As a result of undertaking site clinic audits, it was apparent that a lot of websites these days have no clear objectives, no measurable KPIs, there has been a lack of (keyword) research prior to making the website and a lot of the content management systems used were simply not SEO friendly.
So by creating this presentation,. I hope you educate you a bit on everything that goes into building a website; from setting your objectives, researching keywords, all the way to launching your site and promoting it.
I have placed 6 new pages that weren't part of the original presentation at the very end for you to check out.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
3. 12 years of search engine marketing experience,
worked with many large organisations in Australia
(both in-house and agency side), in a broad range
of industries including: shopping, classifieds and
service websites.
Specialising in SEO, but have experience in:
- SEM
- Analytics
- Social
- Local
- Reputation Management
- Email Marketing
Senior SEO Account Manager
A network of 9 travel websites; managing everything from:
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Social Media Marketing
- Video & Image Creation
- Content Editing
- Web Programming
- Website Building
- Affiliate Marketing
- AdSense
- Web Analytics
- Keyword Research
5. What I will Cover
Define Goals / Objectives
Research
What You Need
•
•
•
•
Domain Names
Content Management Systems
Themes
Web Hosting
Building the Website
•
•
•
•
Content / Graphics
Bringing it Together
Apply the SEO!
Other Things
Post Launch
• Maintenance tasks
• Social Media
• Promotion
Resources
6. So why are you doing this?
How are you going to get there?
7. Define Objectives / Requirements
1. What are your goals?
Sales, leads, signups, social followers
2. How will you achieve this via your website?
Quoting Engine, Shopping Cart, AdSense, Signup Form
3. Where will you source traffic?
Organic search traffic, SEM, social media, referral traffic, email
4. What is your target audience (demographic).
B2C? B2B? State, Age, occupation?
5. Research your competition and their websites
Check to see how they acquire leads and what contain they
have on their website
9. Research – Build Seed Keywords
Check different sources for ideas of keywords relevant to your industry
Printed Material
(Brochures, Catalogues, Books)
Online
(Competitors, Wikis, Resources)
10. Research – Expand Keyword Sets
Use the seed keywords and Google’s
Keyword Planner Tool to create a larger list
of related keyword phrases
15. What You Need - Domain Names
Most of the time (and what I recommend) is you use a domain that is just your
business name, like exampleseo.com. Other times you may want to have a domain
name that simply revolves around the highly searched keywords in your industry (An
EMD – Exact match Domain), such as seoservices.com.
The jury is still out on the effectiveness of domain names for SEO (they used to have
a weighting in Google’s Algorithm and they were also a loophole to getting exact
match links from web directories), but unless the domain name has some kind of
brand-ability, they really haven’t got any value these days in the world of SEO.
If you do manage to buy a good EMD these days (odds are most are taken, so you will
need to buy it off someone or use a domain auction website), you need to weigh up
exactly how much the domain name / brand is worth – since the SEO value is close to
nil.
16. What You Need - Content Management Systems
A Content Management System (CMS) is a Web application that uses a database
(usually MySQL) or other methods to create, edit, and store HTML content in a
manageable way.
According to W3Techs, the three most popular content management systems are
WordPress, Joomla and Drupal and collectively own 74% of the CMS market (with
WordPress accounting for over 60%)
When choosing a CMS, refer back to your original Objectives and Requirements, as
many of these CMS may already have the solutions right out of the box (reducing
development costs)
17. What You Need - Content Management System
Although I fully recommend
Wordpress for anyone with a
basic website (due to its
ease of use, out of the box
functionality, huge range of
themes, plugin support and
SEO functions), you might
find that another CMS might
better suit your needs.
Do a lot of research before
selecting a CMS, as you
might find that the SEO
functionality is limited and
you will have to pay your
developer huge fees to
eliminate roadblocks and
take advantage of new
technologies.
18. What You Need - Themes
If you go down the Wordpress route (or another CMS that uses themes), check out
premium theme websites like Elegant Themes and GabFire and try to find an already
created theme that has the main layouts and functionalities that your website needs.
This will help you save time and money on the finished product and will offer support
and free upgrades in the future.
Try to stay away from free themes or torrenting a paid theme – there might be hidden
links in the templates or security issues.
19. What You Need – Web Hosting
Now that you have a domain name, CMS and theme, now you need a place to put it. To make
your website visible to the world, it has to be hosted on a Web server (i.e. with a web hosting
company). There are infinite options when picking a company, so do your research and make
sure it has all the features you need.
PRICE
STORAGE SPACE
MONTHLY DATA
TRANSER
EMAIL ACCOUNTS
DATABASES
ADD-ON DOMAINS
FEATURES
COUPON CODES
21. Building the Website - Content / Graphics
Now that you have your keywords and sitemap, CMS, domain name and web
hosting sorted, the next step you need to do is get your website assets created.
