The Recipe for Technical SEO Success for Food Bloggers

Learn about the fundamentals for a cost-effective Technical SEO strategy for Food Blogs, in easy to follow steps, along with resources to use.

1. THE RECIPE FOR TECHNICAL SEO SUCCESS FOR FOOD BLOGGERS ALEYDA SOLIS
2. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit I’m Aleyda Solis, avid foodie, terrible cooker, thankfully, better SEO ❏ SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti ❏ SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +30 countries ❏ Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.” ❏ Crawling Mondays Video & Podcast Series Host ❏ SEOFOMO & MarketingFOMO Newsletters Author ❏ Maker LearningSEO.io ❏ European Search Personality of the Year in 2018 SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti @aleyda Aleyda Solis By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit
3. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit To rank for competitive queries you need to be the best in class across all SEO areas > YOU YOUR COMPETITORS RELEVANT, EXPERIENCED & 
 TRUSTWORTHY CRAWLABLE & 
 INDEXABLE GREAT USER 
 EXPERIENCE APPROPRIATE FORMAT TO FULFILL NEED & MAXIMIZE SERP ENGAGEMENT RANKABLE 
 FOR RELEVANT 
 QUERIES POPULAR & 
 AUTHORITATIVE
4. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Including tech SEO, that focuses on optimizing your site’s pages crawlability and indexability > YOU YOUR COMPETITORS RELEVANT, EXPERIENCED & 
 TRUSTWORTHY CRAWLABLE & 
 INDEXABLE GREAT USER 
 EXPERIENCE RANKABLE 
 FOR RELEVANT 
 QUERIES POPULAR & 
 AUTHORITATIVE APPROPRIATE FORMAT TO FULFILL NEED & MAXIMIZE SERP ENGAGEMENT
5. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing Google has done a great work documenting crawling and indexing best practices
6. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit We also have a diversity of tools to facilitate our Websites’ technical SEO understanding Google Search Console Screaming Frog
7. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit But when analyzing your site you find thousands of issues! How can you tackle all?
8. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit And what about the other non-tech SEO issues? This is the *execution* challenge of SEO!
9. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit By @Aleyda, Based on Mark Williams-Cook Chart WEBSITE SIZE IMPORTANCE BACKLINKS TECHNICAL CONTENT - + + The reality is that technical SEO gets more important (and complex) the bigger the site is
10. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit This highly correlates with common crawl budget and management issues large sites have https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/large-site-managing-crawl-budget?hl=en
11. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit However, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do anything even if your site is small
12. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit It’s why technical SEO issues need to be prioritized based on impact & effort vs others IMPACT EFFORT 1. To Execute 
 Now Don’t Do 2. To Assess 
 & Prioritize 2. To Assess 
 & Prioritize vs IMPACT Pages Types Pages Number Pages Revenue EFFORT Dev Resources Time Resources Tech Constraints
13. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit For example, you don’t want to invest your resources only on fixing all what’s broken… FIXING IMPROVING BUILDING Creating content to target new relevant queries through user search journey Optimizing existing content for already targeted relevant queries Minimizing tech debt to avoid crawlability, indexability and page experience issues The Pyramid of SEO Success
14. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit But fixing what’s really holding you back, while improving & building areas to grow FIXING IMPROVING BUILDING Creating content to target new relevant queries through user search journey Optimizing existing content for already targeted relevant queries Minimizing tech debt to avoid crawlability, indexability and page experience issues The Pyramid of SEO Success
15. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Prioritizing those tech SEO actions that will actually help you to achieve goals Recommendation Impact Effort To Prioritize Medium impacting with high effort 6 4 12 Low impacting with high effort 4 4 8 Low impacting with very high effort 4 2 6 Very low impacting with very high effort 2 2 4 IMPACT EFFORT 1. To Execute 
 Now Don’t Do 2. To Assess 
 & Prioritize 2. To Assess 
 & Prioritize
16. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit To facilitate this, you should put the SEO data that you gather in context of your blog biz goals Website Technical Search Optimization Data along with Current rankings/ traf fi c/revenue performance GATHER DATA ANALYZE 
 ISSUES/OPPORTUNITIES ESTABLISH 
 HYPOTHESIS/SOLUTIONS To address the identi fi ed issues for each of the affected scenarios by page type/role within the Website, providing examples of how they are vs what they’re expected to be, while explaining why they’re important to achieve goals, attaching relevant gathered data to help locate & fi x them PRIORITIZE The solutions focused actions based on their impact towards the SEO process goals & implementation viability and effort Potential issues/ opportunities to assess if they’re actually harming pages’ organic search performance to achieve Website SEO and/or Biz goals FORMAT In easy to consume and understand documentation that facilitates action by stakeholders & buy-in by decision makers SEO CRAWLERS WEB SERVER LOG FILES 
 GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE GOOGLE ANALYTICS 
 [SEO/ANALYTICS TOOLS] WEB CONTEXT/GOALS SEO PROCESS GOALS YOUR SEO KNOW-HOW 
 WEB CONTEXT/GOALS SEO PROCESS GOALS BUSINESS CONTEXT & GOALS SEO GOALS RANKING/REVENUE IMPACT WEB TECH CONTEXT STATUS VS COMPETITORS RESOURCES AVAILABILITY BUSINESS CONTEXT STAKEHOLDERS & DECISION MARKETS NEEDS & PREFERENCES
17. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit To help you assess this, you can use this SEO tasks prioritization template I created HTTPS://DOCS.GOOGLE.COM/SPREADSHEETS/D/15DD2VFZE203ZIKD-VTQLG3WG-YQY9A-HS5J7AT- S4JA/VIEW
18. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Additionally, there are certain configurations that are consistently critical for blogs, which you should pay particular attention to 1. Ensure your content inventory availability 🍣 2. Proportionally endorse key, meant to be ranked pages 🌮 3. Maximize your pages SERPs visibility with structured data 🍝 4. Take care of your pages speed and experience 🥓 Bonus: Set an SEO quality and monitoring framework to avoid bugs holding you back 🍫
19. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit They will be the key base ingredients for your SEO success! Let’s go through them SEO
20. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit 1. Ensure your content inventory availability 🍣
21. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit The goal is that your meant to be ranked content is always crawlable and indexable to search bots
22. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Use SEO plugins such as Yoast or RankMath to facilitate these configurations Yoast Rank Math
23. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Start by setting a descriptive and clean URL structure that will be easy to understand, link to and manage (avoiding dates or IDs)
24. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Noindex via meta robots those taxonomies that you won’t use to rank and will only generate content duplication or thin content issues
25. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Noindex via meta robots internal search results https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/detailed-seo-extension/pfjdepjjfjjahkjfpkcgfmfhmnakjfba
26. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Ensure your meant to be ranked pages -home, categories, blog posts, author-, are indexable
27. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Add canonical tags to your pages to refer to meant to be indexed URL variants showing the same or too similar content
28. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Set your robots.txt to allow crawling your meant to be ranked pages, their connected resources (eg. Images, JS, CSS) and XML sitemaps
29. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit While also blocking those not meant to be indexed and ranked pages
30. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Configure your XML sitemap to include your indexable pages while excluding the not to be indexed ones
31. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Whenever you change your pages URLs, you need to permanently 301- redirect users (and bots) to their new URLs versions (or parent categories)
32. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit As well as permanently 301- redirecting from common URLs variants of each page that shouldn’t be accessible (eg. non-www vs www)
33. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Avoid using templates or plugins that rely on CSR JS to show meaningful content and links https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/web-developer/bfbameneiokkgbdmiekhjnmfkcnldhhm
34. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Validate how your pages content and links are rendered by Google using the URL Inspect Tool from the Google Search Console
35. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit You can also crawl your site pages enabling JS rendering to assess the gap of raw vs rendered Screaming Frog
36. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Remember that the goal is not for every URL of your site to become indexable, but to ensure that those that are important to rank, are indexed
37. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit 2. Proportionally endorse key, meant to be ranked pages 🌮
38. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Your internal links serve to refer and endorse both users and bots to your meant to be ranked pages with crawlable links
39. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Your home, main categories, key sub-categories and top posts, should be linked from your main navigation across your site
40. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Every category should link to the home, other category pages, children subcategories and the latest and top children blog posts
41. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Every blog post should link to the home, parent category, sub- category and related blog posts
42. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Link directly to the indexable URL of each page, avoid linking to canonicalized versions
43. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Make use of breadcrumbs to add hierarchical links to every page level of your site
44. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Use plugins like Link Whisper or InLinks to automate cross-linking between pages
45. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Whenever a page URL is changed, your internal links should be updated to go to their new URL versions, and avoid linking to 404 HTTP error URLs
46. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit You can use plugins such as the Broken Link Checker or SEO crawlers such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to identify the existence and source of these links
47. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit As well as to check which of your pages with backlinks are showing errors to prioritize their fix Semrush
48. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit The goal is that those well-linked pages targeting your key queries and/or attracting the most traffic, are well linked
49. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit 3. Maximize your pages SERPs visibility with structured data 🍝
50. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Structured data is code that specifies content meaning to help Google understand & highlight it Recipes Articles Reviews
51. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit The first step is to identify relevant supported structured data with the Search Features Gallery https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/search-gallery
52. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit You can also identify those used already by top players and main competitors triggering search features for your targeted queries Semrush
53. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Taking a look at how they implement them in their top articles validating with Rich Results Test Semrush Rich Results Test
54. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit You can alternatively use Classy Schema Structured Data Viewer for validation for free https://classyschema.org/Visualisation
55. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit For blogs, it’s a must to specify articles, with authors information https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/article
56. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit For food blogs, your recipes too https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/recipe
57. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Along with reviews with ratings if you have them
58. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/breadcrumb You should also specify your organization info along with breadcrumbs specification
59. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Use WP Recipe Maker or WP Tasty plugins to automate the implementation
60. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit While ensuring you follow Google’s editorial best practices for structured data https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/recipe#guidelines
61. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Validate in bulk using SEO crawlers like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to validate execution
62. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Continuously monitoring their correct ongoing generation via the Google Search Console To avoid this
63. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Remember to prioritize implementing what will maximize your visibility for meaningful queries
64. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit 4. Take care of your pages speed and experience 🥓
65. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/page-experience It’s about giving the best experience to your users with pages speed, security, non-intrusivity
66. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Use the Google Search Console Core Web Vitals report to understand how you’re performing using your real visitors data on mobile and desktop GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
67. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Check which are the pages types with the biggest issues, to prioritize accordingly GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
68. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Use tools like PageSpeed Insights from lab data to detect configuration hurting your speed https://pagespeed.web.dev/
69. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Complement this data with other speed tools like Wattspeed and WebPageTest https://www.webpagetest.org/
70. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Some of the usual ones are, loading resources such as JS or CSS that are not used by the page https://developer.chrome.com/en/docs/lighthouse/performance/unused-javascript/
71. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Not preloading, pre-connecting or pre-fetching resources https://nitropack.io/blog/post/resource-hints-performance-optimization
72. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Using uncompressed images that are not resized to scale https://kinsta.com/blog/optimize-images-for-web/
73. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Showing intrusive interstitials or pop-ups when loading the page, that won’t only harm speed but annoy users and negatively affect rankings
74. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit You can use speed plugins such as WP Rocket or Nitropack to optimize your used resources accordingly and avoid these issues
75. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Consider using a CDN like Cloudflare to further improve your site speed for users independently of their location
76. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/performance/more/website-performance-conversion-rates/ It’s not only about giving the best user page experience but maximizing your revenue too
77. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Bonus: Set an SEO quality and monitoring framework to avoid bugs holding you back 🍫
78. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Recurring SEO bugs are a common challenge that don’t allow us to advance as planned
79. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit It’s then fundamental to set an SEO quality framework through the whole SEO process SEO ACTION PLAN ONGOING SEO EXECUTION SEO QUALITY ASSURANCE FRAMEWORK EDUCATION 
 To prevent SEO mistakes VALIDATION 
 To avoid launching 
 SEO Errors MONITORING 
 To catch SEO incidents fast
80. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Agree on using SEO configuration checklists to validate when doing any blog update or release. Copy this one to start. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TSu_h9Hw-U0rLv0xO46jeV0w3o_LmIsRWMLI7WhLfNM/
81. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Set a release validation workflow, before and 
 after launching, taking “what-ifs” into account PRE-RELEASE SEO VALIDATION: OK? SEO IMPLEMENTATION YES NO YES ON-GOING SEO VALIDATION SEO RELEASE NO FIX POST-RELEASE SEO VALIDATION: OK? YES NO FIX ON-GOING SEO VALIDATION: OK? YES NO FIX IN LESS 24H REVERSE IMPLEMENTATION
82. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Continuously monitor SEO configuration of the different pages types to ensure desired status https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bU7yt3RnOAQ_FfhFidJgcaFKOnEaRm1bVvAF3UQzJE8/
83. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Use real-time SEO crawlers to be alerted of unwanted SEO changes fast ContentKing Little Warden SEO Radar
84. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Configure your real-time monitoring to catch when meaningful tech & content change
85. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Set the alerts so they go to the relevant email, slack or pm tool to not be missed
86. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit This is how you say goodbye to continuous SEO bugs that hold your execution back WEB PLATFORM CONFIGURATION/SETTINGS CHANGES INTEGRATED VALIDATION ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC & CONVERSIONS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS WEB RANKINGS DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS QUERIES SEARCH POPULARITY DECREASE/INCREASE ALERTS WEB CONTENT & TECHNICAL CONFIGURATION CHANGES ALERTS CONTENT OPTIMIZATION & TECH SEO CONFIGURATION CHECKLIST FOR COMMON WORKFLOWS COMPANY CONTENT OPTIMIZATION & TECH SEO GUIDELINES/WIKI ONLINE SEO TRAINING AND Q&AS FOR TECH/CONTENT/[STAKEHOLDERS] TEAMS RECURRING / ONGOING SEO TECH/CONTENT VALIDATION PRE & POST WEB RELEASES EDUCATION VALIDATION MONITORING MENTIONS & BACKLINKS ALERTS WEBSITE SEARCH CRAWLING ISSUES ALERTS SPAM OR MANUAL ACTIONS ALERTS RECOMMENDATIONS AND REPORTS FEATURING SEO CONCEPTS & IMPORTANCE TOWARDS GOALS
87. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Learn more about setting an SEO Quality Assurance Framework in this presentation https://speakerdeck.com/aleyda/goodbye-seo-fck-ups-learn-to-set-an-seo-quality-assurance-framework
88. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit By taking care of these you will set the base for cost-effective technical SEO efforts that actually help you to achieve goals 1. Ensure your content inventory availability 🍣 2. Proportionally endorse key, meant to be ranked pages 🌮 3. Maximize your pages SERPs visibility with structured data 🍝 4. Take care of your pages speed and experience 🥓 Bonus: Set an SEO quality and monitoring framework to avoid bugs holding you back 🍫
89. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Want more? Take a look at these two free resources I’ve created: LearningSEO & SEOFOMO hub.seofomo.co learningseo.io
90. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Too much work?
91. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Remember it’s all about results, revenue and positive ROI
92. By @aleyda from @orainti for #seosummit Thank you! I’m Aleyda Solis ❏ SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti ❏ SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +30 countries ❏ Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.” ❏ Crawling Mondays Video & Podcast Series Host ❏ SEOFOMO & MarketingFOMO Newsletters Author ❏ Maker LearningSEO.io ❏ European Search Personality of the Year in 2018 SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti @aleyda Aleyda Solis