SEO for Developers - Little Rock Tech Fest 2014

SEO for Web Developers
September, 2014

2014 LR Tech Fest – SEO for Web Developers
About Me
• Senior SEO Strategist, Globe Runner
• Brand Ambassador, MajesticSEO.com
• Personal Blog: www.BillHartzer.com
• Practicing Organic/Natural SEO since 1996

Overview
• Search Engine Friendly Websites
• Building Sites with Responsive Design
• What is important for SEO?
• Migrating Sites from an Older CMS
• SEO Audit of Your Own Site
• SEO Audit Tools
• Google Webmaster Tools
• Bing Webmaster Tools
• Google Algorithm Updates

Search Engine Friendly Websites
• Indexable Content is Imperative
• Content in HTML Text on page
• Limited Text in Images
• Flash & Java Supplemented by Text on Page
• Use Heading Tags (H1, H2, etc.)
• Video & Audio - accompany with transcript

Search Engine Friendly Websites
• Crawlable Link Structure: Use Text in Nav, Not Image Links
• Important: Every page is linked from somewhere
HOME PAGE
2 – 3 Key Phrases
Secondary Level
Keyword # 1
(Broken Down by
Category)
Secondary Level
Keyword #2
(Broken Down by
Category)
Secondary Level
Keyword #3
(Broken Down by
Category)
Sub Page KW (re-emphasize
secondary level
keyword)
secondary level
keyword)
secondary level
keyword)
secondary level
keyword)
S
secondary level
keyword)
secondary level
keyword)

Are Any URLs Not Indexable?
Some Pages Not Reachable by Crawlers:
• Submission-required forms
• URLs blocked by meta robots tag or robots.txt file
• Bots don't fill out forms (search forms)
• Links in Flash, Java, other Plug-Ins
• Links on pages with hundreds of links

Keyword Usage
• Keywords are fundamental to search process
• Use Keywords in Your Content
Use Keywords In:
• URLs
• Title Tags
• Meta Description Tags
• Heading Tags
• Image Alt Attributes (alt text)
• Content on Page
• Internal Links on Site

SEO and Responsive Design
• Responsive Design is Ideal—Mobile Site is Acceptable
• SEO Benefits of Responsive Design:
• 1 Site, 1 URL (no separate mobile site)
• User Experience Enhanced: Combat High Bounce Rates

What is important for SEO?
• Search Engine Friendly Website
• Indexable Content
• Keywords Usage in Primary Locations
• Internal Links Crawlable
• Links in Navigation, also in context on pages
• Link internally to “related” content, related products
• Page Load Speed – users, search engines like faster load times
• Move code to External files (e.g., .css, .js, etc.)
• Usage of Structured Data (see Schema.org)

Migrating Sites from an Older CMS
• Keep old URLs whenever possible
• Move URLs to directory structure
example: move from page.html, page.aspx, page.php
to /category/page/
• Map old URLs to new URLs using 301 Redirect
Crawl site using crawler, make list of all old URLs
• Crawl and Audit Dev Site before Going Live
• Put Robots.txt file on Dev Site
• After site launch, watch 404 errors, Google Webmaster Tools
• After site launch, remove Dev site

SEO Audit of Your Own Site
• Use a crawler to grab data, test crawling of site
• Example Crawler: Screaming Frog SEO Spider
• Data to review:
Title Tags – duplicates, missing, multiple, long, too short
Meta Description Tags – duplicates, missing, multiple, long
Usage of www vs. non-www in internal links
Crawl Errors – 301s, 404s, 302s, 500s, etc.
Outgoing Links – are you linking out to acceptable sites?
Content Length – pages really short on total content

Google Webmaster Tools
• Verify Site in Google Webmaster Tools
• Data to Review:
Site Messages
Structured Data
HTML Improvements
Manual Actions (site penalized?)
Crawl Errors? Going Up?
• Robots.txt Tester
• Sitemaps (submit html, video)
• URL Parameters
http://www.google.com/webmasters

Bing Webmaster Tools
Configure My Site
Data To Review:
• Sitemaps
• Ignore URL Parameters
• Crawl Control
• Block URLs
• Geo-Targeting
• App Linking
Tools to Use:
• Keyword Research, Link Explorer
• Markup Validator
Diagnostics & Tools
Data to Review:
• Messages
• Index issues
• Crawl Errors
www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

Google Algorithm Updates
• Google Panda Update
• Google Penguin Updates
• Google EMD Update
• Google Page Layout Update
• Google Knowledge Graph Update
• Google Pigeon Update
• HTTPS vs HTTP Secure Sites

Google Panda History
• Rolled Out to US sites on February 24, 2011
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html
• Rolled out Globally to English language users on April 11, 2011
• Also began to roll out data from sites that users block
• Latest update Panda #25 — March 14, 2013
- Panda updates now on rolling update schedule
• Panda Dance, Panda Recovery, June and July 2013
• Panda 4.0 — May 19, 2014
• Panda 4.1— Sept. 23, 2014

