Technical SEO Best Practices

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Technical SEO Best Practices - A Marketers' GuideA best-practice guide to building an SEO-compliant websiteFirst Edition

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Phil Robinson, Peter Phillpot & Oliver Pyper

101 Guide Series

CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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INTRODUCTION 4

THE PROBLEM WITH WEB DEVELOPERS

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SOLUTIONS 6

15-POINT TECHNICAL SEO CHECKLIST

Canonicalization

404 Errors B

roken Links

Redirects and Site Migration

URL formatting

Robots.txt

Titles and Descriptions

Duplicate Content

Heading tags

On-Page T

ext Image T

ags

Internal Linking and Anchor T

ext Search Engine Inclusion

XML Sitemaps

Hosting

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Phil Robinson is a digital marketing consultant with over 19 years’ experience. In 2004, he founded ClickThrough- an agency focused on search engine marketing and conversion optimisation.

In addition to his role as Founder & CEO of ClickThrough, Phil also provides best practice training for businesses and writes books on digital marketing strategies.

Peter Phillpot is ClickThrough Marketing’s director of SEO. A recognised innovator and all-round search expert, his passion and dedication to search engine optimisation translates into winning search marketing solutions for our clients. Peter’s approach blends best-practice techniques with an intrepid and creative attitude, driving him to develop strategies ahead of the rest of the digital marketing industry.

Oliver Pyper is ClickThrough Marketing’s senior content and digital PR executive. He has worked in digital marketing since 2010, writing copy and creating content strategies for clients as diverse as online chemists, automobile manufacturers and theatre companies.

ClickThrough Marketingis a digital marketing agency, providing web development, search engine optimisation, pay per click management, conversion optimisation and content marketing services.

Since 2004, ClickThrough Marketing has helped many companies– from big brands to small start-ups – grow Google rankings, boost conversions, increase return on digital marketing investment, and stretch budgets to get value for money.

We pride ourselves on giving honest advice based on the latest digital marketing best practices. Our RITE core values of Results, Innovation, Trust and Excellence drive everything we do.

A proven & trusted agency since 2003

Creators of BidCops.com - Europe’s leading free AdWords Auditing Tool

We are a Top 100 Agency on Recommended Agency Register

We have published several books on digitalmarketing, sold on Amazon

Proven track record from our work with clients including Peugeot, Triumph, Nectar, Comic Relief, Scottish Power and Halfords

Our people all receive our industry-leading, Digital Academy training

Active members of the IAB, eConsultancy and SEMPO

Thought leaders, giving clients the inside track on what matters in search, social media and the digital marketplace... before it happens!

If you’re struggling with technical SEO issues, or your web developer just doesn’t know SEO, our search and web development experts can help.

Find out what we can do to grow and protect your business. Call us on0800 088 7486 or visit www.clickthrough-marketing.com

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http://www.clickthrough-marketing.com/












INTRODUCTION

Let’s get straight to the point: SEO-unfriendly

web development can cost you your business.

It goes without saying that this is bad news for marketing

managers. As web builds become more and more complex,

technical SEO is becoming increasingly important – and

even small technical slip-ups can have catastrophic effects

on your search engine performance and bottom line.

Our 15-point technical SEO checklist can help you prevent

technical issues and protect your profits. It will help you

understand technical issues and show you how to test your

site to check if it is compliant with SEO best practice. It can

also help you deal with web developers, showing you the

right questions to ask so you can be sure your site is built

correctly and that you’re getting your money’s worth.

We’ve audited hundreds of websites including some of the

UK’s most popular. We frequently see the same types of

mistakes being made by web developers. This guide covers

15 of the most common types of error and shows you how to

prevent or fix them.

This guide is designed for marketers who are:

• Planning a new website build, and need to find a web developer who can protect their search engine rankings and traffic.

• Employing a web developer, and worried that their business will suffer as a result of technical SEO mistakes.

• Suffering drops in traffic or rankings on a new site, and want to know why.

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THE PROBLEM WITH WEB DEVELOPERS

Often when companies hire web developers or engage

with an agency they have an expectation that the work on

their site will incorporate SEO best practice. The truth is

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the majority of web developers have very little experience

of SEO, and it is given a low priority. Incorporating best-

practice SEO into a web build often means more care is

needed and costs increase. In essence, the old adage

‘you get what you pay for’ applies.

