6 ms·

The Quickest Wins in SEO

116 points by ianstormtaylor 14y ago

andrenotgiant 14y ago
> example.com/sitemap.xml should point search engines to interesting parts of your site. Really, an XML Sitemap should be used to show Search Engines ALL pages on your site, and should only be used when it can be dynamically updated via a CMS or database that knows of all URLs. Don't even get me started about the idiocy of using a random CRAWLER (e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=xml%20sitemap%20generator https://www.google.com/search?q=xml%20sitemap%20generator) to generate a sitemap to be used by the best CRAWLER on the internet. I know the tone of the post is informal, but this wouldn't be a HN comment thread without some nit-picking.
- james4k 14y ago
  Yeah, I think if it makes sense for the site, you should focus more on making it fully crawlable. Generally, humans should be able to find all of your content, too.
viame 14y ago
Probably one of the better SEO articles I have read in a while. I wish clients could understand this. Just want to point out that your Twitter share button should point to the article's page (current page) not your main url.
lazyjones 14y ago
No, healthy sites should not have 30-50% search traffic. If that's what you have, you have too few regular users and are at high risk to lose a huge chunk of your traffic and consequently business at the next <random animal name> Google update. Also, bear in mind that Google has acknowledged that keywords in URLs "help a little", so this is a good SEO win that has (arguably) nothing to do with how useful people find your content. It's much easier than putting effort into better content, too.
- joelrunyon 14y ago
  > No, healthy sites should not have 30-50% search traffic. I'd argue this really depends on what type of set you're running (and what the purpose is).
  - walshemj 14y ago
    I agree even well know brad site say BBC NYT etc still get people searching for brand terms "BBC" or "NYT" cos they are to lazy to type it in.
- itsprofitbaron 14y ago
  bear in mind that Google has acknowledged that keywords in URLs "help a little" Actually, Google released an EMD update[1] in order to fix that issue. [1] https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/251784203597910016 https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/251784203597910016
  - rockdiesel 14y ago
    Having keywords in your URLs is different than having an EMD. The EMD update targeted the people who see the search volume for a specific keyword and then purchase exactkeyword.com to rank for that keyword. But if I write a blog post about "red widgets in texas", it is still beneficial to have all, or some, of those keywords in my URL. mywhateverblog.com/red-widgets-in-texas/ is better than mywhateverblog.com/?p=545
    - itsprofitbaron 14y ago
      Actually your examples: mywhateverblog.com/red-widgets-in-texas/ and mywhateverblog.com/?p=545 isn't comparing keywords in URLs but Static vs. Dynamic URLS - and static URLs e.g. /red-widgets-in-texas/ is NOT better than /?p=545 - This is something that Google have even said so themselves[1] [1] http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/dynamic...
joelrunyon 14y ago
Also a quick win (ironically), don't use the .io extension unless you're actively targeting the indian ocean territory because Google doesn't include it in it's list of Generic TLDs. See http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1347922 http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38...
- udfalkso 14y ago
  Is this actually an issue? I'm very doubtful.
  - walshemj 14y ago
    Yep and the physical location of the ip counts I had the devil of a time getting a .ie site to rank in google uk a while back.
    - butler14 14y ago
      The physical location of a server is increasingly less and less of an issue (see: CDNs). As you mention, though, ccTLD choice is another story entirely.
  - joelrunyon 14y ago
    It actually is a real issue. Google says it themselves - they give priority to gTLDs.
- halcyondaze 14y ago
  Hahaha, too true
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  Good point, although I assume this will be fixed by Google pretty soon. I visit lots of .io sites every day and I don't think I've ever hit one that was indian ocean territory specific. Seeing as it's all the rage with developer-focused projects, it makes sense that it will join the ranks of .me and .co
bennesvig 14y ago
If you're looking for a free tool to analyze your site for titles/descriptions/broken links/etc, Screaming Frog SEO is great.
- halcyondaze 14y ago
  Second this, I actually pay for the yearly license and it's saved me far, far more than it's cost in the first full site crawl I ever did with it :)
Theodores 14y ago
This is still 'SEO 1.0' stuff. If you have something to sell, i.e. an e-commerce site, or if you have a recipe, or if you have a large collection of flora and fauna, the quickest win is to use semantic markup - 'SEO 2.0'. Let The Search Engine (Google) know what is description, title, price, currency, size, weight and so on with semantic markup tags and you are presenting The Search Engine with information that can be made sense of. Otherwise it is just throwing more needles in the haystack.
