PRELIMINARY SEO ANALYSIS

Transcription

1 PRELIMINARY SEO ANALYSIS MASTER OF ARTS IN PROFESSIONAL WRITING CLIENTS: Dr. Tony Grooms, Director, Master of Arts in Professional Writing Mr. Brett Fielder, Webmaster, College of Humanities and Social Sciences Dr. Laura Palmer, Associate Professor and Chair, Technical Communication and Interactive Design SEO ANALYST: Ms. Rebecca Tuck rebeccaetuck.com

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION... 2 Competitive SERP analysis... 2 Layout Search Engine Results Page... 3 ANALYZING THE SEARCH RESULTS... 4 ANALYZING THE SEARCH RESULTS... 5 ANALYZING THE SEARCH RESULTS... 6 ANALYZING THE SEARCH RESULTS... 6 DECISION-MAKING FOR TOP THREE MAPW PAGES... 6 LANDING PAGE... 7 DECISION ON FOR CSS STYLES... 7 META KEYWORD SUGGESTIONS... 7 META LOCATION SUGGESTION... 8 PAGE <TITLE> RECOMMENDATIONS... 9 COURSE OF STUDY... 9 DECISION ON FOR CSS STYLES... 9 META KEYWORD SUGGESTIONS META LOCATION SUGGESTION PAGE <TITLE> RECOMMENDATIONS ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS DECISION ON FOR CSS STYLES META KEYWORD SUGGESTIONS META LOCATION SUGGESTION PAGE <TITLE> RECOMMENDATIONS CONCLUSION WHY DO I DO WHAT I DO? EXPLANATION OF MY METHODS Google Trends Google Analytics WHY SHOULD YOU HIRE ME? SOURCES

3 INTRODUCTION Technical communication, as a profession, situates one to utilize writing, visuals, and multimedia to turn complex, technical concepts into something everyone can understand. As a graduate of Kennesaw State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Technical Communication, I have a diverse range of technical writing and editing skills. As a consultant for KSU s Office of Strategic Communications and Marketing department, I play an important role in the planning of the university s alwaysevolving marketing campaigns. As an SEO Analyst, I would like to provide Dr. Grooms, Director of the Master of Arts in Professional Writing, and Mr. Fielder, Webmaster for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the tools necessary to ensure that their online content can be found and viewed by prospective students. COMPETITIVE SERP ANALYSIS The first thing that I do when beginning an SEO analysis for a company s website is to complete a competitive SERP analysis. Let s define what a SERP is. SERP stands for: search engine results page. According to the textbook, The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization, the pages that the engines return to fulfill a query are referred to as search engine results pages or SERPs. The public uses a variety of search engines such as, Google, Safari, Bing, and Yahoo, so each search engine returns results in a slightly different format (Enge, Spencer, Stricchiola, Fishkin, p. 26). A SERP analysis allows me to determine how a client s site current ranks. But before we look at the SERPs results for your pages, I want to explain how a search results page looks. I ll be using Google to demonstrate this concept because it s the world s most popular browser (Forbes, 2017). Each section of the results page is composed of the following pieces of identification: 2

4 Table 1: Layout Search Engine Results Page LAYOUT SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE Horizontal navigation Search query box Paid search advertising Vertical navigation Query refinement suggestions Natural/organic/algorithmic results Date ranges would be considered a feature that Google offers and these appear horizontally next to the search engine results. The search engines show the query that a user performs and then allows you to edit the query as needed, to move onto a revised or new search. To ensure that their pages show up at the top of the search results, companies will purchase text ads from Google (AdWords) or Microsoft (adcenter). By paying for advertising, Google is ranking by relevance and keywords in the ad, and then Google charges the company when an ad is clicked on. Vertical navigation is the ability that Google provides to search for images, news, videos, and maps, by using the vertical search options provided. Query refinements are offered by most of the big search engines: Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. The goal of the links so to allow users to search with more specific and relevant queries to allow a user to find exactly what they re looking for. These types of results are from search engines according to relevance and popularity due to their complex algorithms. After identifying what a SERPs results page is and then defining the layout of the SERP page, I start my competitive analysis by doing a simple search in Google using two queries: Master of Arts in Professional Writing in Atlanta, GA Master of Arts in Professional Writing in Georgia, USA Here is a snapshot of my results using Master of Arts in Professional Writing in Atlanta, GA: 3

