Lesson 4: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

How do search engines work?

Crawling, which is the discovery stage. Indexing, which is the filing stage. Ranking, which is the retrieval stage.

Indexing

If a crawled web page is deemed worthy by a search engine, it will be added to its index. This index is used at the final ranking stage. When a web page or piece of content is indexed, it is filed and stored in a database where it can later be retrieved.

RankTracker Pro

A low cost, good quality, and dedicated keyword ranking checking tool.

Wincher

A low cost, good quality, and dedicated keyword ranking checking tool. If you don't want to pay for extra features, Wincher provides a good value option.

Search Engine Algorithms

Computer programs that look for clues to give the searcher the exact results they are looking for.

What's the sub-algorithm of Google Hummingbird called?

In 2015, Google announced RankBrain, which is a sub-algorithm of Hummingbird and an artificial intelligence system.

SEO Tools

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.

Technical Optimization

The process of completing activities on your site that are designed to improve SEO but are not related to content. It often happens behind the scenes.

Post-Click On-Page Optimization

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.

Steps to Reviewing Keywords

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.

Why is keyword research important?

1. Get the right kind of visitors to your site 2. Identify keywords with high search volume & omit low volume terms 3. Identify content gaps on your website 4. Target keywords that are within your reach

Problem-Solving Approach

1. Identify the problem 2. Analyze the problem 3. Look for solutions 4. Make a decision 5. Implement the solution 6. Get feedback

Short-tail keywords

Typically one or two keywords. They tend to be less specific, so really, they're quite generic keywords in your industry. Examples: skiing, ski holidays, snowboards - these are all one or two keywords. They're quite generic in describing an industry.

Keyword Rankings

What we need to know is a definitive list of keywords that we want to target.

Conversions

When it comes to conversions, we're not only looking at traffic, but we're looking at things that lead to sales. So this could be email inquiries, this could be PDF downloads, and this is something that we can set up in Google Analytics and quite often, we do this through Google Analytics Goals.

Pre-Click On-Page Optimization

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.

Referral Traffic

Very related to SEO traffic. So, when you get traffic from another website, it could be from a blogger, it could be from a journalist, could even be social media, quite often this is through backlinks.

Organic Traffic

Visitors from search engines that are unpaid sources of traffic.

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.

URLs

Uniform Resource Locator - A page will build up trust and authority which is assigned to its URL. Changing a URL without redirecting appropriately can lose trust. URLs are light weight on-page SEO signals. They attract click-throughs from search results and are used by search engines to index and retrieve pages.

Similarities Between Paid & Organic

1. Keyword Research 2. Landing Pages 3. Traffic

What should you measure with SEO?

1. Keywords 2. Traffic 3. Market Share 4. Brand or Product Awareness

How to measure the brand

1. Lead generation 2. Backlinks 3. Ecommerce 4. Ads Revenue

Tools to Help Brainstorm

1. Search engine suggestions & related searches 2. Google keyword planner 3. Keywords everywhere 4. Competitor keyword analysis 5. Search volumes

Technical SEO Ranking Factors

1. Site speed 2. Mobile friendliness 3. HTTPs- So the S in HTTPS means that the page is secure, the page will have a certificate, and that's something that Google announced as a ranking factor in 2014. And before that point, we generally only used HTTPS on private pages.

Three Pillars of SEO

1. Technical optimization 2. On-page optimization 3. Off-page optimization

Optimize Title Tags

1. Work in keywords 2. Use the space provided 3. Be descriptive & engaging Other ways to optimize your title tags include using sentence separators and including your brand in the title text.

Google Search Console

A free service that's offered by Google that helps you monitor and maintain your site's presence in Google search results.

Page Authority

A page ranking score ranging from 1 to 100 that predicts how well a specific page will rank on SERPs.

WhatsmySERP

A quick and free way to check your keyword rankings. While it works most of the time, it is not always reliable. An alternative free way to check rankings is the SERPs.com rank checker tool.

Domain Authority

A search engine ranking score ranging from 1 to 100 that predicts how well a website will rank on SERPs

PageRank

An algorithm used by Google Search to rank websites in their search engine results. It is used as a way of measuring the importance of website pages. According to Google, PageRank counts the number and quality of links to a page to determine a baseline estimate of the importance of a website.

Conversions & 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.

URL Rating

Measures the strength of a target URL's backlink profile and the likelihood that the URL will rank high in Google. It is measured on a logarithmic scale from 1 to 100, with the latter being the strongest.

Links

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.

Measuring Organic Traffic

Organic traffic indicates that a visitor has come from SEO, so it's a good high-level way of reviewing progress. You can monitor organic traffic for the whole of a website, a section of it, or for specific URLs.

Rankbrain

Rankbrain is a sub-algorithm of Google Hummingbird. It processes search results to provide more relevant results for users. This further illustrates the importance of understanding the true meaning of keywords, rather than just matching keywords to pages that mention them.

Ranking

Ranking can only happen after the crawling and indexing steps are complete. So once a search engine has crawled and indexed your site, your site can be ranked. There are more than 200 ranking signals that search engines use to sort and rank content, and they all fit under the three pillars of SEO: technical optimization, on-page optimization, and off-page optimization.

SERP

Search Engine Results Pages, and these are the results that you see after you search for a keyword. They always include Organic (SEO) results.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of getting traffic from free, organic, editorial, or natural search results on search engines.

Crawling

Search engines crawl web pages by following links they've already discovered. So if you have a blog post and it's linked from your homepage, when a search engine crawls your homepage, it will then look for another link to follow and may follow the link to your new blog post.

Popularity of Short-Tail & Long-Tail Keywords

Short-tail keywords account for around 30% of all search traffic. And individually, these keywords have high search volume, so things like "ski," "snowboards," but they also have high competition. Around 70% of all search traffic comes from long-tail keywords. So these are keywords that individually have less search volume but collectively account for a large chunk of the search traffic.

Domain Rating

Shows the strength of a given website's overall backlink profile. It is measured on a logarithmic scale from 1 to 100, with the latter being the strongest.

Search Volume

The higher the search volume, the better the keyword is. For SEO we tend to target keywords at a country level, so select the most relevant country that you wish to target.

SEMrush

The leading tool for competitor keyword research. While SEMRush offers some functionality for free, the majority of features - including keyword rankings - require a subscription.

Authentic Backlinks

These are backlinks that are earned on merit. Search engines don't like to be tricked and any sites building phony links will receive a search engine penalty.

Topical Backlinks

These are backlinks that are relevant to your industry are likely to bring in relevant referral traffic.

Long-tail keywords

These are typically three or more words, and they tend to be more specific as well. Examples: "best time to go to Whistler," so that's a skiing resort in Canada. "Self-drive ski holidays France," so most people take the plane to go skiing in Europe, but some people like to actually drive to their destinations. That's an example of quite a specific phrase. And another one could be "best snowboard for all-round mountain."

Universal SERP

This contains more information than a classic SERP, for example news results, videos, images, local listings.

Optimizing URLs

- Include your P1 keyword, or a close variation. - Keep it short and concise (around 70 characters before truncation). - Set the URL right at the beginning. - Stick to conventions, such as using dashes and lowercase characters.

Optimizing Meta-Description Tags

- Keep it short and concise. Make sure it is two short sentences, at most. Max desktop: 156 characters Max mobile: 115 characters Use the SERP Preview tool to test length. - Be careful with your keywords. You'll find that you've probably mentioned quite a few keywords in your title tag already, so to avoid keyword stuffing don't include them all again in your meta description. As keywords don't help with rankings, it's best to include only your P1 keyword as it is likely to be bolded when searched for. - Be descriptive and engaging. Make sure that your meta description is descriptive, but also engaging. If your page has any unique selling points, list them here to encourage click- throughs.

Importance of SEO Objectives

1. Encourage buy-in from key stakeholders 2. Help formulate the SEO strategy 3. Ensure objectives are met

Differences b/w short & long-tail keywords

1. Intent- short tail keywords have vague intent & long are more specific 2. Research- one thing with short-tail keywords is it is easier to research. There's a smaller number of keywords, so you'll be able to research what those are, quicker. Whereas with the long-tail, it does require more research,short are harder to rank bc they're more obvious & long are easier to rank bc less competition 3. Conversion- since the intent is vauge with short keywords it's harder to convert 4. Search volume- even though short-tail keywords individually have higher search volumes collectively, it's smaller, compared to long-tail keywords 5. Research- one thing with short-tail keywords is it is easier to research. There's a smaller number of keywords, so you'll be able to research what those are, quicker. Whereas with the long-tail, it does require more research,

Measuring SEO Success

1. Keyword rankings: Monitoring where keywords are ranked and positioned 2. Organic traffic: Monitoring the organic traffic on your website 3. Conversions and sales: Tracking conversions and sales 4. Referral traffic: Monitoring sites and pages that refer traffic to your website 5. Link-building KPIs: Monitoring how well your website is acquiring backlinks