Despite this, our experience has shown that the size or position

of a web development agency does not impact quality of builds

in terms of SEO. We’ve seen websites produced by some of

the most respected developers in the UK which have seriously

hurt

businesses because of basic SEO mistakes. And we’ve

seen plenty of bad builds from smaller developers too.

As a rule, this is because web developers are entirely

focussed on design. It’s in their interest to create beautiful,

user-friendly websites that they can show off in their portfolio.

But often this design focus comes with a lack of understanding

of even the most simplistic technical SEO concepts.

It’s important, if possible, to tackle these problems as early as

possible. Seemingly simple decisions like the choice of CMS

or e-Commerce platform can leave you ‘locked in’ and unable

to correct technical problems later on.

The worst offenders are usually proprietary platforms owned by

the agency themselves, but big-name, respected platforms

often require a great deal of work to become compliant with

SEO

best-practice. And even customisable open-source

platforms won’t pass our SEO audit ‘out of the box.’

THE WORST OFFENDERS AREUSUALLY PROPRIETARY PLATFORMS OWNED BY THE AGENCYTHEMSELVES

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SOLUTIONS

If you’re planning a new website and choosing a web

developer, it’s important to take steps to protect your

business. Our checklist includes key questions to ask

developers to ensure you employ a team who understand

the importance of technical SEO. You may also wish to ask

an SEO expert to put the developer’s previous sites

through a technical audit.

If your website is in the process of being built, you can use this

checklist to spot issues and steer the build in the right

direction

- before it’s too late.

If your site is already live and you’ve experienced problems,

it’s important to make your site compliant with technical

best practice as soon as possible. Using this checklist can

help you understand where issues may be impacting on

your site’s performance.IF YOURWEBSITE IS IN THE PROCESSOF BEING BUILT, YOU CAN USETHIS CHECKLIST TO SPOT ISSUES

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Please note: This guide only covers some of the most

frequent errors found in websites. If you are concerned

about the performance of a site, or you’re building a

new site, it is always wise to seek professional advice.

CANONICALIZATION

In a technical context, ‘canonicalization’ means ‘specifying

the correct version of your URL.’

For example, your homepage may show up if you type ‘www

. example.com’ or ‘example.com.’ Whilst the same content

may be displayed, they are technically different URLs, so

search engines have to decide which one to display to

searchers.

SEO-wise, it makes no difference whether you decide to have

‘www’ at the start of your website’s URL – but it is important

that you make the decision, and even more important that

you stick to it.

Well-managed websites have only one version, and the non-

canonical version will redirect to the correct version. You can

see this when you visit an incorrect version on a site like http://b

bc. co.uk/ - when you click on the link, you’ll see that it takes

you to the version with ‘www’ at the start.

Another example is Twitter, which has a canonical version

without the ‘www’ (https://twitter.com) – if you put the wrong

version into a browser address bar (https://www.twitter.com/

) you’ll see you’re redirected to the correct version.

This is important for users and SEO. If somebody links to

your site using the incorrect version of the URL, putting a

redirect in place will ensure that the ‘strength’ of this link will

go to the correct page.

Canonicalization is important for all of the pages on your

site, not just the home page. In a fully SEO-friendly site

you

should be able to go to any page and test the canonicalization.

Twitter never uses ‘www’ so if you put https://www.twitter.com/

clickthrough into a browser you can see that it correctly

redirects to a version without the ‘www.’


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http://www/

http://www/

http://bbc.co.uk/

http://bbc.co.uk/

http://bbc.co.uk/

http://bbc.co.uk/

http://bbc.co.uk/

http://bbc.co.uk/

http://bbc.co.uk/

http://bbc.co.uk/

https://www.twitter.com/












https://www.twitter.com/clickthrough


















http://www/

http://www/

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

Just over ten per cent of websites we audit don’t have

canonicalization implemented at all, and it’s only

partially implemented on around 60 per cent of builds.

It’s often the case that developers building a site will

implement canonicalization on the core pages, but miss the

blog or other sections, so it’s important the website is

thoroughly checked.

