SEO Guide for Beginner

SEO for Beginners

What is SEO?

 Often referred to as “organic”, “natural”, or “free” search results   Process of getting traffic for “free” from search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc. when a user types in a keyword or keyphrase  The results (The SERP) are based on what the search engine deems as relevant to the user based on the keyword/ keyphrase searched

-Determined through proprietary algorithms which are constantly changing

What We See vs. What a Search Engine Sees

SEO Guide for Beginner

Key Principles of SEO

Indexability

-Evaluate your site architecture.

-Is your site fully crawlable by search engine spiders or bots?

-Google Webmaster Tools

Relevance

-Content is king.

-Keywords, tags, URL’s and more

-Google Adwords Keyword Tool

-Google Analytics

Authority

-Linking

–Internal & External

-Social Media

Indexability

The potential for your website or its content to be crawled or indexed by search engines

Content on any site is being downloaded by these spiders and stores in the master database of Google, the Google index

Also referred to as crawlability or spiderability

HTML text is the way to go. Alternatives such as images, flash files, Javascript, PDF’s and other non-text content can often by ignored or devalued by search engines

-If you must, find alternatives to make sure text is as optimized as possible for example, video transcripts, alt attributes, etc

-It doesn’t matter how gorgeous your site is, if it’s not indexable, you’re missing out on significant opportunities to gain additional traffic

Use Google Webmaster tools to see if any issues in particular have been flagged

-404 Error pages (301 redirect these immediately)

-Any orphan pages? (not being linked to from anywhere on site and thus crawlers cannot access)

-Sitemaps (HTML and XML)

-Site speed & page load time

Relevance

Content is king!

-Is your content valuable? Does it have substance?

-Does it contain targeted keywords?

-Is your content engaging?

-Are you keeping your content fresh?

-Could this content by “spammy”?

–Don’t have multiple pages targeted towards the same keyword (cannibalism)

Write for users, not search engines.

Use Google Analytics & Google Adwords Keyword tools

-Broad, phrase and exact

-Local vs. Global

-Long-tail keywords

Optimize your PDF properties and filename

Be aware of duplicate content!

-Use robots.txt files, no follow no index tags or canonical tags to block certain pages of site from search or tell Google which pages are priority.

The Elements - Guidelines

Meta-Description – 160 characters or less

-Can be longer but make sure you have the important keywords at the front and give the user a reason to click through

Page Title Tag – 70 characters of less

-Include important keywords towards the front

-Include “brand name” at the end. For example, “Masters in Health Communication | Tufts University”

URL length – Usually a maximum length of 2000 characters but PLEASE keep it short and succinct with your primary keyphrases as close to the front of the URL as possible

Own a unique domain name for best optimization as opposed to using wordpress, blogger, etc

ALT Tag/Attribute – 125 characters or less

-Optimize for no more than 1-3 keywords and keep it as short as possible to make sure you’re not diluting the text

-Pretend the person reading can’t see the image, how would you describe the image?

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Broad match: The sum of the search volumes for the keyword idea, related grammatical forms, synonyms and related words

Phrase match: The sum of the search volumes for all terms that include that whole phrase

Exact match: The search volume for that keyword

Authority

Links, audience and influence.

-Internal linking (passing authority throughout your site)

-External linking

–Paid and Unpaid Directories

–3rd party links

-Use link text

Social media

-Choose what’s right for your Brand

-Be authentic

-Keep your channels updated

-Be influential

-Monitor for reputation management

–Social Mention

–Kurrently

Reference: Lek.com