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IMPROVE YOUR SEARCH ENGINE RANKING
PAULINE RANDALL – FLORIZEL MEDIA
HOUSEKEEPING
▸ Course timing
▸ Fire alarms and fire exits
▸ Wi-fi access and phones (make sure it’s on silent!)
▸ Break for tea/coffee/phones
▸ Toilets
▸ Downloading course slides
SAY HELLO!WHO ARE YOU? WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS? WHAT ARE YOU HOPING TO LEARN TODAY?
WHAT WE ARE COVERING TODAY▸ A bit about search engine optimisation (SEO)
▸ Search - from the searcher’s point of view
▸ Key SEO terms - jargon busting
▸ Domain names and page URLs
▸ Keywords
▸ Titles, descriptions and headings
▸ Content, images and video
▸ Links
▸ Measuring results
▸ Do’s and Dont’s
▸ Resources
A BIT ABOUT SEO
WHAT IS SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results — often referred to as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results.
In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
WHY DO WE FOCUS ON GOOGLE?
MARKET SHARE HELD BY THE LEADING SEARCH ENGINES IN
THE UNITED KINGDOM (UK) AS OF APRIL 2017
https://www.statista.com/statistics/280269/market-share-held-by-search-engines-in-the-united-kingdom/
HOW SEARCH WORKS – FROM GOOGLE
https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOUR WEBSITE?
You need:
▸ Good quality content
▸ Internal and external links
▸ Keywords in Titles, Descriptions and Headings
▸ Keywords in the content – enough but not too many times
▸ Quality website (not spammy)
▸ Suitable for the device being used (mobile friendliness)
FROM THE SEARCHER’S POINT OF VIEW
SEARCH
Maps
Details and reviews
COFFEE SHOPS NEAR ME
The answer you were looking for
Alternative questions
Other website results
How do I wire a plug?
Map, directions, times
Other websites
HOW DO I GET TO EDINBURGH AIRPORT?
Advertising
Website results
Alternative searches
greenhouse with unbreakable
glass
No advertising this time
Other websites
Alternative searches
Wikipedia
Definition
CHECKLIST
Search for your business by name and check what appears
Register your business with Google My Business to ensure that you have control over the content such as opening hours, phone number etc
Search for generic products/services similar your business and see what comes up
Keep an eye on “autocomplete" – it can give you clues about what other people search for. Also check out “searches related to”
Use a different search engine than Google and see how your business appears
KEY SEO TERMS
SEO TERMS
▸ alt Tag - Text that shows in place of an image
▸ Anchor Text - the visible text on a hyperlink, that once clicked, leads to the destination, either on your website or on another
▸ Black hat SEO – underhand activities to improve web ranking. When you get caught your ranking will be heavily penalised
▸ Headings (or <h1> to <h6> tags) – used to define the importance of headings on a web page
▸ Keyword - a single word or phrase that helps users find your website on search engines
▸ Long tail keyword - phrases or 3-4 words that are highly specific to your business
▸ Inbound Links - (also known as backlinks) links from other websites that link back to your website.
SEO TERMS
▸ Organic or natural search – results that search engines show that have not been paid for (as opposed to paid search)
▸ Page Title – shows as the heading of your snippet in search
▸ Page Description – Shows as the description of your page in the search snippet
▸ SEO – search engine optimisation
▸ SERP – search engine results page
▸ Sitemaps - a file, normally written in XML, which tells search engines about how the content on your site is organized.
DOMAIN NAMES AND PAGE URLS
IF YOU DON’T HAVE A DOMAIN NAME
▸ It should match your business name – aim for a unique name
▸ Easy to remember and to type into a browser
▸ Avoid hyphens
▸ Try to make it pronounceable
▸ Aim for quality top level domains like .com and .co.uk
▸ Be careful with ‘clever spelling’ e.g. mcplummer.co.uk
▸ Keywords in domain names – can make search engines suspicious
▸ Avoid infringing existing trademarks – the trademark owner could seize your domain
▸ Make the name intuitive – someone looking at it should know what you do
▸ If you can’t get the name you want think of prefixes or suffixes you can add
PAGE URLS
▸ Make them readable
▸ Shorter is generally better
▸ Keywords in URLs (but don’t overdo)
▸ Match URLs to page titles
▸ Be wary of case sensitivity – in some situations:
▸ /page1
▸ /Page1
▸ /PAGE1
▸ can be seen as three different pages. This could give rise to 404 errors (page not found)
▸ Use hyphens or underscores to separate words
https://moz.com/blog/15-seo-best-practices-for-structuring-urls
CHECKLIST
If selecting a new domain, then search for the name you want to use and see what comes up.
Do you have competition?
Is your desired name unique?
Are there trademark issues?
