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BUILDING  YOUR  SITE  FOR  SEO  

On-­‐site  traffic-­‐driving  strategies.  

 

 

Megan  Ura  (@Megan_Ura)    

St.  Edward’s  University  Instructional  Technology  

What  is  SEO?    

“the  practice  of  improving  and  promoting  a  web  site  in   order  to  increase  the  number  of  visitors  the  site  receives   from  search  engines”–  SEOmoz’s  Beginner’s  Guide  to  SEO  

Why?  

1.  Conversion:   Better  visibility  =   More  customers,     on  and  offline    

2.  Trust:   Worthiness  and  

relevance  

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How  Crawler-­‐based  Search  Engines  Work  

1.  Crawling   2.  Indexing  

3.  Calculating  Relevancy  &   Rankings  

4.  Serving  Results  

Your  mission:    

Make  your  site  easily  consumable     for  humans  and  search  engines.  

Search  Engine  Robot  Limitations  

1.  Crawling  and  Indexing:  HTML  text  rules   •  Forget  forms,  login  fields  

•  Poor  link  structures  

•  Uneven  support  for  plug-­‐in  content/media   2.  Content  to  Query  Matching:  Language,  slang  

•  “fridges”  vs.  “refrigerators”     3.  Is  your  tree  falling  in  a  forest?  

•  Content  must  be  marketed  for  visibility  

•  Generating  popularity  

Planning  it  Out  

On-­‐site    

• what  you  can  control  

• “content  is  king”  

• site  design,  structure  

 

Off-­‐site  

• What  you  try  to  affect  

• “link  building”  

(3)

Search  Plus  Your  World  

January  2012  Algorithm  Update  

• Google+  Bias  

• Related  Google+   pages  from   people  and   brands   • A  must-­‐have  for  

businesses,   writers,  any   content  makers  

image via www.google.com/insidesearch/plus.html

Keyword  Research  101  

What  motivates  your  customers?  

1. List  most  essential  aspects  of  your  site   • Review  your  own  copy  

• Niche  vocabulary  and  jargon  or  not?  

2.   What  do  you  customers  want  to  see,  learn  about?  

3.   Learn  what  your  competitors  use  

4.   Use  a  mix  of  “popular”  and  “long  tail”  keywords  

Site  structure  and  navigation   • Simple  directory  structure  

• Help  visitors  find  desired  content  

• Naturally  flowing  hierarchy  

• Create  a  sitemap   • Why  it  matters  

• Usability  and  crawl-­‐ability  

• Ease  of  use    

• Watch  for  orphan  pages!  

(4)

Semantic  URL  Structure  

“friendly”  URLs  

• short,  descriptive  file  names  

• avoid  symbols,  numbers,  capitalizations    

• have  only  one  URL  per  page  of  content!  

     

Better:  brandonsbaseballcards.com/cards/majorleague  

image via Google SEO Starter Guide

Rules  for  Choosing  your  Domain  Name   http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-­‐to-­‐choose-­‐the-­‐right-­‐domain-­‐name

 

•  Get  inspired  by  keywords.   •  Make  the  domain  unique.  

•  Just  Say  NO  to  hyphens  and  numbers.     •  Only  choose  .com  available  names.  

•  Make  it  easy  to  type  and  remember.  Keep  it  short!   •  Create  and  fulfill  expectations.  

•  Set  yourself  apart  with  a  brand.  Don’t  follow  the  latest   naming  trends.  (flickr.com)  

 

<title>The  Title  Element</title>   Unique,  Accurate,  Brief  

• Site  Name/Company  Name/Your  Name  

• Page-­‐specific  keyword(s)  

• Less  than  65  characters,  including  spaces  

• Seen  at  top  of  browser,  browser  tabs  and  search  results  

• Users  rely  on  good  titles!  

(5)

Description”  Meta  Element   page-­‐specific  summaries  to  encourage  clicks   On  your  site:  

           

On  a  SERP:  

images © Google SEO Starter Guide

Quality  Content  

Unique  and  fresh  –  people  first,  SE’s  second  

• Easy-­‐to-­‐read,  concise,  appropriate  

• HTML  text  equivalent  for  media  

• “keyword  density”  –  frequency  of  use  

• “keyword  stuffing”  –  overdoing  it!    

Why  it  matters:  

• Keeps  visitors  coming  back!  

• Visitors  will  want  to  share  

Image via pchackz.in

rel=“canonical”  

distinguishing  copies  from  an  original   To  the  <head>  element,  add:  

<link rel=“canonical”href=“http://www.site.com” />!