Optimizing Main Copy

1. Length 2. Keywords 3. Hyperlinks

SEO Action Plan

1. Mini SEO Audit 2. Check if the URL is indexed 3. Check if the URL passes the mobile-friendly test 4. Check if the URL passes the 2-sec page load test 5. Review site & URL errors in Google Search Console 6. On-Page Optimize Planner 7. Off-Page Optimization & Competitor Research

Crawlability Optimization

1. Minimize site errors 2. Use redirects wisely 3. Create & submit an up-to-date sitemap 4. Minimize duplicate content

Types of Keywords

1. Navigational 2. Informative 3. Transactional

Steps for Keyword Research

1. Pick a topic to research: Focus on one topic or theme at a time. Imagine what the webpage you want to optimize looks like. 2. Brainstorm keywords: Research keywords with similar meaning around a closely related topic. Focus on quantity over quality at this stage. 3. Review keyword value: Gather keyword data to help decide how useful the keywords are, and whether they are within reach. 4. Prioritize keywords: Decide which keywords are the most important, and which ones you wish to focus more on.

Differences Between Paid & Organic

1. Time: with paid search, it's near instant results, and often in minutes. Whereas, with organic search, results can often take weeks, months, and sometimes even years. 2. Payment: suggests, paid search, you're actually paying on a pay-per-click basis, and this happens on a cost-per-click basis. That means that if you want to appear for a keyword, you have to pay the search engine a particular amount for that keyword. For organic search, it's actually "free." 3. ROI: Actually much easier to measure with paid search. That's partly because Google actually provides more keyword data that you can capture in Google Analytics. It takes weeks and months for your SEO to actually progress. Over the long run, organic search can have a very good return on investment. And when it comes to the share of traffic, roughly 20% to 30% of searchers click on paid results, and that compares to 70% to 80% on SEO results.

Prioritize Keywords

Always choose one P1 keyword. This is the most important one to focus on and is known as the primary keyword. Choose two P2 keywords. Also known as secondary keywords, these are the next most important keywords after P1 keywords. Choose three or more P3 keywords. Known as tertiary keywords, these are the next most important keywords after P1 and P2 keywords.

Backlinks

An incoming hyperlink from one web page to another website. When a website receives a link from an external website, some reputation is passed to it. It acts as if one web page is voting that the page it links to is credible.

SEOmonitor

Another premium tool that offers keyword rankings. It 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.

What is Google's main Algorithm Search Called?

Google Hummingbird

Main Body Copy

High-weight on-page SEO signal and SEO adds relevancy to the page. Main copy is also known as body text. It can include hyperlinks and it features after the main heading.

Images

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.

Google Hummingbird

In 2013, Google upgraded its main algorithm and named it Hummingbird. This upgrade included Google being better able to understand the meaning of keywords and to return more relevant results.

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 keywords within your content and can be done through a content management system.

Why wouldn't a page be indexxed?

Its content is considered duplicate. Its content is considered low value or spammy. It couldn't be crawled. The page or domain lacked inbound links.

Navigational Keywords

Keyword searches for a specific website or web page. Form a smaller portion of keywords. We can think of these types of keywords as signposts that direct searchers to a place they already have in mind. If you search Google for a brand name, a URL, or a person's name, you are using navigational queries. Often brand-related keywords. These queries tend to happen at all stages of the buyer's journey.

Informative Keywords

Keyword searches used when the searcher is looking for information. Informational queries make up the largest proportion of keywords and happen at the earlier awareness stage of the buying cycle, so they are harder to convert into sales. Blog posts are examples of content where informational keywords are often targeted.

Transactional Keywords

Keyword searches where the searcher is showing signs that they are ready to purchase something. Transactional queries happen at the last stage of the buying cycle and are easier to convert. However, they tend to be more competitive as they are targeted on sales pages and are often the first keywords to research and optimize for.

Link Explorer

Link Explorer is a tool provided by Moz that allows you to research where a website has got its backlinks from. This may be the site you look after, a competitor, or any other site that you wish to research. The backlinks are ordered by Page Authority, so according to Moz, you should get the most important ones first.

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.

Role of Social Media in SEO

Links within social media are different to backlinks and are known as social signals. They tend not to pass reputation or PageRank, but they can indirectly lead to an increase in backlinks; the more views you receive, the more likely it is that people will link to your website from theirs.

