Technical SEO Best Practices

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Technical SEO Best Practices -
A Marketers' Guide
A best-practice guide to building
an SEO-compliant website
First Edition =
Phil Robinson, Peter Phillpot & Oliver Pyper
101 Guide Series

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CONTENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 3
INTRODUCTION 4
THE PROBLEM WITH WEB DEVELOPERS 5
SOLUTIONS 6
15-POINT TECHNICAL SEO CHECKLIST 7
Canonicalization 7
404 Errors 9
Broken Links 10
Redirects and Site Migration 10
URL formatting 12
Robots.txt 14
Titles and Descriptions 16
Duplicate Content 18
Heading tags 21
On-Page Text 22
Image Tags 24
Internal Linking and Anchor Text 26
Search Engine Inclusion 28
XML Sitemaps 29
Hosting 30

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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 digital
marketing, 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 on
0800 088 7486 or visit www.clickthrough-marketing.com

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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 that
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 ARE
USUALLY PROPRIETARY PLATFORMS
OWNED BY THE AGENCY
THEMSELVES

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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.
SOLUTIONS
IF YOUR
WEBSITE IS IN
THE PROCESS
OF BEING BUILT,
YOU CAN USE
THIS 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://bbc.
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’.
15-POINT TECHNICAL SEO CHECKLIST


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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:
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)

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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.example.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 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
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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.
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.

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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, and
reinforces 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 A
UNIQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE TITLE TAG
THAT ENCOURAGES READERS TO
CLICK 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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NEXT STEPS:
If you’re in the process of choosing a web developer, 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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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 FOR
STYLISTIC 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 CAN
IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES IN THE
SEARCH ENGINES, AND IMPROVE
CONVERSION 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:
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.


25
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 THEIR
IMAGES WITH TEXT RELATING TO
STOCK PHOTOGRAPHS, AND THE
NUMBER OF THE SUPPLIER OF THE
STOCK PHOTOGRAPH

26
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?


27
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 SUPPLIER
OF HOME GOODS IMPROVE RANKINGS
THROUGH A SIMPLE CHANGE IN
ANCHOR TEXT.

28
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:
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.

29
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 GOOGLE
WEBMASTER TOOLS, YOU CAN CHECK
HOW MANY PAGES ARE IN YOUR
SITEMAP, AND HOW MANY PAGES ARE
INDEXED BY GOOGLE.

30
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
APPROPRIATE
SEVER LOCATION
CAN BE A FACTOR
IN SECURING
SEARCH ENGINE
RANKINGS

31
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.

32
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