These include things such as website header images, content and accompanying
images for your many pages.
The discussed rule of thumb is to ensure that each page of your site has at least
300 words of unique content on it that can’t be found elsewhere on your site (or
anywhere else on the Web), but really this is going to depend on the layout of your
website and you need to think about the UX implications of long slabs of text.
Using your sitemap as a guide, you need to get content written around the targeted
keywords of each page. Unlike the olden days, you need to focus on the user - not
the search engine, and always have readability in mind; using proper grammar and
avoid keyword stuffing content.
22. Building the Website - Content / Graphics
Additional to the SEO content, it is recommended you steer away from the hard sell
all the time, and talk about other related topics that will interest your audience;
giving them a reason to come back to your site and hopefully converting at some
point in the future.
Also, you should look further than just text and images; create things like videos,
infographics, slideshows, case studies, PDF downloads, etc.
23. Building the Website – Bringing it Together
Now that you have everything ready to go, you need to piece it all together. Here is
the majority of steps you will need to complete (slightly skewed towards an Apache
and Wordpress install):
• Delegate your domain name to point to your web host, and configure your
domain name (effectively creating a FTP account in the process)
• Install your CMS (usually can be done easily within your web hosting control
panel)
24. Building the Website – Bringing it Together
• Start installing & configure plugins / functionality around the following:
- SEO Plugin
- Security
- Broken Link Checker
- Social Bookmarking
- XML Sitemap
- HTML sitemap
- Open Graph / Twitter Cards
- Minify / Caching
• Start creating pages, and uploading the relevant content, images and
functionality to each page; setting headings and applying formatting
25. Building the Website – Bringing it Together
• Create all required emails accounts within your web hosting control panel
• Configure and test contact forms, quoting engines and other website functionality
• Go through and configure all the different Wordpress, Theme & Plugin Settings
26. Building the Website – Bringing it Together
• Configure site-wide assets; such as menus, footers and widgets
• Implement .htaccess codes and page speed tweaks
• Go through the website with a fine tooth comb and make a list of everything that
you would like changed. Now use a tool like firebug, to start making small tweaks
and apply the fixes to either the website templates or CSS files.
27. Building the Website – Apply the SEO!
With a lot of the website up and functioning, now it is a matter of applying SEO best
practice to the website, specifically around the keyword research in the beginning.
Using the earlier keyword research / mapping practices
Ad group
Seed Keywords
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword Ideas
Keyword
gold coast
gold coast weather
gold coast bulletin
gold coast accommodation
gold coast airport
weather gold coast
gold coast marathon
accommodation gold coast
qt gold coast
tv guide gold coast
harbour town gold coast
q1 gold coast
gold coast titans
gold coast tv guide
gold coast weather forecast
gold coast library
gold coast arts centre
jobs gold coast
gold coast hospital
Currency Avg. monthly searches Competition Suggested bid
AUD
49500
0.34
1.86
AUD
90500
0
1.22
AUD
60500
0.02
1.45
AUD
22200
1
3.32
AUD
22200
0.18
2.9
AUD
22200
0
2.25
AUD
14800
0.02
3.78
AUD
12100
0.97
3.26
AUD
12100
0.34
0.89
AUD
12100
0
3.04
AUD
9900
0.01
0.58
AUD
8100
0.33
2.36
AUD
8100
0.01
5.34
AUD
8100
0
1.64
AUD
8100
0.01
0.75
AUD
8100
0.01
0.18
AUD
6600
0
3.36
AUD
6600
0.61
0.49
AUD
6600
0.02
6.38
And combining this with auto-suggestion data from the Google search box (if there is
insufficient keyword data and you simply need to expand your title tags)
28. Building the Website – Apply the SEO!
You need to go from page to page and implement the following on page tweaks:
Page URLs: Make sure the site's URLs are clean, and try to utilise the keywords that
the page is trying to target within the file name. Use hyphens as separators and don’t
keyword stuff – more than1-2 keywords will start looking spammy.
http://www.wotif.com/hotels/landmarks/australia/warner-bros-movie-world-hotels.html
Page Titles: Write a unique title tag for each page, using a combination of the target
keywords you’ve assigned to that page. Make sure the tag reads well, entices
customers to click on it and try to include your business name at the end. Keep the
entire title tag under 69 characters.
Descriptions: Write a unique meta description tag for each webpage, trying to keep
the tag under 155 characters. Because meta descriptions are commonly used on
search engine result pages (SERPs) to display preview snippets for a given page, it is
recommended that you try include your chosen keywords, whilst creating 1-2 sentences
that is attractive for a user to want to click on.
Title
Description
29. Building the Website – Apply the SEO!
Header Tags: Check that each page has one (and only one) h1 tag, preferably
including the main targeted keyword of the page – not assigned to the top logo image
or simply used as formatting. Additional header tags (h2 – h6), if applicable, should
appear in hierarchal order, lower on the page.
