118. Common Technical SEO Mistakes and How to Avoid Them with Dawn Anderson

Jan 24, 2018

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In this conversation, Dawn Anderson and I are going to take a deep dive and geek out about technical SEO. She's an internal SEO and digital marketing consultant for brands and startups alike. We've spoken at many of the same conferences, so I already know she's a fantastic expert and the perfect guest for the show. As you'll learn in this episode, a true mobile-first approach is more important than it's ever been -- and will only keep growing in importance.

Find Out More About Dawn Here:

Dawn Anderson on LinkedIn Dawn Anderson on Search Engine Land @dawnieando on Twitter Dawn Anderson on Facebook

In This Episode:

[01:09] - Dawn starts off by discussing crawl budget, what it is, and why we care.
[03:29] - Crawl budget feeds into things like page speed, Stephan points out. Dawn then expands on the idea.
[05:46] - Dawn talks about the key areas in which you can emphasize importance in huge websites.
[07:07] - Google pretty much ignores priority on XML Sitemaps because people lie, Dawn explains. Another problem is that they tend to get the "last updated" field wrong.
[11:05] - Stephan steps in to clarify what Dawn has been saying by using the metaphor of a tree with sickly branches.
[12:11] - Dawn discusses a canonical error that she sees frequently involving migrating sites and updating site maps. Stephan then offers his own related insight and advice.
[16:25] - Dawn thinks that more education about search console parameters would be really useful for those in the search engine optimization field.
[18:20] - What are some other technical SEO issues that a lot of people get wrong?
[20:48] - For listeners who aren't as familiar with technical SEO, Stephan clarifies and explains what Dawn has been talking about in simpler terms.
[22:58] - Dawn offers an example involving an ecommerce site to illustrate what she and Stephan have been talking about.
[26:15] - The older the site, the longer the process can take for all but the largest and most important sites, Dawn explains.
[28:34] - What is hreflang, and why should we care? Dawn and Stephan discuss the challenges inherent in having different sites for Canada, Australia, England, and the United States, for example.
[32:51] - These challenges apply in foreign languages too, Stephan points out, using the example of France and Quebec.
[35:08] - Stephan and Dawn talk about the time that SEO takes.
[36:56] - Dawn talks about a very recent Google release involving mobile-first indexing. Stephan then clarifies why it's important to think about mobile first as your strategy, and desktop second.
[40:01] - Dawn was recently watching a webinar, which she describes and discusses.
[44:12] - On a desktop site, tabbed content is still in the HTML but not displayed by default. On mobile devices, Google isn't discounting it in the same way.
[45:25] - What is AMP? And do all Marketing Speak listeners need to implement it on their sites?
[47:47] - Dawn explains that there have been issues with AMP's proprietary code, but overall it increases performance and conversion rates.
[49:26] - Speeding up a slow-loading website is the carrot, but there are sticks as well, Dawn points out.
[51:36] - Does Dawn have a parting tidbit or bit of advice for technical SEO? She recommends making sure that you focus completely on mobile and make sure it's a fast experience.

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