Significant traffic drop since installed. SEO Issue?

Np problem, Kevin. lol

Regarding the SEO themes I’ve used, none of them are ‘magical’. I think you will find them quite limited compared to Newspaper, which is why I stay interested in Newspaper updates. Here they are:

http://themeforest.net/item/sahifa-responsive-wordpress-news-magazine-newspaper-theme/2819356
http://my.studiopress.com/themes/metro/
http://my.studiopress.com/themes/magazine/

I like these themes because I know I can use them to rank for competitive keywords on sites with weak backlink profiles, i.e. brand new sites.

If I had time, I would modify the Newspaper theme myself. If I could sell the mod, that might make it worth my time. 😉

Newspaper is one of the best looking theme with a lot of features. I’m not an expert. My only complain is about h1 and h2 tags. If developers fix this problem, It will be best. But TechRanker mentioned some seo friendly themes which are very popular and many bloggers are using these themes. Someone mentioned about yoast seo plugin’s bugs. But i want to say, Obviously a SEO plugin won’t add h1, h2 tags on homepage. Theme does SEO 40%. 60% should be done by a SEO plugin.

Hi all,

If anyone is interested I managed to get round the H1, H2 on the homepage and category archives issue quite quickly and with a relatively simple solution.

Homepage:

Modify td_block_template_1.php file found in includes folder.

Modify h4 in this code:

$buffy .= ‘<h4 class=”block-title”>’;
if (!empty($custom_url)) {
$buffy .= ‘‘ . esc_html($custom_title) . ‘‘;
} else {
$buffy .= ‘<span>’ . esc_html($custom_title) . ‘</span>’;
}
$buffy .= ‘</h4>’;

To read ‘h2’

This changed the block titles on the homepage from h4 to h2

Category Archives:

Download and install CategoryTinymce plugin via your WordPress install.

Then edit your categories which will now have a fully functional editor similar to creating a post article.

You can then add all the h2 headings, images and customisations you want.

Note: Outcome will be determined by which category template you are using within the theme.

Look at this site to see:

Homepage Example: https://godhelpusall.com

Category Example: Finance News

Hope this helps a little.

Kevin

• This reply was modified 10 years by Kevin.

On this post:
https://godhelpusall.com/brexit-bilderberg-one-world-government-bbc-bias

The <H2> tag is now being used in the sidebar. The <H2> tag tells Google what your post is about. Right now, you are telling Google that all of your posts are about this:

<H2>: Social Media Connections
<H2>: Trending Alternative News
<H2>: In Other News
<H2>: Follow Us

This is SEO suicide. The <H2> tag should not be used by ANY theme on posts, pages, or other content pages. It’s ok for a theme to use <H2> on the home page, archive pages, or other non-content pages.

Instead of changing all <H4> to <H2>, you need some conditional logic like this pseudo code below:

IF IsHomePage or IsArchivePage THEN <H2> ELSE <H3>;

(<H3> in the sidebar works for me)

I forget how Newspaper works exactly but alternatively, if you use block templates or modules exclusively for the home page and archive pages (and not on posts and pages), you can change the header tag on only those block templates or modules. On posts and pages, use blocks that use <H4> or preferably <H3>.

Hi @TechRanker

Where would you put the code IF IsHomePage or IsArchivePage THEN <H2> ELSE <H3>; ?

Thanks
Kevin

@TechRanker

Just one more question!

You said “This is SEO suicide. The <H2> tag should not be used by ANY theme on posts, pages, or other content pages”

I was under the impression that adding h2 tags on posts was a MUST for SEO!

Is this not true?

Regards

Kevin

1. I posted pseudo code, not actual php. You’ll have to Google for the correct syntax. Here’s a code snippet from TechRanker.net theme’s header.php:

<?php if( is_home() || is_front_page() ) echo '<h1>'; else echo '<h2>'; ?>

2. I don’t have the Newspaper theme files handy but here’s a suggestion. Find the files for the blocks you plan to use and search those files for <H3>, <H4>, etc. Then use something similar to the code above to perform your conditional logic.

If you can figure out how to add these changes to a child theme instead of editing the actual theme files, that would be preferred. Otherwise, you will have to reapply these changes every time the theme is updated.