If you have an existing site, check your page URLs
Can you simplify page URLs?
If you change any then don’t forget to put a redirect in place so that you don’t break inbound links
More about redirects here: https://moz.com/learn/seo/redirection
KEYWORDSIT’S NOT JUST ABOUT VISITORS TO YOUR SITE – IT’S ABOUT THE RIGHT KIND OF VISITORS
KEYWORDS ARE IMPORTANT…
▸ Most visitors will search using words
▸ Search engines index using words
▸ Knowing what your potential customers search for is vital
▸ Understanding changes in terminology is crucial
▸ Search engines understand context so they will understand that “high quality dining” and “upmarket restaurants” are on the same topic
FINDING KEYWORDS
▸ Moz – Keyword Research – paid account
▸ Google Keyword Planner – free with adwords account
▸ Keyword Tool – free(ish)
▸ Wordtracker – free trial and then paid account
▸ Google Trends – word use over time
GOOGLE TRENDS - GOLF – SINCE 2004
▸ Don’t bother with the keyword meta tag – the search engines don’t take notice of it (apart from Baidu and then, only in Mandarin Chinese)
▸ Don’t stuff your page with keywords – if it sounds like you’re repeating yourself then you have probably done this. For example:
▸ “Come to our golf shop and buy golf clubs, golf bags, golf balls, in fact everything for your golfing needs. We are the golf experts - talk to us about golf and everything to do with golf”
DON’T DO THIS
CHECKLIST
Spend time researching your keywords
Look at the alternative words that people use
Go through your website copy and make sure you have identified a unique keyword/phrase for each page
Check that you haven’t overused your keywords
TITLES, DESCRIPTIONS AND HEADINGS
Title
Description
TITLE TAG
▸ One of the most important pieces of on-page SEO (the MOST important is content)
▸ It appears in search results, browsers and external websites
▸ It should be an accurate representation of the page content
▸ Ideal format:
▸ Primary keyword - Secondary keyword | Brand name
▸ Don’t repeat words in the title eg
▸ Red widget, yellow widget, blue widget
▸ Each page should have a unique title – no duplicates on your site
▸ 70-71 characters
DESCRIPTION TAG
▸ Not so important to the search engine
▸ Very important to the searcher – has to be attractive enough to make them click through to your web page
▸ It should match the content of the page – if you trick people, Google will penalise your page in search results
▸ Approximately 160 characters long
CHECKLIST
▸ Check all the pages on your site for unique titles and descriptions
▸ Rewrite if they are too long (search engines will chop off the excess in mid sentence otherwise)
▸ If you use WordPress then consider installing Yoast (or another SEO plugin). This will tell you if you have previously used a title or a description and whether the length is OK
ORDERING CONTENT ON THE PAGE
▸ Headings and subheadings make reading page content easier by breaking it up into small chunks
▸ There should only be one H1 tag (Heading 1) on the page – this is the main heading (think newspaper headline)
▸ You can have several sub headings and sub sub headings (using H2 to H6)
▸ Don’t skip levels
CHECKLIST
Check your pages and blog posts for heading styles
Make sure that you haven’t just used a larger font to make a heading appear bigger – you need the right formatting. Search engines won’t work out hierarchies by font size.
Don’t forget your page’s keywords!
CONTENT, IMAGES AND VIDEO
WHAT IT’S REALLY ALL ABOUT
PAGE CONTENT – THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ON YOUR SITE
▸ Most important both for search engines and for your human visitors
▸ Search engines read the content and, together with all the other parts of the site, make a judgement as to whether a particular page is the correct one to show to a searcher
▸ Keep on topic and remember your keywords (and variants)
▸ Easy to read text
▸ Most important content at the start of the page
▸ Fresh, new content (don’t copy from other sites)
▸ Write for your human visitors
IMAGE AND VIDEO OPTIMISATION
▸ Which makes more sense?
▸ Dog reading newspaper or
▸ IMG45639-452
▸ Give images and video clear, descriptive names
▸ Use alt text – this can be read by a screen reader for visitors who have visual difficulties
▸ Add a caption if appropriate
▸ Keep file sizes small (faster loading and better SEO ranking)
▸ Upload the right size of image
▸ Use your own images/video if you can – this gives them uniqueness
VIDEO
▸ Video gets a high bias in search
▸ ‘How to’ is a very highly searched phrase
▸ If visitors want to know how to do something they will often opt for a video which shows them rather than telling them
▸ Can you create any ‘how to’ videos for your business?
▸ You don’t need to aim for high production values, your smart phone can create excellent video
▸ You can also make one from still images
▸ DON’T set them to autoplay!