Image Alt-tags: Make sure all of your images utilise ALT tags (a tag that lets you set
text to be shown if an image can’t be displayed). Without keyword stuffing these tags
(like the old days), simply write a few words that describe what the image is about.
Also, try and choose a descriptive image file name instead of random words and
numbers.
30. Building the Website - Other Things
• Implement Google Analytics on every page of your website (made easy by
copying the code into your header file. Remember to define goals and use event
tracking so you can easily track conversions / your main website KPIs.
• Set up and implement Google & Bing Webmaster Tools. These give you a window
into how the search engines view your website, as well as being able to apply
different settings and resulting in a more efficient website crawl.
31. Building the Website - Other Things
• Create a sitemap.xml file (a file that contains a list of every page of your website
and other useful info) and upload it to the root directory of your site (or enable this
feature from within your CMS, if available). Submit your sitemap to Google
Webmaster Tools for indexing.
• Create a robots.txt file and upload it to the root directory of your site. Reference
your XML sitemap for other smaller search engines to use.
• Enable Google Authorship on your website by linking to your personal Google+
profile and listing the website within Google+ as a website you contribute to.
Although apparently it doesn’t have a ranking boost at this point in time (it surely
will be), it can definitely result in higher CTRs.
32. Building the Website - Other Things
• Check your onsite SEO implementation by using a tool like Screaming Frog to
crawl your website and harvest all of your different tags. Looking for things like
broken links, and also long, short or duplicate title and description tags.
• Create a Google Places for Business listing. Additional to regular SEO and
competing for organic search listings, Places for Business allows you to compete
in for when map listings are displayed in the SERPs - and costs nothing.
34. Post Launch – Maintenance Tasks
Now that your website is up and running, you need to ensure that you keep an eye
on things to make sure nothing breaks and things keep going in the right direction.
Analytics: In order to determine how your website is performing and measuring
how they are getting there, you need to regularly check your website analytics.
Things to check are your conversions, event tracking, acquisition sources, user
behaviour, etc.
Ranking Reports: Additional to the above, I recommend you keep an eye on how
your website is ranking within search engines for your targeted keyword list. This will
usually show movement before you see anything major in your analytics, you can
track your competitors success, as well as being able to establish traffic fluctuations.
Webmaster Tools: Make sure you check your webmaster tools accounts for such
things as broken links, duplicate tag issues, links pointing towards your website,
crawl stats, security issues and search queries you are showing for.
Link Check: Additional to checking the above, I recommend that you check all of
the links on your website with either a stand-alone tool or a plugin. You’ll find that
other websites may have changed their URLs, resulting in 404 errors.
35. Post Launch – Maintenance Tasks
Testing Functions – To ensure that nothing is broken and you aren’t losing money,
be sure to check if your contact forms & shopping carts are working. From time to
time there might be issues with old plugins or coding issues.
Software / Plugin Updates – Be sure to update your core CMS and plugin files
when they become available. A lot of the time these newer versions fix bugs &
security issues, but they also come with new functions / technology.
Backing Up Your Website – To make sure you don’t risk losing any part of your
website if something happens to your web host or if your website is hacked, I highly
recommend backing up your files and database to a cloud based storage solution
(e.g. Dropbox).
Monitor Website Outages – Use one of the many website monitoring services
(Pingdom) to keep an eye on the uptime of your website. A lot of the time you’ll get
an email if things go down, and you can promptly follow up with your hosting
company.
Email Marketing – Even though social media has taken a lot of the attention away
from email marketing, it is still a cheap way to communicate with a large audience.
Give subscribers value and a reason to not hit unsubscribe.
36. Post Launch – Maintenance Tasks
Website Speed – Use Webpagetest.org, the various browser extensions and
Google Analytics to monitor just how long different pages of your website are taking
to load. The longer a page takes to load, the higher chance you have of losing
customers – check the recommendations and try make your site load as quickly as
possible.
Reputation Management – Not really a SEO thing, but
setup Google Alerts and randomly do some searches on
Google for your branded terms to see how the internet
community views your brand. A lot of the time you can deal
directly with your customers and put out any fires before
they spread (people love complaining online)
Moderate comments – If you have a blog, you need to moderate comments;
responding and engaging with genuine comments from users… and filtering all that
spam! Never set your website to auto-approve comments!
Website Content – In order to forever grow the keyword scope of your website and
to give existing customers a reason to come back, you need to create fresh content.
Now don’t be creating content blindly: Either create it based on keyword research so
it ranks in Google, or create content that is engaging and will likely attraction a lot of
social media love.
37. Post Launch - Promotion
With the way search engines are heading (i.e. looking to move away from using link
metric data and start looking at social signals), it is imperative that you have a social
media presence. The following are an absolute must:
Social media is a whole discipline in itself, but the thing to remember is you need to
give users a reason to want to follow you and you also need to share content that
they find engaging and want to share with others (i.e. not just your own, share other
people’s content).
