JV Focus
- 1. SEO SO GOOD TRAINING Designed by Creativeart - Freepik.com Disclaimer SEO changes daily and many factors will be important in determining your actual results and no guarantees are made that you will achieve results similar to ours or anybody else’s, in fact no guarantees are made that you will achieve any results from our ideas and techniques in our material.
- 2. 2 Table of Contents What is Search Engine Optimisation........................................................................... 3 Choosing the Right Keywords to Rank Your Page ...................................................... 3 Let’s Get Started ......................................................................................................... 4 Time to Get It “On Page Optimisation” ........................................................................ 9 Hard Work Always Pays “Off Page Optimisation”...................................................... 12 Baby Got “Back Links” .............................................................................................. 13 Don't Wear The “Black Hat SEO”.............................................................................. 15 Time to Form Your Conclusion.................................................................................. 16
- 3. 3 What is Search Engine Optimisation Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is best described as the activity of ensuring words and phrases relevant to what your site offers can be found by the search engines. It is also about making your site full of content that people want to view and share. So, another way to think about it is, it is simply quality control for websites hopefully to stop spam sites being listed in the searches performed and make it easier for viewers to find good relevant information that they are searching for. Choosing the Right Keywords to Rank Your Page So let’s start with what is a keyword? Keywords are what your potential customers use when they search a search engine to find (hopefully) your website e.g. health supplements. You need to identify the best keywords for your site so you can rank at the top of the list in the search engines to get visitors looking at your products/brand. A study done by the Advanced Web Ranking, Organic Click Through Rate (CTR) research shows that websites with rank 1 have a 30% chance that searches will click through to that page, rank 3 has 12% and rank 9-10 have below 2%. So getting this right is important! There are two types of keywords; broad keywords (general keywords e.g. supplements) and narrow keywords or “Long Tail” e.g. health supplements for men. So what you need to do is identify keywords in your niche that have low competition and are high converting. In a nutshell find what people are searching for and start using those keywords on your page. So you will need to create a list of keywords in your niche. Designed by Freepik
- 4. 4 Let’s Get Started Create a new spreadsheet; add a column heading of “Keywords to Research”. You will copy keywords you would like to check into this spreadsheet (if you find any keywords you're unsure about, look them up in a Google search as it might be a brand, product model or company name). Next we need to identify keywords; there are many ways to do this. Here are some resources/ideas to help with this. Wikipedia.com Ubersuggest.io Reddit.com (subreddits) Niche forums/blogs Pinterest.com or www.repinned.net Using each of these resources, search for your niche and copy any relevant keywords to your spreadsheet.
- 5. 5 Next you will need to enter your basic keyword list into a keyword tool; there are free and paid tools for this. Google provides a free tool called Google Keyword Planner. ◦ To use Google Keyword Planner: If you have an existing account, log in Select the 'Tools' menu Select 'Keyword Planner' option Select ‘Get search volume data and trends’. Copy the keywords in the spreadsheet into 'Option 1: Enter keywords' box. Set 'Targeting' to 'United States', unless you are interested in another countries searches. Select 'Get search volume'.
- 6. 6 Scroll through the list and identify keywords that might indicate a searcher might be ready to buy, has more than 2000 minimum monthly searches and what the suggested bid is, as this shows how much is being paid for Ads and how valuable it could be. Add keywords to a list within Keyword Planner, click the double arrow in the 'Add to plan' column. Select the 'Copy to clipboard' next to the Review forecasts on the right menu and copy these keywords into either a new spreadsheet or a new tab on your existing spreadsheet.
- 7. 7 Now it's time to look at your potential competition and make a decision on whether your site can rank no.1 in the search engines for a keyword. Note: Choosing what keyword to rank for isn't an exact science, you need to look at the results and make a decision on whether to proceed and try to rank your page for those keywords. Also if the search results have big companies at the top of the results it may not be worth your time to try and rank for those keywords, so move onto the next one. o Check the competition for each keyword in your newly created list by putting each of the keywords into a Google search. o You need to check each webpages/URL in the search engine results for backlinks or for the pages 'Page Authority' to assess what work is required for you to rank your page at no.1. There are free and paid applications, extensions for Chrome or add-ons for Firefox e.g. Mozbar or you can use websites for this e.g. ahrefs.com. Each tool is different and will have different metrics when you use it to check sites. You need to do some research on how they work. Here are some examples of tools you can use to help determine which keyword to try and rank for: 1. When using the Mozbar extension you are looking for sites on the first page that ideally have 'PA: 40' or less. Anything over may require some hard 'on page optimisation' work. 2. If you choose to use ahrefs.com, copy each of the URL's into ahrefs ‘Site Explorer’.