5 Figure 1: SERPs results page for MAPW in Atlanta, GA ANALYZING THE SEARCH RESULTS The SERPs results page for the MAPW in Atlanta, GA shows KSU s program in the top three results which, as an SEO Analyst, is something I d look at as a positive because it means that if someone knows the exact name of the program, then they re likely to land on KSU s MAPW site. But, what if they don t (and most probably won t) know the exact name of the program they re searching for? We ll get to that in just a bit. Now, let s do the second query of the Master of Arts in Professional Writing in Georgia, USA and see if and how our SERPs results page changes. Figure 2: SERPs results page for MAPW in Georgia, USA 4

6 ANALYZING THE SEARCH RESULTS I didn t notice too many differences in query one versus query two. One thing to note in query two is that only degree programs within the MAPW are within the search as opposed to the first query which included some graduate certificates that may (or may not be) what the end user is looking for. Back to something I brought up a few minutes ago. When we are given the exact phrases to search for, and while that is best case scenario, the reality is, most users won t conduct their searches with the exact keywords. To demonstrate SERPs pages, I used the following phrases and came up with a pretty good SERPs page because I knew exactly what it was that I was searching for: Master of Arts in Professional Writing in Atlanta, GA Master of Arts in Professional Writing in Georgia, USA But what if I didn t know so many details about the above program? Maybe I didn t know the full name or the city where the school is located which might mean that my SERPs page will look significantly different if I searched for these two phrases: Masters program in writing in Georgia Masters of professional writing in the state of GA I plugged both into the Google search engine, just like I did the other two, and here are my results: Figure 3: SERPs results page for master s program in writing in Georgia 5

7 ANALYZING THE SEARCH RESULTS The results that return for this set of words turns up quite a different page of results. You ll see other schools listed in the results as well as paid advertisements that I mentioned above. Now, let s look at our final search phrase and see what happens. Figure 4: SERPs results page for master s of professional writing in the state of GA ANALYZING THE SEARCH RESULTS Once again, I think it s fair to say that even the slightest adjustment to the search words will result in a very different SERP. The good news found in our final test is that all four links that we see on the SERP are solid, organic links to KSU programs. DECISION-MAKING FOR TOP THREE MAPW PAGES Now that we ve completed a competitive search analysis and have found that our competitors do show up in our search results when looking for a KSU-specific program, it s going to be important to come up with an SEO plan that will put us out front. By using rich keywords, meta tags and descriptions, and page title recommendations, I ll be able to offer tools to make the MAPW program rank high in a variety of search engine results by identifying keywords that users are using when looking up masters programs that entice them. Let s begin by analyzing three of the top pages for the Master of Arts in Professional Writing program: landing page, course of study, and admission requirements. I ll be using the tools outlined regarding the competitive search analysis when writing my recommendations for the following pages. 6

8 LANDING PAGE Figure 5: MAPW Landing Page DECISION ON FOR CSS STYLES After looking at the code on the MAPW landing page, it s my recommendation that the webmaster not to import their CSS stylesheet. There are a few reasons why this is a bad practice: Prevents multiple stylesheets from being downloaded concurrently Slows down site speed Knowing this, it s best to add your CSS stylesheet to your HTML code with the following code: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mystyle.css">. Doing this will reduce the mistakes that can be made when using tag which as mentioned, can slow down site speed, and prevent multiple stylesheets from being downloaded concurrently. META KEYWORD SUGGESTIONS Let s look at the current META tags coded onto the landing page: <!doctype html> <html lang="en"><head> <meta charset="utf-8"><title>programs» English» Kennesaw State University</title><meta name="viewport" content="width=devicewidth, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no" /><link rel="icon" href="/pics/_template/favicon.png" type="image/png" /><style type="text/css">@import "/css/style_normalize.css";</style><style type="text/css" media="screen">@import 7

9 "/css/style_screen.php?cv=1.0";</style><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/flexslider.css"><script type="text/javascript" src="/js/script.js"></script><script type="text/javascript"> You can see that it s sort of all over the place and not following the best practices of good SEO. After looking at the code, here are four suggestions that I d make, as well as why I d make them: 1. A <meta name> tag needs to go directly below the <head> tag. It should then follow an order of <meta descriptions> and then <meta keywords>. There are some great (free and paid) meta tag websites that will assist in generating great descriptions for your sites. There is also a wonderful (mostly free!) tool called Wordtracker, that will allow you to generate longtail keywords to include in your <meta keywords> section. 2. Google Trends is another keyword generator but as with AdWords, KeywordDiscovery, and Wordtracker, there s always a catch when using these services, so do your research first and spend your money in places that might be more valuable (such as hiring an SEO Analyst like me). 3. It s important, in every part of your code, that it s clean and concise. Any extra letters or characters will add to the confusion of the search engines as they re crawling on your site, looking for great content (and don t forget, visuals and multimedia count as content!). 4. Here are some keywords that the above mentioned Wordtracker site (and from my own additional research) suggested as rich long tail keywords for (keywords or key phrases that are more specific, and usually longer, than more commonly searched for keywords) the MAPW landing page: Education Online education Education online Continuing education Masters degree in writing Master s degree in writing Masters of arts in professional writing Masters of arts in writing Professional writing masters degree Online masters of arts in professional writing degree Masters degree in professional writing in georgia Masters degree in professional writing in atlanta, GA META LOCATION SUGGESTION Here is where the <meta tag> should be placed in the HTML code: <head> <meta name= description content= abc > <meta name= keywords content= def > </head> 8

10 Here s how it can help: The reason why we should always place the <meta tag> within the <head></head> tags are because the meta elements are the ones used to specify the important page descriptions, rich keywords, the author of the page, when it was last modified, and other important go to information. PAGE <TITLE> RECOMMENDATIONS Many highly qualified SEO Analysts with proven results on SERPs, look at the <title> tag as one of the most valuable aspects to your SEO business plan. The <title> tag is the HTML element that specifies the title of your web page. Here are three reasons why creating optimal <title> tags will really target your SEO goals: 1. It s the best place to put in a clear and concise description of your content. 2. The <title> tag determines your display title in SERPs. 3. Social networks will often use the <title> tag to determine how they display your page on their page. Here s an example of what the <title> tag looks like at the top of your HTML code: <head> <title> Masters of Arts in Professional Writing at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA</title> </head> COURSE OF STUDY Figure 6: Course of Study DECISION ON FOR CSS STYLES The same principles and best practices that I suggested in the MAPW landing page will apply here as well. It s my recommendation that the webmaster not to import their CSS stylesheet. There are a few reasons why this is a bad practice: Prevents multiple stylesheets from being downloaded concurrently 9

