Introduction 2 Generating Content 3
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- Navigate this page:
- Breadcrumb navigation
- Internal navigation
- Internal linking
- URL and file naming optimization
- SEO healthcheck
XML sitemapWhat is it? An XML sitemap is in place to assist search engines in finding pages of a website that they might not find otherwise. In its simplest form, an XML sitemap is a 'behind the scenes' XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site). An XML sitemap can also include images and videos to ensure these are also indexed by search engines.
In addition to assisting spiders discover pages of your website to index, XML sitemaps can include more information, such as how often the page is likely to change, the importance of the page, when the page was last modified, and when the sitemap was last updated. An XML sitemap can contain all of the pages within the website. For news, blogs, videos and images, a separate XML sitemap can also be placed within the website for each of these separate elements. This can assist with the indexing of content and help achieve visibility for this content within Google results.
To ensure correct geo-targeting for different country/language selections the XML sitemap should include ‘Href = lang’. Within the list of site URLs it is possible to include the priority of each page and how regularly the page is updated; this helps search engine crawlers to understand the hierarchy of the site. For very large sites that are clearly split into sections it’s best to use XML sitemap indices. This involves creating one overarching general XML sitemap that makes reference to other XML sitemaps specific to a subdomain or subsection. Keep XML sitemaps short – search engine crawlers get bored easily. Breadcrumb navigationWhat is it? Also known as a breadcrumb trail or breadcrumbs, breadcrumb navigation is designed to help users take a step back in their journey and return to previous pages without repeated clicks of the back button. Implementing breadcrumbs makes it possible for both a user and a search engine crawler to move back and forth in their journey around the site. Breadcrumbs are great for SEO, allowing ‘spiders’ to crawl the site both up and down the website’s architecture. And they are increasingly common, especially on larger or information-heavy websites because they are signposts: useful, usable and easily understood. 
Why is it important? Pages deep within the site architecture which receive high numbers of quality links are also able to pass Page Rank and value to closely related sections of the website. Usually this is back along the site’s architecture to the most important categories. Recommendations: Use Breadcrumbs to repeat the downward site architecture, just like a smaller version of the overall sitemap. Ensure your page names always incorporate keywords. Internal navigationWhat is it? Internal navigation is the system whereby internal links target deeper pages on the same domain. It is ensuring that your pages all link up logically and usefully; that the deeper, lower pages are easy to get to; and that users or the spiders don’t lose them. Internal Links are most useful for establishing site architecture. On each page, search engines need to see content in order to list pages in their massive, keyword-based, indices. They also need to have access to a crawlable link structure – structures that let spiders browse the pathways of a website – to find all the pages on a website. Why is it important? To make it possible for the major search engines to find the deeper pages on websites it is important that your site has good internal navigation. If a search engine can’t get at your sites’ pages, there’s no hope for them showing up in search engine results. Recommendations: Use clear and effective links on pages to lead users to other relevant content within your site. Internal linkingWhat is it? Interlinking is the process by which an owner of multiple sites links them up to one another. It is also the process of linking different pages of one given website to each other; eg local Healthwatch linking to Healthwatch England. Why is it important? In the same way a website benefits from external links from other websites, it also benefits from keyword focused internal links to its other pages. The best links in SEO are keyword links within good quality content. It is vital to link to the important pages on your website from other relevant pages. These keyword links can be used to improve the search engine rankings of another page and to lead your users through the website.
Instead of text such as ‘more info’ or ‘click here’, proper keyword links ie Watch Anna Bradley of Healthwatch England’s message to Local Healthwatches not only improve the Google relevancy of the pages they link to, but are more likely to be clicked on as they are relevant. Using the keyword of the page gives the user and the search engine an idea of what to expect at the other end of the link. Online businesses often use blogs for internal link building, as well as social media marketing. Google has begun to punish poor quality and ‘shallow’ content. So try not to use more than 1 link per 200 words of content for the best results. And the most important links should always appear first to receive the most SEO value. URL and file naming optimizationWhat is it? Using SEO-friendly naming conventions can assist in optimising each page on the site to be keyword rich, descriptive and unique, cutting down the amount of duplicated content on a website. Why is it important? If a page subject is mentioned in the URL or file name, it will reinforce the relevancy of the page in the search engine rankings. Because Google is like an index, it is more likely to rank web pages that exactly or closely match a search query higher in the results than pages that do not. Top-level URL structure is defined by CMS. URL structure is very important for SEO. Some users define relevance of a page within Search Engine results pages by the URL. Recommendations: Use the same language throughout the URL. Keep sections of URL short and snappy. Put the main keyword at the beginning. Separate words using a hyphen ‘-’. Don’t use special characters (only a–z and 0–9). Don’t use abbreviations (or other elements which are not self-explaining). Don’t use underscores ‘_’ (they get hidden in the underline). Don’t use capital letters, only lower case. Don’t stuff URL with keywords. SEO healthcheckOffsite: external links from the outside to your site (including social media). Onsite technical: ‘behind the scenes’ of the site, its code and structure. Onsite content: elements of the site viewable by users. Accessibility: the site from a search engine crawler point of view.
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