Search London - The technical factors that every small or local business should be achieving

The simplified deck from my presentation at Search London on 10th May 2016. This presentation was a preview from my larger talk that's happening at Ungagged London in June 2016.

Transcript

1. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 @JamesBavington @StrategiQ The technical factors that every small or local business should be achieving
2. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 • 10 years agency experience • Background in design & development • Specialist in on-page SEO • Technical Director at StrategiQ • Specialised in SMBs • Studio in Ipswich Suffolk • Team of 13 creatives & marketers
3. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 I ensure StrategiQ’s creative & technical team produce the best possible digital media for our marketers.
4. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 SMBs can have enterprise level, optimised websites without spending loads of money.
5. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 Achievable technical objectives that Google and most importantly your users want to see.
6. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 before we start… The Technical Cheatsheet for Small & Local Businesses 23-24 June 2016 ungagged.com/london Tickets still available
7. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 The Technical Cheatsheet for Small & Local Businesses 1. The Quick Wins 2. Structured Data with JSON-LD 3. ‘Mobile Friendly’ 4. Site Speed & Hosting 5. HTTPS 6. Area/Coverage Pages 7. Google My Business 8. Conversion 9. The Technical Cheat Sheet for Local/SMBs 23-24 June 2016 ungagged.com/london Tickets still available
8. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 Site Speed & Hosting
9. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 2010 Page Speed is a ranking factor albeit small, mainly targeting slow sites. bit.ly/SL_speed_algo Right now.. Page Speed is a big usability factor for users, particularly on mobile. 2015 Google have been experimenting with SERP Slow Labels. bit.ly/SL_slow_labels
10. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 where do I start? The Obvious ? • Use a good theme with minimal plugins. • Compress, combine and minify your code. • Compress your images. • Use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) • Reduce DNS lookups • Compression via .htaccess The Difference • Use specialist hosting • Use 3rd Party performance services • But perhaps most importantly…
11. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 1. Create a culture that strives for performance. 2. Specify performance as a tech requirement. 3. Document, share and evolve best practice. get buy-in from your developers
12. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 http://brook.wpengine.com/
13. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 http://brook.wpengine.com/
14. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 https://wpengine.com Seek specialist hosting
15. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 For the developers: 1. Migration tool 2. Staging environment 3. Git Push & Version Control 4. Automated Daily Back-ups 5. Automatic WP updates For the SEO / Account Exec 1. Fast EverCache architecture 2. Built-in CDN 3. £34pa SSLs or 3rd party SSL 4. No caching/security plugins needed 5. Built-in Redirect Rules Example WP Engine Plan £7 10 installs per month £4 100 installs per month
16. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 We migrated 25 WordPress clients over 3 days from various hosts. 36% Average decrease in page load speed (Based on an average of 5 tests taken before and after the migration).
17. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 That’s great, but is there anything quick and easy I can do in the short-term?
18. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 https://www.cloudflare.com/
19. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 Cloudflare User Your Server Routing your site through CloudFlare CDN Optimisation Security DNS Integrated, fast DNS services. DDoS Protection from advanced DDoS attacks Enterprise-grade Website Application Firewall. Fast caching for both mobile and desktop users. Distributed content that speeds up your website.
20. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 CloudFlare’s free CDN & Optimisation example 3 sec 2 sec 1 sec 0 sec 2.71 sec 2.09 sec 1.67 sec Shared Hosting (Based on an average of 5 tests taken before and after the migration).
21. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 https:// & Security
22. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 Dec ‘15 Google have started prioritising indexing HTTPS:// over HTTP:// bit.ly/ https_indexing Aug ‘14 HTTPs is a ‘slight’ ranking factor and increasing usability and trust factor. bit.ly/ https_signal Jan ‘16 Google are still experimenting by shaming insecure sites in Chrome. bit.ly/ http_shame Dec ‘15 Chrome launches a dedicated security panel. bit.ly/ chrome_security_panel
23. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 “The goal of this proposal is to more clearly display to users that HTTP provides no data security.” You can see this Chrome experiment today, navigate here in your Chrome browser: chrome://flags
24. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 Browsers insist on a SSL/TLS connection for the HTTP/2 Protocol. bit.ly/pete_http2
25. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 OK, I’ll do it, how much does it cost?
26. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016
27. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 or free at CloudFlare!
28. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 User Cloudflare Server User Cloudflare Server User Cloudflare Server SSL Off Free Flexible SSL Full SSL* * Requires valid SSL on your server CloudFlare’s free service includes a Flexible SSL. Ecommerce still requires an SSL on your server.
29. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016
30. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016
31. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 converting your site from http to https isn’t as painful as you may think John Mueller’s migration tips and myths bit.ly/https_migration Posted 1st Feb 2016
32. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 cumulative iteration of best practice. Anybody can have a fast, secure site. 1. Engage your developers with page speed. 2. Seek specialised hosting. It’s inexpensive. 3. Route through CloudFlare for free CDN & Security. 4. Secure your site. Free SSLs at CloudFlare. 5. Switching to https isn’t as complicated as you think. summary
33. @JamesBavington @StrategiQ Search London 10th May 2016 Thank you. @jamesbavington The Technical Cheatsheet for Local SMBs ungagged.com/london 23rd-24th July 2016