This document summarizes a technical SEO presentation given by Stanislav Dimitrov at Joomla! Day 2012 in Sofia, Bulgaria. The presentation covered topics like the growth of search engine usage, technical SEO problems and common mistakes to avoid, Google algorithm updates like Panda and Penguin, latest SEO trends, and 10 actionable tips. It provided information on things like properly configured XML sitemaps, working robots.txt files, using structured data, and setting up Google Analytics tracking to monitor site performance. The presentation concluded with a Q&A section.
Polkadot JAM Slides - Token2049 - By Dr. Gavin Wood
Technical SEO Updated
1. Technical SEO Updated
Joomla! Day 2012
Sofia, Bulgaria
Stanislav Dimitrov, Head of SEO, Hop Online
2. Today’s SEO Agenda
1) Why SEO matters
2) Technical SEO problems
3) Common mistakes
4) Google’s Panda/Penguin updates
5) Latest SEO trends
6) Useful tools and resources
7) 10 actionable tips for your site
8) Q&A time
3. The Growth of Search
Number of Searches/Day on Google
Source: SEOmoz.org
4. The Growth of Search
75% of all clicks go to organic results
12. Safe Browsing Tool
Even Joomla may get in trouble
Safe Browsing Tool:
http://bit.ly/PqysBF
Report to StopBadware:
http://bit.ly/SOCIdm
Reconsideration Request
17. Crawl Errors and 4xx/5xx Codes
URL fixed or not
Remove from sitemaps
Fetch as Google
Mark as Fixed
If needed: Remove URL
18. URL Parameter Handling
Optimize crawl budget
Address dup content
Robots.txt analysis in GWT
Works with meta robots
Help http://goo.gl/zCChz
19. Submit to Index
Indexation in real time
Useful when changing content
Fetch limits update every week
21. http Status Codes for SEO
Mtel losing link juice
Dir.bg slightly better
22. Where it Can Go Wrong
Not knowing your 301s from 302s
Redirecting all pages in one go to a single URL
23. When You Should Use a 301
Moving sites
Expired content
Multiple versions of the home page
Pro tip: if homepage serves a unique purpose (shown to users who are
logged in or have cookies dropped), rel=canonical a better option
24. When to Use rel=canonical
Where 301s may not be possible
Multiple ways of navigating to a page (ecommerce sites)
owww.phoneshop.com/smartphone/3G
owww.phoneshop.com/3G/smartphone
When dynamic URLs are generated on the fly
o session IDs
o tracking code: www.example.com/widgets/red?source=footer-nav
25. When NOT to Use rel=canonical
On new website
On pagination (or at least with caution)
Across your entire site to one page
27. Faceted Navigation
Pagination/sorting can cause duplicate content – use Ajax/JavaScript to avoid
Selective robots.txt
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /*crawl=no
No matter of the route, only one indexable URL per page
How to handle faceted navigation http://mz.cm/SUHJN8
33. Google Prev/Next Tag
Declare in <head> section of the page
The first page only contains rel=”next” and no rel=”prev” markup
Pages two to the second-to-last page should be doubly-linked with
both rel=”next” and rel=”prev”
The last page only contains markup for rel=”prev”, not rel=”next”
Use absolute URLs
The chain can’t be broken
Each page can be in only one pagination chain
Use of prev/next consolidates signals across entire series
Add rel=canonical to View All page on all pages in the series
39. Who Gets Pandalized?
Sites with too many pages relative to the size of their brand footprint
A high % of duplicate content (might apply to a page, a site or both)
A low amount of original content on a page or site
A high % (or number) of pages with a low amount of original content
A high amount of inappropriate (they don’t match the search queries a page
does well for) adverts, especially high on the page
Page content (and page title tag) not matching the search queries a page
does well for
High bounce rate on page or site
Low visit times on page or site
Low % of users returning to a site
Low CTR % from Google’s results (page/site)
High % of boilerplate content (the same on every page)
Low or no quality inbound links to a page or site
40. How to Recover After Panda?
Take a deep breath
Check the timeline in Google Analytics
Double check for IT problems
Decide which URLs are canonical and create strong signals (rel canonical,
robot exclusion, internal link profile, XML sitemaps)
Decide which URLs are your most valuable and ensure they are indexed
and well optimized
Add quality content to them – text, videos, photos, reviews/ratings
Remove any extraneous, overhead, duplicate, low value and unnecessary
URLs from the index
Build internal links to canonical, high-value URLs from authority pages
(strong mozRank, unique referring domains, total links)
Build high-quality external links via social media efforts
Use content-based link building
Great guide at WordTracker : http://goo.gl/C0zSH
46. Who Gets Penguinized?
Overly aggressive anchor text (both internally and externally)
Overuse of exact-match domains
Low-quality article marketing & blog spam
Keyword stuffing in internal/outbound links
Link spikes (too many links built too fast)
Links from irrelevant sources
Blogroll links
Comment links
Sitewide links (SEO’d footer links)
Too many links from one domain to a single page (GWT)
47. How to Recover After Penguin?
Compare Penguin dates with traffic drop in Google Analytics
Investigate which keywords dropped
Download all links and sort them by type, anchor text or DA
Open Site Explorer
Majestic SEO
Link Detective
Combine data in Excel and find the poison links
Remove all unrelated links on/off your website
Diversify anchor text in links to your site
Social signals (DataHub) over links
Links from government(.bg) sites / industry associations
Reconsideration request won’t help http://goo.gl/YDFu7
Increase the brand digital footprint:
Complete contact info (Google Maps/Plus, team photos)
Genuine social media accounts
Branded links / branded traffic
61. 10 Actionable Tips for Your Site
1. SEO friendly page titles and META descriptions
2. Proper keyword usage in the body of your pages
3. Website redirects from www to non www or vice versa
4. Duplicate URLs removed from your website
5. All URLs are search engine friendly
6. Properly configured XML sitemaps
(products/categories/video/image/geo)
7. Working robots.txt file
(Pro tip: reference sitemaps, hide with .htaccess)
8. Structured data (products, location, author, events,
organization)
9. Traffic/goals/events in Google Analytics
(Pro tip: create custom dashboards)
10. Use rel=author and Google+ for more CTR
62. Thank you!
Q&A Time …
@SearchRocks
/in/stanidlavdimitrov
+StanislavDimitrov
Joomla! Day Bulgaria Organized by: