Search Engine Optimization. MBA 563 Week 6

Transcription

1 Search Engine Optimization MBA 563 Week 6

2 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

3 Search engine marketing 2 major methods TWO MAJOR METHODS - OBJECTIVE IS TO BE IN THE TOP FEW SEARCH RESULTS 1. Search engine optimization (SEO) - built into the design of web pages / inbound link quality (organic positioning) - TODAY 2. Search engine advertising: Pay-per-Click (covered in Week 3) Trust in search engine providers relies on the fact that organic search is not tainted by payment

4 Organic listings Paid listings

5 Search engine optimization (organic) Objective: top position in search engine results pages (SERPS) - without paying the search engine for the position by bidding on key words A way to reach those who are ALREADY interested in your product or service but may not even know that your firm exists What we are optimizing for are RELEVANCE and IMPORTANCE of a web page in relation to what a person has typed into a search engine Optimizing the web page CONTENT (and code) for search engine indexing (on-page SEO) Link strategy (off-page SEO) Technical quality

6 How search engines work Search engine indexing GoogleBot and its sister spiders The Internet: How Search Works (Code.org) Relevancy ranking algorithms Google PageRank and other factors Google Tutorial on Ranking: relevance and importance Remember, they all search engines use different ranking algorithms and methods Google has around 65% market share Target some engines and do your research SearchEngineWatch.com and SearchEngineLand.com

7 Changes in Google s relevancy ranking algorithm that impact SEO Some pundits say that SEO is dead It isn t, but is has changed and become even more challenging: Search metrics rank correlation factors report Looser keyword matching Social signals becoming increasingly important The fundamentals don t change much we will focus on those

8 ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION

9 Steps involved in on-page SEO 1. Create a content-rich site that real people will find valuable ( 2. Use clean, compliant code 3. Research competition and keywords / phrases. Identify and select keywords and phrases for optimization, then validate them for popularity 4. Add your keywords to the content (do not spam) 5. Ensure that the pages are indexed by search engines 6. Repeat this is NOT a one-off effort the playingfield changes continually

10 1. Create a content-rich site that real people will find valuable Search engines reward sites with good content this is the most important element of all Create high quality, relevant content create content your target audience is genuinely interested in Search engines reward sites that have valuable information and are content-rich Do some test searches and note that it is not always the best looking sites that are at the top it is the ones with the best CONTENT

11 2. Use clean code and design to web standards What you see.. What GoogleBot sees.. HTML and CSS separation of structure and content from presentation elements helps (make sure that your developer is following current web standards from the W3C) The site should be built using responsive design so that it is mobile friendly (Google will penalize it if not) Make the site fast (Google penalizes slow sites too) Make sure that any firm that you hire to build a website understands how SEO works

12 3. Select your Keywords/keyphrases This is the most important concept to grasp in search marketing What are members of your target market actually typing into search engines? Think like a customer

13 Identify and select keywords and phrases then validate them for popularity Keywords or key phrases are the search terms people type into search engines Brainstorm and research Write a list of potential searches for each page in your site, then narrow it down to the most important Use the language of your customers Do test searches

14 Long-tail keywords (based on power law concept) Distinguish long-tail keywords from head keywords running shoes = head term compare grip women s trail running shoes = longtail term These search terms have good ROI because they are less competitive and give higher user satisfaction (lower bounce rates?) Example of a long-tail keyword generator

15 3. Research your competition Use your target search engines and perform analysis of top results for your keywords Track and analyze what your competitors are doing See how they rank for your chosen keywords / phrases

16 4. Add your keywords to the content (do not spam!) Page body text: content / page copy Heading tags Graphics: alt tags Hypertext links Title tag Meta tags How to Look at Your Website the Way Google Does

17 Page body text: content / page copy Page copy - make sure your keywords are well represented Higher in the page the better (definitely in the first 25 words) Use your customer s language: not all marketing copy uses the words that your customers use Page length matters the amount of content on a page is an indicator of quality to Gogle Relationship of a keyword phrase to the total number of words on a page = keyword density Keyword density is a good indication of relevancy But remember balance: higher is not always better (boring for users and penalized as spam!)

18 Heading tags <H1>, <H2>, <H3> etc Used to indicate importance: ie. page heading or paragraph headings Should therefore be a good indicator of content - these should indicate the theme of the page or section Use your keywords in heading tags Use heading tags when coding - Never just make the text bigger using font size

19 Graphics: file names and ALT tags Spiders can t see or read graphics Make sure all graphics have relevant and descriptive filenames and ALT tags (not photo34643.jpg) Use your keywords especially in places like the alt tags for your logo Especially important for navigation graphics Also.think about how image search works

20 Hypertext links to other parts of your site use your keywords in descriptive hypertext links that let people know where the link will take them Never use click here! does that look like relevant or interesting content to a spider?

21 Title tag (page header element) VERY important page element tag strong relevance signal to Google Most important indicator of page content Appears on search engine results pages as the clickable link Should always contain your most important keywords or key terms Each page of your site should have a different title tag relating to the specific page content, but also include your most important key words

22 Meta tag: Description (page header element) Search engines use the content of the description tag in the search engine results listings Make it useful for people so they are more likely to visit the page

23 URL strategy and landing pages If we are going to drive traffic to our site one of the most important pieces of marketing real estate is the URL Not just a question of selecting the right domain name URL strategy relates to placement of landing page in folder so web address itself is meaningful (Google now uses this explicitly) Campaign URLs (CURLS)

24 5. Submit to search engines If your pages are not indexed then they cannot be found via a search engine Use Google Search Console Check which pages are already indexed Decide which search engines to target, and read all the information for submission and ranking Google Tutorial on how to get pages into Google Then submit your URL to Bing And to Google And to Yahoo

25 6. Monitor, evaluate, repeat Search engines change their algorithms constantly Search engines constantly on guard against spam There are no guarantees of position with SEO Good SEO involves constant monitoring, analysis and tweaking The Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors (from Search Engine Watch)

26 OFF-PAGE OPTIMIZATION

27 Inbound links (backlinks) What gives your site authority? Inbound links to your site (also known as backlinks) strongly influences relevance ranking (it signals importance) Quality score of the link (PageRank) Number of links Inbound links: must be content relevant links from relevant high-ranking sites carry the most authority Don t spam : Google moves against link farms, content farms, and spam sites the losers and JC Penney Google s Link Disavowal tool

28 Don t try to SPAM search engines! Google s Guide for Webmasters Deceptive and manipulative behaviour - Black hat SEO and search engine SPAM is punished!

29 Technical factors that impact SEO Page loading speed an important ranking signal (slow pages also have lower conversion rates) Google Page Speed Insights to test your pages Mobile friendly very important. Pages that don t pass the mobile test won t rank at all on mobile devices Google Mobile Friendly Test

30 The impact of changes in Google s search interface and algorithm The impact of Google Instant on the SERPs and on search behaviour? How Google Instant affects SEO (Bruce Clay) The other thing to take into account is that Google personalizes search results according to search / web history A competing search engine explains the impact Google changes its algorithm quite frequently (algorithm change history) most recently to favour sites optimized for mobile and speed of page loading

31 Other changes in the search scene Google cards and the Knowledge Graph answers not links Search shifting from search engines to social networking sites High percentage of searches for products now begin on Amazon Voice search both on mobile devices and via home speakers such as Amazon Echo The future of search is voice - here's what marketers need to know (video)

32 Enhance a search listing with Google Places for Business A free tool from Google to help you bring your business to prominence when people are searching: Google My Business Add extra features to your business listing Photos Reviews of your business Indoor business photos (sometimes)