Search Engine Optimization
Ranking
3rd step of how a search engine works. 200 ranking signals that search engines use to sort and rank content. Examples include the keyword presence in a title tag, loading speed of web page, and website reputation.
The importance of Keyword Research
- Getting the right kind of visitors to your site to convert into sales. - Identifying the keywords with high search volume and omit low volume terms. - Identify content gaps on your website - Targeting keywords that are in your reach: transactional keywords are highly competitive. Informational keywords are less competitive but still very useful.
Keyword Title Tag
- aim to work between 3 to 5 keywords in the title tag.
Importance of SEO Objectives
- buy-in from key stakeholders - help formulate your seo strategy - ensure objectives are met: "what gets measured gets managed"
Steps to conducting Keyword Research
1. Pick a topic to research 2. Brainstorm keywords 3. Review keyword value 4. Prioritize Keywords
Crawling
1st step of how a search engine works. Search engines send out web crawlers to find new page s and record information ab out them. Their purpose is to discover new web pages that exist.
Indexing
2nd step of how a search engine works. Indexing is when a search engine decides whether or not it is going to use the content that it has crawled. This index is used at the final ranking stage.
Keywords
A keyword is a word or phrase that a user enters into a search engine to accomplish a task. There are 3 different types: navigational, informational, and transactional
Technically SEO Ranking Factors: Site Speed
Aiming for 2 seconds or less. Make file series smaller for images, compress texts and files. You can upgrade your website hosting is its not responding well ( I think this means like from square space to Wix).
PageRank
An algorithm used by google search to rank websites in their search engine results. Measuring the importance of webpages.
Root Domain
Are the number of unique domains that are actually linking to your site.
Measuring the success of your SEO: Referral Traffic
Backlinks. Measured through google analytics. Increasing the total number of backlinks - and the total number of root domain links, from the right types of site - is a good metric because backlinks are one of the most important aspects that lead to SEO success.
Measuring the success of your SEO: Conversions and Sales
Conversions and sales are also best measured in a web analytics tool like Google Analytics. It is possible to have good keyword rankings and traffic but low or no conversions, goals, or sales. This may indicate that the keyword research and SEO strategy was wrong. Conversions and sales metrics are often considered the most important SEO success metrics as they tend to be the most closely aligned to the business goals. accessing the 'Conversions' menu and selecting the 'Organic traffic' segment.
Transactional SEO Business Objective
Ecommerce sites objectives are often tracking sales and lead conversions. Non-ecommerce sites: setting lead generation in SEO goals.
Informational SEO Business Objectives
Focused on brand awareness and website traffic Blogs: look for brand awareness or increasing their traffic. Large Publishers: interested in ad revenue goals
Tool: Google Search Console
Free service that is offered by google to help you monitor and maintain your site's presence in google search results. You must register your site for google search console.
Headings and how to optimize them
Headings help outline what a web page is about. There are 6 header tags where the main heading should be a H1 tag, secondary sub headings should be H2 tags, and the rest is H3 to H6. Optimize heading transactional pages: more keyword focused, usually include main keyword. Optimize heading for informational pages: more user focused and sometimes includes main keyword.
Informational Keywords
Information keyword searches used when the searcher is looking for information. They make up the largest proportion of keywords and happen at the earlier awareness stage of the buying cycle. They are hard to convert into sales. Examples include: "how to" This happens at the awareness, interest, and sometimes conversions stage of the buyers journey.
Navigational Keywords
Keyword searches for a specific website or web page. This includes the brand name, website url, or person's name. These keywords are the signposts that direct searchers to a place they already have in mind. This happens at all stages of the buyers journey.
Off-Page Optimization
Off-page optimization is the process of enhancing the websites search engine rankings through activities that happen outside of the website. The most influential factor for search engine rankings as it helps build a websites reputation. The more high-quality backlinks you have from reputable websites, the more credible your website is seen to be and search engines will rank you more highly as a result.
Measuring the success of your SEO: Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is best measured in a web analytics tool like google analytics. Indicates that a visitor has come from SEO, so its a good high-level way of reviewing the process. 1. Accessing 'Channels' form the 'Aquisition' Menu and then view Organic Search 2. Using the built-in organic search custom google analytics segment. 3. Link google search console to google analytics.
Tool: Link Explorer
Provided by Moz, that allows you to research where a website has got its backlinks from.
Tool: Google Hummingbird
Responsible for deciding how to order and rank search engine results.
Tools used for On-Page Optimization
SEOptimer, SEO SiteCheckup, and MozBar are free SEO tools that can be used to scan the HTML of a web page and identify important on-page elements, allowing you to quickly check whether the page has been optimized or not.
Short-Tail Keywords
Short-tail keywords are typically one to two keywords. They tend to be less specific, so they are generic in your industry.
Transactional Keywords
Showing signs that they are ready to purchase something. They happen at the last stage of the buying cycle and are easy to convert. This happens at the conversion and retention stages of the buyers journey.