CHECKLIST
Go through your content and make sure that each page is on topic
Be consistent with terminology
Get someone else to read through your site and get them to tell you what each page is about
Use a copywriter if you aren’t good with words
Take original images/video for your site
Check your images/video have been optimised
LINKSINBOUND, OUTBOUND AND INTERNAL
IS LINK BUILDING GOOD?
“In general, I’d try to avoid that.
So that you are really sure that your content kind of stands on its own and make it possible for other people of course to link to your content. Make it easy, maybe, put a little widget on your page, if you like this, this is how you can link to it. Make sure that the URLs on your web site are easy to copy and paste. All of those things make it a little bit easier.
We do use links as part of our algorithm but we use lots and lots of other factors as well. So only focusing on links is probably going to cause more problems for your web site that actually helps.”
John Mueller, Google Webtrends Analyst
Article and video
LINK JUICE – SHARING THE GOOD AND THE BAD
▸ Inbound links pass quality value to your site
▸ Valuable if they come from high quality sites – some of the goodness rubs off
▸ Detrimental if they come from poor quality sites – some of the badness rubs off
▸ Same effect happens when you link from your site to another web site – you pass on some of your quality to them.
SOCIAL MEDIA BACKLINKS
▸ Although they are usually ’no follow’ and therefore don’t pass quality value to your site, they are still worth doing:
▸ Make sure that all your social accounts have a link back to your website
▸ On your personal Facebook page you can set links to your website as public
▸ Consider signing off your posts with a link to your website
▸ Put a button on your Facebook cover image with a link to your website
INTERNAL LINKS
▸ Cross link to other relevant content on your site
▸ Don’t repeat the link text (like ‘click here’)
▸ Only use a particular link once on a page
DIRECTORIES
▸ Generally speaking – don’t do it
▸ They can cause damage to your site’s SEO
When is it OK?
▸ If you are a member of a professional body, you can link to your online entry
▸ Possibly Yell for some local businesses – but remember that most people search using Google rather than Yell
MEASURING RESULTS
ANALYTIC TERMSTerm Definition
HitAn item downloaded from the webserver. Can be text, an image etc. A single page will comprise many hits. Beware of anyone measuring your traffic in hits.
Page viewThe number of times a page was seen. This can be distorted by a visitor hitting the refresh button or the back button.
SessionA session is a group of interactions that take place on your website within a given time frame. For example a single session can contain multiple screen or page views, events, social interactions, and ecommerce transactions.
Pages per session
The average number of pages viewed during a session on your website. More pages per session means that users are more engaged and exploring more of your site.
Bounce rateThe percentage of visitors to a webpage who navigate away from the site after viewing a single page and without interacting with the page.
ANALYTIC TERMSTerm Definition
Time on page/time on site
Average of how long a visitor spent on a page or on the site. Bear in mind that we can’t yet measure how long someone was engaged with your site – they may have a page open and be reading a book or on a phone call.
Direct trafficDirect traffic is defined as URLs that people either type in directly or reach via their browser bookmarks.
Referring sites Any non advertising websites that have sent you traffic
Organic Traffic that comes from search listings
Paid Traffic that comes from paid listings
New visitor/returing visitor
Visitors who are coming to your site for the first time or those who have visited before. This metric can be distorted if visitors clear cookies from their browser as they will then be seen as a new visitor.
MEASURING AND ANALYSING TRAFFIC
▸ Most web hosts will offer some form of analytics
▸ Find out which pages people visit the most
▸ How long do they stay?
▸ Which browser do they use?
▸ How many visits are on mobile?
▸ What search terms do they use?
▸ For more information consider installing Google Analytics
DON’T DO THAT – DO THIS!
A FEW THINGS NOT TO DO!
Buy links
Believe that email that promises you number 1 on Google (or the phone call)
Stuff your page with keywords
Duplicate text, either on your own site or from someone else’s site
Be tempted by ‘black hat’ practices – getting back into Google’s good books is hard
DO THIS!
Keep your content up to date, relevant and accurate
Check your titles and descriptions and update from time to time
Keep an eye on keywords – are they changing? Don’t get stuck in the past
Check for broken links – internally and externally
Make sure your images are alt tagged and named properly
Keep an eye on your competitors!
RESOURCES
▸ Google’s Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide
▸ Moz – Beginner’s Guide to SEO
▸ Google Webmaster
▸ Google Analytics
▸ Search Engine Watch – SEO tips for small business
WHAT NEXT?
▸ Meet with a Business Adviser
▸ Attend other Business Gateway events – event programmes are available
▸ Use the Business Gateway Information Service – call 0845 609 6611
▸ Check out the Business Gateway Fife website at www.businessgatewayfife.co.uk or find us on Facebook and Twitter.
▸ Keep in touch – call us on 01592 858333
