SEO status update

[christianoliveira]

Hi!

Following up on Yoast SEO don't show keyword And indexing question , also as Javier Lorente wrote me asking about related questions (images URLs, sitemaps, etc.), and given that you made some progress with new features (comments, integration with Yoast, and probably more things I’m not aware of), maybe we should do a bit of catch up to see what the situation is regarding SEO

As more people try the framework, I think it should be clear/documented what is done by default, what can be done easily by users to improve the default configuration, and what is not possible/easy to do right now, regarding SEO

For example, in my specific case, I would like to try Frontity on my travel blog but haven’t done it yet because:

1. I have a rating plugin that allows people to rate each post and get more visibility in Google’s search results with a markup using that rating, which I’m not sure if can be easily replicated with Frontity
2. Comments are a must (will try them locally now that they are supported)
3. Fear of not being able to change / implement something (as I’m not a developer, I know I can do almost anything using wordpress+themes+plugins, but I think it’s not that easy in Frontity)
4. I’m also not sure if there is any other aspect that can impact SEO negatively happening right now.

Let me know if you need anything regarding this.

[juanma]

@christianoliveira

As more people try the framework, I think it should be clear/documented what is done by default, what can be done easily by users to improve the default configuration, and what is not possible/easy to do right now, regarding SEO

Love the idea.
I think all the info you mention could be added in this SEO guide (that we started with a just a few tips). This document should provide more extended about SEO and Frontity.

[Pablo]

Hey Christian thanks a lot for catching-up and giving us this feedback

@christianoliveira

I have a rating plugin that allows people to rate each post and get more visibility in Google’s search results with a markup using that rating, which I’m not sure if can be easily replicated with Frontity

I’m afraid you’ll have to replicate the behaviour of the rating plugin coding a frontity package or including this behaviour inside your theme (which will also imply to code). In general, WordPress plugins that modify the frontend in WordPress, need to be replicated in React.

@christianoliveira

as I’m not a developer, I know I can do almost anything using wordpress+themes+plugins, but I think it’s not that easy in Frontity

Unfortunately, Frontity Framework is a developer tool, and it’s focused on developers that want to implement a React frontend for WordPress. For non-technical users to adopt Frontity is still too complicated. We are aware of this, and in the long-term we want Frontity to be as simple and powerful as WordPress when it comes to create a site just combining a theme and plugins. Indeed, this kind of extensibility is already in place, and the framework already allows to install a frontity theme and combine it with extensions. But we are missing two things:

1. A larger catalog of themes and extensions
2. An admin UI that allows non-technical users to install and configure themes and extensions without having to interact with code.

In any case I’m happy to say that everything is prepared for this to happen, and it’s making Frontity available for everyone is one of our long-term company goals.

@christianoliveira

I think it should be clear/documented what is done by default, what can be done easily by users to improve the default configuration, and what is not possible/easy to do right now, regarding SEO

I agree. And as Juanma just mentioned, we plan to create a complete SEO Guide covering all this. @juanma It’d be great if once the SEO section get’s rebuilt, we contact @christianoliveira so he can check and let us know if he feels like there’s something missing.

[christianoliveira]

Cool! Let me know whenever you have something for review.

Regarding this: “Frontity Framework is a developer tool, and it’s focused on developers that want to implement a React frontend for WordPress”, in terms of SEO, it’s even more important that developers get the basics of SEO right.

If Frontity starts getting more and more popular and WP sites’ owners hire a dev to migrate their site to Frontity, it’s important it doesn’t end bad in terms of SEO traffic, which can eventually generate bad PR for Frontity itself even if it’s not the framework’s fault. Lots of people use WP knowing that it’s good enough for SEO “by default”, site owners may not know what to ask to developers and will probably expect the site to work the same way SEO-wise, while that may not be the case.

Or a developer may suggest someone who hires her/him to create a site using Frontity, and if they don’t follow some of the basic SEO guidelines, it may have poor SEO performance and the person who hired the developer may think it can be because of Frontity.

Of course you cannot control/force any developer to do things right, but I think it’s important to be clear about the limitations/potential problems upfront so there are no surprises later.

Also it’s important that anyone who meets the framework can have all that info, as sometimes other roles (PMs, SEOs, Marketing teams…) may have some weight when deciding what CMS to use.