3. On pages, posts, and other content pages, <H2> should only be used by YOU the content writer, not the theme.

On the home page, archive pages, and other non content pages, <H2> can be used by the theme itself.

More code:


<?php
if(is_archive())
// write your code here ...
?>


https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/is_archive

Let us know if it works! Good Luck!

@TechRanker

Hi,
Thanks for the advice it is much appreciated.

Will get to work on the theme!

Thanks again

Kevin

Are post and page titles automatically assigned the H1 tag by the Newspaper theme?

I read the thread with interest. As a user of Newspaper and having seen it doing great, I want to say a couple of things from my perspective:

1) What TechRanker says makes sense to me. Also, he is not defaming Newspaper
2) Chris knows well what he is talking about

It would be good for the Theme authors to add a few lines of harmless codes if that matters to some well-meaning users, who also know what they are talking about and are talking from their experience.

For a website like ours every small issue counts when it comes to ranking high on search engines. One thing I did notice when I switched to Newspaper is that the page views immediately after publishing a post dropped to almost half. It may not be the theme causing it as Google may have hard time indexing new page structure, or whatever, but yes, I did notice an initial drop. The page views go up quickly after I share them on social medias. Somehow the good news is, our Alexa global rank is soaring high organically as if we paid for it :-). I believe our new hosting, Newspaper theme, our new mobile app, SEO alertness and on top of all, our insightful content played a role in it.

So yes, Newspaper is undoubtedly an awesome theme but as everyone else in this world, TagDiv also can do better. I think they work really hard to bring their clients maximum satisfaction. Keep up the good work, friends!

Hi

sorry, but to enter the h2 tags on the home, pages blocks and categories (sidebar) blocks is not enough to change h4 in h2 in

\Newspaper\includes\block_templates\td_block_template_1.php

// there is a custom title
$buffy = ”;
$buffy .= ‘<h4 class=”block-title”>’;
if (!empty($custom_url)) {
$buffy .= ‘‘ . esc_html($custom_title) . ‘‘;
} else {
$buffy .= ‘<span>’ . esc_html($custom_title) . ‘</span>’;
}
$buffy .= ‘</h4>’;
return $buffy;
}

in this way the h2 tags are definitely referring to the content of the page and the title … or not?

Thanks

• This reply was modified 10 years by Bintmusic.

I am launching a new site soon but am worried about the SEO implications (after reading this thread). Do you guys have a time line for the next release with the SEO improvements? I absolutely love this theme, but don’t want to launch the site until them improvements are implemented. Is it a long way off?

Also, I’ve been reading a lot about Schema(schema.org) and its growing usage in Search engines. It’s likely to be Google’s next focus after speed and mobile. Do you have any plans to incorporate schema into the Newspaper template? I ran your demo site and my own test site using your theme on http://seositecheckup.com/ and my old site (with an older, much less impressive theme) still ranked much higher in SEO than both.

PS – Not trying to be negative. This theme completely blows any other news related theme out of the water! Absolutely love it on multiple levels 🙂

No worries, no hurries, Bogdan! I was talking about future release only. Not code snippets. I am happy with the version I am using now and will wait for the upgrade you mentioned about. Take care!

The Newspaper 6 theme is marketed as an SEO optimized theme and was a good half of the reason if not more for the purchase.

Not trying to troll but this is a topic of high importance and since you mention there is no eta on the update, would it be possible to sticky this post? and/or possibly create a list of SEO optimization issues that need addressing?

I can try and hardcode the changes but the issues for the home page seem a bit extensive for me and am hoping these modifications can be completed quickly, at least in part since I’m indexing for all my pages/posts but not my home page 🙁

Excellent Bogdan,
I didn’t realise you had incorporated Schema already. You just tipped the balance from another theme I was considering to yours 🙂 It’s Newspaper all the way now. I’ll keep setting up my new site until you guys release the new version and will launch then. Looking forward to the SEO changes.
Cheers,
John

Hello Thank you for getting back. I do love the theme, and understand that creating such a robust theme that you are bound to run into issues here and there. I am however not under any illusion that there’s a magic button to make rankings go up, but I had hoped that some important seo elements would be implemented into the home page such as the H1/H2 title tags etc so that I may concentrate on content. I will patiently wait for the update as you suggested to @Mayapur Voice. Thank you for your support