technicalseo

Google's very own Martin Splitt joined me on the SEJ Show to share his thoughts and opinions on various technical SEO topics, such as Semantic HTML, Google Search Console, indexing, and client-side rendering.

Explore how to leverage these powerful tools to improve your website's SEO.

Prefer to watch the video? Register here: http://bit.ly/3YQxzG7 

I would say make sure that you are focusing on the content quality and that you are focusing on delivering value to your users. Those have been, will always be, and are the most important things. Everything else should follow from that. –Martin Splitt

Suppose you are fine-tuning technical details or your website's structure or markup. In that case, you are likely missing out on the more significant opportunities of asking yourself what people need from your website. –Martin Splitt

This question keeps coming up. This is not the first time and will not be the last time this question will come up and continue to be asked. I don't know why everyone thinks about who, what value, or who. It's about structure. I can't emphasize this enough, if you choose to have H1s as your top-level structure of the content, that's fine. It just means that the top level of the content is structured along the H1s. –Martin Splitt

 

[00:00] - About Martin

[02:47] - Why Semantic SEO is important.

[04:22] - Is there anything that can be done within Semantic HTML to better communicate with Google?

[06:02] - Should schema markup information match what's in the document?

[08:24] - What parts of Semantic search does Google need the most help with?

[09:19] - What is Martin's opinion on header tags?

[14:22] - Is the responsibility of implementing Semantic HTML on the SEO or the developer?

[16:19] - How accessible is Semantic HTML within a WordPress, or Gutenberg-style 

environment? 

[19:58] - How compatible is Semantic HTML with WCAG?

[21:08] - What is the relationship of Semantic HTML to the overall concept of the Semantic web RDF, etc.?

[25:04] - Can the wrong thumbnails be rectified utilizing Semantic HTML?

[28:42] - Is there another type of schema markup that can still refer to the organization and use IDs on article pages?

[32:10] - Can adding schema markup to show the product category hierarchy and modifying HTML help Google understand the relationship between the product and its category?

[33:49] - Is preserving header hierarchy more critical than which header you use?

[36:36] - Is it bad practice to display different content on pages to returning users versus new users?

[40:08] - What are the best practices for error handling with SPAs?

[45:31] - What is the best way to deal with search query parameters being indexed in Google? 

[48:02] - Should you be worried about product pages not being included within the XML site map?

[50:26] - How does Google prioritize headers?

[56:00] - How important is it for developers and SEOs to start implementing Semantic HTML now?

[57:31] - What should SEO & developers be focusing on?

 

If you understand that it's a 404, you have two options because two things can happen that you don't want to happen. One is an error page that gets indexed and appears in search results where it shouldn't. The other thing is that you are creating 404s in the search console and probably muddling with your data. –Martin Splitt

If you have one H1 and nothing else under it except for H2s and then content H2 and then content H2, that doesn't change anything. That means you structured your content differently. You didn't structure it better. You didn't structure it worse. You just structured it differently. –Martin Splitt

 

For more content like this, subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/searchenginejournal 

Are you looking to keep up with current and effective digital marketing today? Check out https://www.searchenginejournal.com  for everything you need to know within the digital marketing space and improve your skills as an internet marketer.

Connect With Martin Splitt:

Martin Splitt - the friendly internet fairy and code magician! He's a tech wizard from Zurich that has magic fingers when it comes to writing web-friendly code. 

With over ten years' experience as a software engineer, he now works as a developer advocate for Google. A master of all things open source, his mission is to make your content visible in any corner of cyberspace - abracadabra!

Connect with Martin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinsplitt/

Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/g33konaut

 

Connect with Loren Baker, Founder of Search Engine Journal:

Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/lorenbaker  

Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenbaker  

There are several moving parts when it comes to SEO and I know how confusing that can be.

In this podcast episode, I cover some of the biggest differences and how to know which to take action on, based on where you are at with your business website.

More specifically, this episode covers:

• Top Technical SEO issues + tasks
• Top Content SEO issues + tasks
• Where you should be focusing on right now?

