Intro. Notes from "Get to the Top on Google" by David Viney, available from Amazon.co.uk. Produced by WebDesignerHarrogate.co.uk for BeckwithIT.

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1 Produced by WebDesignerHarrogate.co.uk for BeckwithIT.com Intro 01 On-page SEO versus Off-page SEO 02 On-page SEO means all techniques you can use on your own site. Covers all your content. ***See Page-elements tab 03 Off-page SEO means all techniques you get other site owners to use to help your site rank well. 04 "Priming pages" (chp3) On-page SEO is like priming canvas. Off-page SEO "Landing links" (chp4) is like painting primed canvas How indexing works 07 Googlebot gives each crawled page a unique ID & passes to indexing program 08 Indexing reduces storage and crawl overheads for Google. Google "stop words" ***See tab. Also reduces indexing overhead 09 Google's list of documents containing each keyword is called a "posting list". Multiple keywords via "intersecting a posting list" 10 Google maintains two separate indexes: main and supplemental index. Use if supplemental expanded greatly in Product of end of "size wars" between indexes & more emphasis on quality not quantity (leaner & better) Features of Supplementary Index 14 Spam triggers mean pages are removed from all indexes and not put into suppl. 15 suppl. Index is not a penalty that can be lifted by request 16 pages in suppl. Index are less likely to be returned & ranked less well 17 pages duplicating your own content (or matching your other pages closely) are likely to end up in suppl. Index 18 pages duplicating other's content (both syndicated & plagiarised) are likely to end up in suppl. Index 19 pages from very large sites may end up in suppl. Index if insufficient Page Rank passed to page 20 Pages hard to crawl or larger than 101K 21 Suppl. Index pages are parsed differently & held in a form of compressed summary - less key phrases indexed Summary of steps to counter Supplementary Index 24 Ensure navigation of site is even. Tree structure of site should be symmetrical and not lop-sided so Page Rank inherited evenly 25 Ensure 10-15% of inbound links are "deep links" to important content or category pages 26 Test to ensure your site pages not too similar to one another using Similar Page Checker tool 27 If too similar or already in the suppl. Index, re-write and give a new URL to get a fresh start upon next crawl. 28 Ensure URLs do not contain too many parameters and page size is less than 100k To count page in Supplementary Index: Get total pages index via typing into Google: site: (the www is necessary) Get pages in the main index via: site: -inallurl: 33 Pages in suppl. Index = total 1 - total 2 34 Print off and compare two list if require to identify which pages are in suppl.index

2 Steps step client tab Basic steps to follow to create On-Page SEO 01 Titles Establish Page titles first, deploying your "phrases that pay" etc 02 Meta Do Meta-tags as drawn from page title workings & focus prepares keywords to include in content for Headings-Body-Img step 03 Breadcrumbs Do Breadcrumbs as reinforces site navigations structure 04 Headings-Body-Img Work on Headings, Body content & Image Alts 05 Links Lastly do Links (mainly internal) to tie it all together to internal navigation and keyword focus 06 Client-CP Prepare Client-CP (Content-plan) using above workings for each & every page in a text file to send to web developers (p.114 in book) Pages in chapter 3 covered by above : p Advanced topics covered in further pages: p a) document & spreadsheet optimization b) video optimization c) manipulating snippets & SERPS - including F-Pattern d) Indented results e) snippets - ODP/DMOZ

3 Titles 01 Issues to contend with 02 SERPS use page title as the link for each result. So it needs to be a "call to action". Does title make u want to click? 03 Directories often use page title for listing links & prefer titles with name of site / business included at front 04 Browser navigation usability, especially with tabbed browsers 05 good SEO title deploys "phrases that pay" in appropriate prominence, proximity & density. 06 "call to action" uses short eye-catching phrase & invites reader to act (verb-noun construct, e.g. "subscribe to my free report") 07 good browser window description needs to "clearly distinguish" page from others & orient user to where they are in your site 08 for directory listing require something well organised and includes in every case site name 09 appropriate title length dictated by both search engines and browsers truncation of long titles Title length limits: 12 W3C says ideally 64 or less including spaces 13 Google truncates at 66 or last complete full word (the lesser) 14 Yahoo truncates at exactly 120, regardless if cuts wording 15 Browsers truncate at over 75 in general (some at 95) Best title design practice to accommodate the issues: 18 every page title should be different but follow consistency in construction 19 Title length should not exceed 85 and never Written so that title truncates gracefully at 66 and 75 exactly 21 Begin ideally with business/site name and written in form of "breadcrumb trail" ***See tab 22 Should where possible include a "short call to action" 23 KWs used in title should be repeated in URL, meta-keyword tag, headings tag and page body text 24 KWs used in the title should also appear in the page body text as synonyms 25 Deploy KWs in homepage titles which are most effective site-wide 26 Deploy KWs in sections to the maximum e.g. 120 characters that truncates for Google 27 Deploy Deep Phrases for category & content page titles 28 Use capitalization for nearly every title word (e.g. except for truncating with "more:") as makes links stand out. 29 Use ampersand (&) instead of "and" and also avoid other "stop words" (non-indexed) like "the" ***See "Stop Words" tab