Also make sure that you respond to users comments in a timely manner and I
encourage you to engage with other people and companies (you’ll be surprised
what you can get out of it).
39. Post Launch - Promotion
Because links have and will always be an important part of Google’s ranking
Algorithm, it is important that you seek to build links towards your website.
These days it isn’t a numbers game, so the focus should always be on quality over
quantity, and also seek to get links from relevant websites.
This again is a whole different area in itself, but some ideas of how you can obtain
links and not get hit manually or algorithmically by the search engines are (there is a
lot of info to sift through):
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Content marketing
Online profiles (make sure you claim them)
Fix broken links
Brand / logo / asset reclamation
Competitor research
Run a competition
Run specials / promo codes
Infographic creation
Interviews
Product reviews
Surveys
Sponsorship
41. Considerations / Take Aways
• Make sure you define goals, objectives and KPIs
• Do your keyword research before you start building anything!
• Choose the right CMS to suit your needs
• Make sure your website contains unique and quality content
• Apply SEO best practice throughout your website & eliminate technical roadblocks
• Take advantage of any new SEO technologies / features
• Monitor your website performance
• Make sure everything is working and up to date
• Use social media, share quality and engage with your audience
• Build links – Natural, relevant and quality
44. Tools / Resources
Keyword Research
Google Keyword Planner - https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home
(Google Account Required)
Domain names
Crazy Domains - http://www.crazydomains.com.au/ ($9.95/year for a .com.au domain)
CMS
Wordpress - http://wordpress.org/
Joomla - http://www.joomla.org/
Drupal - https://drupal.org/
Themes
Elegant Themes - http://www.elegantthemes.com/ (acess to 86 themes for only $39)
Gabfire - http://www.gabfirethemes.com/ ($57 per theme or 4 themes for $179)
Woo Themes - http://www.woothemes.com/ ($99 per theme)
Hosting
VentraIP - https://ventraip.com.au/web-hosting/
(Economy Hosting starts at $7.95 Per Month, or $95.40 per year)
Use the code “VIP50” when placing an order and you will get 50% off your first invoice. The
longer you pay upfront, the more you will save.
46. Tools / Resources
Authorship
Google Authorship - https://plus.google.com/authorship
Local
Google Places for Business - http://www.google.com.au/business/placesforbusiness/
Bing Places For Business - https://www.bingplaces.com/
Ranking Reports
Advanced Web Ranking - http://www.advancedwebranking.com/
Website Monitoring
Pingdom - https://www.pingdom.com/
Social Platforms
Google Plus - https://plus.google.com/
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/
Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/
47. Tools / Resources
Social Media Management Tools
Buffer - http://bufferapp.com/
Hootsuite - https://hootsuite.com/
Resources
A [Poorly] Illustrated Guide to Google's Algorithm
http://moz.com/blog/a-poorly-illustrated-guide-to-googles-algorithm
Weighting the Clusters of Ranking Factors in Google's Algorithm
http://moz.com/blog/weighting-the-clusters-of-ranking-factors-in-google-analyticswhiteboard-friday
48. Tools / Resources
Wordpress Plugins
All In One SEO Pack - http://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog
Better WP Security - http://wordpress.org/plugins/better-wp-security/
Helps protect your Wordpress installation from attackers. Hardens standard Wordpress security by hiding vital areas of your
site, protecting access to important files via htaccess, preventing brute-force login attempts, detecting attack attempts, and
more.
Broken Link Checker - http://wordpress.org/plugins/broken-link-checker/
Checks your blog for broken links and missing images and notifies you on the dashboard if any are found.
CommentLuv - http://wordpress.org/plugins/commentluv/
Protects you from spam, encourages twitter followers, adds keywords to names and increases traffic and community!
GetSocial - http://wordpress.org/plugins/getsocial/
GetSocial adds an intelligent, lightweight, quick to setup floating social media sharing box on your blog posts.
Google XML Sitemaps - http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/
Generates a XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.
49. Tools / Resources
Wordpress Plugins
NGFB Open Graph+ Pro - http://surniaulula.com/extend/plugins/nextgen-facebook/
NGFB Open Graph+ adds HTML tags (Open Graph, Rich Pins, Twitter Cards) to the head section of webpages for improved
Google Search results, and sharing on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Tumblr and many more - an essential plugin for every WordPress website!
Social Media Widget - http://wordpress.org/plugins/social-media-widget/
Adds links to all of your social media and sharing site profiles.
WP Htaccess Editor - http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-htaccess-editor/
Simple editor htaccess file without using FTP client.
WP Minify - http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-minify/
This plugin uses the Minify engine to combine and compress JS and CSS files to improve page load time.