- 8. 8 Check to see how many backlinks the site has. Then select the 'Backlinks' link to see the quality of the backlinks and can also see how many backlinks the site is creating per day. 1. Select 'New' under the 'Backlinks' Menu. 2. Select 'One link per domain'. 3. This will show a calendar, the green numbers are links created per day; the red numbers are unique domains linking back to the site. This can give you an idea of how many backlinks you may need to create per day. Continue this process for each URL for each keyword.
- 9. 9 Time to Get It “On Page Optimisation” So you’re now asking what is on-page optimisation (sometimes known as "on-site" SEO)? It is the act of optimising different parts of your web site that affect your search engine rankings. Its stuff that you have control over and can change on your own website so search engines love you and people can find you. Here are the biggest factors to consider. Where to use your keywords for good SEO content Don't stuff your article with keywords – look at trying to keep your keywords under 1% of your articles content. Content needs to be readable, valuable and tries to solve a problem. This creates authority in your niche. Create content regularly – look at creating content with 2500 – 2800 words long. Use blog plugins, add-ons or free SEO report websites to check your content is optimised. You will also need to optimise your Slug; A slug is part of a URL (your website address) which identifies a particular page on your website and should be readable by readers. So basically it’s the part of the URL which tells the viewer what the page’s content should contain. Ensure your URL's are readable, have your keywords and hyphens between words and lastly try to keep the URL's short. Please Note: If you are changing from one type of Slug to another it is recommended to use 301 redirects. Title tags – appear in search results, and are often used by social sharing plug-ins. They should read properly to a reader and contain your keywords. Look at keeping them under 55 characters long and put your keywords as close to the front of the title as you can. Note: If you are a local business, ensure you put your physical location in the title. There are website, plugins and add-ons for WordPress and other blogging platforms to provide you with reports/feedback on your title tags. Use Headings throughout your content – similar to headings within a book. Look to use H1 headings as the main heading of each page. Use H2, H3, H4 and so on, throughout your article, with the idea that the more specific the content is, the higher the heading number. Ensure the headings contain your keywords.
- 10. 10 Pages recommended – Google tells us they are important and they create trust. ◦ Pages that your site should have for good SEO and build trust. ▪ About Us ▪ Contact page ▪ Revenue disclaimer ▪ Privacy policy – required for AdWords/ Facebook/Twitter ads approvals and Terms of Use – it is suggested to seek legal advice. ▪ Also look to set the links for the privacy and terms of use pages to ‘rel=nofollow’. Using Internal links within your site. ◦ Internal links are links that go from one page on your website/domain to a different page on your website/domain. These are to make content easier for readers to find. ◦ Makes it easier for readers to navigate your site. ◦ Create pages about your main offer and link to it from other pages making sure to use Keyword rich anchor text for your links. This shows readers relevance and the importance of those pages. ◦ For example if you had a page that sells health supplements, you could have a page that does a review of the product and links to the sales page, you could have a page that has content about how to have a healthy lifestyle and then link back to your sales page and so on. Let’s look at Meta tags. ◦ These provide a good description of your page, add some of your keywords and don't make it too long as it might get cut off in the search results page. ◦ These don't really have much effect on SEO but potential visitors do see this description of your site and so it may influence them to click. ◦ When using Images and videos, ensure to have an accurate description of your ALT attribute but remember not to keyword stuff. ◦ Also make sure to have your keywords in the image and video file names.
- 11. 11 Here are some more Tips and tricks – these are optional. Using an XML sitemap, set it to ping Google, Bing, Ask, Yahoo etc. when changes are made. Set 'Exclude taxonomies' for Categories, Tags and Format. Exclude Media and include Posts and Pages in your sitemap. Setup Social Media plugins for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. Redirect attachment URL's to parent post URL. Enable Breadcrumbs and RSS setting. When setting up RSS, put the content before the post so there is a link back to your blog, post or author.