11 Slows down site speed Knowing this, it s best to add your CSS stylesheet to your HTML code by doing something like this: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mystyle.css">. Doing this will reduce the mistakes that can be made when using tag which as mentioned, can slow down site speed, and prevent multiple stylesheets from being downloaded concurrently. META KEYWORD SUGGESTIONS Let s look at the current META tags coded onto the programs course of study page: <!doctype html> <html lang="en"><head><meta charset="utf-8"><title>programs» English» Kennesaw State University</title><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1.0, userscalable=no" /><link rel="icon" href="/pics/_template/favicon.png" type="image/png" /><style type="text/css">@import "/css/style_normalize.css";</style><style type="text/css" media="screen">@import "/css/style_screen.php?cv=1.0";</style><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/flexslider.css"><script type="text/javascript" src="/js/script.js"></script><script type="text/javascript">var Content = "programs";</script><script>(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['googleanalytics Object']=r;i[r]=i[r] function()(i[r].q=i[r].q []).push(arguments)},i[ r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a. src=g;m.parentnode.insertbefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https: // 'UA ', 'auto');ga('create', 'UA ', 'auto', {'name': 'paralel'}); // CHSS trackerga('send', 'pageview');ga('paralel.send', 'pageview') </script> Much like the meta tag issues in the landing page of the MAPW site, the same issues arise on this page. This is likely because the same webmaster is coding the pages through a content management system (CMS) with limited capability for structuring the code the way that it needs to be coded for best results. That said, there is always a work around to content management systems and it is possible to write clean code. The <meta name> tag needs to go directly below the <head> tag. It should then follow an order of <meta descriptions> and then <meta keywords>. There are some great (free and paid) meta tag websites that will assist in generating great descriptions for your sites. There is also a wonderful (free!) tool called Wordtracker, that will allow you to generate long tail keywords to include in your <meta keywords> section. It s important, in every part of your code, that it s clean and concise. Any extra letters or characters will add to the confusion of the search engines as they re crawling on your site, looking for great content (and don t forget, visuals and multimedia counts as content!). Again, these are all suggestions I made in the landing page section because the same principles apply to many top-level pages of a website. 10

12 META LOCATION SUGGESTION Here is where the <meta tag> should be placed in the HTML code: <head> <meta name= description content= abc > <meta name= keywords content= def > </head> Here s how it can help: The reason why we should always place the <meta tag> within the <head> </head> tags is because the meta elements are the ones used to specify the important page descriptions, rich keywords, the author of the page, when it was last modified, and other important go to information. PAGE <TITLE> RECOMMENDATIONS Many highly qualified SEO Analysts with proven results on SERPs, look at the <title> tag as one of the most valuable aspects to your SEO business plan. The <title> tag is the HTML element that specifies the title of your web page. Here are three reasons why creating optimal <title> tags will really target your SEO goals: 4. It s the best place to put in a clear and concise description of your content. 5. The <title> tag determines your display title in SERPs. 6. Social networks will often use to <title> tag to determine how they display your page on their page. Here s an example of what the <title> tag looks like at the top of your HTML code: <head> <title>course of Study for the Masters of Arts in Professional Writing at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA</title> </head> ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS Figure 7: Admission Requirements 11

13 DECISION ON FOR CSS STYLES Regarding the ongoing discussion of the importance of not to import your stylesheet, I m recommending the same principles and best practices that I suggested in the MAPW landing page and programs of studies page. It s my recommendation that the webmaster not to import their CSS stylesheet. There are a few reasons why this is a bad practice: Prevents multiple stylesheets from being downloaded concurrently Slows down site speed Knowing this, it s best to add your CSS stylesheet to your HTML code by doing something like this: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mystyle.css">. Doing this will reduce the mistakes that can be made when using tag which as mentioned, can slow down site speed, and prevent multiple stylesheets from being downloaded concurrently. META KEYWORD SUGGESTIONS I m an SEO creature of habit and strongly suggest continuing the best practices that I ve suggested for the other two pages of the MAPW website. When search engine crawlers scour the web for all the best content, HTML code that is keyword-rich situates your pages to show high in the SERPs. From Wordtracker and my own analysis of the admission requirements page for MAPW, here are some keyword-rich words that I d recommend adding to your code: Admission requirements for Kennesaw State University Admission requirements for masters programs at Kennesaw State University KSU admission requirements masters programs KSU admission requirements for masters of arts in professional writing Professional writing masters program admission requirements Professional writing masters program admissions requirements for KSU KSU masters program admission requirements Graduate programs at KSU and the admission requirements Professional writing graduate program admission requirement at KSU Admission requirements for KSU MAPW Admission requirements for professional writing masters degrees in Georgia META LOCATION SUGGESTION Here is where the <meta tag> should be placed in the HTML code: <head> <meta name= description content= abc > <meta name= keywords content= def > </head> 12

