In this article we review several examples of low-hanging search engine optimization (SEO) fruit -- features of a website which can positively impact SEO and which are relatively easy to achieve, along with commentary -- if you have other low-hanging SEO fruit please add them in the comments.
Insofar as implementation is concerned, the focus, as always, is on WordPress-based websites and hence the plugin required to achieve the result is included, where appropriate. In this article our low-hanging SEO fruit requires exactly two plugins: Schema Pro plugin and either the W3 Total Cache plugin or the W3 Total Cache Pro plugin
Note that WordPress has many plugins so there could be other options available that achieve the same net result.
Sitelinks Breadcrumb, Searchbox, and Menu
Not every website qualifies however you still need the schema code and this can be set below using the Schema Pro plugin for WordPress.
The site structure and query are important for Sitelinks to be displayed. Note that the process of generating Sitelinks is automated and also needs to be relevant to the visitor's search query -- the only control you have is over the menu.
From [6] "...for your site's internal links, make sure you use anchor text and alt text that's informative, compact, and avoids repetition.".
The image below has pointers to the appropriate settings.
WordPress Plugin: Schema Pro
Testing
Testing for Sitelinks Breadcrumbs, Searchbox, and Menu can be done visually, by querying the website brand name in Google or Bing, however these changes won't appear immediately and may not appear at all however the schema can be tested using the following two tools.
Google Structured Data Testing Tool
Rich Results Test
Sitelinks Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs in search results act as a navigation aid that gives visitors an easy-to-understand overview of where the page is located on your website [9], they improve site navigation and usability, improves the ability for search engines to crawl a website, and can have a marginal impact on click-through rate (CTR) [14] .
See the "Why aren't breadcrumbs displaying in search results for my site?", video below.
Sitelinks Searchbox
Provides a means for searching a given website right on the Google search results page -- see below for an example.
Sitelinks Menu
The Sitelinks Menu contains default menu choices -- a user who clicks on one becomes a visitor and hence this can help improve the click-through rate (CTR) of a website.
Site Speed
Achieving a fast website can take a fair amount of time however one Wordpress plugin can give a pretty good return on investment and that is the W3 Total Cache plugin or the W3 Total Cache Pro plugin. Either plugin will give you options to positively impact the page load time.
Experience, however, indicates this plugin is not simple to use and requires time to set up and changes need to be tested in order to achieve results like what appears below and it's possible to achieve a page load time which is much faster than what's indicated here -- for example, see the article entitled "How To Reduce Server Response Time In WordPress To Under 200ms (The Item From Google PageSpeed Insights)".
Testing
Refer to the article entitled "Assess Your Website Performance in under Ten Minutes" for more information regarding how performance improvements can be tested. Basically we need to check two things: the page load time before and after changes have been applied using W3 Total Cache or W3 Total Cache Pro and then we need to ensure the pages function the same as prior to the change being made.
See also the article entitled "SEO Cheat Sheet #2: Page Speed & Image Optimization".
HTTP/2
Page load time is important for SEO and moving to HTTP/2 relies on binary transport of data juxtaposed with raw text [11]. This setting can be applied in the Minify -> JS -> HTTP/2 push tick box in the W3 Total Cache plugin.
Testing
Use the KeyCDN HTTP/2 Test Verify HTTP/2.0 Support tool to test that HTTP/2 has been configured correctly.
Before
After
See here for details pertaining to what ALPN supported means.
Security Headers
Incorporating HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) on your website should improve SEO somewhat since using HSTS should positively impact web page load time [17]. Along with HSTS there are other security settings which should be considered and if you're using the W3 Total Cache Plugin you're in luck because these are included with this product.
WordPress Plugin: W3 Total Cache (Browser Cache -> Security Headers)
Testing
See the Security Headers test site -- an example, of which, appears below.
We can also check for the HSTS response header using the curl command below.
curl -s -D- https://coherentlogic.com/ | grep Strict
Conclusion
In conclusion we've covered two plugins which, taken together, can positively impact SEO, user experience, and both security and performance of a website.
What other low-hanging fruits do you know of and what did you do to improve your website? Put your suggestions in comments and we can discuss these in more detail.
Addendum
Site Navigation Breadcrumbs (not the same as Sitelinks Breadcrumbs)
Not to be confused with site navigation breadcrumbs (see the Breadcrumb NavXT plugin), see below, which can be helpful for site navigation and usability purposes also.
See Also
- Schema.org
- IPv6, C-Blocks, and How They Affect SEO
- Google: IPv6 & HTTP/2 Works But You Should Also Support IPv4 & HTTP/1.x
- Google IPv6 Adoption
- The Definitive Guide To Getting Google Sitelinks
- Google Sitelinks
- Google Sitelinks Searchbox
- Everything You Need to Know About Breadcrumbs & SEO
- What are breadcrumbs and why are they important for SEO?
- The Big List of SEO Tips and Tricks for Using HTTPS on Your Website
- What is HTTP/2 and how does it benefit SEO?
- SEO Cheat Sheet #2: Page Speed & Image Optimization
- Assess Your Website Performance in under Ten Minutes
- How to (Maybe) Get Google Sitelinks and If They're Worth Your Time
- Why aren't breadcrumbs displaying in search results for my site?
- A Guide To Schema Markup & Structured Data SEO Opportunities By Site Type
- Why websites should be using HSTS to improve security and SEO
- How to Quickly Get Google SiteLinks for Your Site
Top comments (1)
There are many factors to consider in seo, including ctr. If you don't know what jets are, I recommend this post about Organic SEO CTR