•   the  page  is  treated  as  a   copy  of  the  canon  URL    

•  all  of  the  SE  link  &   content  metrics  flows   back  to  the  canon  URL  

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Organize  content  with  headings  

• Headings  present  structure  on  the  page  to  users.  

•   6  sizes:  <h1>to  <h6>,  largest  to  smallest.   • Use  sparingly;  only  one  <h1>  per  page.  

• Serves  as  an  outline  for  content  

 

image via Google SEO Starter Guide

Meaningful  Anchor  Text  

Anchor  Text:  clickable,  hyperlinked  text    

<a  href="...">Anchor  Text</a>.    

 

 

• convey  the  content  linked  

• Descriptive,  not  generic  “click  here”  or  URL  itself  

• Stands  out  visually    

• Use  for  external  and  internal  linking    

  image via Google SEO Starter Guide

Use  “nofollow”  when  needed  

• rel=“nofollow”  is  a  link  attribute    

• tells  search  engines  certain  links  on  your  site  shouldn't  

pass  your  page's  reputation  to  the  page  linked  

• sites  you  can’t  vouch  for,  “bad  sites”    

• business  competitors  

A link on the web = a vote, vouch of quality

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Image  filenames  &  alternate  text  

• Accessibility  and  search  engine  relevance  

• Used  in  image  search  results  

•  Short,  literally  descriptive  

•  Place  the  image  near  relevant  text  content  

<img src=“SEUlogo.jpg” alt=“St. Edward’s University Logo” />

<img src=“image001.jpg” />

Analytics  

• Record  and  understand  traffic  trends.  

• Google  Analytics  is  free!  

Maintenance  

An  SEOers  work  is  never  done.  

• Evaluate  keyword  rankings  monthly.  

• Watch  out  for  broken  links.  

• Update  your  content  frequently!    

• Integrate  social  media/blogging.  

The  Unchanging  Core:   1.  User  Experience  

2.  On-­‐page  SEO  and  Internal  Linking  

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SEO  as  a  Career  

• Agency,  in-­‐house,  consulting  

• Work  with  a  variety  clients  and  businesses  

• HTML  and  social  media  literacy  skills  

Where  to  go  from  here?  

• “Resources”  handout  

• Books  &  Blogs  

• Consider  SEM  companies  

carefully.  

• Promote  your  site  

appropriately.  

• Humans  first,  search  engines  

second.  

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www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-­‐engine-­‐optimization-­‐starter-­‐ guide.pdf  

• SEOmoz’s  Beginner’s  Guide  to  SEO:     www.seomoz.org/beginners-­‐guide-­‐to-­‐seo  

• Lots  of  helpful  materials  and  checklists:  www.seomoz.org/learn-­‐seo     Websites  and  Blogs:  

• SEOmoz:  www.seomoz.org/blog  

• Search  Engine  Land:  searchengineland.com  

• Search  Engine  Roundtable:  www.seroundtable.com   • Megan’s  curated  web  resources:    

www.diigo.com/list/meganura/web-­‐essentials   Books:  

• The  Art  of  SEO:  Mastering  Search  Engine  Optimization  (Theory  in  Practice)  by   Eric  Enge,  Stephan  Spencer,  Rand  Fishkin,  Jessie  Stricchiola  (2009)  

• Don't  Make  Me  Think!  A  Common  Sense  Approach  to  Web  Usability,  2nd  Edition     -­‐  Steve  Krug  (2005)  

• An  advanced  SEO  text:  Search  Engine  Optimization  (SEO)  Secrets  by  Danny   Dover  &  Erik  Dafforn  (2011)  

 

Free  Online  Tools:  

• See  your  site  as  the  search  engines  do:  seo-­‐browser.com  

• Generate  an  XML  Sitemap  for  painlessly  at:  www.xml-­‐sitemaps.com       • Get  a  30-­‐day  free  trial  of  SEOmoz’s  tools:  www.seomoz.org/tools   • Keyword  research  tools:  

o Google  AdWords’  Keyword  Tool  and  Traffic  Estimator   o Google  Insights  for  Search  

o Google  Trends  Keyword  Demand  Prediction   o Microsoft  AdCenter  Keyword  Forecasting   o Wordtracker’s  Free  Basic  Keyword  Demand  

o SEOmoz’s  Keyword  Difficulty  Tool  (how  hard  will  it  be  to  rank?)   • Search  Engine  Tools  for  your  Website:  

o Bing  Webmaster  Center:  www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster   o Google  Webmaster  Tools:  www.google.com/webmasters/tools   o SEOmoz  Open  Site  Explorer:  www.opensiteexplorer.org  

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