14 The reason why we should always place the <meta tag> within the <head></head> tags is because the meta elements are the elements used to specify the important page descriptions, rich keywords, the author of the page, when it was last modified, and other important go to information. PAGE <TITLE> RECOMMENDATIONS Many highly qualified SEO Analysts with proven results on SERPs, look at the <title> tag as one of the most valuable aspects to your SEO business plan. The <title> tag is the HTML element that specifies the title of your web page. Here are three reasons why creating optimal <title> tags will really target your SEO goals: 7. It s the best place to put in a clear and concise description of your content. 8. The <title> tag determines your display title in SERPs. 9. Social networks will often use to <title> tag to determine how they display your page on their page. Here s an example of what the <title> tag looks like at the top of your HTML code: <head> <title>admission Requirements for the Masters of Arts in Professional Writing at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA</title> </head> CONCLUSION WHY DO I DO WHAT I DO? I ve always had a fascination of the World Wide Web. My obsession dates to the days of dial-up and AOL Instant Messenger (RIP). As technology and the Internet have evolved since the mid-90s, I have strived to keep up with the best SEO practices. I like to think of myself as an always-evolving technical communicator with a love of technology and a passion for communication. EXPLANATION OF MY METHODS My methods of producing the results that my clients ask me to produce are by using a variety of statistical data: Google Analytics Google Trends W3C Validator (HTML tools) Wordtracker and other longtail keyword generators I ve talked about HTML tools and Wordtracker but I d be remiss as an SEO expert to not delve into Google Analytics and Google Trends. And perhaps, Google Analytics and Google Trends are two of the most valuable tools when it comes to implementing your 13

15 SEO plan. Without a plan, you can t measure what does and doesn t work so that you can then reevaluate and make the changes needed. GOOGLE TRENDS Google Trends is a real-time Google web facility that, based on a Google search, shows how often a specific search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. For example, in this very moment of time, one could assume because of Google Trends, that two things are trending in the United States right now: the U.S. soccer team didn t make it to the World Cup and that daylight-saving-time ends in just a few weeks. A company can leverage Google Trends to their benefits by posting relevant information trending in real time to help drive traffic to their site (e.g., companies who sell soccer gear of the teams who did make it into the World Cup can generate sales by offering coupon codes and special deals within a certain time period before the first game begins). GOOGLE ANALYTICS As I learned in my SEO & Analytics class, one of the very first things that a webmaster/developer should do when setting up their site is to create a Google Analytics account. It s a very simple process that one can do by visiting This (free) tool allows a website owner to track everything they can possible imagine, in real-time: Audience o Overview o Active users o Lifetime value o Demographics o Behavior o Technology o Site speed o and the list goes on and on Long story short: Google Analytics is something you want to immediately visit, download your code, and then copy and paste your code into the <head></head> of your website. WHY SHOULD YOU HIRE ME? You ve now read through a preliminary SEO report where I ve detailed the best SEO practices. You know that clear and concise HTML code on the backend of your website is a necessity in ensuring your audience can find your website. All site owners hope that their site visitors stay on their site, browse around, and then complete an action whether that action is to request more information about a program of study, or to purchase a dress, or to bookmark the site to come back later to make their decision on a 14

16 future subscription for a television streaming service the proper SEO plan can turn a visitor into a paying customer. In academia, our goal is to have excellent SEO plans set forth so that prospective students from all over the United States, and not just the northern part of the State of Georgia, will be able to learn about the valuable programs that Kennesaw State University offers. And that s why you should hire me as your SEO Analyst for the Master of Arts of Professional Writing pages. I ll work closely with both of you so that I m able to create a specific SEO business plan for your webpages and ensure that more traffic will come to your website, and that site visitors turn into students who apply, are accepted, and then begin their lifelong dream of completing a graduate program. You can me at info@rebeccaetuck.com, call me at (555) , or by contacting the KSU Office of Strategic Management and Marketing department. I look forward to working with you and your department soon. SOURCES Enge, Eric. The art of SEO. Farnham: OReilly, SEO & Analytics (TCOM 3245), taught by Dr. Laura A. Palmer, Associate Professor and Chair, Technical Communication and Interactive Design 15