How to know if a wordpress theme is coded correctly for Seo
-
Hi, So I am curious if there is a tool to see if a site is coed properly for Google?
I am running Avada, a standalone theme, yet I am also using a cache plugin.
But when I search my code, its all like on one huge line.
So I am curious if there is a way to verify or check if a theme is coded correctly?
Thank you
-
More how to For Genesis
between being posted on synthesis as well as using Genesis framework you will be in good hands.
Create a studio press login it is complementary. Then if you have issues go to these links
http://my.studiopress.com/tutorials/
(a look)
http://my.studiopress.com/tutorials/community/
http://my.studiopress.com/snippets/
http://my.studiopress.com/faqs/
http://www.studiopress.com/get-started
http://www.gregreindel.com/genesis-code/
https://www.authoritydev.com/wordpress-help/
https://www.authoritydev.com/compare-wordpress-hosting-companies/
http://marketplicity.com/genesis-framework-wordpress/
( custom help can be found here and very high quality)
here is a site that was built by Greg & myself is made it into the studio press showcase
http://www.studiopress.com/showcase/garrison-bespoke
always use
so you can see exactly what Google can see when across your site.
All the best,
Thomas
-
Alan no offense taken.
You have your favorite way of making sites and I have a different opinion. Nothing to harbor any negative feelings over.
I agree with you a 100% hand coded HTML site will be one of the fastest and easiest to crawl sites in the world. Providing the coder knows what they are doing obviously.
however I do not think it would be enough to make any difference especially not enough to spend the time doing it. I have sites that load in well under a second and are over two MB's
I also believe that themes are coded to different standards just like any HTML website there is always a better or worse site out there.
In this case in my opinion Genesis is the best or security speed and support.
But WordPress is HTML it simply creates HTML using its PHP database.
For instance in the case of Genesis it has a lot of developers that have spent countless hours making it the fastest if not one of the fastest ways of taking advantage of what I think is one of the best CMS in the world word press.
If you do not care about how you run your plug-ins and put poorly coded plug-ins without removing them then you can make times simply backup your site like you cannot synthesis just rewind it to the hour before you made a mistake.
The convenience of WordPress for me is unbelievable and I respect your view completely. I just do not know how many pure HTML sites are out there anymore because of the intense effort needed every time you need to add text and that is important adding high-quality photographs, text video etc. is part of Google's algorithm.
In order for you to do that with Dreamweaver and an HTML site I am not saying it is impossible by any means. But I hope we agree that it would take a lot longer.
My opinion is put that time into making sure that your WordPress site is built from the best framework and hosted on the best servers. In this case Berner made a wise decision in my opinion.
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
Yes Synthesis is a excellent choice it comes built and with one copy of the Genesis framework and one copy of theme #69 ( no joke that is the name) installed you can always use your FTP server to save them and they are yours for life. One nice thing about studio press is once you own the framework you can use it on as many sites as you want. In addition to allowing you to purchase child themes for much less money than what you see on the studio press website. Once you have made your purchase you will notice the prices been dropped substantially for themes.
I would ask the guys at Web synthesis to place you on a SSD server currently they are migrating so you most likely will have an SSD VPS however it never hurts to ask. Remember you can also get extremely fast SSL times out of it because of google's spdy
you may want to look into purchasing the Yoast premium WordPress SEO plug-in reason I am saying this is it comes with full support for set up and any issues along with a excellent redirection system for 301 redirects that connects directly to Google webmaster tools.
Hi I am really happy that I was able to point you in the right direction.
Here are some great themes Genesis-based themes
http://appfinite.com/shop/ http://www.indexwp.com/genesis-child-themes/
if you ever have trouble with the code one of the best people in the business is right here
I would recommend using gravity forms but you do not have to do this however it gives it an awesome look and capabilities.
http://www.copyblogger.com/make-wordpress-faster/
http://websynthesis.com/importing-w3-total-cache-settings/
This is a zip file containing the W3 total cach
Settings for both starter and zip they look like whatever your default web browser is. You can use the link above this in order to download them yourself just simply right-click and remember to save the link then upload it as shown.
Only after doing that should you begin building out the fragment caching this is a 10 min. job Max
How to enable fragment caching the correct weight along with my photos.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/FragmentCache/Fragment-Cache-Setup-Guide.pdf
http://websynthesis.com/wsa/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/The-Truth-About-WordPress-Performance.pdf
http://cl.ly/Vjf2/Image 2014-05-27 at 12.18.54 AM.png
http://cl.ly/Vjdc/Image 2014-05-27 at 12.14.53 AM.png
http://cl.ly/VjNj/Image 2014-05-27 at 12.16.07 AM.png
http://www.studiopress.com/news/genesis-and-w3tc-pro.htm
https://s3.amazonaws.com/FragmentCache/Fragment-Cache-Setup-Guide.pdf
Please let me know if I can be of more assistance I have hosting accounts with all the major managed WordPress hosting companies.