- TheSisb2 14y ago
  Micro formats are underrated and simple to achieve: http://microformats.org/wiki/Main_Page http://microformats.org/wiki/Main_Page
  - junto 14y ago
    This is a really good point. Google actually has a really good tool for testing this: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets Here is an example: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.simply-watches.co.uk%2Fdeal%2Fthe-brilliant-gift-shop%2Fcitizen-eco-drive-gents-titanium-watch-683425725&html= http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http...
- lmm 14y ago
  Citation needed. To me, all this semantic web stuff sounds exactly like meta tags in the old days - and the big difference between google vs lycos/yahoo/etc. was that it ignored meta tags completely.
  - butler14 14y ago
    The benefits of Schema (schema.org) is pretty well documented. While its existence on a page is not a ranking factor in itself, it can help an SEO campaign and the visibility of a site in innumerable ways - not least organic click through rate.
    - 14y ago
martinshen 14y ago
I just did a major SEO audit for our site. Changing title tags and h1 tags are insanely important. It literally looked like we were hiding ourselves from Google. I'll probably do a post soon about this on our/my blog.
- ianstormtaylor 14y ago
  Would love to read that when you do. I think I understand what the title tags require, but I haven't heard about the h1. Is that just changing it to make sure that the h1 is the title of the page instead of the site? Also how does the HTML5 heading system (where you can have multiple h1s on a page) affect SEO, do you know?
  - geargrinder 14y ago
    h1 is an indicator to the search engine that you consider that blurb/content to be the most important on the page. So the h1 should be optimized for the keywords you are trying to rank for. Also, if you have a bunch of h1 tags on a single page, it can actually dilute the weight of your most important heading. I recommend using just one h1 tag on a page to keep Google from having to guess what is most important. I also recommend not using any other h tags on the page for the same reason. Don't try to rank for a bunch of keywords on one page. Instead, concentrate on one or related keywords per page and use h tags to signal to the search engine what you think is most important. Search engines are dumb. Make everything really obvious to them.
    - ianstormtaylor 14y ago
      Not using any other h* tags seems like crazy advice. I could definitely believe that search engines haven't become privy to the multiple h1 tags that HTML5 proposes, but I assume that will come with time too. Since the idea for multiple h1's makes lots of semantic sense for components, I'm going to keep using them. Keeping track of heading levels inside components is hard/impossible.
    - joelrunyon 14y ago
      Have you seen the effects of not using any other h tags on your site besides the h1? In my experience, I've seen the opposite. Well done h2s in fact, can really boost a series of site's rankings.
ibudiallo 14y ago
I have been looking for a way into marketing for a while and I am glad i you posted this. I ran my website through hubspot and i found many wholes that could increase my visibility when fixed. Thank you for sharing
bambax 14y ago
Does PageRank mean anything? HN apparently has a PR of only 6, while for example my blog, which doesn't get a lot of traffic, has a PR of 5 (and even 5h on some pages). PageRank used to be talked about a lot and now it seems it's not even mentioned; is it still relevant?
- lenazegher 14y ago
  It is still relevant, but in absolute terms it's a small portion of how pages are ranked. The PR of the HN homepage is probably pretty irrelevant as I doubt it gets much traffic from organic search for anything other than "hacker news". The PR of your blog homepage has to be taken in context for the type of search terms it might rank for (and remember that PR is for pages, not domains - the PR of your homepage will be different from the PR of each blog article). If your blog was about vegan-friendly fondue recipes, a PR of 5 might indicate you had a link profile which meant you ranked highly because there likely isn't a great deal of competition in that particular niche. If your blog was about dating tips, a PR of 5 wouldn't really indicate anything by itself because it's a really competitive niche.
  - frankacter 14y ago
    and apparently "ryan dahl", "how to get stolen domain back" and "overhead walks on two legs" :-p
- itsprofitbaron 14y ago
  Not as much since the algorithm has evolved. Personally, I'm more interested in a site's Domain Authority[1] (anything over 30 is good) [1] http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain-authority http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain-authority