Typically, canonicalization is very straightforward to

implement, and can often be done simply by adding a few

lines of code to the server.


NEXT STEPS:

If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer,

it’s imperative to ensure they understand the importance

of canonicalization, and know how to implement it

properly.

If you’re already working with a web developer, ask

them to implement 301 redirects to ensure users who visit

the incorrect version of your website are sent to the

correct version – as well as making sure your internal

linking structure is consistent. This will help search

engines display the canonical version, and ensure link

strength is properly distributed.

If your site is live, it’s easy to test whether

canonicalization is properly implemented. Open a web

browser, and type the ‘wrong’ version of your URL. If the

wrong version redirects to the correct version, this is a

good sign.

If a redirect does not happen, you have a problem on your

hands, as you essentially have two versions of the same

site which are competing against each other in search

engines.

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404 ERRORS

A 404 error is returned when a user tries to visit a URL that

doesn’t exist. Your web developer should create a 404 page to

deliver

a message to the user when things go wrong, otherwise

they’ll see boring, bland text without any of your beautiful

branding.

When things do go wrong its important that your users see a

well- formatted page to encourage them to continue using your

site.

Your 404 page can be fun, functional, sensible or silly. The

important thing is that it presents a clear call to action for users

to return to the homepage and continue their conversion

journey.


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NEXT STEPS:

If you’re in the process of choosing a web

developer, make sure you mention 404 pages in your

initial brief.

If you’re already working with a web developer, ask

your web developer if they’ve budgeted for 404 page

creation

– it is standard practice to provide 404 error pages

when creating a new site.

If your site is live, then test to see if a 404 page is

implemented. Bring your website up in a browser, then

try to visit a URL that doesn’t exist (like www.example.

com/blahblahblah). You should see a 404 error page

that

supports your branding, and directs your users back to

the homepage.

It’s important to note that you should never come across

404 errors when following internal links within your website.

(See ‘Broken links’ below)

BROKEN LINKS

Broken links lead to URLs that have been removed, or that

never existed in the first place. Websites tend to develop

broken links through time, but it’s not uncommon to find them

on brand- new builds too.

These bad links are annoying for users, and go against

technical SEO best practice. Good web developers should

test their sites fully prior to launch to ensure that there are no

broken links.

Questions to ask your web developer:

• Are you sure my site has no broken links?

• Do you have a method to check for broken links?

• Do you carry out these checks as standard?

REDIRECTS AND SITE MIGRATION

So we know you should always avoid broken links within your

site’s internal inking structure. But if you decide to remove a

page or change its URL, you have to consider external links

too.

This is a common problem with site rebuilds – if lots of people

link to an outdated URL, you’ll miss out on valuable link

strength, and direct a whole bunch of otherwise-interested

users to a 404 page.

These outdated URLs should be rerouted to the new, correct

version using a 301 redirect. 302 redirects exist too, but

these are used for temporary changes and don’t pass link

strength.


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It’s bad practice to link to redirected pages within the

internal linking structure of your site. Redirects should be

only used to point old URLs to the correct location. Some

content

management systems (CMS) use redirects as standard in

the way they handle internal links. You should talk to your

web development agency to find a way round this issue.

As a rule, the biggest problems with redirects arise when an

agency has carried out a whole-site rebuild. When we build

websites, we ensure that old URLs which are no longer used

in the new site structure are redirected to an appropriate

current version.

Migrating the old URLs

to good alternative URLs

in the new structure is an

important part of a new

web build, but unless it’s

specifically requested,

many developers will not

carry the work out at all.


• Have you budgeted to map all my old URLs to my new URLs?

• Do you have a way to check for unwanted redirects within my site’s structure?

• Does our CMS use redirects as standard, and if so, can you correct this?

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

We have seen lots of examples of poor site migration. We

dealt with the case of an SME that suffered a severe traffic

drop after a site rebuild. Its new site had a very different

structure to the old, and no redirects were in place. Amongst

the links that were lost was a feature article from the

Independent newspaper and a link from the BBC, all going to

pages that no longer existed.

Even blue chip companies can forget about site migration. We

found that a web developer building a new site for one of the

UK’s largest retailers had not included site migration in the

site build, and had no plans to redirect the old URLs.