Off-Page Optimization

The process of enhancing your site's search engine rankings through activities outside of the site. This is largely driven by backlinks, which help to build the site's reputation.

What do organic results consist of?

Title tags URLs Meta tag descriptions Rich snippets Site links

Title Tags

Title tags are the single most important on-page element to get right. They are the first part of the listing that a user sees after they run a search, and search engines pay close attention to the words that are provided. This in turn influences how well your web page will rank. - Heavy weight: They are a heavy weight SEO signal and the single most important place to include keywords. - Higher rankings: Web pages are ranked more highly if title tags are done correctly. First view: They are displayed as a blue clickable link and are the first thing a searcher sees

Keyword

a word or phrase that a user enters into a search engine to accomplish a task. In general usage, a keyword normally implies just one word, but for SEO it can mean one or more.

Optimizing Images

- Add a description in the Alt text - Try to accurately describe the image and this sometimes means including keywords - Make them concise, typically two to five words - Give images meaningful filenames - Make them concise, typically two to five words - Filenames and Alt text can be the same, but they don't need to be - Make images web-friendly - Use gif, .jpeg and .png - Balance small file size and good quality

Signals Search Engines Use to Rank Pages

- Keyword presence in title tag: Engines check to see whether the keyword or a synonym was mentioned on the page and within the title tag. - Loading speed of web page: Engines check to see whether the web page loads quickly and is mobile friendly. - Website reputation: Engines check to see whether the web page and website is considered reputable for the topic being searched for.

Optimizing Headings

- Transactional pages tend to be more keyword-focused and usually include the main keyword or a close variant. - Informational pages, like blog posts, tend to be more user-focused and sometimes include the main keyword or a close variant.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is frowned upon. If you look at a title tag, which is the blue clickable link in a search result, you'll see that it is a specific size. If that size is exceeded, it will be truncated; and if it is exceeded by a large amount, it will start to be ignored by search engines. On average, you can aim to work between three and five keywords into a title tag. It is important to focus on the most valuable keywords, and that's why prioritizing them helps.

Meta Description Tags

Meta description tags are only visible in the SERPs and the source code. You cannot see them when you are viewing the main content of a page. A meta description tag is the short piece of descriptive text that you see under the URL in a SERP. Including keywords in your meta description won't have a direct impact like title tags do, but it will influence whether someone's going to click on your listing. Meta description tags are a medium-weight on-page SEO signal and encourage the searcher to click on your listing. If the meta description tag contains a searched term, it will be bolded, encouraging the searcher to click through.

Measuring Referral Traffic

Referral traffic is an important metric for SEO because it is a good sign that you are getting the right type of backlinks, as people are clicking on them to get to your website.

Technical Optimization

SEO activities that are completed on your site and are designed to improve SEO but are not related to content.

Off-Page Optimization

The process of enhancing a website's search engine rankings through activities that happen outside of the website. This is largely driven by building backlinks to the site and is often the most influential factor for search engine rankings as it helps build the website's 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.

On-Page Optimization

The process of ensuring the content is both relevant and provides a great user experience. Includes smart keyword targeting, where keywords are mentioned in key elements while still providing a good user experience. This means that your content reads well, and also satisfies what the user is actually looking for.

High Authority

These are backlinks that are reputable and trustworthy.

Headings

They are used in a similar way on a web page to how they are used in Microsoft Word. The main heading should be within a H1 tag, secondary headings in H2 tags, tertiary in H3 tags - all the way up to H6 tags. They are a medium weight on-page SEO signal and add relevancy to the page. There are six header tags - H1 through to H6 - which can be used to outline the hierarchy of content on a web page.

Relevancy Score

This is a subjective grading between 1 (high) and 3 (low) on how relevant a keyword is to a topic.

Classic SERP

This is the regular results page you see on a day-to-day basis, containing blue links on a white background.

Extended SERP

This provides even more information on the one page, including knowledge graphs, related questions, and statistics.

Traffic

Typically, you might monitor this on a month-by-month basis, so it be the current month compared to the previous month or it might be the current month compared to the previous year if there's a lot of seasonality in your business.

What is position zero?

What appears at the top of the SERP. Voice search assistants work by getting their information from the top of the SERP - known as Position Zero - when the answer to a search query is in the top of the SERP.

Direct Traffic

When people type in a URL to a website, maybe they bookmarked a URL, it could even be an untagged email.