116 points by ianstormtaylor 14y ago

> example.com/sitemap.xml should point search engines to interesting parts of your site. Really, an XML Sitemap should be used to show Search Engines ALL pages on your site, and should only be used when it can be dynamically updated via a CMS or database that knows of all URLs. Don't even get me started about the idiocy of using a random CRAWLER (e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=xml%20sitemap%20generator https://www.google.com/search?q=xml%20sitemap%20generator) to generate a sitemap to be used by the best CRAWLER on the internet. I know the tone of the post is informal, but this wouldn't be a HN comment thread without some nit-picking.

james4k 14y ago
Yeah, I think if it makes sense for the site, you should focus more on making it fully crawlable. Generally, humans should be able to find all of your content, too.

viame 14y ago

Probably one of the better SEO articles I have read in a while. I wish clients could understand this. Just want to point out that your Twitter share button should point to the article's page (current page) not your main url.

lazyjones 14y ago

No, healthy sites should not have 30-50% search traffic. If that's what you have, you have too few regular users and are at high risk to lose a huge chunk of your traffic and consequently business at the next <random animal name> Google update. Also, bear in mind that Google has acknowledged that keywords in URLs "help a little", so this is a good SEO win that has (arguably) nothing to do with how useful people find your content. It's much easier than putting effort into better content, too.

joelrunyon 14y ago
> No, healthy sites should not have 30-50% search traffic. I'd argue this really depends on what type of set you're running (and what the purpose is).
- walshemj 14y ago
  I agree even well know brad site say BBC NYT etc still get people searching for brand terms "BBC" or "NYT" cos they are to lazy to type it in.
itsprofitbaron 14y ago
bear in mind that Google has acknowledged that keywords in URLs "help a little" Actually, Google released an EMD update[1] in order to fix that issue. [1] https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/251784203597910016 https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/251784203597910016
- rockdiesel 14y ago
  Having keywords in your URLs is different than having an EMD. The EMD update targeted the people who see the search volume for a specific keyword and then purchase exactkeyword.com to rank for that keyword. But if I write a blog post about "red widgets in texas", it is still beneficial to have all, or some, of those keywords in my URL. mywhateverblog.com/red-widgets-in-texas/ is better than mywhateverblog.com/?p=545
  - itsprofitbaron 14y ago
    Actually your examples: mywhateverblog.com/red-widgets-in-texas/ and mywhateverblog.com/?p=545 isn't comparing keywords in URLs but Static vs. Dynamic URLS - and static URLs e.g. /red-widgets-in-texas/ is NOT better than /?p=545 - This is something that Google have even said so themselves[1] [1] http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/dynamic...

joelrunyon 14y ago

Also a quick win (ironically), don't use the .io extension unless you're actively targeting the indian ocean territory because Google doesn't include it in it's list of Generic TLDs. See http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1347922 http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38...

udfalkso 14y ago
Is this actually an issue? I'm very doubtful.
- walshemj 14y ago
  Yep and the physical location of the ip counts I had the devil of a time getting a .ie site to rank in google uk a while back.
  - butler14 14y ago
    The physical location of a server is increasingly less and less of an issue (see: CDNs). As you mention, though, ccTLD choice is another story entirely.
- joelrunyon 14y ago
  It actually is a real issue. Google says it themselves - they give priority to gTLDs.
halcyondaze 14y ago
Hahaha, too true
ianstormtaylor 14y ago
Good point, although I assume this will be fixed by Google pretty soon. I visit lots of .io sites every day and I don't think I've ever hit one that was indian ocean territory specific. Seeing as it's all the rage with developer-focused projects, it makes sense that it will join the ranks of .me and .co

bennesvig 14y ago

If you're looking for a free tool to analyze your site for titles/descriptions/broken links/etc, Screaming Frog SEO is great.

halcyondaze 14y ago
Second this, I actually pay for the yearly license and it's saved me far, far more than it's cost in the first full site crawl I ever did with it :)

Theodores 14y ago

This is still 'SEO 1.0' stuff. If you have something to sell, i.e. an e-commerce site, or if you have a recipe, or if you have a large collection of flora and fauna, the quickest win is to use semantic markup - 'SEO 2.0'. Let The Search Engine (Google) know what is description, title, price, currency, size, weight and so on with semantic markup tags and you are presenting The Search Engine with information that can be made sense of. Otherwise it is just throwing more needles in the haystack.