Similarities between SEO and PPC
Similarities include keyword research, creating landing pages that has content that targets keywords, and traffic.
Social Signals
Social signals are links within social media that are backlinks. They can indirectly lead to an increase in backlinks. Aka "link in bio'"
Technical Optimization for SEO
Technical optimization is SEO activities that are completed on your site and are designed to improve SEO but are not related to content. When you think about technical optimization, its mainly about optimizing for crawlablilty and ease of cess to get your pages indexed.
On-Page Optimization
The process of ensuring the content is both relevant and provides a great user experience. This includes smart key word targeting where keywords are mentioned in key elements while still providing good user experience.
Long-tail Keywords
Typically three or more words that tend to be more specific.
URLS and how to optimize them
Uniform Resource Locator which is another term for web address. Best not to change the URL ever. Optimize URL: 1. include your p1 keyword, or close variation. 2. Keep it short and concise (around 70 characters_ 3. Set the URL right at the beginning 4. Stick to conventions such as dashs and lowercase.
Referral Traffic
Very related to SEO, but is not. Quite often through backlinks.
Universal Serps
Videos, images, local listings, shopping results, and news results.
Breakdown of crawlability optimization for: XML Site Map
XML sitemaps are designed specifically for search engines and typically, they will list all the urls that exist on your websites.
Keyword Research
the process of discovering the keywords used by potential customers to find your products and picking the most relevant keywords that are within your reach and that have a good search volume.
Main Body Copy and how to optimize them
The main copy is where users should find what they are looking for. It is a high weight on-page SEO signal that adds relevancy to the page. Optimize body copy: length (meets user expectations), avoid repeating keywords too often, and adding hyperlinks increases relevancy and reputation.
Crawlability Optimization
1. Minimize Site Errors 2. Use Redirects Wisely 3. XML site maps 4. Minimize duplicate content 5. Check for indexed Pages.
Extended Serps
Knowledge graph: the box that pops up on the side of a search (on a desk top) and give you the details or history about what specifically you are searching for. Direct Answers: direct reply such has someones birthday or height. Related Question Box: bottom of search engine with related results. App Packs: results related to mobile apps Twitter cards: related to twitter messages
Measuring the brand
Lead generation: when a brand sells services and not direct products. Backlinks: encouraging other websites to link to your site to it builds reputation Ecommerce: Ads Revenue:
Tools for measuring backlinks
Link Explorer, Majestic SEO, and Ahrefs are SEO tools that you can use to analyze both your backlinks and your competitors' backlinks. They all offer a freemium model, which means you can get a free account and use some of the functionality for free.
Pre-click on-page Optimization
Pre-click on-page optimization is what is visible to the user before they click on a result on the search engine results page. It includes the title tag, the URL, and the meta description. The goal of pre-click optimization is to encourage the user to click on your listing.
Measuring the success of your SEO
1. Keyword Rankings 2. Organic Traffic 3. Conversions and Sales 4. Referral Traffic 5. Link-Building KPI Early signs of SEO progress are seen at a keyword level first because you can see a rise in rankings before any traffic, conversions, or sales are generated.
Step 2 of Keyword Research
Brainstorming Keywords. come up with a list of keywords that are relevant to your topic. Think of synonyms as well as plural and singular keywords. Aim for quantity rather than quality. At least 10 key words. Tools that help: Search engine suggestions and related searches, google keyword planner, keywords everywhere (plugin), Competitor keyword analysis using SEMrush.
Images and how to optimize them
Image optimization is important because it is a light-weight on-page SEO signal and adds relevancy to your web page. Alt text should be added to images because it is often read out to visually impaired people who rely on screen readers. Optimize Images: add alt text that is concise (2 to 5 words), give images meaningful file names, and make images web friendly.
Backlinks and the 3 different types
Increasing the number of backlinks to your site is one of the key SEO goals. A backlink is an incoming hyperlink from one webpage to another website. It creates a reputation. Topical Backlinks: relevant to your industry are likely to bring in relevant referral traffic. High authority backlinks: reputable and trustworthy. Authentic Backlinks: Earned on merit. Search engines don't like to be tricked and any sites building phony links will receive a search engine penalty.
Measuring the success of your SEO: Link Building KPIs
Link Explorer is part of the Moz SEO toolset that is used specifically for link analysis. This example is a link analysis of the URL "https://www.evo.com" in Link Explorer. You can customize the results by applying settings such as the target, link source, and link type, and link state. Links has its own KPI is because off-page optimization is actually probably the most important part of SEO. So we want to have a look at what other total number of links that your site currently has, what the total number of root domains that your site currently has and, over time, you'll want to increase that.
Tools for Measuring Page Rank
Moz's Open Site Explorer offers two metrics, Page Authority and Domain Authority, while Ahrefs offers a URL rating and a domain rating. Page Authority: predicts how well a specific page will rank on SERPs. Domain Authority: predicts how well a website will rank on SERPs URL Rating: measures the strength of a target URL's backlink profile and the likelihood that the URL will rank high in Google. Domain Rating: shows the strength of a given website's overall backlink profile.
