Presentation for Raleigh SEO Meetup on 4/17/2018 on the topic of how technical SEO is way more than just crawling and indexing.

1. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Beyond The Makeup
Technical SEO

2. Paul Shapiro | @fighto

3. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Raleigh
Source: http://www.waymarking.com/gallery/image.aspx?f=1&guid=75b18526-6500-48a3-8a0d-ff0fea765b43&gid=3

4. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
https://searchengineland.com/technical-seo-makeup-
250408

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http://www.amc.com/shows/mad-men/exclusives/about

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What is Technical SEO?

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Typical Meaning, Makeup Falacy
Source: https://searchengineland.com/5-ways-balance-technical-non-technical-seo-280058

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“Any sufficiently technical action undertaken
with the intent to improve search results”
–Russ Jones @ TechSEO Boost 2017 in Boston

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Utilizing technical aptitude and skills to aid, improve,
and enhance both technical and non-technical SEO
tasks.

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Where can you leverage Technical
SEO?

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Examples
• Improving crawling & indexing
• SEO experimentation & design
• Content strategy & keyword research
• Data analysis & analytics
• Reporting
• Automation
• Web Performance Optimization
• Working with JavaScript websites
• Work with new technology
• …

12. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Experimentation + SEO

13. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Conducting SEO Experiments
WHY:
• Far too often, SEOs recommend thing based on the status-quo, best
practices, theory, and pre-conceived notions.
• Experimentation can produce huge lift. Often, some of the largest lift.
• Experimentation can help us better understand how the search engines
work.
HOW:
• Writing testing specs and documentation
• Follow scientific method
• Measure before, after, and attempt to isolate annomolies

14. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Example – Title Tags
Test Group 1: Control – Title Tags
Unchanched (1/10 URLs)
• Amazon.com: Generic 265D Lee
Goal White Butterfly Pink Flowers
Pattern Lace Bamboo Handheld
Folding Fans For Girls Women, Blue,
One Size: Home & Kitchen
• Amazon.com: Microfiber Cleaning
Cloths, 5 Pack, Blue, All-Purpose
Reusable Dust Cloths, Machine
Washable: Home & Kitchen
Test Group 2: Variant A – {Product} |
{Brand.com} (1/10 URLs)
• Cnlinkco Pastoral Floral Printed
Sleeveless Vintage Mini Dress:
Clothing | Amazon.com
• 18 X 18 Inch Cotton Linen Retro
Vintage Home Decorative
Indoor/Outdoor Throw Cushion
Cover / Pillow Sham | Amazon.com
Test Group 2: Variant B – {Brand.com}
Removed (1/10 URLs)
• Amazon.com: John Lennon Inspired
Sunglasses Round Hippie Shades
Retro Colored Lenses (Purple Ice):
Clothing
• Amazon.com: AMTOK Blackhead
Remover Kit Curved Blackhead
Tweezers Kit Pimple Comedone
Extractor Tool Set Dermatologist
Grade Kit Treatment for Blemish , Zit
Popper (Tweezers Kit Rose Gold):
Beauty
Test Group 2: Variant C – {Brand}
(.com removed) (1/10 URLs)
• Amazon.com: Apple Watch Screen
Protector (42mm Series 3/2/1
Compatible)[6-Pack], DeltaShield
BodyArmor Full Coverage Screen
Protector for Apple Watch Military-
Grade Clear HD Anti-Bubble Film:
Toys & Games
• Amazon.com: Kate Aspen LOVE
Chrome Bottle Stopper, Silver/Pink:
Kitchen & Dining
Create Control and Variant Testing Groups

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Example – SERP Experiments

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Resources – Must Reads
1. Etsy A/B Testing Title Tags
https://codeascraft.com/2016/10/25/seo-title-tag-optimization/
2. Pinterest SEO Experimentation
https://medium.com/@Pinterest_Engineering/demystifying-seo-with-experiments-
a183b325cf4c
3. Distilled (maker of DistilledODN), How to Manually Conduct A/B Tests
https://www.distilled.net/resources/do-it-yourself-seo-split-testing-tool-with-causal-
impact/
4. Siege Media CTR Testing
https://www.siegemedia.com/seo/title-tags
5. Some Awesome A/B Tests Distilled Has Run
https://www.slideshare.net/willcritchlow/seo-split-tests-you-should-run-will-critchlow

17. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
STATUS:
TECHNICAL SEO

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Content Strategy

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Run individual search terms…

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Use Headless Browser
https://github.com/GoogleChrome/puppeteer

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Build Personas
Image Source: https://xtensio.com/how-to-create-a-persona/

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Design Content for Ideal Audiences, Web
Sites for Link Building

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STATUS:
TECHNICAL SEO

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Keyword Research

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Filtering +
Data
Manipula-
tions
Make Big Keyword Lists + Prioritize
Seed Keywords
- List
- GWMT
- SEMRush Comp. KWs
- SQR Keywords
Keyword Planner
Suggestions (via
GrepWords)
Google Autocomplete
Semantic Keyword
Recommendations
Google Autocomplete
SEMRush
Domain vs. Domain
Keywords
Google Autocomplete

