Tag: SEO

SEO Resources

Since this blog is about Drupal and not SEO per se, I am finishing this subject up. I have a few web resources listed below that you might want to check out. But really, just google SEO Best Practices and start reading. Learn the subject then come up with a plan that suits your site.

  • What is your competition? What do they do? If you have direct competition that does a better job that you, reverse engineer their methods and implement them more effectively.
  • Get the Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Tools configured. They are free. Remember that Yahoo! search is really Bing.
  • Read. Learn SEO.
  • Develop a plan that is best for your site. If you are aiming at a niche market like me, you don’t need to compete; you need to drive awareness. And you need to satisfy a need. So make sure your content addresses what they want.
  • Develop a marketing plan that has nothing to do with the web in addition to all this other stuff.

Beginners SEO

Search Engine Optimization for WordPress « WordPress Codex

On-Page SEO Best Practices SEOmoz

Google Webmaster/Analytics, Bing Tools, SEO, Drupal and WordPress

I’ve been working with the Google analytics and webmaster tools. These are really helpful and I recommend that you take a look at them for your site. I’m doing the “dev” work for this site. Setting up the tags and such. I believe that it will actually be easier to do this in drupal than wordpress since wordpress.com doesn’t allow you to upload javascript files.

So I have the webmaster tools configured and they are working. that isn’t too bad. just get the account, the meta tag and put it into the wp widget. then verify. i’ve also tied the analytics page to the webmaster tools. i have a message from google that says that it is tied in but i have yet to see any actual data. will look more later.

I also have the Bing Webmaster tools configed for this site. I just checked that and I must have something misconfigured. althought the site map that I submitted it showing up. not sure. will look this afternoon.

I don’t believe that you really need more than those two engines. if anyone has an opinion on this, please share it because i’m probably missing something.

SEO Checklist

Today has been pretty productive in regards to the SEO checklist. I spent many hours on this today. Here is what I have done.

  1. Install Administration menu module – Easy choice.
  2. Install Elements module. – No. Don’t believe I’ll need it at this point.
  3. Install Security Review module – Security is good. installed
  4. Install Module Filter module – Should be core.
  5. Configure Page Title module – Doing this instead of Meta tags.
  6. Google/Bing stuff – Do it all. Including the analytics stuff. Why not? I’ve had Google and Live IDs for years now anyway.
  7. Install Context Keywords module – not but sounds really cool. Present differnet options based on what they searched for.
  8. Install Meta tags – No.
  9. Install Scheduler module – Easy choice.
  10.  Install HTML Purifier module. – Not enough people use it yet.
  11. Install Search 404 module – Yes. Cool mod.
  12. Install SEO Compliance Checker module – No
  13. Install Read More Link module – No
  14. Validate and check broken links – don’t have enough content to do this now. Will do it later.
  15. Submit site to search engines – Bing and Google.  I didn’t have to do this in all the ways that the modules do. I have access to the html root so I just uploaded the verification file myself.
  16. Install AddThis module – only one that i went with for Social Media. There are several choices. I believe this one to be the best.

Read all that you can on this stuff. the list is great but you need to be educated on the subject to do it properly.

Tomorrow, I configure Mollom. I’ve done it before and it isn’t too bad.

SEO Modules for Production

This references my post – Production Change Request – Modules for SEO.

I am now installing and enabling choice modules for SEO. Some of the big issues that I have read about concern path redirection, aliasing and multilingual capability. So I am going to avoid pathauto and global redirect and others that are similar. There also is a warning about using the Title Module and Meta Tags together as they do some of the same things. Buyer beware.

SEO is important of course, but since I’m aiming at a niche market so to speak, it isn’t so critical that I “beat” the competition in page rankings as it would be in other industries. Do your research and check out all the great SEO sites available out there to customize a plan for yourself. Will add to this post in a bit.

More SEO for tomorrow

Well, I didn’t get as much done today as I would have liked. Seems to be that way a lot. Aim high I suppose.

Tomorrow I will be finishing up the SEO stuff. Installing the modules on Prod, configing. And adding the info from Google and Bing. Those are some of the real keys. But…

The number one key is content. Make sure that you have something to say, that it is relevant and informative. I never expected this blog to be anything more than a sounding board for my ideas on what to do with Drupal. And while it has succeeded there, it has also attracted some attention. Which, I would like to thank those folk for. That in itself has helped me hone out some of my ideas.

