SEO for beginners course

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• What is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)• How Google ranks your website• Understanding the Google search results page

(SERPs)• The importance of keywords

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Agenda

Keywords• How to research what keywords you should use• How to measure your potential search traffic for

your keywords• How to find out what search traffic your competitors

are getting• What is Long tail search and why it’s important for

you• How you can use blog posts to drive traffic to your

website

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How to SEO your website

• How to SEO your website• How to do offsite SEO• How to use an SEO plugin• How to make sure your website is fast

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Measuring results

• How to make sure your website is working ok• How to set up Google Search Console• How to set up Google Analytics• How to measure page speed• How to check your website is mobile friendly• Question and Answer session

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Course aims1. Understand SEO Fundamentals2. Develop Keyword Strategies3. Apply On-Page Optimization Strategies4. Build Effective Link Strategies5. Create Efficient Reporting Strategies6. Get better ranking and traffic

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How search works

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Search Results Page

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How search engines rank your website

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Useful results

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Better ranking = more traffic

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The 6 most important Ranking factors

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Words matter

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Does the content on your website match what the person is searching for in Google?

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Page titles matter

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Search engines pay a lot of attention to page titles

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Links between websites matter

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When another website links to yours it’s like a recommendation

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A website with lots of good links coming to it can look good to search engines

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But spammy or bought links can do harm (don’t do this)

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Link Text is important E.G if you use the word books in the link text , then Google knows that Amazon sells books

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And if lots of sites use the words in their link text to Amazon…then

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…when some-one searches for books , Amazon will rank well

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Reputation matters - sites with fresh engaging content and growing numbers of quality links will rank well

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And they will rise up the search results page

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There are over 200 ranking factors in the Google Algorithm (they change often and are secret)

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Things can get very detailed - so just focus on the 6 most important ranking factors to start with

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https://www.pootlepress.com/storefront-pro/

Now we know how search engines work and how they rank websites it’s time to

think about our own sites

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My SEO process

Research | Write | Check results | Repeat

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Step 1 - Research

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Start with brainstorming

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What topics do people search for that are related to my business?”

These aren’t keywords, but broad topics

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Take your broad topics and then… use Google and YouTube Suggest to find keyword ideas

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Start out with some questions…

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Is anyone searching for my keywords?

How many people are searching for my keywords? (approximately)

How competitive is the keyword (i.e do I have any chance of ranking and therefore getting traffic, and therefore getting customers?

Type in your topic and see what Google suggests - Google will show the most popular searches, so it gives

you great ideas for keywords - for free :)

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You can also find good keyword ideas with YouTube suggest

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You’ll also find good keyword ideas in the ‘Search related to section’ at the bottom of the Google Search

Results Page

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There are other places you can kind keyword ideas

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Online forums

Facebook groups Reddit Quora

There are also keyword tools out there. They can be expensive and the data is often inaccurate.

But here’s a good free one.

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Ubersuggest generates keyword ideas from Google’s search suggestions and also gives you data on each keyword (e.g search volume and keyword difficult)

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Ubersuggest Demo

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Q) How do you know if a keyword is too competitive to rank?A) Do a search in Google and see what sites are ranking

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If the first page is made up of high authority sites (like Wikipedia), then you might want to cross that keyword off from your list.

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But if you see a handful of smaller blogs, sites or forums on page 1..then bingo!

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You’ll have a real chance of ranking.

How to research whether your keyword can rank (starts 5mins 47secs)

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Next create your content and make it much better than your competitors!

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How to SEO your website

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Use SEO-Friendly URLs

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Your title tag is one of the most important on-page SEO factors.

Start page Title With Keyword

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Google has stated that the first 3-5 words in a URL are given more weight. And our ranking factors study found that short URLs may have an edge in the search results.

Add Modifiers to your titles

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Using modifiers like “2019”, “best”, “guide”, “checklist”, “fast” and “review” can help you rank for long tail versions of your target keyword.

Use Keywords in first 100 Words

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Your keyword should appear in the first 100-150 words of your article.

Have a fast loading website

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Google has stated on the record that page loading speed is an SEO ranking signal (and they recently made PageSpeed even MORE important). 

Make your website accessible friendly - add alt tags to images

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Post long - great content

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Longer content tends to rank significantly higher on Google’s first page.

Boost dwell time

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Google uses “dwell time” to size up your content’s quality. Increase your average dwell time by writing long, engaging content that keeps people reading.

Quality content

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Is your content better than your competitors on the Google Search Results Page?

Google uses some of these metrics to determine quality

•Repeat visitors•Chrome bookmarks•Time on site•Dwell time•Google searches for your brand

User Intent

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Google RankBrain measures how searchers interact with your content.RankBrain pays close attention to CTR and Dwell TimeThe ultimate goal of RankBrain is to determine if users are satisfied with your content.If you create a page that makes users happy, Google is likely rise your site to the top of the SERP’s page.

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Example Search - if you search for Paleo diet breakfast”. Do a Google search for that term and see the top 5 results:The top results are recipes

Add Meta Descriptions (snippets) to all pages and posts

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Rich Snippets

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Once you have SEO’d your website it’s time to think about off-site SEO

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Google Search Console tools and reports help you measure your site's Search traffic and performance, fix issues, and make your site stand out in Google Search results

How to make sure your Website is performing well using Google Search Console

Check performance

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Add a Site Map

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A good XML sitemap acts as a roadmap of your website which leads Google to all your important pages.

XML sitemaps can be good for SEO, as they allow Google to quickly find your essential website pages, even if your internal linking isn’t perfect. 

Check page coverage

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Check Mobile coverage

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How to set up Google Search ConsoleUsing Yoast or RankMath plugins

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How to set up Google Search ConsoleUsing Google Site Kit plugin

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Google Analytics

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Question and answer session…

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