Category

Technical SEO

Technical search engine optimization refers to the structure and organization of a site for maximum search engine visibility. Our coverage addresses structured data (Schema.org), website hierarchy, menus, categories, page speed, bot crawlers (including Googlebot), domain names, and more.

Technical SEO
SEO Tips for New Ecommerce Sites (and Redesigns)

February 26, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

The battle for organic search performance can be won or lost before a site launches. Choices made in the design and implementation stages impact the ability of an ecommerce business to change critical elements for search engine optimization, handcuffing what is typically one of the largest drivers of traffic and revenue.
Technical SEO
HTTPS Is Important for More Reasons Than SEO

February 9, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

A website’s use of the secure protocol — as evidenced by the HTTPS designation and the presence of a security certificate — is a priority for search engines. But recent changes to Google Chrome make it important for web browsers, too. Google is tackling the security challenge across the web via its Chrome browser. Google is tackling the security challenge across the web via its Chrome browser. This week, the Chrome team announced that all web pages without an HTTPS certificate will display a “Not Secure” label in Chrome 68, scheduled to be launched in July 2018.
Technical SEO
6 Ways Web Developers Can Improve SEO

February 2, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

The relationship between web developers and search-engine-optimization teams is sometimes contentious. Seemingly unrelated technical decisions by developers can impact organic search traffic. But there are enormous SEO benefits in working with development teams and their release planning and testing cycles. In 13 years, I’ve encountered just one developer who refused to consider SEO recommendations.
Technical SEO
SEO: Google to Make Mobile Speed a Ranking Factor

January 19, 2018 • Jill Kocher Brown

If you weren’t already focused on your mobile site’s performance, Google is giving you a reason. In July of 2018, Google will use a new ranking signal focused purely on mobile site speed: the “Speed Update.” Google will dampen rankings for slower mobile sites to help mobile searchers find sites that deliver what Google considers to be a better mobile experience. Desktop site speed has been a Google ranking factor for almost eight years — its obsession with speed isn’t anything new. What is new is that Google will now include mobile sites in the site speed ranking equation.
Technical SEO
SEO: How to Identify High Rankings That Produce No Clicks

January 14, 2018 • Hamlet Batista

Google's AdWords Keyword Planner is helpful for keyword research, as are many third-party tools. But Google Search Console can also identify keyword optimization opportunities. I'll explain in this post. Many search engine optimizers believe that a web page can rank organically for just a few keywords, perhaps three to five.
Technical SEO
How to Increase Click-throughs on Organic Search Listings

January 4, 2018 • Hamlet Batista

Finding new keywords to target and developing content around them is a common practice for search engine optimization. But optimizing for a keyword does not necessarily mean a searcher will ...
Technical SEO
SEO: For Redesigns and Migrations, Prepare for the Worst

December 1, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

You spend months preparing for your ecommerce redesign or migration. You take search engine optimization into consideration and anticipate an increase in organic search traffic after launch. But what happens ...
Technical SEO
SEO: How to Perform a Flash Audit, to Restore Traffic

November 14, 2017 • Hamlet Batista

I’m often asked to help reverse drops in traffic from organic search. It usually occurs from major site developments, such as redesigns and ecommerce platform changes. Traffic drops can be ...
Technical SEO
SEO: 7 Ways to Kill Duplicate Content

November 12, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Duplicate content is endemic to ecommerce sites. Seemingly every platform, no matter how SEO-friendly, produces some form of duplicate content, holding a site back from peak performance. First, let’s look at ...
Technical SEO
SEO Fire Drill: ‘Traffic Is Down!’

October 15, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Organic search traffic often drives significant revenue for ecommerce sites. As a result, it is prone to fire drills around performance. Here’s how to determine when there’s a critical problem ...
Technical SEO
SEO: How to Improve Site-specific Ranking Factors

October 10, 2017 • Hamlet Batista

A client recently attended a webinar where a presenter provided a list of the top search engine ranking factors. The client wanted me to confirm the list, or provide my ...
Technical SEO
SEO: Making Recommendations on Mockups

September 15, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Mockups are a key part of creating new marketing campaigns and redesigning entire websites. As partners in the process of producing those new experiences, search-engine-optimization professionals should offer feedback at ...
Technical SEO
How to Incrementally Move an Ecommerce Site to HTTPS

August 27, 2017 • Hamlet Batista

In October, Google Chrome will release version 62, which will warn website visitors with a “Not Secure” message when they type in data — such as site searches and newsletter ...
Technical SEO
3 SEO Wins (Often Overlooked) for Ecommerce Sites

