Are you missing opportunities when it comes to optimizing WordPress websites for search engine success? This deck offers something for all levels. Jason White, DragonSearch's Director of SEO, discussed the importance of site speed, SEO optimization plugins, site maps, mobile considerations, social integration (and how to optimize for social), schema markups, authorship, blogging and maintenance at 2014 Word Camp NYC.

1. @sonray
10 Common Missed
SEO Opportunities
for WordPress Awesomeness
Jason White | Dragonsearch

2. Optimizers

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An SEO plugin should:
• simplify Indexation
• improve Crawlability, Accessibility & Structure
• ease in creation of Title Tag & Meta Description
• social SEO - twittercards, opengraph, richpins

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Main Players
These plugins make Authorship and
Publisher Markups easier

5. Social Integration

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Social
ShareThis
AddThis
Inline Tweets
Set them up!
• include only the social networks where the
company is active
• attribution - shouldn’t end with via @addthis
• relevant hashtags

7. Media Optimization

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Google is the most disabled user to ever come
to your website. They can’t see images or view
videos making the clues in the code vital.
Google

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Images should use descriptive file names,
contain alt text, a title and even a unique
caption. These are what Google bot will consume.
Images

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Videos - update and embed the video’s transcript
on the page with the video. It will be the most
natural copy on your website and contains all of
your keywords.
Videos

11. Blogging

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Commenting
• Help in community building efforts
• As the brand moderating, make sure you have
an avatar picture of a real person and not a
placeholder
• Don’t add a simple “nice post” comment but
make it meaningful

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A calendar makes your work more manageable.
Take a birds eye view of your content and fill in
any gaps giving you the tools necessary to plan
and organize around key event, dates, and
launches. It can also keep a project from looking
so daunting. Break it down into weeks, days, etc.
and it seems more practical.
• wordpress editorial calendar plugin
• drag and drop interface updates the calendar
and the unpublished posts themselves.
Content Calendar

14. Maintenance

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Broken Link Checker - plugin to monitor for
broken links before Google Bot does.
• notification via email or dashboard
Links

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Not only will check for broken links but gives you
a quick overview of where the site is at with meta
tags/duplicate content. Tool to generate sitemap
and/or check sitemaps.
Screaming Frog

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Setup Alerts for 10% traffic drop
Google Analytics

18. Mobile
(Every year has been the year of the mobile)

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Traffic
ESPN reported that mobile traffic surpassed
desktop for the first time in December 2013.

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Analytics
Check analytics—select 3–6 months of data and
compare mobile with desktop.

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Mobile
Okay to wait, but track>15%
15–30%
30–50%
<50% You’re not serving your users a quality experience
Start making the case for responsive or
dedicated mobile site
Time to implement responsive design or dedicated
mobile experience

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Things to Track
Check the mobile SERPs to make sure you’re
being found; only 1-2 results before the fold!
Check for issues with mobile conversions.
WP Touch can be a quick and easy patch.

23. Schema

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Schema
Schema markup is a collaboration between
the major search engines that through a specific
markup, are better able to understand the
information on a webpage.
Schema markup enables webmasters to embed
structured data on their web pages for use by
search engines and other applications.

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Vocabulary
The Schema vocabulary describes a variety of
item types so that when a user searches for a
phrase that relates to one of these types.
Reviews
Products
Organization
NAP (Name, Address Phone)
People

26. Protip: sameas tag

27. Authorship

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By linking a Google+ profile with an author
page from the websites the person writes on,
search engines are better able to understand the
relationship.
Authors

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Rel= Author | Rel= Publisher

30. Site Maps

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XML
XML Sitemaps are feeds designed for search
engines; they’re not for people.
• useful for very large sites
• help improve spiderability
• ensure all important pages are crawled
and indexed
• supplemental information on
indexed pages
• includes how frequently pages are updated

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HTML
An HTML Sitemap is a simple list of text links to
each page.
• clearly outlines site’s hierarchy and
how content is organized within it
• useful for both human visitors and
search engine bots

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Automated vs. Manual
Automated XML Sitemaps are ok but if internal
site links rely on redirects, they will appear in
your sitemap.

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Bing
Bing has a quality threshold in Sitemaps - more
than a few % points and it will be ignored.
Google isn’t on record with this but they are
usually much more stringent.

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Site Map Best Practices
Once the subdomains have been merged, a single,
accurate XML sitemap should be created regularly.
Submit it via Webmaster Tools for Bing & Google.
Test them Quarterly or monthly depending on
the size of the website and the amount of
changes made.

36. Site Speed

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An Increasingly Important Factor
Not just for visitors who lose their trust when sites
are slow or don’t load, but also the search engines
have incorporated it as a ranking factor.

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Amazon Case Study
Amazon’s case study showed that an
extra 1 second in load time cost them a
10% loss in conversions.
1 10Second Loss in conversions
%

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Average Load Times
SUBDOMAIN A: 6.68—8.08 seconds
SUBDOMAIN B: 3.24—4.53 seconds

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Ajax Event Calendar
Akismet
AnitVirus
BackUpWordPress
Block Bad Queries
Bullet Proof Security
cforms
Custom Admin Branding
[Client Name] Locatior v2
[Client Name] Region Only
[Client Name] Webstore Connection
Disable Comments
Exec-PHPw
Google Analytics for WordPress
Google Calendar Events
Google XML Sitemaps
jQuery Lightbox
J Shortcodes
Lightbox Plus ColorBox
List category posts
Login LockDown
Menu Exporter
Mollom
Ajax Event Calendar
AntiVirus
Block Bad Queries
BulletProof Security
Custom Admin Branding
[Client Name] Region Only
[Client Name] Webstore Connection
Disable Comments
Exec-PHP
Google Calendar Events
Google XML Sitemaps
jQuery Lightbox
J Shortcodes
NextGEN Gallery
Peter’s Login Redirect
qTranslate
Quick Page/Post Redirect DEV
Really Simple CAPTCHA
Redirection
Responsive Mobile-Friendly Tooltip
Role Scoper
Semisecure Login Reimagined
Share Buttons by AddToAny
Store Locator Plus
Typekit Fonts for WordPress
User Access Manager
User Role Editior z
VideoGall
W3 Total Cache
Websimon Tables
WordPress SEO
WP-Memory Usage
WP-Custom Admin Bar
WP Custom Search
WP Secutiry Scan
Youtube SEO Playlist
SUBDOMAIN A:
46 Plugins
SUBDOMAIN B:
25 Plugins
List category posts
Login LockDown
Menu Exporter
Mollom
NextGEN Gakkery
Really Simple CAPTCHA
Redirection
Responsive Mobile-Friendly Tooltip
Share Buttons by AddToAny
VideoGall
WP Custom Search
WP Security Scan

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Questions?
Contact
Jason White
jason@dragonsearch.net
@sonray
Singing Telegrams Accepted