Including synthesis they have been great to work with.
I currently have a site based on Genesis you are welcome to check out that is using fragment caching ( I did have to pay USD100 for the Pro license of W3 total cache) because the site is hosted on FireHost.com ( It is really more complex to set up than using synthesis and if you are running WordPress you are better off on synthesis 99% of the time.)
I am running 6 two core instance's with four gigs of RAM Along with a edgecast CDN the reason being is one is a database server the other is a load balanced set up they are designed to fail over from Texas to Arizona in the event of downtime.
I am yet to see any Luckily.
once you have configured your server you will want to test the speed of your Genesis-based site. I recommend using.
I would only recommend adding a content delivery network to synthesis if it is a very image heavy.
I would recommend MaxCDN, edge cast in or cloud front they are all in very good. I like edge cost a lot but price wise maxCDN gives you the most bang for your buck and it is the easiest to use as well.
to maximize speed I would also look at your DNS my favorite is DynECT however it is quite expensive. Another excellent service is edge cast route DNS once again not too expensive but more than you might want to spend. It all depends
however there are some serious bargains out there.
DNS made easy is one of the top three DNS companies when it comes to speed and gives you 10 domains you can control on the web in one place very easily with support for one payment of USD25 a year.
Another service which is not as fast but can do quite a bit and is very inexpensive. Is
http://aws.amazon.com/route53/
I have to warn you Amazon does not have support and while this is an easy to use product it would be my advice to purchase the DNS made easy platform which you can try for 30 days free no credit card and see if you like it first.
Another couple of services you may be interested in our
it provides a lot but does cost eight dollars a month minimum. You can do better than that.
One thing I would like to recommend you do if you say hey listen I do not want to spend money on DNS. even though DNS made easy is a steel you can use cloud flare I am not recommending turning on the cloud flare part of it just using their DNS is 100% fine with the company in 100% free.
It is discussed. Here and simply follow the instructions it is very easy to set up an import your existing DNS. After which make sure you turn off the orange clouds around the a records and c names because this is how cloud flare is activated.
If you experiment with it and you find that you like it no harm no foul remember to turn it on in W3 total cach only if you are going to use it as a CDN. You do not need to do that if you are using it just does the DNS as described here.
https://www.cloudflare.com/dns
See why
http://www.solvedns.com/dns-comparison/
However I do not believe you will need any of these things on synthesis it is extremely fast.
If you have anymore set up questions or would like any tips I would be more than happy to help you out.
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you,
Thomas
-
Hi Thomas,
As always the Most Intelligent and Compassionate Answers!
I purchased the Avada theme from Theme Forest because I was a sheep and followed the heard of people who have bought it.
I wanted a mobile responsive theme, and it worked.
Yet...
When I started looking at forum posts and such, it seems like good code is very important. So it started to make me wonder, "What if my theme is not coded for seo and google?"
I am on the edge to jump on board with genesis.
But I did read the the hooks are tough for newbies like me.
Even though some themes, companies, etc have support staff, but it may take days to get help if you get any at all. So this makes me worry.
But on a good note, I found that Synthesis - a Copyblogger company I think, includes Genesis with the monthly price. So they make sure everything is setup correctly, So I like that for sure.
I mean I still need to design it, but at least the setup will be right,
Anyways thank you again Thomas. You are as always amazing!
-
I am afraid that nothing you have said changes my mind, while you have an opinion, I am going by the hundreds of crawls I have made on WordPress sites and the thousands of problems I found on them.
No offence but only someone that can not write code would say tat WordPress could compete with a hand coded site.
-
"Honestly, I find wordpress to be a nightmare for SEO, if you crawl a wordpress site they are inherently bad, themes make things worse and the more plugins the more problems.
I don't know a CMS that is perfect for SEO, but I think wordpress is the worst."
I am certain Alan is joking to say WordPress is the worst of all CMS is that is really far fetched and not true at all.
However there is another CMS I can think of that is reasonably priced and might be right up your alley. It is called HubSpot.com it is a fantastic CMS and has 24 seven support they are a great company and might be your next pick. However keep in mind that you could have just bought a theme that was very well thought out when being built and therefore made your experience rough. This can all be fixed http://moz.com/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success
Alan,
I respectfully disagree.
WordPress is something that if you use the wrong plug-ins and code it improperly yes you can cause problems. Howeverthat is the case for all websites minus the plug-ins. If you code and HTML site poorly it will run poorly. WordPress is in my opinion one of the most search engine friendly CMS is on the planet it would not represent almost 20% of the web if that were not the case or have Matt Cutts use it for his own blog over blogger (a Google tool)
I do agree that there are different levels of code.