July 16, 2017 • Hamlet Batista

There is more to search engine optimization than keywords, titles, meta descriptions, and H1s. In this post, I’ll address three valuable, and often overlooked, SEO opportunities for ecommerce sites: PDFs,
Technical SEO
SEO: 7 Reasons to Use a Site Crawler

July 14, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

No matter how well you think you know your site, a crawler will always turn up something new. In some cases, it’s those things that you don’t know about that ...
Technical SEO
SEO: Your Faceted Navigation Could Be Better

May 15, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Faceted navigation drives traffic and sales for valuable long-tail search phrases because it applies increasingly refined attributes to shoppers’ searches for their desired products. Optimizing your faceted navigation is the ...
Technical SEO
SEO: Faceted Navigation Is Your Biggest Opportunity

May 7, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Regardless of what your ecommerce site sells, the biggest opportunity for improving your natural search performance is likely optimizing faceted navigation. Also known as faceted or guided search, faceted navigation applies ...
Technical SEO
SEO: Creating the Perfect URL, or Not

April 28, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

URLs are what search engines use to aggregate all the data they collect regarding a page of content. For search engine optimization, what’s in a URL can be the difference ...
Technical SEO
SEO: Harnessing Domain Authority across Multiple Websites

April 24, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Every domain acquires authority based largely on the quality and quantity of links pointing to it. When your business model necessitates multiple domains, harness them in a mutually beneficial linking ...
Technical SEO
Using Server Logs to Uncover SEO Problems

April 11, 2017 • Hamlet Batista

Sometimes websites have search-engine-optimization problems that Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and off-the shelf SEO tools cannot locate. When this occurs, I often rely on an old-school method: web server logs. What ...
Technical SEO
SEO: How to Detect, Correct Duplicate Content Pages

March 23, 2017 • Hamlet Batista

Duplicate content remains a common obstacle when it comes to increasing organic search traffic on retailer websites. Here are some of the advantages of addressing duplicate content to increase SEO performance,
Technical SEO
SEO: How to Migrate an Ecommerce Site to HTTPS

March 8, 2017 • Hamlet Batista

Google began encouraging websites to move to encrypted SSL connections, which carry the HTTPS reference in the URL, as early as 2014. Google promised a ranking boost to sites that ...
Technical SEO
How to Avoid SEO Disaster from a Replatform

February 22, 2017 • Hamlet Batista

Redesigning your ecommerce site or changing platforms is nerve racking. It’s easy to miss an important step and lose valuable organic search traffic and revenue. I have assisted many ecommerce sites ...
Technical SEO
SEO: How to Quickly Reverse a Traffic Downtrend

January 31, 2017 • Hamlet Batista

During a website redesign, re-platform, or domain change, it is not uncommon to see a reduction in organic search traffic. The panic generally starts weeks after trying one thing after ...
Technical SEO
Using Caching (and Hardware) to Improve Page Speed

January 25, 2017 • Eric Davis

In “3 Backend Fixes to Increase Page Speed,” my article last month, I explained that caching can be applied to many areas of an ecommerce website. In this post, I’ll ...
Technical SEO
SEO: Google Rolls Out Mobile Popup Penalty

January 13, 2017 • Jill Kocher Brown

Right on schedule, this week Google began rolling out its intrusive mobile popup penalty, aimed at reducing the number of results that take mobile searchers to pages that use large ...
Technical SEO
3 Backend Fixes to Increase Page Speed

December 30, 2016 • Eric Davis

Page speed is an important factor in search rankings and conversion rates. Every improvement to page speed will likely result in more sales. We’ve addressed page speed at, most recently, “10
Technical SEO
4 Things to Check for Holiday Ecommerce Traffic

November 16, 2016 • Bill Hartzer

The holiday shopping season is here. Millions of consumers are looking for holiday deals. Preparing your marketing campaigns, such as social media ads and email promotions, is imperative. Beyond that,
Technical SEO
SEO: To Drive Shoppers, Let the Bots In

November 6, 2016 • Jill Kocher Brown

We rely on search engines to drive shoppers to our sites to purchase our products. Before the shoppers can come, however, you have to let the bots in. It sounds more ...
Technical SEO
SEO: Accelerated Mobile Pages for Ecommerce

October 14, 2016 • Jill Kocher Brown

Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages protocol makes mobile sites faster. Faster sites typically see lower bounce rates, higher time-on-site numbers, and higher conversion rates. AMP also benefits natural search performance. Smartphone users want speed.

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