Meta Description Tags and how to optimize them
Only visible in the SERPS and the source code. The short piece of descriptive text that you see under the URL in the SERP. Its not a direct ranking factor but can influence others to click on your page. If a meta description tag includes a searched term, it will be bolded which encourages the searcher to click through. Optimize the meta tags: max of 156 characters for desktop and 115 characters for mobile. Include ONLY your P1 keyword. Be descriptive.
Step 1 of Keyword Research
Picking a topic to research Focus on one topics at a time and make sure that its closely aligned with your objectives and industry. Avoid being too generic. #1 Mistake: focusing on short tail keywords that aren't relevant enough for search engines to rank.
Post-click on-page optimization
Post-click on-page optimization is what is visible to the user after they click on your listing and land on your web page. It includes the main copy, the main heading and sub-headings, hyperlinks, and images.
Step 4 of Keyword Research
Prioritizing Keywords Keywords with a good relevancy score and good search volumes should be most highly prioritized. P1: more important and known as the primary keyword P2: choose two secondary keywords P3: choose three to six tertiary keywords.
Breakdown of crawlability optimization for: Checked for Indexed Pages
Really important to know that our top pages are indexed. You can do this by either typing a keywords into google or a search engine, and then when the list appears, what you can actually do is click the triangle and then click Cached. You will see if your webpage is indexed or not.
Step 3 of Keyword Research
Reviewing Keyword Value 1. Get the keyword search volumes 2. Get the keyword difficulty scores. 3. Get the keyword rankings. 4. Review the keywords. 5. Assign a relevancy score. Search Volume: the higher the search volume, the better the key words. target keywords at a country level. Relevancy Score: between 1 (high) and 3 (low)
Tools used for Keyword Rankings
SEMRush: is the leading tool for competitor keyword research. requires a subscription. SEOmonitor: also offers the ability to benchmark how well you are doing against competitors, and the tool hooks up to your Google Search Console account to help find keywords you may have missed. WhatsMySERP: quick, free, not always reliable. Wincher: low cost, good quality, and dedicated keyword ranking checking tool. RankTracker Pro: is a low cost, good quality, and dedicated keyword ranking checking tool.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is the process of getting traffic from free, organic, editorial, or natural search results on search engines.
SERPS
Search Engine Results Pages. There is 3 different types of serps. They are the classic Serps, universal serps, and extended serps.
Three Pillars of SEO
Technical Optimization: is the process of completing activities on your site that are designed to improve SEO but are not related to content. This often happens behind the scenes. On-page Optimization: is the process of ensuring the content on your site is relevant and provides a great user experience. It includes targeting the right key words within your content. Off-page Optimization: is the process of enhancing your site's search engine ranking through activities outside of the site. This is largely driven by backlinks, which help to build a site reputation.
Tools for Testing Site Speed
Test My Site- Think with Google: goes more in-depth by checking your speed for mobile. Pingdom: helps diagnose any issues with slow loading web pages.
Alt Text for Images
The Alt text and filenames should be descriptive and accurate first - and contain keywords or related words second. Alt text contains one of the main keywords, and the filename is a related word that will add to the overall relevancy of the page.
Technically SEO Ranking Factors: httpS
The S in https means the page is secure, you can usually find this on pages that are transactional or ask for personal information. Its only a small ranking factor.
Title Tags and how to optimize them
The single most important on-page element to get right, This is the first part of the listing that a user sees after they run a search. This influences how well your web page will be ranked. Work in primary and secondary keywords. Position main keywords near the beginning. Avoid keyword stuffing. Title tag is a max of 512 pixels, or approx 55 characters.
Classic Serps
Title Tag: first thing the user sees before they click on your linking. URL: web address Meta Description tag: short little snippet thats about 2 sentences of what the site is. Rich snippets: reviews and stars. Sitelinks: tend to show for navigational keywords.
Total Links
Total links is the total number or links linking to your site, which might mean that some domains are linking more often than just once.
Direct Traffic
When people type in a URL to the website. This can be included in untagged emails and links from PDFs.
Breakdown of crawlability optimization for: Using Redirects Wisely
You want to use a redirect and what we generally want to use more often than not is a 301 Error. 301 Error: tells search engines that is is a permanent measure but passes reputation. 302 Error: another form of redirect. does not pass reputation.
Measuring for SEO Objectives
keywords, traffic, market share, brand of product awareness. most common: keywords, traffic and conversions, or sales.
Keyword Stuffing
frowned upon, mentioning their keywords as many times as possible within their content. poor user experience.
Technically SEO Ranking Factors: Mobile Friendliness
fun fact: using mobile to google search queries is higher than desktop. ranks how your website responds to mobile devices primarily and secondarily on desktop devices.