For instanceI would simply use Genesis framework and make sure my plug-ins are high quality. Or use as few plug-ins is possible.
I respect that you have an opinion that HTML just HTML only sites in are less buggy.
However it does not appear to me that all the wonderful sites being run on WordPress that are ranking so well are having any issues why would it be so popular and I will give you a great for instance.
it is run on a powerful server the coding is through Genesis, Web synthesis is the host, HTML 5 with CSS 3 and something that a regular 100% HTML website cannot do be updated easily from the backend.
Ghost is still just a blog and my honest opinion is it will stay that way at least for now and the next few years.
Berner I would suggest that you try using http://newrainmaker.com/pilot/
I will use it in front of the current varnish through port 80 configuration I would like to see how it works with the addition of fragment caching
Alan,
I respectfully disagree.
WordPress is something that if you use the wrong plug-ins and code it improperly yes you can cause problems. However that is the case for all websites minus the plug-ins. If you code and HTML site poorly it will run poorly. WordPress is in my opinion one of the most search engine friendly CMS is on the planet it would not represent almost 20% of the web if that were not the case or have Matt Cutts use it for his own blog over blogger (a Google tool)
I do agree that there are different levels of code.
For instance I would simply use Genesis framework and make sure my plug-ins are high quality. Or use as few plug-ins is possible.
I respect that you have an opinion that HTML just HTML only sites in are less buggy.
However it does not appear to me that all the wonderful sites being run on WordPress that are ranking so well are having any issues why would it be so popular and I will give you a great for instance.
it is run on a powerful server the coding is through Genesis, Web synthesis is the host, HTML 5 with CSS 3 and something that a regular 100% HTML website cannot do be updated easily from the backend.
Ghost is still just a blog and my honest opinion is it will stay that way at least for now and the next few years.
I would suggest that you use rainmaker.com
The Yoast WordPress SEO plug-in along with scribecontent.com is included plus everything that authority.com from copyblogger.com has available.
Anything you can imagine wanting to do with site you can do there.
The biggest plus the plug-ins are already built-in. They are all high quality the caching the tedious things that bother people they are all taken care of.
If you try it you do not get charged after 30 days believe it or not it is amazing.
However why not use Genesys framework for your website instead of a code canyon theme you can do everything that your current theme does it just needs to be recoded in a faster better framework.
Now I am not saying what you are using is terrible. However code Canyon is hit or miss you do not know what your getting get until you get in to the backend of it.
You can have the developer create a replica of your current site or better yet: 99 designs or design crowd
have your dream site built for about 350 and up where they crowd sourced designers than have it coded on a very high quality framework like Genesis.
I think rainmaker will fix your problems and gives you a lot if you do not like dealing with the stuff but want all the ability of WordPress.
The other options I would look at our hosting your site with a managed WordPress hosting provider Pressable, GetFlywheel, web synthesis, WP engine, PressLabs, Pagely that way you are in good hands.
If you want to send me a private message I will offer you the ability to take away cashing issues and all that other stuff by migrating your site for free to one of the hosts above.
Once it is set up correctly you can actually talk to the hosting provider and figure out what is a bad plug-in and what is a good plug-in.
Flywheel offers free migrations and 15 days of staging server (a full copy of your site running on their servers)
to see if you like it. Why not try that and tell them the issues that you are having though I do not know what they are I can almost guarantee you that you will have no problem getting them fixed and when you want to do something that you cannot do with a static HTML site they can recommend whatever plug-in or coding is needed.
Last but not least https://www.authoritydev.com
Each are able to make your WordPress problems look like no big deal. Then you can have a functional site that you will enjoy.
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
Honestly, I find wordpress to be a nightmare for SEO, if you crawl a wordpress site they are inherently bad, themes make things worse and the more plugins the more problems.
I don't know a CMS that is perfect for SEO, but I think wordpress is the worst.
-
Try using http://www.feedthebot.com/tools/spider/ to check functionality make sure Google sees what you have created.
make sure you are running a high quality SEO plug-in with WordPress Yoast is a excellent plug-in and if you do not have a server with 301 redirect capabilities the premium plug-in is a deal.
The regular WordPress SEO plug-in is free though if not using a WordPress plug-in I strongly suggest installing it.
https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/
if Google Bot cannot correctly crawl a site this will show you sees what you should focus on fixing.
http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ ( free for up to 500 pages works on all operating systems Mac PC Linux)
&
this one is online however it will show you issues with their coding right away. http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/google-sitemap-generator/
I am assuming this is the theme?
compare the demo URL above to what you are seeing in your theme and remember it is not going to be identical. However it should be able to set your mind at ease. If you would like you are more than welcome to post the link or send it to me privately and I will look it over for you
What makes you think there is an issue?