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URL FORMATTING

Short, easy-to-read URLs create a positive user experience

and are in line with technical SEO best practice. Wherever

possible, bespoke URLs should be created for each page, with

each word separated by hyphens (http://www.example

.com/this-is-an- example-page/).

Consistency is important too. URLs are case sensitive, so if

you link to the above page as http://www.example

.com/This-is-an- Example-Page/, rather than http://www.ex

ample.com/this-is-an- example-page/ you are in fact linking to

a different URL.

The same goes for inconsistency in trailing slashes (/) - http://

www.example.com/this-is-an-example-page is not the same

as http://www.example.com/this-is-an-example-page/

Some content management and e-Commerce platforms use

dynamically generated URLs which are unnecessarily

lengthy,

or otherwise increase the length of URLs through their built-in

taxonomy. SEO-savvy web developers will be able to correct

these issues on most platforms.

However, it’s not uncommon for developers to charge more for

correcting platforms to show user friendly URLs, so it’s

important to ask what you get out of the box, and what costs

extra.


IT’S NOT UNCOMMON FORDEVELOPERS TO CHARGE MOREFOR CORRECTING PLATFORMS TOSHOW USER FRIENDLY URLS, SO IT’S IMPORTANT TO ASK WHAT YOU GET OUT OF THE BOX

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http://www.example.com/this-is-an-









http://www.example.com/This-is-an-




















http://www.example.com/this-is-an-example-page











http://www.example.com/this-is-an-example-page/













REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

It’s unusual to see a rebuild that moves from friendly URL

formats to non-friendly formats. But where we have seen

this, we have observed a drop in the page’s ability to rank.

We worked with a major UK retailer that saw traffic to a key

product page drop by around 60 per cent after switching to

a non-friendly URL. There were other issues on the site

which could have contributed to this traffic drop, but it

nonetheless illustrates the importance of using user-friendly

URLs for technical SEO.

NEXT STEPS:


make sure you discuss URL formatting with them, and

make clear that you want user-friendly URLs throughout

the site.

If you’re already working with a developer, or your site

is live, you can test the length of your URLs by clicking

around your site or test server and checking in the

address bar. Pay special attention to product URLs, as

these are most likely to be dynamically generated.

Use your own judgement – look for readability,

memorability and a clean, user-friendly appearance. Avoid

non-standard characters (like apostrophes, colons, and

semi-colons), as well as long strings of nonsensical

numbers or letters.

If your URLs are too long, or don’t include text that

describes the page, you should ask your web developer if

they have a way to correct them. If lengthy URLs are a

standard ‘feature’ of your CMS, then additional plugins

and/or coding may be required to implement user-

friendly, SEO-friendly URLs. Make sure your developer

has budgeted for this.


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ROBOTS.TXT

The robots.txt file tells web robots (including search engine

spiders) what to do when they come across a website. It’s

not essential, but can be useful for preventing certain

directories, files or file types from being crawled by search

engines.

It’s important to ensure your robots.txt file is correctly

formatted, or your website could end up shutting out search

engine spiders altogether. Kicking your own website out of

Google is just about the biggest SEO mistake you can make!

When a new website is being built its important to ensure that

the test server is not indexed by search engines. We

commonly see instances where developers have failed to

block the test server in the robots.txt file. In these cases,

search engines are likely to index the incomplete, test version

of your site and thus see it as the ‘original.’

Later, when your website proper appears on a different URL,

the search engine may penalise your site because it sees it

as copying the content from another site.

This issue can be very damaging – but it takes only a few

lines of code to safeguard against it.


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REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:We worked with a UK retailer with over 300 branches

nationwide. They asked us for help after noticing a major

traffic drop after the launch of their new website. Upon

investigation, we found that their developers had accidentally

blocked their entire website from being crawled by search

engines.


NEXT STEPS:


you should talk to prospective developers to ensure you’re

both clear on which pages you don’t want to be indexed

by search engines. Make it absolutely clear that the test

server must be blocked from search engines.

If you’re already working with a developer, or your

site is live, you can check whether the test server is

indexed by Google using the ‘site:’ search string. Enter

‘site:’ into the search bar followed by the test server

domain. If you see

results from this page, then the test server has been indexed

– this is bad.

