PLAYING TABLE STAKES VS. WINNINGKEITH L. GOODE
SEO TECHNOLOGY LEAD, DELL
@KEITHGOODE+KEITHGOODE WWW.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/KEITHLGOODE
YOUR PRESENTERKeith L. Goode
• 17 years of Online Experience• AMD
• HomeAway
• Builders Digital Experience
• SpareFoot
• Dell (3 years)• SEO Technology Lead, DCSG (formerly eDell)
• Technical SEO Instructor
• Presentations• Clarity ’13 (and ‘14)
• Pubcon Vegas
• Pubcon Austin
• Austin SEO
• Terrible Gambler
Twitter: @keithgoode
www.slideshare.net/AustinOtaku
@KEITHGOODE+KEITHGOODE WWW.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/KEITHLGOODE
DISCLAIMER NOTICE
Protection: The ideas and statements in this presentation do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Dell Inc. but are based on my personal experience in the SEO Industry.
Tl;dr: Be kind, and remember that:
Keith
Is
Not
Dell
UPDATE
WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE CLARITY ‘13?
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ODDBALL COMEDY FESTIVAL
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WHAT I LEARNED
• Comedians don’t know SEO
But let’s be honest:
• Neither do most executives
• Neither do most developers
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DEMOCRATIZATION OF SEO
• Utopian Vision in which NO
aspects of SEO are seen as
SEO-only responsibilities
and…
• SEO Technical requirements
are not seen as SEO, but as
“the way you run a website”
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UNTIL WE GET THERE…
• The role of the Technical SEO
is to…
• Explain the benefits of the
requested site changes
• Prioritize those requests based
on
• Customer Experience
Improvement
• Revenue Benefit
• Complementary Value
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THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND
• Executives are not stupid. They’re balancing…
• Budgetary constraints
• OPEX challenges
• A ton of purportedly high-priority items, which are all competing for the same money and resources that you are
• Phrased in a way decision-makers can easily understand, technical challenges will make more sense
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TECHNICAL SEO AS TABLE STAKES
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TECHNICAL SEO AS TABLE STAKES
• How much you’re willing to
invest will make the
difference between…
• Playing in the high stakes poker
room at the Bellagio, or …
@KEITHGOODE+KEITHGOODE WWW.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/KEITHLGOODE
TECHNICAL SEO AS TABLE STAKES
• How much you’re willing to
invest will make the
difference between…
• Playing in the high stakes poker
room at the Bellagio, or …
• Playing “Guest How Many
Fingers I’m Holding Up” at
Cousin Eddie’s favorite casino
SEO TABLE STAKES
LAYING THE FOUNDATION FOR GREATER SUCCESS
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SEO TABLE STAKES
• The $5 Table
• Foundational elements related to crawlability of your site
• The $10 Table
• Foundational elements related to the indexability of your site
• The $25 Table
• Foundational elements related to site efficacy in SERP rankings
• The $100 Table
• Supplementary elements to shore up CTR, Positive CE and globalization
$5
$10
$25
$100
THE $5 TABLE
TICKET TO ENTRY
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THE $5 TABLE – TABLE STAKES
Crawlable Content
• This should be a no-brainer
• No Flash or Silverlight …
again, we should already
know this
• Use seo-browser.com, Lynx
browser, or Fetch as
Googlebot
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THE $5 TABLE – RAISING THE BET
Crawlable Navigation
• Follow Google’s 3-Click Rule
• Flow your link equity down
via navigation
• For extra credit, use
breadcrumbs and contextual
link to flow it back up to the
domain level.
THE $10 TABLE
GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT SEO
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THE $10 TABLE - INDEXATION
• GWT/BWT Setup
• Canonicalization of URLs
• XML Sitemap and Robots.txt
• HTML Sitemap
• Canonical Tags
• Robots Meta-Tags
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THE $10 TABLE – TABLE STAKES
• Google Webmaster Tools …
and, yes, Bing Webmaster
Tools
• Canonicalize
• Server Setting
• GWT/BWT Preference
THE $10 TABLE – RAISING THE STAKES
• XML Sitemap and Robots.txt
• Tell the bots where they can and
can't go on your site
• HTML Sitemap
• Provide an additional path to the
most important pages on your site
THE $10 TABLE – RAISING THE STAKES
• Canonical Tags
• Stop:
• Competing against yourself
• Dispersing ranking power
• Single cleanest, renderable URLs for
each piece of content
• Automate this functionality
• Most out-of-the-box CMSs do this
already
• Custom CMSs will need to have this
functionality built
THE $10 TABLE – RAISING THE STAKES
• Robots Meta-Tags
• Don’t rely on robots.txt to hide
your private content
• Provide page-level access to
change this tag to your SEOs
• Allows on-the-fly removal of
URLs from the indices
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THE $25 TABLE – RANKING EFFICACY
This is where you can begin to
influence your site’s ability to
rank. Elements in this pool
focus on your site’s:
• Architecture
• Adaptability
• Responsiveness
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THE $25 TABLE - ANTE UP
• Concise, Friendly URLs
• Proximity of Page Name to
Domain
• DFUs
• Subfolder Usage (over
Subdomain)
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THE $25 TABLE – RAISING THE STAKES
• Proper Redirects
• Use 301s and 302s
appropriately – default to 301
• Allow for redirects that are
• 1-to-1
• Many-to-1
• Many-to-many
• Proper Error Reponses
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THE $25 TABLE – RAISING THE STAKES
• Open Graph/Twitter Card
• Socially adaptive
• Mobile Responsive
• Adaptive Display
• Mobile Adaptive
• Device-specific adaptation
• Page Speed Optimization
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THE $100 TABLE
This is where you gear your
site for:
• Global Domination
• Participation in the coming
marketplace
• Adaptability when something
goes wrong
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THE $100 TABLE – ANTE UP
Global Domination
• HREFLANG
• Distinguish which pages should be showing in each region
• Reduces friction of having to select the right country
• ccTLD Strategy
• URL Localization
• Regional variations of head terms
• Localization/localisation of spelling
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THE $100 TABLE – ANTE UP
Participation in the Marketplace
of the Future
• Semantic Markup
• Where did we shop in the
early 20th Century?
• The latter part of the 20th
Century?
• The early 21st Century?
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THE $100 TABLE – ANTE UP
Adaptability to Unexpected
Changes
• Intelligent 404
• Correct for bad links
• Update for old, retired pages
• Use machine-learning to intuit
consumer intent
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THE TRUMP CARD
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THE TRUMP CARD
• You can make a lot of mistakes
and still rank if you have a great
brand
• Never jeopardize your brand
with grayhat techniques
• Support your Brand team and
train them in proper linking
• Encourage social involvement of
SMEs
THANK YOU!
KEITH L. GOODE
@KEITHGOODE
+KEITHGOODE
WWW.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/KEITHLGOODE