Definition:
Search Engine Optimization is the process of designing a web page to optimize the likelihood that a search engine will find your site most relevant for a given search parameter.
- What it is: SEO is the process of growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. In other words, how do I make sure that my website is on the first page of the Google (or other search engines) results page? By managing the words on your page, the links to and from your webpage, you can impact the way the search engine algorithms score/rate the relevance of your website compared to other websites on the internet. Identifying the likely search parameters your target audience will most often use and then designing your web page so that the search engine algorithm will prioritize it (listed by relevancy to the search query) to appear first on the search engine page for your target audience has an immense impact on the success of your internet site.
- What does it do: A search engine will take an input search query (term or phrase), and using an algorithm, it will determine a prioritization of which websites on the internet have the highest relevance to the search query. Search engine optimization will cause your website to be prioritized higher than other websites for your targeted search query. Since few people look past the first of search results, you really want to be at the top of the first page. 80% of web traffic is driven by the top 3 search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo).
Uses:
- How it is used: By determining the likely search query terms that your target audience will be using, you can then tailor your site so that it will be the most relevant site for a search engine algorithm. So first you must determine the most used search terms and then how the algorithm uses your website information to make the prioritization.
- Where: All public websites are open for web crawling search engines to find and document their pages. If your website is public, the search engines will find your information.
- Why: If you use effective SEO you will dramatically increase the number of targeted audience visitors you will drive to your website. Whether you are looking for Revenue, Publicity, or Exposure, SEO can have an exceptional ROI compared to other forms of marketing and promotion. The internet is very competitive and those companies who use SEO will have a decided advantage over those who do not.
Limitations:
- Where it shouldn't be used: SEO can be applied to any website
- Any restrictions: The only restrictions would be if you do not want to drive traffic to your site.
- Warnings: Do not design your website strictly for search engines. You want your website to be attractive and useful to the visitors that come to your website. Your website is first and foremost for your users. The SEO modifications you employ should not reduce the value of your website to your target audience.
There may be circumstances where paid advertising (e. g. AdWords) will be needed to support and increase traffic to your webpage to reach the desired results of your marketing program.
Beware of outdated methodologies like cloaking that can hurt your relevance ranking.
Demonstrations:
Step-by-step process:
- Gathering data; Free SEO training is widely available on the internet (see the resources below) and a little bit of training can make a big impact. Some basic information from Google is given below:
Google recommends the following to get better rankings in their search engine:
- Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, a practice commonly referred to as "cloaking."
- Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
- Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content. Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.
- Use keywords to create descriptive, human-friendly URLs. Provide one version of a URL to reach a document, using 301 redirects or the rel="canonical" attribute to address duplicate content.
Bing engineers at Microsoft recommend the following to get better rankings in their search engine:
- Ensure a clean, keyword-rich URL structure is in place.
- Make sure content is not buried inside rich media (Adobe Flash Player, JavaScript, Ajax) and verify that rich media doesn't hide links from crawlers.
- Create keyword-rich content and match keywords to what users are searching for. Produce fresh content regularly.
- Don't put the text that you want to be indexed inside images. For example, if you want your company name or address to be indexed, make sure it is not displayed inside a company logo.
Because of the availability of free training online (see resource below) we will not go into the details of SEO training here, but there are many critical tools for implementing SEO:
Determine which keywords will attract your target audience and will drive the largest volume of visitors to your page.
Determine which SEO tactics will make your website most relevant to your selected keywords (keywords, links, etc.)
Determine where your traffic is coming from:
- Direct typing of your website URL
- Referral from Social Media
- Referral from other sources (paid and unpaid)
- Traffic from each search engine
- Interpretation of results
Test the impact of your keyword choices and SEO tactics by:
- Checking each search engine to see your ranking for Keyword searches
- Monitor changes in web site traffic following the implementation of SEO tactics
- Monitor conversion rate (sales revenue) for each keyword referral.
Create charts, tables, and graphs to indicate changes in website traffic and revenues based on SEO implementation over time.
Template for capturing data:
Output representation and recommendations:
- Use the output to make recommendations
Create charts, tables, and graphs to indicate changes in website traffic and revenues based on SEO implementation over time. Separate your tracking of traffic to your site by:
- Direct typing of your website URL
- Referral from Social Media
- Referral from other sources (paid and unpaid)
- Traffic from each search engine
Examples:
See additional training and examples of implementing the process:
Moz SEO TrainingLinks to an external site.
Additional resources:
Here are a lot of training resources for SEO: How to Learn SEO Completely Free
Pick the Google starter kit to get started and try others if you choose
Search Engine Land (SEO Resources)Links to an external site.
Google Analytical SolutionsLinks to an external site.
Clicky Web AnalyticsLinks to an external site.
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