Full shownotes for this podcast episode here: https://digitalbloomiq.com/seo/technical-vs-content-seo

Get email updates on all podcast episode (+ SEO tips, behind the scenes, and early bird offers) here: https://bit.ly/dbiqemail

Are you considering a site migration?

 

Migrations are a challenging - and sometimes dreaded - step in SEO. 

 

With site migrations, chances are you're going to run into technical issues and nine times out of ten there's not enough time to fix everything before launch. The key is to build a good relationship with your developers, working together to solve critical issues.

 

Cody Gault, Website Migration Lead at Conductor joins Loren Baker for this migration episode. We have some great questions left from an SEJ Webinar we had with Cody a while back, along with some new topics to help you with your next big update.

 

This episode is perfect for anyone who is migrating platforms, changing URLs, updating branding, or trying something new for their website. 

 

At the end of the day, the more crawls you do, the closer you can get to what the site will actually look like in a live environment. –Cody Gault

 

Do the 301 redirects. It’s the gospel. With canonical, Google may or may not honor it. –Cody Gault

 

About half of site migrations are about finding the technical side of issues, and the other half is about having a team that can solve them and works well together. –Cody Gault

 

 

[00:00] - About Cody and how he got started performing website migrations

[02:41] - Cody’s first big migration: An International website migration

[05:04] - How can broken link 404 reports help you identify and fix website issues?

[05:29] - How to preplan a website migration and reduce the risk of making mistakes

[07:05] - How to prioritize redirects and take some of the work out of site migrations

[07:49] - Common website migration mistakes

[10:06] - Should you immediately redirect old URLs to the new ones? Or use canonicals before redirecting?

[13:32] - Do 301 redirects slow down your site?

[17:05] - Is it better to change the title tags and meta descriptions or leave them as is?

[18:57] - Timing your website changes and how that affects rankings

[20:36] - How to test a site’s usability and performance prior to migration

[23:40] - The biggest things hurting your CWV & website performance

[26:11] - How much traffic should you expect to lose when you migrate a website? And how long until your traffic recovers?

[27:40] - What happens if you lose most of your traffic after a migration?

[30:16] - Why is the old domain still indexed in Google?

[32:31] - What are some commonly overlooked parts of a migration or mistakes?

[37:41] - How to work with dev teams during migrations and how to handle technical SEO issues

[43:36] - The amount of time Cody focuses on site migrations

 

“You can learn so much from those broken link reports. I think it's amazing that you can connect those dots, fix them, and benefit from them post-migration.” –Loren Baker

 

“Every issue I have is prioritized high, medium, low, and I go in with the understanding that not all of them are going to be fixed.” –Cody Gault

 

“Talk to your developers to see what they can open up for you and then run with it.” –Cody Gault

 

For more content like this, subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/searchenginejournal

 

Looking to keep up with what’s current and effective in digital marketing today? Check out https://www.searchenginejournal.com for everything you need to know within the digital marketing space and improve your skills as an internet marketer.

 

Connect with Cody Gault:  

 

Cody Gault is the Website Migration Lead at Conductor. As a result of his involvement in many migration projects, he has carved a niche in the industry. He shares insights on common site migration issues so you can be prepared to handle them.

 

Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/codygault0010/

Visit Conductor: https://www.conductor.com/

 

Connect with Loren Baker, Founder of Search Engine Journal:

Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/lorenbaker

Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenbaker

Measuring SEO efforts can feel heavy, no?

There are several other podcast episodes where I walk through specific metrics and where to find them, but in this one, I want to talk more about how to connect these metrics to things that actually make sense for you and your business.

In this episode, we cover:

• What return you can expect from your SEO
• How to fit your Search Marketing with your business goals
• How often you should be looking at your SEO results

Listen + read shownotes for this podcast episode here: https://digitalbloomiq.com/seo/how-to-measure-seo-efforts

More podcast episodes here: https://digitalbloomiq.com/podcast

Follow Digital Bloom IQ on Instagram: https://instagram.com/digitalbloomiq

Super excited to be sharing my first ever podcast episode all about Technical SEO. Here I walk through three aspects of improving the techie part of your SEO setup and where you can take action on each of them.

Full shownotes (with links to all the tools + video here): http://digitalbloomiq.com/seo/technical-seo