Introduction to emanagement MGMT 230 WEEK 5: FEBRUARY 5 Digital design and usability search engine optimization. Measurement and evaluation. Web analytics and data mining
Today s Class Search Engine Optimization Case Study
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) SEO is often referred to as "natural," "organic," or "earned" results In other words, SEO is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's unpaid result
Search Engine Optimization
Organic Search How does it work? A spider or crawler component of a search engine (SE) gathers listings by automatically "crawling" the web The spider follows links to web pages, makes copies of the pages and stores them in the SE s index Based on this data, the SE then indexes the pages and ranks the websites Google, Altavista, Msn, Aol, and lycos index pages using spiders
Keywords Valuable in optimizing rankings Research what keywords are people searching for using tools e.g. Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com) Moz.com Web sites are then indexed based on keywords Can be key phrases or a single keyword Words such as and the and of are ignored by spiders Balance keyword-rich and readability Always have text in your page: at least 300 words
Link Strategies the text in the links should include keywords the more inbound links, the higher the SE ranking if the site linking to you is already indexed, spiders will also receive your site quality of inbound links is critical how to increase links: a) creative content / copywriting b) quality outbound links c) target a list of sites from which you can request inbound links Excessive link usage can damage your search rankings
Responsive Web Design (RWD) an approach to web design aimed at designing sites to provide an optimal viewing and interaction experience Includes easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling across a wide range of devices (ie phones, computers, tablets)
Content Your content needs to accomplish two goals: appeal to the end-user (customers, clients, prospects, readers, etc.) solve a particular problem. Copywriting is the art and science of creating content that prompts the reader/end-user to either buy a product, subscribe to a list, take a test drive or take some other action that will benefit you A copywriter is someone who understands people, knows what his audience likes and chooses the words that will appeal to them The headline, words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs used in the content have to persuade and cause readers to take a specific action An SEO copywriter also understand how Google feels about certain words and phrases, especially long tail phrases.
Domain Authority
Site Speed Critical the the site and pages within load fast. Google Amp pages
Tools to Monitor and Optimize Google Analytics Google Search Console Google Penguin
Analytics. Monitor and Optimize Acquisition and behaviour Acquisition shows you how your visitors found your site, broken down between organic traffic (via unpaid SE or social networking), paid keywords (such as AdWords campaigns) and organic keywords (words used to generate free traffic on SE) Behaviour shows you how these visitors navigate your site including bounce rate, average time on page, page sessions and goal conversions Analyzing your behavioural flow can help you understand potential problems on your site Ie changing the page that most visitors are exiting on Analyze what visitors are searching for and how many page views, time on page, etc. Device segmentation
SEO Don ts Flash and shockwave: Spiders do not pick up these files Image only sites: Spiders do not pick up images Image maps: Spiders cannot read image maps. Do not use them on your home page or critical pages. Frames: Only one page can be titled (titling is critical in search rankings) If the spider cannot read the complete page (because of the frames), it will not be indexed properly Some spiders may not even read a frames website Password protected pages Spiders cannot enter password protected pages PDF files: Can be problematic for spiders. Although some search engines can index them, the pages must be interpreted into HTML and can lose much of their content. Place PDFs lower down in your site
Digital Strategy Case Study
Case Discussion What did these marketing professionals do well? How did they leverage analytics to inform their marketing practices?
Digital Strategy Case Study
Case Discussion What did these marketing professionals do well? How did they leverage analytics to inform their marketing practices?
Next Class Wednesday s lab will be used to commence your web site project with a WordPress tutorial