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In these cases, it’s worth bringing in external

SEO consultants to correct issues and/or work

with your developers to guide the build.

The other important thing to consider is that, when your

site’s live, your robots.txt file allows search engines to

reach all the right places.

TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS

Title tags and meta descriptions are HTML elements that are

commonly used by search engines on the search engine

results pages (SERPs). To use Google as an example, the title

tag is often the blue link that appears within a search result,

and the meta description is often the longer text below it.

The consensus within the SEO community is that title tags are

used by search engines as a ranking factor. Wherever

possible, every page on your site should have a unique and

descriptive title tag that encourages readers to click on your

page in the SERPs, includes keywords relevant to the page

content, andreinforces your branding.Meta descriptions are not a ranking factor for Google, and

are unlikely to be used by other search engines. They

should

include clear calls to action and be relevant to the content of

the page in order to encourage clicks. It’s best practice to

include keywords too, as these appear in bold when a user

searches for the relevant term, and can help to improve click-

through rate (CTR). Every page should have a unique and

descriptive meta description.

At the time of writing, Google’s character limits for title tags and

meta descriptions are around 64 characters and 156

characters respectively. Any longer, and they are likely to be

truncated within the search results.

WHEREVER POSSIBLE, EVERY PAGE ON YOUR SITE SHOULD HAVE AUNIQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE TITLE TAG THAT ENCOURAGES READERS TOCLICK ON YOUR PAGE.


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NEXT STEPS:

If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer, or are already

working with one, you should ensure that they are well versed in creating

title tags and descriptions that are optimised for users and search

engines.

You should also request that they create unique title tags and

descriptions for every page on your site, and ask that they check for

missing and duplicate title tags and descriptions once the build is

complete and before the site goes live.

If your site is already live, then you can check how title tags and meta

descriptions appear in Google, provided the site is already indexed

(this may take some time if the site has only recently been put live).

Use the ‘site:’ modifier, followed immediately by the URL you wish to

check (with no spaces). For example: ‘site:http://www.clickthrough-

marketing. com/web-design/web-design-services/ ‘

Issues can be corrected after launch, but for the best results it’s

important to ensure best-practice title tags and descriptions are in place

before Google indexes your site. If you find problems, an SEO agency

will be able to audit your titles and descriptions and provide unique,

SEO-friendly replacements.

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DUPLICATE CONTENT

Duplicate content means on-page text that appears

elsewhere on the web – either within your own site or on

another site entirely. Duplicate content is an SEO no-no.

Google says it “tries hard to index and show pages with

distinct information,” the implication being that it also tries hard

not to index and show pages without distinct information. This

means these pages will be filtered out of search results, or

may not be indexed at all.

Most of the time, duplicate content is non-malicious. And it’s

reasonable to assume Google is quite good at displaying

the ‘correct’ version of a page.

However, we can’t trust Google to get

it right every time. So it’s best

practice to avoid duplication of text

wherever possible. (Obviously some

duplicate content can’t be avoided,

such as text in menus.)

Worst case scenario: If Google

decides your use of duplicate

content

is produced with “intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive

our users,” it could slap a penalty on your site. This means

you’ll lose rankings and could disappear from the search

engine results altogether.

This is why we always aim to provide unique content

when developing websites, and carry out thorough checks

for duplication when carrying out technical SEO audits.

It is common to find pages that are duplicated in a website.

It is often the case that an internal page will display the

same content with or without a slash.

http://www.example.com/my-page

http://www.example.com/my

-page/

Test your webpages to ensure you cannot get the same

content by adding or removing a slash. If you can see the

same content on two different URLs you should designate a

‘correct’ version, and redirect the incorrect version to this

one. You should also ensure that there are no links in your

website going to the wrong version.


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http://www.example.com/my-page/














NEXT STEPS:


you should stress the importance of content during your

initial conversations. Ask prospective developers whether

they provide unique and relevant SEO content as part of

their service – if not, plan how this content could be

produced and implemented. A digital marketing agency can

help you put

a content plan together and write keyword rich,

conversion- friendly copy.

