technology such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant will drive the future of SEO. Metadata that affects SERP display, natural language, and well-written web content will continue to matter.
A6. Big predictions for Voice search as technology improves and people talk more to devices such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant etc. What data is used in search results such as the featured snippets. Utilize natural language & well-written website content #semrushchat https://t.co/RAunKqJbL7
— Peter Mead (@petermeadit) September 12, 2018
The majority of #SEMrushchat participants believe that voice search will gain importance in 2018, combined with other factors such as Local SEO, rich snippets, instant answers, structured data, and HTTPS.
A6: Considering the rise of voice search and rich snippets, instant answers, AI, etc.
Structured data optimization.#semrushchat— Ime (Israel Medina) (@by_Ime) September 12, 2018
The internet, as well as search, are now primarily and overwhelmingly mobile-driven. Mobile-first design, simplified site navigation, mobile speed, mobile security, semantic relevance, assistive search, and an integrated experience across mobile apps that overcomes limited attention and display space will be critical factors that influence SEO in the near future.
A6. I think more focus on mobile first design and simplified site navigation is the way forward. #semrushchat
— CottamSEO (@cottamseo) September 12, 2018
A6) Tying together the need for semantic relevance with limited real estate on mobile, low attention, voice search and the assistive search era. Plus people love the app experience. Satisfying all comes down to using data cues for brevity and structure + UX #SEMrushchat
— Dawn Anderson (@dawnieando) September 12, 2018
We need to think beyond text as a medium of communication; get niche-focused with visuals, video, and voice content across social media, messaging, and virtual assistant platforms.
A6] Think beyond text. Include visual, video, audio, and voice. Unfortunately, this requires a more niche approach across multiple platforms like YouTube, Pinterest, iTunes, Siri and Echo…. as well as messaging platforms like Slack. #semrushchat
— HeidiCohen (@heidicohen) September 12, 2018
While the web is getting bigger, competition is also heating up. You really need to get into the top 3 slots in the organic results or play ball with Google Ads. That said, building trustworthiness will help you beat popular sites, as search engines attempt to overcome the bane of fake news.
A6 Optimizing sites for trustworthiness (which goes much beyond popularity as a metric that search engines will find worth pursuing, in these days of complaints about fake news. #SEMRushChat
— Bill Slawski ⚓ (@bill_slawski) September 12, 2018
There were a couple of outlier predictions too! Google could find a way to collect and analyze data from your site and give this data precedence over the actual site. It also remains to be seen how SEO would change if a web without URLs is forced upon us by Google Chrome.
A6: in the not too distant future, google will consider the database it can collect from the data on your site (as it grows its own knowledge base) to be more important than the actual website. #SEMrushchat
— JP Sherman (@jpsherman) September 12, 2018
😕A6: No more URLs, if Chrome leads that way and it gets to be a “thing”.
Then I want to see #SEO being done on a non-URL-ed web… #semrushchat— Val Vesa | Social Media & Travel Photography (@adspedia) September 12, 2018
Technical SEO is the rocket science of marketing. However, you don’t need to be a scientist to work it out. The way we search and seek information is continually changing; so is the way search engines are answering our questions. Marketers, like Google, need to have their finger on the pulse of evolving user behavior.
Have some questions, comments, or suggestions? Leave us a comment here; we would love to hear what you think!
We want to chat with you in real-time too – mark this Wednesday’s #SEMrushchat on SEO and Topic Hubs with Dan Shure on your calendar; hope to see you there!