4 Meta 01 Why still use meta-tags? 02 Little SEO value but tag description is used for: 1. snippet compilation & 2. directory submission Google SERPS may use description tag to create "call to action" snippet below results line. ***See advanced (e) in Steps tab Some directories (both human & automated) pick up description tag for use as description of your entry 05 Little SEO value but meta-tag keywords still influences Yahoo & Ask.com 06 Best reason to include is that the "process of choosing them is useful in itself". 07 Copy on the web page is improved by first planning what keywords (from A, B and C lists) will be included on that page Rules on meta-keywords tags: separate by comma and no space. Spaces used only between phrases only use lower case and pluralize where possible. Do not both including capitalized or non-plural equivalents include all site-wide phrases at front of homepage meta-keyword tag & exclude here all deep phrases use relevant site-wide phrases to begin section and category meta-keyword tags & also include relevant deep phrases On content pages confine yourself to deep phrases in the meta-keyword tags Use 50 words max in meta-keyword tags & ideally no more than Ensure all of keyphrases & keywords appear at least once in on-page elements, else remove can include any common misspelling (e.g. Stationary for stationery) in the meta-keyword tags remember: use plurals e.g. Address labels not address label

5 Breadcrumbs 01 Creating breadcrumb trails for navigation 02 breadcrumb trail uses guillemet (>>) element to indicate direction of travel, down through site levels 03 guillemet is coded in HTML by "»" 04 each breadcrumb element is linked to relevant page (i.e. Section name link takes you to section page) 05 Breadcrumb constructed as: 06 Home Page >> Section name >> Category name >> Page name - Page description 07 Often easiest constructed from title page development, replacing dashes with guillemet 08 Placed at top of page, using for example 8-point Verdana, color gray SEO value because: 11 Reinforce site navigational structure so that Page Rank is distributed evenly 12 First body text to appear & so is legitimate reason to cram with best keywords & keyphrases 13 Legitimate reason to use links incorporating "keyword-rich anchor text" which are of value even when internal example: Chambers Business Printing >> Business Printing >> Business Cards >> Luxury Business Cards - Design and Order Luxury Business 16 Cards Online

6 Headings-Body-Img 01 Heading tags 02 Heading tags are twice as important as body text but must use CSS to stop appearing ugly 03 Only use H1 and H2 tags as less SEO weighting carried for lower headings 04 If need to use more than H1 and H2, best to break content into more sections, categories & pages 05 Max use of 5-7 heading tags on any one page to avoid diluting value Body text 08 For reasons of density, max words per page (best near 450) 09 Again if need more words, best to break content into more sections, categories & pages 10 use bold & italics sparingly but never underline to identify key text 11 use neat paragraphs of 3-4 sentences 12 position "phrases that pay" near the start of each paragraph 13 sprinkle 2, 3 and 4-word "keyword chains" throughout the text 14 For top 4 (& site-wide) keywords aim for 20% density for each individually in sector one on the homepage 15 sector one = title + headings + bold text + italicized text + alt text 16 sector two = regular page text content 17 density for sector two: 2-4% for page specific & 2-word key phrases, % for 3-word and % for related KW (use plenty) 18 Test overall density of page copy via a "keyword density analyzer" tool (p110 in book) 19 Use test results to count number of words and check density according to above guidelines Image Alt tag 22 In these days of clean, fresh Web 2.0 design, keep use of images to absolute minimum - only enough t be visually appealing 23 Every image excluding spacers must have tag 24 faithfully describe image & use keyphrases where possible but do not stuff the tag with keywords 25 don't include "image of" because screen reader software always reads that out, so it would repeat 26 example: image of 2 people shaking hands to symbolize "collaborative solutions" 27 alt tag: "Two people shaking hands, symbolizing collaboration solutions from ABC company" 28 Use an HTML validator to find missing tags.

7 Links 01 Internal links 02 use keyword-rich navigation within own site as SEO value is ascribed to internal links 03 Breadcrumb trail is part of that ***See tab 04 Main navigation elements must be text + CSS and not image 05 people prefer split-level navigation (tabs at top show sections & left-hand bar navigates categories & content pages 06 In-context links are internal links appearing in the middle of pages 07 In-context: in section & category sections, link the headings to the sub levels 08 In-context: keyphrases linked to most relevant content pages - but moderation as pages look silly Special internal links 11 feedback form 12 mailto: link so that visitors can to a friend recommending the site 13 use JavaScript to create an "add to favorites" link Outbound links 16 Hub vs. Spoke debate 17 Google values inbound links, that it is a spoke (most people end up there) 18 Ask.com value outbound links, that it is a hub of useful info and resources 19 Google tracks related sites (some based on your outbound links). Site:yourdomain.com & click similar pages under SERPs 20 Visual tool shows related sites via KW Best link out to other high-quality sites of same theme/topic of PR7+. Use keyword-rich links. But not too many & avoid placing links on 21 "money pages" or where exit may prove fatal to a key customer journey.

8 Page-elements 01 On-page elements include 02 page title 03 page metadata (description & keywords) 04 headings 05 image alt tags 06 body text 07 others assets i.e. Word documents, PDF files, videos Meta-keyword tag keyphrases must appear in one of the following on-page elements 10 page title 11 description tag 12 headings 13 alt tags 14 body text Page-body 5 important SEO elements: breadcrumb trail heading tags body text image alt tags internal links/navigation bars Most important text blocks in your body follow C-Shape 24 C-Shape made up of: top, left and footer 25 Important because of scanning, looking for "key navigational areas" along the way. 26 SE spiders also are programmed to do this

9 Stop Words number 1 char 2 char 3 char 4 char 5 char 01 i an and that about 02 a as are this from 03 at for what where 04 be how when 05 by the will 06 in was with 07 is who 08 it 09 of 10 on 11 or 12 to total totals