First, let it be said, that not all SEO changes are easy, nor are they worth the time and effort. Especially if you’re only changing from good to slightly better. This statement is especially true for site wide URL changes. These types of changes are risky and often difficult to do correctly.
For the purpose of this post, we won’t be addressing url’s, instead we will be working on effective but low-risk solutions.
1. Canonicalize Internal Duplicates – Since the onset of Panda, Google has often times, done a poor job of choosing the right version of a page. Because of the fail, there could be some serious consequences to letting your indexed pages run amok.
Low authority sites can end up diluting your site’s index and pushing out your more important pages, like your product pages. This error could potentially devastate your overall site and its productivity.
The three most common varieties of internal duplicates are:
* Duplicates caused by session variables and tracking parameters
* Duplicates caused by search sorts and filters
* Duplicates caused by alternate URL paths to the same page
Each time a search spider reads a new url they see a new page. If your duplicates truly are identical, using the canonical tag or a 301-redirect would be best.
2. Unique Title Tags – Pages that you want to rank need unique, descriptive, and keyword targeted title tags. Your title tag is still a powerful ranking factor so be sure not to neglect them.
3. Unique Meta Descriptions – You need to try to make your descriptions meaningful and attractive to your visitors. You don’t want to make sentences packed with keywords.
Meta descriptions have no direct impact on your ranking but they do have two indirect impacts:
* It (usually) determines your search snippet and impacts click-through rate (CTR).
* It’s another uniqueness factor that makes pages look more valuable.
4. Shorten Your Title Tags – By using long title tags you weaken the SEO impact of any given keyword. Visitors to your site will tend to skim for search results and these long tags are annoying.
I’ve seen many use them and they really need to stop. An example would be using your homepage title at the end of each of your pages.
You are diluting the first few keywords for the page and causing each of your pages to compete with your homepage unnecessarily.
