Seo - The Essentials

SEO – The EssentialsIt has very little to do with links!

Craig Murray

Halma PR Services

Halma Marketing Event - 19 June 2013 1

I have very few links…


1. Choose your Keywords

Q. What phrases do you want to rank for?

A. The ones potential customers are using.


Who is this?


What is this?


What are these?


Competing phrases


Keyword Toolhttps://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool


https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool

Aim for:

• Relevant to your business

• Popular search terms

• Low competition (although this is less important)


Google Analyticswww.google.com/analytics/


http://www.google.com/analytics/

Google Webmaster Toolswww.google.com/webmasters/tools/


http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Other resources

Autocomplete Related searches


2. Use Keywords properly

1. Use them

2. Don’t overuse them


You must actually use your keywords…


Very simple rule…

Specific term generic term

e.g.

Vantage Plus LED indirect ophthalmoscope


Where to use them?

• Meta data– Title

– Description

• URL

• On page– Headings

– Body text

– Anchor text (the text of a link)

– Image ‘alt’ attribute


Do not overuse keywords

We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at [email protected].


3. Ensure your website is optimised

1. Search engines want to return quality sites

2. It must be crawlable

3. Code should be used properly(semantic HTML)

4. You will be 80% of the way to having a quality site


Check your site is being indexedSearch for site:www.example.com


Check your site is easy to navigate

• Simple navigation – text preferable

• Breadcrumbs


Use a robots.txt file to stop irrelevant directories being indexed


User-agent: *

Disallow: /admin/

Disallow: /images/

Enforce either…

www.example.com or example.com


Check your meta data (in head section)


<head>

<title>…</title>

<meta name=“description” content=“…” />

<meta name=“keywords” content=“…”/>

</head>

<body>

...

1. Title tag is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing to optimise


You see hundreds of them every day.Search engines rate the title tag very highly


Title tag checklist

• Different for every page

• Between 50 – 70 characters

• Contains keywords for that page at the start

• Put company name at the end


If you take only one thing away…

OPTIMISE YOUR TITLE TAGS


2. Description meta tag


<head>

<title>…</title>



</head>

<body>

...

Description tag checklist

• Different for every page

• About 150 characters

• Contains more keywords for that page

• Call to action/advert


If you don’t have a description…


3. Keywords meta tag


<head>

<title>…</title>



</head>

<body>

...

Keywords tag checklist

• Google ignores it

• May be useful for Bing and Baidu

• List keywords for that page

• Don’t spam it with hundreds of keywords


Check your URLs

• Use keywords, not /index.php?page=154

• Use dashes as separators

• Should be similar to page title

• Don’t spam with keywords

www.alicat.com/products/gas-flow/mass-flow-meters/


Check your body content

Use semantic HTML


Headings: almost as important as Title for SEO

• Use keywords

• Main page heading should be in <h1> tags

• Only one <h1> heading – do not use for logo

• Use <h2> tags for sub-headings


Second thing to take away…

OPTIMISE YOUR MAIN

HEADINGSHalma Marketing Event - 19 June 2013 36

Body text

• Do not stuff with keywords. Must read well.

• Use <p> tags for paragraphs

• Use <em> tags for italics

• Use <strong> tags to bold text

• Use <ul> tags to create bullet points

• Use <ol> tags to create numbered lists


Anchor text (the text of links on the page)

• Do not use “Click here”

• Be descriptive

• Use keywords

More about trapped key interlocks.


Images

• Memory size must be as small as possible

• Use the alt attribute

• Be descriptive

• Use keywords

• Don’t spam – must read well

<img src=“…” alt=“Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, the Batman, in The Dark Knight Rises” />


4. Create QUALITY content

1. The search engines want to provide users

with high quality results

2. People will link to it and share it


How do the search engines determine quality?

• Was based primarily on links

• Now based on over 200 factors


Content should be well written

• Good grammar and spelling

• Make it readable

– Short sentences

– Short paragraphs

– Use headings

– Use bullet points


Be interesting / answer questions


Provide useful information / tutorials / services


People love lists


Images and videos rank highly in Google


In summary

• Use the keywords your potential customers use

• Use them correctly. Don’t overuse.

• Title tag and main <h1> heading are most important

• Create high quality, well written content


Seo - The Essentials

Technology

Transcript of Seo - The Essentials