TheSisb2 14y ago
Micro formats are underrated and simple to achieve: http://microformats.org/wiki/Main_Page http://microformats.org/wiki/Main_Page
- junto 14y ago
  This is a really good point. Google actually has a really good tool for testing this: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets Here is an example: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.simply-watches.co.uk%2Fdeal%2Fthe-brilliant-gift-shop%2Fcitizen-eco-drive-gents-titanium-watch-683425725&html= http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets?url=http...
lmm 14y ago
Citation needed. To me, all this semantic web stuff sounds exactly like meta tags in the old days - and the big difference between google vs lycos/yahoo/etc. was that it ignored meta tags completely.
- butler14 14y ago
  The benefits of Schema (schema.org) is pretty well documented. While its existence on a page is not a ranking factor in itself, it can help an SEO campaign and the visibility of a site in innumerable ways - not least organic click through rate.
  - 14y ago

martinshen 14y ago

I just did a major SEO audit for our site. Changing title tags and h1 tags are insanely important. It literally looked like we were hiding ourselves from Google. I'll probably do a post soon about this on our/my blog.

ianstormtaylor 14y ago
Would love to read that when you do. I think I understand what the title tags require, but I haven't heard about the h1. Is that just changing it to make sure that the h1 is the title of the page instead of the site? Also how does the HTML5 heading system (where you can have multiple h1s on a page) affect SEO, do you know?
- geargrinder 14y ago
  h1 is an indicator to the search engine that you consider that blurb/content to be the most important on the page. So the h1 should be optimized for the keywords you are trying to rank for. Also, if you have a bunch of h1 tags on a single page, it can actually dilute the weight of your most important heading. I recommend using just one h1 tag on a page to keep Google from having to guess what is most important. I also recommend not using any other h tags on the page for the same reason. Don't try to rank for a bunch of keywords on one page. Instead, concentrate on one or related keywords per page and use h tags to signal to the search engine what you think is most important. Search engines are dumb. Make everything really obvious to them.
  - ianstormtaylor 14y ago
    Not using any other h* tags seems like crazy advice. I could definitely believe that search engines haven't become privy to the multiple h1 tags that HTML5 proposes, but I assume that will come with time too. Since the idea for multiple h1's makes lots of semantic sense for components, I'm going to keep using them. Keeping track of heading levels inside components is hard/impossible.
  - joelrunyon 14y ago
    Have you seen the effects of not using any other h tags on your site besides the h1? In my experience, I've seen the opposite. Well done h2s in fact, can really boost a series of site's rankings.

ibudiallo 14y ago

I have been looking for a way into marketing for a while and I am glad i you posted this. I ran my website through hubspot and i found many wholes that could increase my visibility when fixed. Thank you for sharing

bambax 14y ago

Does PageRank mean anything? HN apparently has a PR of only 6, while for example my blog, which doesn't get a lot of traffic, has a PR of 5 (and even 5h on some pages). PageRank used to be talked about a lot and now it seems it's not even mentioned; is it still relevant?

lenazegher 14y ago
It is still relevant, but in absolute terms it's a small portion of how pages are ranked. The PR of the HN homepage is probably pretty irrelevant as I doubt it gets much traffic from organic search for anything other than "hacker news". The PR of your blog homepage has to be taken in context for the type of search terms it might rank for (and remember that PR is for pages, not domains - the PR of your homepage will be different from the PR of each blog article). If your blog was about vegan-friendly fondue recipes, a PR of 5 might indicate you had a link profile which meant you ranked highly because there likely isn't a great deal of competition in that particular niche. If your blog was about dating tips, a PR of 5 wouldn't really indicate anything by itself because it's a really competitive niche.
- frankacter 14y ago
  and apparently "ryan dahl", "how to get stolen domain back" and "overhead walks on two legs" :-p
itsprofitbaron 14y ago
Not as much since the algorithm has evolved. Personally, I'm more interested in a site's Domain Authority[1] (anything over 30 is good) [1] http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain-authority http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain-authority