Here are excellent tools. They will primarily check out the HTML which is what should be shown WordPress is PHP however what caching plug-in are you running?
when you say hug's the line do you mean it is a ledger offed one side?
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/#validate_by_uri+with_options
Then for HTML validation
&
WordPress
http://codex.wordpress.org/Validating_a_Website
http://wordpress.org/plugins/sucuri-scanner/
Use this link below to scan for issues such as malware or any malicious attacks. That may have been successful. you can scan your site for free using the plug-in which is in the URL above as well it has a very detailed scan log.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/tac/ (Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC))
http://wordpress.org/plugins/exploit-scanner/
search the files and database of your WordPress install for signs that may indicate that it has fallen victim to malicious hackers.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/sucuri-scanner/
All the best,
Thomas
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Drupal Domain Access SEO Issues
I'm working with a new developer to redesign several Drupal sites and have 3-4 sites with similar designs and modules. The developer is keen on using Drupal Domain Access to make maintenance and sharing user information easier. Each site currently has a unique domain and content (although the sites are in related niches). Are there issues from an SEO perspective with the Drupal Domain Access Module? With only one instance of Drupal on the backend will Google somehow not view these as independent sites? Thanks for any info!
Web Design | | talltrees0 -
Stolen website code - is this common?
I checked my google analytics stats under network - hostname and found another website showing up for some of the traffic. When i looked at that site's code it started with
Web Design | | AISFM0 -
Yes or No for Ampersand "&" in SEO URLs
Hi Mozzers I would like to know how crawlers see the ampersand (& or &) in your URLs and if Google frown upon this or not? As far as I know they purely recognise this as "and" is this correct and is there any best practice for implementing this, as I know a lot of people complained before about & in links and that it is better to use it as &, but this is not on links, this is on URLs. Reason for this is that we looking to move onto an ASP.Net MVC framework (any suggestions for a different framework are welcome, we still just planning out future development) and in order to make use of the filter options we have on our site we need a parameter to indicate the difference on a routing level (routing sends to controller, controller sends to model, model sends to controller and controller sends to view < this is pattern of a request that comes in on the framework we will be using). I already have -'s and /'s in the URLs (which is for my SEO structuring) so these syntax can't be used for identifying filters the user clicks or uses to define their search as it will create a complete mess in the system. Now we looking at & to say; OK, when a user lands on /accommodation and they selects De Kelders (which is a destination in our area) the page will be /accommodation/de-kelders on this page they can define their search further to say they are looking for 5 star accommodation and it should be close to the beach, this is where the routing needs some guidance and we looking to have it as follow: /accommodation/de-kelders/5-star&close-to-the-beach. Now, does the "&" get identified by search engines on a URL level as "and" and does this cause any issues with crawling or indexation or would it be best to look at another solution? Thanks, Chris Captivate
Web Design | | DROIDSTERS0 -
Having a new website build, what happens to my SEO work?
Hi, We are in the process of having a new website developed by a web agency. New domain, new business name etc... What is the best process to transfer from old domain to the new one? What happens to all my ranked URLs? What can re-directs do to help me? Will I loose all my link juice on highly ranked keyword domains? I ranked 1st for a brand now, wil lthis go? Any advice, help or hints would be great. Thanks Will
Web Design | | YNWA0 -
Is there a Consultant out there to help convert C#.net functions into PHP Wordpress functions?
We are going through a transition from SiteFinity (C# .net windows environment) to WordPress (PHP Linux environment). We currently have custom forms that make calls to webservices and also store data into SQL Server tables. Not sure how to do this in PHP and could use some help. We are located in Irvine, CA. We would prefer someone onsite, but can also work with someone remote if we must. Time is of the essence. Thanks.
Web Design | | balboafinance0 -
What are some good places to read about SEO with Joomla CMS?
I recently was asked by a potential client to work with them on Joomla based website. I very rarely come across people with Joomla based websites and am struggling to find good resources outside of Joomla's own community site. At this point, I am not very comfortable working with them on Joomla. Any tips or advice?
Web Design | | GCSMasone0 -
PSD to WP Coding & Plugin Implementation?
Any recommendations? I am looking for a company that can do it to a very high standard. Need a review plugin implemented as well, which works with the theme. Clean coding, correctly named divs and clean comments. Thanks guys
Web Design | | getbigyadig0 -
Which ecommerce platform is best for SEO?
We currently run our eyewear store on osCommerce. However, for various reasons we are considering a redevelopment onto another platform, the most obvious choice being Magento. What might the advantage and improvement in SEO with such a change and is the pain worth the gain???
Web Design | | seanmccauley0