Discusses how SEO best practice has changed in recent years, which techniques are still relevant in 2014 and which should be avoided.

1. SEO Best Practice for 2014
with ActiveStandards
James Baverstock: Lead Analyst, ActiveStandards
6th February 2014
www.activestandards.com

2. Introduction
❶ How has SEO best practice changed in recent
years?
❷ Are there SEO practices which were previously ok
which should now be avoided?
❸ What guidelines are still relevant for managing
SEO?
❹ How can ActiveStandards help me with on-site
SEO in 2014?

3. SEO in 2009
Common practice 5 years ago
 Identify profitable keyword phrase to optimise
for
 Create page that included the keyphrase in the
page title, URL, H1 header and several times in
the content
 Point a lot of backlinks to the page from other
websites using the main keyword phrase as
anchor text
 Measure success by ranking – e.g. no. 1 result
in Google for keyphrase
Worked well for SEOs as
Google algorithm was highly
dependent on external links
as “votes” for a page and
exact-match keyword phrases
Often resulted in pages
written for search engines
rather than for users

4. Major Google changes (1)
Panda
Penguin
• Feb 2011 & regular
updates
• Designed to filter out
low-quality web pages
from the index (e.g.
thin content, duplicate
pages, etc.)
• April 2012 (most recent
updates: Penguin 2.0
May 2013 / Penguin 2.1
October 2013)
• Designed to punish
“over-optimised” pages
(esp. exact-match nonbrand anchor text),
links from poor-quality
or irrelevant content
and link schemes
Other (e.g.)
• Page layout algorithm
improvements (Jan/Oct
2012): designed to
penalise sites without
much useful content
above the fold
• EMD update
(September 2012)
Update to reduce the
ranking ability of
poor quality exact
match domains

5. SEO practices to avoid post-Panda/Penguin
Any keyword manipulation which
looks artificial:
•
Uncontrolled user-generated
content
•
•
Pages overloaded with adverts
•
Link schemes which create links
to your site for the sole purpose
of helping your site rank better
(esp. if these have keywordstuffed anchor text)
•
Low value (spammy) content
Over-use of exact-match keyword links
to your site
•
Exact matching titles/H1s/descriptions
on pages using keywords
•
Aiming for an “ideal” keyword density
for pages – the “correct” keyword
density is one which reads naturally
•
SEO should ideally be “invisible”. Any
obvious keyword-stuffing is dangerous in
the long term

6. Major Google changes (2)
Hummingbird (August 2013)
• Major rewrite of the algorithm and how
queries are interpreted because of evolving
search needs, especially “conversation search”
• Not a penalty like Panda/Penguin.
• Improves semantic search. Intended to
determine searcher intent and return pages
that match the intent instead of just bestmatch keywords in the search phrase
• Makes old-style keyword optimisation less
relevant
Google updating all the time
(665 “improvements” in 2012)
http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/inside
search/howsearchworks/algorithms.html
Changes work to enforce the
Google Webmaster Guidelines
(these are now much more like
“rules” than “guidelines”)
https://support.google.com/webmasters/
answer/35769?hl=en

7. Major Google changes (3)
• Results becoming more
personalised and localised
• SERPs much more varied than just
text links: news, image search,
video results, Google maps, rich
snippets, author pictures,
knowledge graph, carousel, etc.
• “No. 1 rank” much less
meaningful than it used
to be
• More chance to get
traffic lower down the
results than 5 years ago

8. SEO in 2014
• Old-style exact-match link-building and keyword
stuffing are no longer sustainable SEO methods
• SEO now needs to be more holistic in approach and
fully connected to other marketing activities
– Social media management / Content marketing /
Analytics / Customer research, etc.
• Overall content quality is now vital
• On-page SEO has risen in importance as against offpage SEO

9. SEO Best Practices
for 2014

10. Summary
 Ensure your sites are well structured without
any barriers to crawling and have clear
navigation
 Think about what visitors need rather than
what search engines need
 Create high-quality, engaging, unique content
 Build your sites’ authority in sustainable ways

11. 1. Site architecture & navigation
 Avoid any barriers to crawling –
broken links, incorrect HTML, Flash
navigation or complicated
JavaScript generated content.
 Avoid frames if there is any other
way of presenting your content
 Have a clear hierarchical directory
structure with human-readable
URLs and clear intuitive navigation
with text links
 If you have to use URL parameters,
keep them short and few in number
 Use dashes to separate multiple
keywords in URLs rather than
underscores
 Have a link to a sitemap on every
page

12. 1. Site architecture & navigation (continued)
 Monitor your site’s performance
and optimize load times
 Make sure you don’t have any
duplicate content or very similar
pages which cover the same
information
 Ensure images have alternate text
which actually describes the image,
especially if they are conveying
textual content. Avoid using “alt”
text for keyword stuffing.
 Ensure your <title> elements are
descriptive, accurate and unique to
each page. Include the company
name in the title.
 Include a single <h1> heading on
each page
 Include a unique meta description
on each page

13. 2. Consider visitors’ needs
 Write pages primarily for users, not
for search engines. Don’t try to rank
for keywords which are a bad
match for your content.
 Look at your web statistics
package/Google Webmaster
Tools/customer research to better
understand your users.
 Look to improve pages which have
a high bounce rates with low time
spent on the page. Google uses
these metrics to measure how
happy visitors are with pages.
 Think about the words users would
type or speak to find your pages
and make sure your site includes
those words within it. Try to create
content that answers specific
problems or questions your target
audience may have.

14. 2. Consider visitors’ needs (continued)
 Think in terms of unique value
propositions for your site – what
content could you offer that the
top 10 ranking sites in Google are
not offering?
 Link between content on your site
in ways which will help your visitors
(this is also beneficial from a search
engine perspective as it links
related content together). Use
words in the link text that are
descriptive of the destination
content.
 Don’t have any links without
content in the link text.
 Keep the total number of links on a
page to a reasonable number.

15. 3. Create high-quality content
 All website copy should be wellwritten and well-structured. Ensure
all your content reads like it was
written by an expert
 Avoid unnaturally repeating
keywords – use synonyms and
alternative ways of referring to
things
 Is all content “good enough for
print”?
 Be clear about the purpose for
each piece of content – this will
help you determine how to
structure your content and ensure
you are using appropriate language
for your target audience
 Check spelling and grammar are
correct
 Keep paragraphs short and break
up content with headings to
improve online readability and
keep users on pages longer
 Update content regularly and
remove outdated material

16. 4. Build your sites’ authority
 Ensure you have relevant backlinks
from quality sites (use Google
Webmaster Tools to review
backlinks)
 Work to remove links from low
quality sites if necessary (use
Google Disavow tool)
 Don’t link to spammy websites or
websites unrelated to your content.
Make all comment links nofollow.
 Use social channels – Facebook,
Twitter, Google+ - including sharing
widgets for article and blog posts

17. 4. Build your sites’ authority (continued)
 Create content that people will
want to link to, bookmark or share
socially – unique applications, PDF
reports, industry surveys, etc.
 Include “About Us” information and
contact, terms of use and privacy
pages
 Keep your copyright notice up to
date
 Use rich snippets where possible as
they are more eye-catching than
plain text search results
 Use Google Authorship where
appropriate

18. SEO using ActiveStandards
• SEO checkpoints: find and fix SEO
errors
• Inventory reports which are useful
for SEO
• SEO Insight tab: available for each
page in ActiveStandards
• Search tool
• SEO benchmarking scores
• Spell checking
• QuickCheck: find SEO errors before
you publish pages
• Tips and tutorials: resources
available in our Support Centre and
blog