- 12. 12 Hard Work Always Pays “Off Page Optimisation” The way off page optimisation works is to increase the authority of your website/domain by putting your webpage links on other websites. So the more links (back links) you have to other sites the more valuable the search engines see your site. There are websites you can use to see how authoritative or what your "Domain Authority" is for your site when compared to other websites. Understanding Do Follow and No Follow links. ◦ Do Follow links allow the search engine bots to follow them, which means that the site trusts your link and thinks it is valuable, they do give your site “link juice” and readers can also follow your link. So Do Follow links have the most power for SEO. ◦ All links by default are set to 'do follow'. ◦ No Follow links stop the search engine bots from following the link to your site. This means you get no benefit from this link and only readers can follow your link. ◦ The URL link back to your site will have a tag rel=”nofollow” this tag was created to stop spam. ◦ When posting on other blogs/sites to create backlinks, check to see if other links on the site are set to “No Follow”. ◦ There are extensions and add-ons for browsers that can allow you to check links, ◦ For example Chrome extension NoFollow or Firefox add-on NoDoFollow.
- 13. 13 Baby Got “Back Links” Do Follow links to your site are “Back Links”. Back links are when one webpage links to another webpage, so for example a page on one site has links to another websites page. Previously backlinks were the major measurement for ranking a webpage for all major search engines, including Google and to a large degree this is still true. Also remember, you can’t really use Social Media to build back links, they are generally set to No Follow so they don't directly affect SEO. But, Reddit, Digg, BizSugar, Blogger and some others do have 'Do Follow' but you will need to look at how they will allow you to have 'Do Follow' links. But Social Media links are great for building awareness of your product and site and having the links creates engagement, leads and sales. So how do you create backlinks. Utilise competitor back links. ◦ Start with doing a search for your keywords in Google or another search engine. ◦ Click each link and see what content it has (infographic, video or maybe a blog post); look at whether you can do something similar e.g. a blog post on a directory.
- 14. 14 Create quality content that readers and influencers would want to read, link to and re-share. Create an article with a list of quotes or great articles of the influencer. Try Contacting an influencer and have a Questions and Answers session with relevant content that adds value. Ask them about what is currently happening in your niche or what they think about it. Look at coat tailing great content by finding great articles that might be a little old and re-write them with up-to-date information. You can create posts that reference and link back to great content. e.g. 10 best health/weight loss transformations. Look at guest posting on key influencers sites in your niche and use examples from the influencer. Some more Tips and tricks are; Links within content are more effective than in the footer or sidebars. Using links from relevant sites are more effective than from non-relevant. "Designed by kraphix / Freepik"
- 15. 15 Don't Wear The “Black Hat SEO” Black hat SEO is falsely manipulating a websites search position. Using Black Hat techniques are bad for your site, the users and the search engines. ◦ Some examples of Black Hat SEO. ▪ Hiding text or links can manipulate search rankings and leads to a ban. ▪ A doorway page is creating multiple similar pages with a specific high-valued phrase but sends the searcher to the same page. ▪ Content on your site that is different to what the search engines and searchers expect, is called cloaking. ▪ Using irrelevant 301 redirects that send your users to a page with similar content. ▪ Generating automatic content that doesn't read well and stuffed full of keywords can affect your search rankings. ▪ Duplicating content from another site without permission or references back to source. ▪ Keyword stuffing is a red flag for search engines, ensure that the content is readable and adds value. Image courtesy of kraifreedom at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
- 16. 16 Time to Form Your Conclusion Figure out what people are searching for within your niche, create a site/blog/product that uses those keywords, optimise for search engines with great content, keywords and links. This all helps people find your site/product and it’s what search engines want you to do. Search engines ultimately want the best/valuable websites for every given topic to show up at the top of each search. So work hard to create the best website with valuable content, promote it effectively and search engines will reward you for it.
- 17. 17 SEO SO GOOD TRAINING Designed by Creativeart - Freepik.com Disclaimer SEO changes daily and many factors will be important in determining your actual results and no guarantees are made that you will achieve results similar to ours or anybody else’s, in fact no guarantees are made that you will achieve any results from our ideas and techniques in our material.