SEOOh!A guide to improving your search engine rankings

In today’s world, search engIne optImIsatIon (seo) and socIal medIa are two vItal components of every websIte.

All website owners should have at least a basic understanding of both of these

components, and a good understanding of how each can affect your business.

That’s why the team at Cabbage Tree Creative has created this booklet.

SEO (Oh!): A guide to improving your search engine rankings is a beginner’s

guide to understanding and navigating SEO and social media for the benefit

of your business.

As well as straight-forward explanations and examples, we’ve included some

simple beginner tips so you can improve your website’s presence in search

engines and your business’s presence in the social media scene.

The Cabbage Tree Creative Team

IntroductIon

se (oh)! : a guide to improving your search engine rankings

Written and Published by Cabbage Tree Creative™

July 2011

NeW ZeALAND: ISBN 978-0-473-19276-1

www.cabbagetree.co.nz

TRADeMARKS: Google, Google AdWords, Google Analytics and YouTube are registered trademarks of Google, Inc. Twitter is a registered trademark of Twitter, Inc. Facebook is a registered trademark of Facebook, Inc. Flickr is registered trademark of Yahoo, Inc.

SEO (OH!) | A beginners’ guide

weB Page content and structure

Information hierarchies and good

navigation mechanisms make it easier for

people to use and navigate the website,

and also help search engines understand

what content the creator of the website

deems important.

Once you have determined your keywords

you need to use them in the content of

your web pages effectively.

Search engines have become very intelligent and the rule of thumb is that if it reads well for your customers it reads well for search engines.

tips

Look up international terms and use them as well as local terms.

For example: ‘holiday’ and ‘vacation’; ‘motorhome’ and ‘RV’.

Structure sentences to capture search terms. For example “relax

while staying at our Ashburton motel. New Zealand has many

ways to unwind.” By combining the end of one sentence and the

start of the next you get ‘Ashburton motel New Zealand’ without

making it sound like spam.

Link to other sites and internal pages within content. It improves

navigation to other pages, is good for users and search engines.

Make sure the content is written and

structured well, is highly relevant to

the subject area of your website, and is

targeted specifically at your target market.

This makes it more likely that people will

click through to your website when they

see it in the search results, and will stay

on your website once they get there.

SEO (OH!) | A beginners’ guide

tItle tag

The title tag is the title of a page shown

in the browser (see below).

A title tag tells both users and search

engines what the topic of a particular

page is. This is one of the most important

elements of your site for SeO.

Put descriptive, relevant text in the title

tag at the top of the page, inside the

<title> tag.

This text will appear at the top of the page

in the web browser and also sometimes in

search results.

Think about the content carefully, and make

it compelling so the searcher will want to

click on it if it appears in their results.

Try to keep the title tag to fewer than 70

characters. Include some of your keywords.

Do not start with your company name.

Make the title unique for each page in

your website – make it relevant for the

content on each page.

Ski New Zealand’s largest skiing area

Florists Worldwide Flower Delivery New Zealand Flowers Gifts

example: Mt Ruapehu

example: Interflora New Zealand

Title Tag Examples

SEO (OH!) | A beginners’ guide

MaKe use of tools

google places has a page where you

can add your business name, address and

map your location.

It uses this information to help generate

mapped results, and is an extremely

important asset for you to secure.

There are a number of tools provided online which help website owners improve their search engine activity.

google analytIcs is a comprehensive

and free statistical analysis tool. It’s easy to

install and your website developer should

install this for you. (There may be a small

installation cost). Use the analytics to better

understand how people use your site: track

their performance, find out where they’re

from, see which pages are most popular

and look for opportunities to improve.

Google Webmaster also has a selection

of valuable tools and tips you can use to

improve your website: www.google.com/

webmasters/

Keyword search term tools

f www.wordtracker.com

f www.keyworddiscovery.com

f www.webceo.com

Search engines are your biggest

marketplace. These tools help you navigate

this territory. It’s worth taking time to read

and keep up to date with all the information

outlined on this page.

Tracking visitors and traffic on a website as shown by a simple graph

examples: Google Analytics

Google displays business in the keyword search results from Google Places.

examples: Google search results