SEO for Drupal 11th February 2015

Dagmar Muth @dagmita

Agenda 1 What and why SEO?

2 SEO process

3 What is in core of D7 and D8

4

5 State of Modules in D8

Modules in D7

6 Conclusions

1

Agenda 1 What and why SEO?

2 SEO process

3 What is in core of D7 and D8

4

5 State of Modules in D8

Modules in D7

6 Conclusions

SEO and SEM

Organic Search Engine Results (SEO)

Paid Search Engine Results (SEM)

Paid Search Engine Results (SEM)

Timeframe of results

SEO = Long-term impact, first results after 4-6 months

SEM = immediate and temporary effect (stops when not paid anymore)

What we click on

www.seoresearcher.com

Which one is preferred

EyeTracking Study by Did-it, Enquiro and Eyetools, iProspect, Search Engine Behavior Study, Enquiro, MarketingSherpa

62% look only at the first

page.

76% Prefer organic

results over AdWords.

View Rate of Organic Results:

1. Result: 100% 2. Result: 100% 3. Result: 100% 4. Result: 85% 5. Result: 60% 6. Result: 50% 7. Result: 50% 8. Result: 30% 9. Result: 30% 10. Result: 20%

SEO: Previous and Current ProcessPrevious Process: • Meta Tags

• Links schemes, link farms • Article spinning • Comment spamming • Keyword stuffing

Current Process: • On-Site Audit:

Technical audit, mobile audit, indexing audit, usability quick check

• Link building strategy • Blogs, news • Social media strategy (SEO perspective) • Well written website content

Content Marketing und Link BuildingBlack Hat SEO

Optimized for Machines Optimized for Humans

Agenda 1 What and why SEO?

2 SEO process

3 What is in core of D7 and D8

4

5 State of Modules in D8

Modules in D7

6 Conclusions

2

1

SEO process

1. Step: Off-Site Analysis

2. Step: On-Site Audit

3. Step: Continuous SEO Tasks

• Keyword Analysis (Content SEO Check) • Competitive Analysis • Link Analysis • Social Media Visibility • International and Multilingual SEO Strategy

Goal: •  Evaluation of SEO relevant keywords. •  Definition of SEO strategy.

SEO process

• Technical Audit • Mobile Audit • Indexing Audit • Usability Check

1. Step: Off-Site Analysis

2. Step: On-Site Audit

3. Step: Continuous SEO Tasks

Goal: Analysis and recommendations for technical SEO implementation.

SEO process

• Execution of SEO strategy • Content Creation • Link Building

1. Step: Off-Site Analysis

2. Step: On-Site Audit

3. Step: Continuous SEO Tasks

SEO and Website Developmenttime

Definition of goals

Off-Site Analysis

Content Strategy

Features Specifications

Implementation

Go Live

On-Site Audit

Continuous optimizations

Agenda 1 What and why SEO?

2 SEO process

3 What is in core of D7 and D8

4

5 State of Modules in D8

Modules in D7

6 Conclusions

3

1

D7 and D8 SEO core features

Almost Nooothing.

Only the very basics such as node title and possibility to define SEO-friendly URLs.

Drupal 8 is the same.

Agenda 1 What and why SEO?

2 SEO process

3 What is in core of D7 and D8

4

5 State of Modules in D8

Modules in D7

6 Conclusions

4

1

Setup tracking tool

Goal:

Keep track of the success of your website with a tracking tool.

Solution:

We usually use Google Analytics and add the Universal Analytics Code via the Google Analytics Module

Robots.txt file

Goal:

Robots.txt file exists (URL/robots.txt) so that search engines crawl the right content

Solution:

• Validate the robots.txt file

• Set disallow command for your dev site

• Don’t forget to remove disallow command when you go live :-)

XML sitemap

Goal:

XML sitemap exists (URL/sitemap.xml) to help search engines etc. to crawl your website more intelligently

Solution:

• Install XML sitemap module

• Add sitemap to robots.txt

URL structure

Drupal standard

Goal:

URLs should be readable, user friendly and contain keywords in the right language

Max. length 100 characters and words to be separated with dashes

Example optimal URL format http://www.example.com/category-keyword/subcategory-keyword/primary-keyword

Solution:

Install Pathauto module: allows you to define the structure of the URL/path aliases per file, content type, taxonomy terms, user and per language.

Result = nice URLs: http://www.sigvaris.com/global/en/news/touchless-determined-legreader-xt5

URL structure

URL redirectsGoal:

• Redirect from the node/123 structure to the user-friendly URL structure works

• As few 302 redirects as possible

Solution:

• Global redirect module checks a current URL for an alias and does a 301 redirect to it

• Set the www to non-www redirect on the live server

Faceted search URLsGoal:

If there is a filtered search options, URLs should have a user-friendly, readable structure

Drupal standard:

http://www.exped.com/switzerland/en/product-category/tents?f%5B0%5D=field_min_weight%3A%5B0%20TO%203%5D&f%5B1%5D=field_construction%3A1

Faceted search URLs

Solution:

Facet API Pretty Paths module

Generates nice URL segments such as "<alias>/<value>"

Applying pretty paths module

Goals:

• Good-looking URLs in roman letters for all languages

Multilingual URLs

Multilingual URLs

Solution:Install the transliteration module: takes unicode text and tries to represent it in US-ASCII characters

Example:

Title tag & meta description tag

Title tag

Meta description tag

Goal:

Title tags and meta description tags are filled out

Title tag & meta description tag

Solution:

• Module: Metatag

• Meta Description Tags in views and panels: Enable submodules Metatag:Views and Metatag:Panels

• Further functionalities:

• Open Graph (Facebook): Enable submodule Metatag:Open graph and configure settings for each content type

Meta tags in Drupal

Image names and ALT tags

Goal:

• File name and ALT tags of an image should describe its content

Image names and ALT tags

Solution:

• ALT tag must be activated in field configuration

Alt text for images

Hide unwanted nodesGoal:

Hide unwanted nodes e.g. nodes that are used only as panel elements and do not have a full-node view

Example:

Hide unwanted nodes

Solution:

• Install Rabbit Hole module

• Configure what should happen when an entity is viewed at its own page

Page Load Speed

Goal:

• Performance of your website on desktop and mobile should be high

• Google recommends page load in 1 sec

Solution:

• Check with Google PageSpeed Insights: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

• Implement as many suggestions as possible

Aggregation of JavaScript filesGoal:

• Make JavaScript files accessible for search engines

• Otherwise the files are excluded in the robots.txt file (/misc/) and Google cannot render the pages correctly

Solution:

• Make sure that the JavaScript aggregator is enabled during the launch

• More information: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.ch/2014/10/updating-our-technical-webmaster.html

Agenda 1 What and why SEO?

2 SEO process

3 What is in core of D7 and D8

4

5 State of Modules in D8

Modules in D7

6 Conclusions

5

1

SEO modules in D8

Agenda 1 What and why SEO?

2 SEO process

3 What is in core of D7 and D8

4

5 State of Modules in D8

Modules in D7

6 Conclusions6

1

ConclusionsSEO to be a fix building part of a website.

SEO to be considered from the start of building a new website.

It requires experts that are following the evolving area

SEO and SEM – mid-term effects versus campaigning, short-term

Multidisciplinary: technical and content