If you’re already working with a developer, then now is

the time to get your content right. If your developer has

provided similar blocks of content across multiple pages, or

worse, has taken copy from a competitor’s site, you should

request new, unique content for each page. You may wish

to engage third- party SEO content writers to help you.

If your site is already live, there’s a simple way to check

for duplicate content. Copy a sentence from a page on

your website, and paste it into Google, with the text

enclosed in quotation marks. (For example, “this is an

example sentence that may be duplicated online.)”

If you get any results for this search (other than the page itself,

if it’s live), then the content is duplicated elsewhere on the

web. Repeat this process for a few pages, paying special

attention to things like product text, which is most likely to be

scraped from a manufacturer’s site.

IMPORTANT: Duplicate content is an on-going concern.

Never take sections of your website copy and paste it to

external sites (such as business directories). The content on

your site should be unique.

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REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

We see a very common (and very avoidable) example of

duplicated content when carrying out SEO audits. This is

when the root home page (www.example.com) and the html

file that sits within that root (www.example.com/index.html) are

indexed as separate pages and thus flagged as duplicate.

If your server is set up properly, it shouldn’t display

duplicate versions of this page.


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http://www.example.com/








http://www.example.com/index.html










HEADING TAGS

You know how newspapers have a big, bold headline to grab

your attention, then several sub-headings to break up the

story as you read?

On-page content works in a similar way, but the headings and

paragraphs are coded into a page’s html. Headings start with a

tag like <h1>, <h2> and <h3>, whilst paragraphs start with

<p>. Each tag has a matching closing tag, like </h1> or </p>.

It’s important to use heading tags and paragraph tags

correctly because they help search engines make sense of

the content on a page. The most important heading should be

contained in

<h1> tags (the ‘headline’), and subheadings should be

contained in <h2>, <h3> and so on, in descending order of

importance.

Typically, you should only have one <h1> tag on a page.Web developers who don’t understand SEO often use heading

tags purely for stylistic purposes. This often means you’ll end

up with search engine-unfriendly headings like ‘<h1>Learn

from the best</h1>’ and ‘<h3>More Information</h3>.’

These don’t give search engines very much information at all.

We would use heading tags like ‘<h1>SEO Training

Courses</

h1>’ and ‘<h3>More SEO Advice</h3>.’ Instantly we know

this page is about SEO training – and so will search engines.

We never use heading tags in the header or footer of a page.

This creates duplicate heading tags across a site and makes

it more difficult for search engines to understand the content

of individual pages.

WEB DEVELOPERS WHO DON’T UNDERSTAND SEO OFTEN USE HEADING TAGS PURELY FORSTYLISTIC PURPOSES.


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ON-PAGE TEXT

We could write dozens of eBooks on content writing best-

practice. But for SEO, there’s one rule that takes

precedence over all others: write as your users write.

Writing using your users’ language helps to improve your

chances of ranking and creates a conversion-friendly

user experience.

For example, say you work in the residential lettings industry.

It may seem to make sense to write content using all the

industry lingo and office shorthand that you use every day –

including terms like ‘to let.’

However, those searching for a property are much more likely

to use the term ‘to rent.’ They’re thinking of what they can get

out of the service, not what you do as a company.

If you don’t include terms like ‘to rent’ on the page,

you’re much less likely to appear in search results for

relevant keywords and phrases.

If your web development agency provides copywriting

services but doesn’t consider SEO or conversion, you might

end up with lots of content that describes your business in

perfect detail, but doesn’t help you rank in search engines or

convert users into sales.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

It’s not uncommon for underwritten or plagiarised placeholder

copy to end up being used in the final version of a website –

through breakdowns in communication or a lack of emphasis

on content quality.

Don’t let this happen. The words your users see are just as

important as the layout and appearance of your page. So if

you’re relying on your web developer to produce content, you

need to start discussing your tone of voice and SEO goals with

them from the get go.


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If your site’s already gone live, it’s worth investing in a full SEO

content audit. Creative SEO content can improve your chances

in the search engines, and improve conversion rates on your

site.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:

We worked with a long-established UK brand that fell victim to

the trap of referring to products by the industry-standard name,

rather than the names used by customers. In this case, it was

a simple mix-up between ‘candle sticks’ and ‘candle holders’.