SEO stuff

Yesterday I installed the SEO checklist from Volacci. I felt a little overwhelmed at first from the sheer number of modules and submodules that are installed. So, I did not install them on Prod even though I submitted a Change Request. Today, I began going through all the different settings that are available in the checklist in my Sand environment. And once i started, I realized that they aren’t too bad. Some of the items (adding verifications from Google and Bing) really can’t be done in a non-prod environment so i’m waiting on those. Installing and configuring Mollom is similar. But the long and short is that I feel like the newly added submods and mods are ok. I will go ahead and install them in prod.

One note, i reviewing some of the mods that I didn’t install in sand (mainly the things with URL redirects and aliases), I have found additional details about these features not playing too nicely with some of the multilingual aspects. And those are more important to me.

this site will not really be in direct competition with anyone so SEO isn’t as important to me as it would be in another industry. In most other cases SEO is crucial. But not here.

Production Change Request – Modules for SEO

Install New Modules for SEO and others (Listed below – Each is a separate module)

OK, this is a lot more involved than I thought it would be on the front end. I am going to install all these in the ole sandbox and see what happens first. Install on Prod later.

this has turned into a major deal. installing these 23 modules installs around 65 total modules and submodules that must be evaluated and enabled. i am copying and pasting what i am enabling below.

i’ve checked over everything and it all looks ok so far. the enabled submods are listed below. but Prod has not been done; that will have to wait until i feel ok about all this stuff.

I have 149 of 182 modules/submodules installed

                                                                                                                                           S       P

  1. SEO Checklist
  2. Checklist API
  3. Elements
  4. Security Review
  5. Page Title                                                                                                                         
  6. Google Analytics
  7. Google Analytics Tokenizer
  8. Context Keywords
  9. Meta tags                                                                                                                         
  10. Meta Tags Quick
  11. Scheduler module.
  12. HTML Purifier module.
  13. Search 404 module
  14. SEO Compliance Checker module.                                                                       
  15. Site verification
  16. XML Sitemap
  17. AddThis module.
  18. Service links module.                                                                                                 
  19. Share Buttons (AddToAny) module.
  20. Facebook social plugins integration module.
  21. Follow module.
  22. Mollom module
  23. Boost                                                                                                                                 
ENABLED NAME VERSION DESCRIPTION OPERATIONS
AddThis 7.x-4.0-alpha1 AddThis.com provides an easy way to share your content across the web.

Requires: Block (enabled), Field (enabled), Field SQL storage (enabled)
Required by: AddThis Displays (disabled)
AddThis Displays 7.x-4.0-alpha1 Adds the AddThis display types to render several basic types of AddThis buttons.

Requires: AddThis (disabled), Block (enabled), Field (enabled), Field SQL storage (enabled)
 x AddToAny 7.x-4.0 Helps readers share, bookmark, and email your articles and pages using any service, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, StumbleUpon, and over 100 more using the Lockerz Share / AddToAnywidget.
 x Basic SEO Rules 7.x-1.5 Basic rules for the SEO compliance checker module

Requires: SEO Compliance Checker (disabled)
Basque Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Basque Services: Zabaldu, Bildu, Aupatu

Requires: Service links (disabled)
Book 7.19 Allows users to create and organize related content in an outline.
Boost 7.x-1.0-beta2 Caches generated output as a static file to be served directly from the webserver.
 x Checklist API example 7.x-1.0-beta4 Provides an example implementation of the Checklist API.

Requires: Checklist API (enabled)
 x Context Keywords 7.x-1.0-beta1 Provides conditional contexts based on the keywords from the referring search engine.

Requires: Context (enabled), Chaos tools (enabled)
Dutch Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Dutch Services: eKudos, Hyves, Nujij

Requires: Service links (disabled)
 x Elements 7.x-1.2 Provides a library of Form API elements.
Entity Translation 7.x-1.0-beta2 Allows entities to be translated into different languages.

Requires: Locale (enabled)
Required by: Entity Translation Menu (disabled), Entity Translation Upgrade (disabled)
Entity Translation Menu 7.x-1.0-beta2 Allows menu items to be translated on the entity form.

Requires: Entity Translation (disabled), Locale (enabled), Internationalization (enabled), Variable (enabled), Menu translation (enabled), Menu (enabled), String translation (enabled), Translation sets (enabled)
Entity Translation Upgrade 7.x-1.0-beta2 Provides an upgrade path from node-based translation to field-based translation.

