SEO Improvements

[Bram]

Absolutely adore AMS so far. Not sure if this should be feedback or a suggestion. Please move the thread around if needed please

After installing AMS a few months ago we saw a quick indexation into Google Search because of our frontpage being high traffic.

As a niche leader in simracing our site needs to rank high on google search results on relevant keywords but here the SEO of AMS seems not be able to match the (much smaller) wordpress sites out there who all rank much higher in google.

Is there anything we can do to improve our SEO?

 

[Bob]

Are ALL your articles setting a "good" Meta description? This one alone can make a huge difference if used properly. I couldn't tell you how many XF sites I've looked at that don't set a meta description or description of their article content and just rely on a snippet of their Article, in which the first 250 characters of the article don't include anything remotely beneficial that a good meta description or even a good description would include.



I have small AMS sites that out rank large Word Press sites, so its not that any Word Press site is going to magically out rank any other site that isn't using Word Press. Couldn't tell you how many XF sites have moved from WP to AMS and are experiencing much better ranking.

Are you using the XFAMP addon? I know a lot of XF sites are benefiting from that addon.

Beyond that, Titles, Description, Content etc is 99% of the equation, the rest is just standard things like using industry standard metadata as well as appeasing to the google gods by submitting micro data via ldJsonHtml (which is googles preferred method of delivery).

<xf:if is="$article.meta_description">
    <xf:set var="$descSnippet" value="{{ snippet($article.meta_description, 250, {'stripBbCode': true}) }}" />
<xf:elseif is="$article.description" />
    <xf:set var="$descSnippet" value="{{ snippet($article.description, 250, {'stripBbCode': true}) }}" />
<xf:else />
    <xf:set var="$descSnippet" value="{{ snippet($article.message, 250, {'stripBbCode': true}) }}" />
</xf:if>

<xf:macro template="metadata_macros" name="metadata"
    arg-description="{$descSnippet}"
    arg-type="article"
    arg-shareUrl="{{ link('canonical:ams', $article) }}"
    arg-canonicalUrl="{{ link('canonical:ams', $article, {'page': $page > 1 ? $page : null}) }}"
    arg-imageUrl="{{ $article.CoverImage ? link('canonical:ams/cover-image', $article) : ($article.Category.content_image ? base_url('styles/default/xenaddons/ams/category_images/' . {$article.Category.content_image}, true) : '') }}"
    arg-twitterCard="summary_large_image" />

<xf:page option="ldJsonHtml">
    <script type="application/ld+json">
    {
        "@context": "https://schema.org",
        "@type": "CreativeWorkSeries",
        "@id": "{{ link('canonical:ams', $article)|escape('json') }}",
        "name": "{$article.title|escape('json')}",
        "headline": "{$article.title|escape('json')}",
        "alternativeHeadline": "{$article.title|escape('json')}",
        "description": "{$descSnippet|escape('json')}",
        <xf:if is="$article.cover_image_id">
            "thumbnailUrl": "{{ ams_article_thumbnail($article)|escape('json') }}",
        <xf:elseif is="$article.Category.content_image" />
            "thumbnailUrl": "{{ ams_category_icon($article)|escape('json') }}",
        </xf:if>
        "dateCreated": "{{ date($article.publish_date, 'c')|escape('json') }}",
        "dateModified": "{{ date($article.last_update, 'c')|escape('json') }}",
        <xf:if is="$article.rating_count">"aggregateRating": {
            "@type": "AggregateRating",
            "ratingCount": "{$article.rating_count|escape('json')}",
            "ratingValue": "{$article.rating_avg|escape('json')}"
        },</xf:if>
        <xf:if is="$article.hasViewableDiscussion()">
            "discussionUrl": "{{ link('canonical:threads', $article.Discussion)|escape('json') }}",
        </xf:if>
        <xf:if is="$article.User.Profile.xa_ams_author_name">
            "author": {
                "@type": "Person",
                "name": "{$article.User.Profile.xa_ams_author_name|escape('json')}"
            }
        <xf:else />
            "author": {
                "@type": "Person",
                "name": "{{ ($article.User ? $article.User.username : $article.username)|escape('json') }}"
            }
        </xf:if>
    }
    </script>
</xf:page>

 

[Bram]

Good shouts, thanks.

Yeah we are doing our best with the meta descriptions but i fear i am too much of an idiot and need something like a YOAST plugin we always used with WP back in the days. Is there even an online alternative we can use?

XFamp is new to me and google isn't helping me to find it

submitting micro data via ldJsonHtml (which is googles preferred method of delivery). << also new to me sorry

 

[Bob]

Is there even an online alternative we can use?

Not that I am aware of. Probably wouldn't be that hard for a professional developer to develop an XF Yoast addon. Might even want to approach the developer that made the AMPXF addon.

XFamp is new to me and google isn't helping me to find it

my bad, its AMPXF, not XFAMP lol

AMPXF - AMP for Xenforo 2