The company had created content using ‘candle holders’ as

a keyword, without realising that half of its target market was

searching for ‘candle sticks’. Although there are technically

subtle differences between candle sticks and candle

holders, many customers will not realise this when

beginning their product research. This meant that they were

missing out on valuable search traffic – ideally, they should

have used both variations within their product copy.

CREATIVE SEO CONTENT CANIMPROVE YOUR CHANCES IN THE SEARCH ENGINES, AND IMPROVECONVERSION RATES ON YOUR SITE.

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IMAGE TAGS

Good images can help improve the user experience –

especially on product-driven websites. But it’s important to

think beyond the pretty pictures and consider search engines.

HTML allows developers to associate text with images so

that search engines can understand what the image shows.

The text associated with an image is stored in an HTML tag

called an ‘alt tag’. This alt tag text is shown if the desired

image can’t be displayed for some reason, and is also used

by certain software designed to facilitate web browsing for

people with visual impairments.

Using image tags across your website is important for

both search engine optimisation and accessibility best

practice.


NEXT STEPS:If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer,

then ask them questions relating to image tags and

accessibility standards – if they’re not working to best-

practice standards, then they’re not building websites to

be technically watertight, and inclusive for all users.

If you’re already working with a developer, or your site

is live, it’s worth checking a few images across your

website to make sure image tags are properly

implemented.

To do this, right click on an image within your browser

and select ‘Inspect element.’ In the code that appears

(which should start with ‘<img src =’), you should see the

tag ‘alt,’ with some relevant text enclosed in speech

marks.

If you don’t see ‘alt’ tags, or the associated text is not

relevant to or descriptive of the images, ask your web

developer or external SEO experts to properly optimise

your images in line with SEO and usability best practice.

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REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:

We discovered that a major UK insurance company had

labelled all their images with text relating to stock

photographs, and the number of the supplier of the stock

photograph ( i.e. ‘stock picture 183764653’). It goes without

saying that this is bad for visually impaired users and search

engines.


A MAJOR UK INSURANCE COMPANY HAD LABELLED ALL THEIRIMAGES WITH TEXT RELATING TO STOCK PHOTOGRAPHS, AND THENUMBER OF THE SUPPLIER OF THE STOCK PHOTOGRAPH

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INTERNAL LINKING AND ANCHOR TEXT

We’ve already covered consistency in internal linking. Now

it’s time to consider how internal links can help search

engines create a hierarchy of pages within your site

structure.

For a start, every page on your site should have a link

pointing to it. If a page is particularly important, it should have

many other pages linking to it internally. If the page isn’t

particularly important, it should have fewer links.

Your web developer should also consider the ‘anchor text’ of

these links. Anchor text is the (usually) blue text shown to

users to indicate a link: This is an example link.

Search engines use anchor text in assessing the subject

matter of a page. For example, if a page has lots of links

pointing to it with anchor text related to ‘used cars’, it follows

that the content of that page is probably related to used cars

too.

We strictly use clear and descriptive anchor text to help

search engines and users make sense of the websites we

build.


• Do you understand the importance of anchor text in SEO?

• Have you considered how correct use of anchor text will support the structure and hierarchy of my site?

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REAL LIFE EXAMPLE:

We helped a major UK supplier of home goods

improve rankings through a simple change in anchor

text.

The issue arose because the website had only one link

pointing in to any of their major product lines from their

category pages, and the anchor text used in their menu was

not in line with users’ search engine habits.

For example, their menu linked to a category page with the

anchor text ‘white goods’, which meant potentially thousands

of links were telling search engines this page was about

white

goods. However, within this category page, there was one link

pointing to a page about ‘washing machines,’ which is a far

more relevant keyword.

We changed the menu to link directly to the washing

machines category using the anchor text ‘washing machines’

– ensuring valuable link strength was directed appropriately,

using an appropriate anchor text.

WE HELPED A MAJOR UK SUPPLIEROF HOME GOODS IMPROVE RANKINGS THROUGH A SIMPLE CHANGE INANCHOR TEXT.

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SEARCH ENGINE INCLUSION

It’s important to ensure your website is indexed by search

engines. If this sounds strikingly obvious, then consider

whether your entire site is indexed by search engines, and ask

yourself: “Do I know how many pages are in my website?”

