Leading by example, some SEO & design changes to our blog

You may have noticed if you’re a regular visitor to the O’Brien Media Insider blog, that we’ve made some minor changes. All in the name of SEO (search engine optimisation) and usability.

As some background, Google hates duplicate content, and while they make allowances for some duplicate content that is a natural byproduct of blogging it’s best to keep duplicates to a minimum‏.

No more blog Author Pages means less duplicate content and better SEO

We previously used WordPress’ “Author Pages” to show a list of posts for each contributor to our blog. This unfortunately created duplicate lists of blog summaries, so we’ve removed them – they added very little value and were only minimally used.

Removal of duplicates by delisting category and tag pages from Google

We also were a bit lax on categories for our blog posts, which led to category and tag pages being listed in Google results. We’ve added instructions for Google not to include these pages but they’re still active on our site (but excluded from our own on-site search results as they were, again, minimally used and distracted from actual content).

Just for good measure, image optimisation & a 3 column layout on blog archive pages

We’ve also optimised blog post images which resulted in pages on our blog leading 2.5 seconds faster – which is a big deal as Google rewards speedy websites! And we’re also opted to go from a 2×6 layout to a 3×3 layout on our blog article listing (archive) pages to make sit easier to scan the page for new content that interests you!

Browse our SEO Guide Booklet

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