Requires: Entity Translation (disabled), Locale (enabled)
 x Extra functionality 7.x-2.7 Automatic settings for meta tags (quick)

Requires: Meta tags (quick) (disabled), Taxonomy (enabled), Options (enabled), Field (enabled), Field SQL storage (enabled)
Farsi Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Farsi services: Balatarin, Donbaleh, Friendfa, Viwio.

Requires: Service links (disabled)
Favorite Services 7.x-2.1 Add the page in your favorite, work with Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera

Requires: Service links (disabled)
 x fb social 7.x-2.0-beta4 Provides integration with Facebook social plugins

Requires: Chaos tools (enabled)
 x Follow 7.x-1.0-alpha1 Add sitewide and per user links to social network profiles.
 x General Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Services: Blinklist, Box, del.icio.us, Digg, Diigo, Facebook, Furl, Google Bookmark, Google Buzz, Icerocket, Identi.ca, Linkedin, Mister Wong, Mixx, MySpace, Newsvine, Newskicks, Phing this, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Technorati favorite, Twitter, Yahoo Bookmark

Requires: Service links (disabled)
German Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the German Services: Alltagz, Colivia, Icio, InfoPirat, Linkarena, MeinVZ, Mister Wong, Netselektor, Oneview, Readster, seekXL, SeoIGG, Weblinkr, Webnews, Xing, Yigg

Requires: Service links (disabled)
 x Google Analytics 7.x-1.3 Allows your site to be tracked by Google Analytics by adding a Javascript tracking code to every page.
 x Google Analytics Tokenizer 7.x-1.3 Converts the Google Analytics cookie into useful token values.

Requires: Token (enabled)
GTranslate 7.x-1.9 Uses Google power to translate your web site.
 x HTML Purifier 7.x-1.0 Filter that removes malicious HTML and ensures standards compliant output.
Hungarian Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Hungarian Service: iWiW

Requires: Service links (disabled)
ICanLocalize translation service 7.x-1.0-beta1 Localization of content using the ICanLocalize translation service.

Requires: Core (enabled), Content translation (enabled), Locale (enabled), Content (enabled), Translate (enabled)
Italian Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Italian Services: Diggita, Meemi, OkNotizie, Segnalo.com, TechNotizie, Wikio, ZicZac

Requires: Service links (disabled)
Keyword Rules 7.x-1.5 Keyword rule checks for the SEO compliance checker module

Requires: SEO Compliance Checker (disabled)
Local translation service 7.x-1.0-beta1 Localization of content using local translators.

Requires: Core (enabled), Content translation (enabled), Locale (enabled), Content (enabled), Translate (enabled)
 x Meta tags 7.x-1.0-beta4 Adds support and an API to implement meta tags.

Requires: Token (enabled), Chaos tools (enabled)
Required by: Meta tags: Context (disabled), Meta tags: Dublin Core (disabled), Meta tags: Open Graph (disabled), Meta tags: Twitter Cards (disabled)
 x Meta tags (quick) 7.x-2.7 Meta tags support build using FieldAPI/EntityAPI

Required by: Extra functionality (disabled), Upgrade from nodewords (disabled)
 x Meta tags: Context 7.x-1.0-beta4 Assigned Meta tags using Context definitions, allowing them to be assigned by path and other criteria.

Requires: Context (enabled), Chaos tools (enabled), Meta tags (disabled), Token (enabled)
Meta tags: Dublin Core 7.x-1.0-beta4 Provides the fifteen Dublin Core Metadata Element Set 1.1 meta tags from the Dublin Core Metadata Institute.

Requires: Meta tags (disabled), Token (enabled), Chaos tools (enabled)
 x Meta tags: Open Graph 7.x-1.0-beta4 Provides support for open graph meta tags.

Requires: Meta tags (disabled), Token (enabled), Chaos tools (enabled)
x Meta tags: Twitter Cards 7.x-1.0-beta4 Provides support for Twitter’s Card meta tags. NOTE: Only use if the site supports SSL as all URLs *must* be secured via HTTPS.

Requires: Meta tags (disabled), Token (enabled), Chaos tools (enabled)
OpenID 7.19 Allows users to log into your site using OpenID.
 x Page Title 7.x-2.7 Enhanced control over the page title (in the <head> tag).