Search engines don’t index every page on the web for a

variety of reasons. Sometimes they will not index a page

because

its content is similar to another page. Sometimes a site has a

large number of pages, but hasn’t garnered much strength

from inbound links.

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

We worked with a clothing retailer that had a blog on a

subdomain of its site (e.g. blog.clothing-retailer.com). They

hadn’t linked to or used this blog for years, and in fact

hadn’t realised it was still there. However, there were

thousands of pages on the blog still being indexed by

search engines.

NEXT STEPS:If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer,

or you’re already working with one, ensure your web

developer follows the linking and content best practices

laid out elsewhere in this eBook. This will ensure a high

rate of search engine inclusion.

If your site is live, your developer should be able to tell

you how many pages are on your website. Do a site:

search on your root domain (e.g. ‘site:example.com).

If you see far fewer or many more pages are indexed than

the number you believe is in your site, then you have a

problem. This either means pages aren’t being indexed

that should be indexed, or there are pages you don’t know

about being indexed – this could point to any number of

potential technical problems.

At this point, you may wish to work with specialist SEO

consultants to iron out any of the myriad issues that

could be affecting search engine inclusion rates.

28


XML SITEMAPS

Search engines use a number of methods to understand the

structure of the site and the importance of individual pages

within it. You can use an XML sitemap to help facilitate this

process.

An XML sitemap is a file that contains a list of the URLs on your

site. To help search engines to find this file, it should be linked

to within the robots.txt file.

THINGS TO CONSIDER:

The location of your sitemap, if you have one, should be

referenced within your robots.txt file (http://www.example

.com/ robots.txt). If you don’t see your sitemap there, you

either don’t have one or your web developer hasn’t formatted

the robots.txt file correctly.

If you’re using Google Webmaster Tools, you can check

how many pages are in your sitemap, and how many

pages are indexed by Google.

It’s not essential that you have a sitemap, but it’s best practice

to include one. So ask your web developer to implement a

sitemap if they haven’t already.

IF YOU’RE USING GOOGLEWEBMASTER TOOLS, YOU CAN CHECK HOW MANY PAGES ARE IN YOURSITEMAP, AND HOW MANY PAGES ARE INDEXED BY GOOGLE.

29











HOSTING

Is your web developer arranging hosting for your site? If so,

it’s important to be aware of potential hosting/server issues

that could affect your site if the wrong decision is made.

Firstly, it’s important to consider server location. Selecting an

appropriate sever location can be a significant factor in

securing search engine rankings for certain localities. It’s often

important to have a server in the nation that is your primary

market, especially if you use a .com domain.

If you trade solely in the UK, and you have a .com address, but

host your site in the US or mainland Europe, search engines

will have difficulty knowing that your site is related to the UK.

Lots of

businesses don’t realise that some of the UK’s largest

hosting providers aren’t UK-based at all. Instead, they locate

their hosting facilities in Germany.

Secondly, you should consider server speed. The shorter

the distance from your server to the end user, the faster the

response. If your servers aren’t up to the task of hosting

your website, your site speed could suffer, which in turn

creates a poor user experience. What’s more, a slow site

could affect

your search engine rankings – from 2010, Google has used

site access speed as a ranking factor.

SELECTING AN APPROPRIATESEVER LOCATION CAN BE A FACTOR IN SECURINGSEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS

30


THINGS TO CONSIDER:

In the best-case scenario, you should discuss server options

early on in the build. Communicate with your web developer to

ensure your chosen server can accommodate your goals for

your site, and is located in the appropriate country for your target

market.

If your site is already live on an inappropriate server, then

you can put plans in place to move. Keep in mind, however,

that server moves can be complicated and may require

specialist help. You also may be locked into a contract with

a server provider for a set period of time.

However, in certain circumstances (e.g. Magento hosting) if you

choose well, your new host may provide a free migration

service.

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE:

One of our experts worked with a company that had an

incredibly convoluted server setup. They were a British-

owned firm selling properties in Spain to British ex-pats on

a .com domain based in Germany.

Needless to say, moving to UK servers improved site speed

and rankings.

31

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32

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