I’m sure you are perfectly aware of this and have it on your plans, I’m just remarking it as Javier Lorente was telling me that the dev he hired made some “big” mistakes in terms of SEO. The guide should maybe be centered in what we already talked about (how to configure the WP domain/subdomain) but also in how to easily match WP configuration in terms of SEO (sitemaps, robots.txt, internal linking, HTML structure+semantics, AMP configuration, etc.) and / or what things may differ and may affect the SEO performance that may need extra dev work (plugins that modify the frontend in WP: all kind of schema markup - ratings, FAQs, breacrumbs, products… -, widgets, etc.)

Looking forward to see your own ecosystem of plugins and themes growing and I will try to use my limited coding skills to do some workarounds while that day comes!

[Pablo]

Christian, thanks again for sharing all this feedback, it is really valuable for us.

I totally agree that we have to take care of how we explain SEO, so developers using Frontity don’t break things.

@christianoliveira

Lots of people use WP knowing that it’s good enough for SEO “by default”

This is a great point. We need to make sure that “by default” using Frontity doesn’t break anything. And make it really easy for developers that are not SEO experts to have everything under control.

@christianoliveira

Also it’s important that anyone who meets the framework can have all that info, as sometimes other roles (PMs, SEOs, Marketing teams…) may have some weight when deciding what CMS to use.

That’s also a great point. There’s still a lot of room for improvement on our site and docs.

@christianoliveira

I’m just remarking it as Javier Lorente was telling me that the dev he hired made some “big” mistakes in terms of SEO.

We are aware, and as a consequence @juanma started to take a closer look to our SEO docs.

@christianoliveira

the guide should maybe be centered in what we already talked about (how to configure the WP domain/subdomain) but also in how to easily match WP configuration in terms of SEO (sitemaps, robots.txt, internal linking, HTML structure+semantics, AMP configuration, etc.) and / or what things may differ and may affect the SEO performance that may need extra dev work (plugins that modify the frontend in WP: all kind of schema markup - ratings, FAQs, breacrumbs, products… -, widgets, etc.)

This is a great outline, I’m sure @juanma will use it as a reference for the new SEO section in the docs.

We’ll keep you posted!

[Pablo]

For future reference I’m adding here some of the latest threads where SEO issues have been discussed:

• Robot.txt and canonical URL
• Yoast SEO don't show keyword And indexing question
• What Wordpress PHP Theme should I use with Frontity?
• Avoid SEO problems with multiple domains (like in Now)
• Change SEO tite
• SEO Crawability

I feel like most of the answers we have provided are not available yet in our docs. Once we launch the new SEO guide we should revisit these posts.

[Pablo]

btw, @juanma I want to make sure that we are on the same page. From here, you will take care of gathering all this info and adding it to the docs / examples?

It also feels like all this SEO topics should be part of our Learning Journey.

@mburridge I see that the step-by-step tutorial includes an SEO section. Make sure to coordinate with Juanma regarding all this

[juanma]

@Pablo

From here, you will take care of gathering all this info and adding it to the docs / examples?

@Pablo yes, I’ll lead this, but as this is not in this Q’s OKRs I’ll start the conversation to start organizing the topics and clarifying the concepts so the info can be added to the documentation once the OKRs in this Q are under control

@Pablo

It also feels like all this SEO topics should be part of our Learning Journey.

It’s already part of it
https://www.notion.so/frontity/RoadMap-Knowledge-Frontity-6b87dfd12aa84c28aa17de4dd1db43a0

@christianoliveira

The guide should maybe be centered in what we already talked about (how to configure the WP domain/subdomain) but also in how to easily match WP configuration in terms of SEO (sitemaps, robots.txt, internal linking, HTML structure+semantics, AMP configuration, etc.) and / or what things may differ and may affect the SEO performance that may need extra dev work (plugins that modify the frontend in WP: all kind of schema markup - ratings, FAQs, breacrumbs, products… -, widgets, etc.)

@christianoliveira I’ll try compile all the info related to SEO we have and once I have a clearer idea I’d like to schedule a meeting to run all this info with you. Is it ok for you?

[christianoliveira]

@juanma sure! Let me know when than time comes so we can set up the meeting.

If you prefer you can write me directly at **********@gmail.com