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Data Manipulations / Calculations
• Get top 10 results from rank checking API (i.e., GetSTAT)
• Use Moz API nodes and find average PA to assess
competiveness.
• Optionally, use SEMRush’s Keyword Difficulty API
Organic
Competition
Search Volume
Keyword Trends
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27. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Data Manipulations / Calculations
• Get top 10 results from rank checking API (i.e., GetSTAT)
• Use Moz API nodes and find average PA to assess
competiveness.
• Optionally, use SEMRush’s Keyword Difficulty API
Organic
Competition
• Get Search Volumes via SEMRush API or via GrepWords APISearch Volume
Keyword Trends
27

28. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Data Manipulations / Calculations
• Get top 10 results from rank checking API (i.e., GetSTAT)
• Use Moz API nodes and find average PA to assess
competiveness.
• Optionally, use SEMRush’s Keyword Difficulty API
Organic
Competition
• Get Search Volumes via SEMRush API or via GrepWords APISearch Volume
• Use 2 Years of Google Trends data to calculate slope and
determine growing/declining keywordsKeyword Trends
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29. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
String ‘em All Together and then…
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30. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
STATUS:
TECHNICAL SEO

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Visualize
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This top-right quadrant contains
keywords with:
• Low competition
• Good growth
Larger bubbles show higher
search volumes.
You can alternatively use
current rank on the x-axis to
signal organic market share like
a traditional growth-share
matrix.Themes, requires
a system of
grouping keywords

32. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
I’ve Gone Through Many Systems of
Keyword Classification Over the Years…
• Regular Expressions + Fuzzy Matching + User Input
• Several APIs that attempt to assign categories
• Extraction of common base terms
• Currently working on clustering model using Google SERP results as context
and few-shot learning (minimal user input for machine labeling)

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STATUS:
TECHNICAL SEO

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Learn More…
SearchLove Presentation about Automating Keyword Research:
http://pshapi.ro/2idcqYF
BrightonSEO Presentation about Semantic Keyword Research:
https://searchwilderness.com/semantic-keyword-research/

35. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Link Building

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Unlinked Mentions
SERP API
Backlink
Checker API
Send Email
w/ Template
“paul shapiro” -site:searchwilderness.com
Moz,
AHREFS, etc.
SMTP

37. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
STATUS:
TECHNICAL SEO

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Content Ideation

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Reddit Data Mining
Reddit Data Mining: Python Script
https://searchwilderness.com/reddit-python-code/
1. Enter filename for output
2. Enter a search or series of searches
3. Choose reddit sorting method. For this purpose,
choose ‘new’
4. Choose to look at all of reddit, or isolate to
particular subreddit(s).
5. Schedule with cron to find new topic ideas on a
recurring basis.

40. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Search Volume
90500
74000 74000
49500
33100 33100
22200
14800
12100
5400
3600 3600 3600
1900 1300 1300 1000
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
90000
100000

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Reddit Upvotes
10359
9788
6406
6072
3967
3700
2183
1577
973
733 699
278 272 262 246 241
56
2909
1504
1255 1079 938
1697
993
522
267
512
217 96 95 146 45 54 37
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
Upvotes Comments

42. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
http://bit.ly/gmailperiscope

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STATUS:
TECHNICAL SEO

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Reporting

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Search Console
Schedule to run monthly with Cron
and backup to SQL database:
https://searchwilderness.com/gwmt-
data-python/
JR’s BigQuery vision:
http://pshapi.ro/2vmjDe8

46. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Quick How To
* * * * * command /to/execute
Day of Week (0-6) (Sunday = 0)
Month (1-12)
Hour (0-23)
Day of Month (1-31)
Minute (0-59)

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Run Every Month at Midnight
> crontab -e
> 0 0 1 * * python datacollector.py

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STATUS:
TECHNICAL SEO

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Automation

51. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
301 Redirect Mapping from Old URLs
Crawl
Current Site
Download
Rendered
Pages
Extract Main
Content
(BoilerPipe)
Convert to
Bitvector
Get Historic
URLs from
Wayback
Machine
API
Filter Out
URLs found
on Current
Site
Grab
Rendered
Page from
Wayback
Machine
Extract
Main
Content
(BoilerPipe)
Convert to
Bitvector
Patrick Stox
https://searchengineland.com/fixing-historical-redirects-using-wayback-machine-apis-257628
Cosine
Similarity
Generate
.htaccess
strings
1
2
3

52. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
STATUS:
TECHNICAL SEO

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In Conclusion…

54. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
Technical SEO is…
• More than checklists
• More than crawling & indexing
• NOT makeup

55. Paul Shapiro | @fighto
CatalystDigital.com
Paul Shapiro
https://searchwilderness.com
@fighto
Thanks Go Fish Digital,
Dan Hinckley, and Patrick Stox!