Requires: Token (enabled)
PHP filter 7.19 Allows embedded PHP code/snippets to be evaluated.
Polish Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Polish Services: Blip, Wykop, Sledzik

Requires: Service links (disabled)
Russian Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Russian Services (12+3): 100zakladok, Ruspace, Mister Wong, Memori, Moemesto, MyScoop, Vaau, Yandex, LinkStore, Bobrdobr, Lopas, Communizm, Newsland, News2, Smi2

Requires: Service links (disabled)
 x Scheduler 7.x-1.0 This module allows nodes to be published and unpublished on specified dates and time.
 x Search 404 7.x-1.2 Automatically search for the keywords in URLs that result in 404 errors and show results instead of Page-Not-Found.

Requires: Search (enabled)
 x Security Review 7.x-1.0 Site security and configuration review module.
 x SEO Compliance Checker 7.x-1.5 Checks the SEO compliance of a node at it’s creation/modification

Required by: Basic SEO Rules (disabled), Keyword Rules (disabled)
 x Service links 7.x-2.1 Module engine for add various service links about sharing networks to nodes.

Required by: Basque Services (disabled), Dutch Services (disabled), Farsi Services (disabled), Favorite Services (disabled), Forward Services (disabled), General Services (disabled), German Services (disabled), Hungarian Services (disabled), Italian Services (disabled), Polish Services (disabled), Print Services (disabled), Russian Services (disabled), Service Links Displays (disabled), Service Links Share (disabled), Service Links Sprites (disabled), Spanish Services (disabled), Swedish Services (disabled), Widget Services (disabled)
 x Service Links Sprites 7.x-2.1 Add the ability to handle sprites with Service Links

Requires: Service links (disabled)
 x Site Verification 7.x-1.0 Verifies ownership of a site for use with search engines.
 x Spanish Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Spanish Services: Barrapunto, Fresqui, Latafanera, Meneame, Tuenti

Requires: Service links (disabled)
 x Statistics 7.19 Logs access statistics for your site.
Swedish Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Swedish Services: Bloggy, Pusha

Requires: Service links (disabled)
Testing 7.19 Provides a framework for unit and functional testing.
Toolbar 7.19 Provides a toolbar that shows the top-level administration menu items and links from other modules.
Upgrade from nodewords 7.x-2.7 Transform nodewords data to Drupal 7 fields

Requires: Meta tags (quick) (disabled)
 x Widget Services 7.x-2.1 Provide the Widgets: Digg Smart Button, Facebook Like, Facebook Share, Google Plus One, Linkedin Share Button, Twitter

Requires: Service links (disabled)
 x XML sitemap 7.x-2.0-rc2 Creates an XML sitemap conforming to the sitemaps.org protocol.

Required by: XML sitemap custom (disabled), XML sitemap engines (disabled), XML sitemap internationalization (disabled), XML sitemap menu (disabled), XML sitemap node (disabled), XML sitemap taxonomy (disabled), XML sitemap user (disabled)
 x XML sitemap custom 7.x-2.0-rc2 Adds user configurable links to the sitemap.

Requires: XML sitemap (disabled)
 x XML sitemap engines 7.x-2.0-rc2 Submit the sitemap to search engines.

Requires: XML sitemap (disabled)
 x XML sitemap internationalization 7.x-2.0-rc2 Enables multilingual XML sitemaps.

Requires: XML sitemap (disabled), Internationalization (enabled), Locale (enabled), Variable (enabled)
 x XML sitemap menu 7.x-2.0-rc2 Adds menu item links to the sitemap.

Requires: XML sitemap (disabled), Menu (enabled)
 x XML sitemap node 7.x-2.0-rc2 Adds content links to the sitemap.

Requires: XML sitemap (disabled)
 x XML sitemap taxonomy 7.x-2.0-rc2 Add taxonomy term links to the sitemap.

Requires: XML sitemap (disabled), Taxonomy (enabled), Options (enabled), Field (enabled), Field SQL storage (enabled)
 x XML sitemap user 7.x-2.0-rc2 Adds user profile links to the sitemap.

Requires: XML sitemap (disabled)

SEO for Drupal 7

This one is going to go on the “good modules” post but I also want to talk about it here.

Go grab the Drupal SEO Module from Volacci. You will also need the ChecklistAPI module. The SEO module will give you a great check list of things to do. Mostly for SEO but also for other important things like anti-spam, clean URLs and administration. Check it out; not to be missed.Volacci Logo

Drupal SEO Checklist Module was designed and paid for by Volacci, a leading Digital Marketing Agency that specializes in Drupal SEO. Contact Volacci