Google Panda Update History
• Panda/Farmer — February 23, 2011
• Panda 2.0 — April 11, 2011
• Panda 2.1 — May 9, 2011
• Panda 2.2 — June 21, 2011
• Panda 2.3 — July 23, 2011
• Panda Goes Global (2.4) — August 12, 2011
• Panda 2.5 — September 28, 2011
• Panda "Flux" — October 5, 2011
• Panda 3.1 — November 18, 2011
• Panda 3.2 — January 18, 2012
• Panda 3.3 — February 27, 2012
• Panda 3.4 — March 23, 2012
• Panda 3.5 — April 19, 2012
• Panda 3.6 — April 27, 2012
• Panda 3.7 — June 8, 2012
• Panda 3.8 — June 25, 2012
• Panda 3.9 — July 24, 2012
• Panda 3.9.1 — August 20, 2012
• Panda 3.9.2 — September 18, 2012
• Panda #20 — September 27, 2012
• Panda #21 — November 5, 2012
• Panda #22 — November 21, 2012
• Panda #23 — December 21, 2012
• Panda #24 — January 23, 2013
• Panda #24 — March 14, 2013
• Panda Dance — June 11, 2013
• Panda Recovery — July 18, 2013
• Panda 4.0 — May 19, 2014
• Panda 4.1 — Sept 23, 2014
See the Google Algorithm Change History:
http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

Were You Hit by Panda?
• Look at your web analytics
• Sites affected had traffic loss starting in February, 2011.
• Google Analytics for your site (Web Trends, Omniture, etc.)
• SEM Rush for most sites (SEMRush.com)
• How many sites recover?
http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/google-panda/

Recovering from Google Panda
• Make sure all content on site is “high quality”
• Review Google’s List:
23 Questions to assess quality
http://bit.ly/1gHZzQb
• Identify and remove least-visited pages
• Take out the trash, so to speak.
• Prevent Pogosticking from SERPs.
• Wait until next Panda update to see recovery (about a month)

Panda vs. Penguin
• Panda focuses on sites providing a bad user experience
- Sites with low quality content
• Penguin focuses on spamdexing and link bombing.

What is Google Penguin?
Google: “algorithm change targeted at webspam.”
http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html
Goal is to “decrease rankings for sites that violate Google’s
Quality Guidelines”.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#3
Examples:
• Keyword Stuffing, Over Optimization
• Unusual linking patterns (outgoing links)

Google Penguin Update History
• First reported April 24, 2012
• Penguin #2 — May 25, 2012
• Penguin #3 — October 5, 2012 (0.3 percent of queries)
• Penguin 2.0 (#4) — May 22, 2013
• Penguin 2.1 (#5) — October 4, 2013

Were You Hit by Google Penguin?
• Look at Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, review dates
of Google Updates.

Recovering from Google Penguin
• Perform a full SEO Audit of web site
Identify and fix problem areas on site that violate Google
guidelines (keyword stuffing, over optimization, etc.)
• Review Google Webmaster Tools for messages, suggestions
• Perform full link analysis of site, and CLEAN UP BAD LINKS
- Download links from Majestic SEO, OSE, GWT, ahrefs
- Review anchor text, clean up links to site
- LinkResearchTools.com for further cleanup

Recovering from Google Penguin
• Disavow Links to Site (upload text file of URLs)
domain:badlink.com
or
http://www.this-domain.com/has-a-bad-link.html
• Link Research Tools’ Link Detox Boost claims quick recovery
• Work on Authority, Trust of site and get new earned links
• Wait until next Penguin update to see recovery, sometimes two
Penguin updates

EMD Update
• Exact-Match Domain (EMD) Update — September 27, 2012
Should be called the “Commercial Phrase” Update. But for PR purposes, I realize why Google
calls it the “EMD” update.
• Google targeted “commercial phrases” with this update.
• AdWords CPC Cost + # Searches Per Month = Commercial Phrase
Example:
$5.00 CPC + 20,000 Searches Per Month = Commercial Phrase
• Valuable Domain Names include Keywords (commercial phrases)
• Not all keyword rich domains affected
• Sites without keyword rich domains were affected
• Recover by cleaning up your link profile, especially anchor text
• Link Profiles should have 70 percent or more “brand” anchor text, company
name, URL as anchor text.

Google Page Layout Update
• Page Layout #2 — October 9, 2012
• Targets pages with too many ads “above the fold”
• Algo proof: content above fold, minimal ads above fold.
• Page Layout #3 — February 6, 2014
http://selnd.com/1qNV6DE

Knowledge Graph Update
• Knowledge Graph Expansion — December 4, 2012
• Added KG functionality to non-English queries
• Get your site, org, business into Knowledge Graph.
• DFWSEM.org https://www.freebase.com/m/0l2fnxr

Pigeon Update – Local Search
• Pigeon Update for Local Queries — July 24, 2014
• Affected local search queries, cityname + keyword searches
• How Google uses a searcher's location
• Many 7 packs now missing on queries
Takeaways:
• Neighborhood boundaries widened
• Different industries, different effects
• Still seeing flux/changes for update.

HTTPS Secure Site – Ranking Factor
• Having https secure site is now a ranking factor
• HTTPS isn’t just for ecommerce sites anymore.
• Google announcement:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html
John Mueller on reasons to switch to HTTPS:
• Data Integrity – https ensures no one is altering your content
• Authentication – trust you are the one serving the content
Move site from HTTP to HTTPS just like moving another site.

THANK YOU Contact Me
Bill Hartzer
Senior SEO Strategist
Globe Runner
Email: Bill@GlobeRunner.com
Mobile: (214) 236-4378
Office: (972) 538-0260
Direct: (469) 645-1231
Web: http://www.globerunner.com
Blog: https://www.billhartzer.com
Twitter: @bhartzer

SEO for Developers - Little Rock Tech Fest 2014

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