Uploaded byNavneet Kaushal
PageTraffic SEO Workshop
The document provides an overview of an SEO workshop presented by Navneet Kaushal. The workshop covers topics like setting goals, keyword research, on-site optimization, off-page optimization, reporting, and the relationship between SEO and PPC. It also discusses tools for keyword research and content strategies like blogging, video, and social media.
PageTraffic SEO Workshop
- 1. Search Engine Optimization SEO Workshop By: Navneet Kaushal
- 2. WHO AM I? NavneetKaushal Founder & CEO of PageTraffic 11 Years of SEO experience Editor www.pagetrafficbuzz.com Expert author on WebProNews, Search Newz, Website Notes, DevWebPronews, PromotionWorld. Regularly quoted on ET Now, Seattle Times, Hindustan Times, Livemint, BenefitIT, AlooTechie. About PageTraffic Established in 2002 95 people strong, with offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chicago & London Offers SEO, PPC, Link Building, Web Design & Development services More than 300 clients worldwide Ranking among the top SEO Companies of India Winner of Red Herring Top 100 Asia Award 2011 www.pagetraffic.com
- 3. Search Marketing froma business perspective Helps you create a better website Brings in qualified traffic Helps you create better content Measurable/Actionable
- 4. Get Your ThingsStraight
- 5. Set Goals Why doyou need Search Marketing?
- 6. Research Keywords How &What do people search for?
- 7. Onsite Optimization Create asite that search engines will love But create with humans in mind
- 8. Offpage Optimization Make yourwebsite trustworthy
- 9. Reporting Keep Track ofEverything you do
- 10. SEO & PPC JoinForces
- 11. Quick Quiz • Whatdo the following stand for? • HTML • URL • RSS • SERPs
- 12. Choosing the RightKeywords How to target competition better
- 13. Choosing the RightKeywords • It’s necessary to do some keyword analysis… • What is the volume of traffic for the keyword combination? • Have other websites optimized for those keywords? Would it be hard to get a high ranking? • Who sits in the No. 1 spot for those keywords? • What keywords are my competitors targeting? • What do the keywords say about the searcher’s intent/mindset? • Surfers • Researchers • Buyers
- 14. Tools for KeywordResearch http://bit.ly/keywordtool2012
- 15. Tools for KeywordResearch Use Google Keyword Tools to create initial list of related search terms and search volume Select location and language
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- 17. Tools for KeywordResearch http://www.google.com/insights/search/
- 18. Other Keyword ResearchTools • Wordtracker • Wordstream • Keyword Discovery Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in
- 19. Search suggestions andcompletions from the top providers on the internet http://www.soovle.com/ Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com
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- 21. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com
- 22. Übersuggest is GoogleSuggest on steroids! http://www.ubersuggest.org/ Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com
- 23. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com
- 24. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com
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- 26. KEYWORD ORGANIZATION • Organizeyour • Brand name keywords by: • Languages • Product name • Locations • Model numbers, etc. • Target audiences • Purchase cycle • Importance • Legal requirements
- 27. Google Keyword SuggestionTool • http://bit.ly/keywordtool2012 • Visit the site now and plug in a generic word that relates to your business. • Take a minute or two to review the data…because I’m going to ask you to come up with the best keyword combination for your home page shortly…
- 28. Keyword Advice • Optimiseeach page for a different keyword combination • Don’t choose single keywords – 3-5 word combinations are best • Don’t choose generic keywords - be specific • Don’t choose hotly-contested keywords • Use geographic qualifiers – i.e. India • Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes • Choose keywords that align with a ‘buying’ state of mind
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- 30. On Site Optimisation •On-site factors play a big role in determining your search engine rankings • These are the things that you can do yourself or that you can task your web developer to do on your behalf
- 31. Use of multimediaplatforms Be careful when using multimedia platforms, such as Flash, particularly as navigational elements Your website must be ‘spiderable’, otherwise it won’t get good search engine rankings Text-based navigation can be ‘spidered’; links embedded within a Flash element cannot. Be careful also with Javascript, DHTML or other graphical navigation elements If you use these, provide a text based navigation bar elsewhere on the page
- 32. On-site navigation Your navigationstructure and accessibility is critical for search engine rankings – search engines need to be able to access your content in order to index it KISS principle Employ the 2 click rule (3 click rule at most) Use textual links from your home page Use a Sitemap which can be accessed from your home page Employ inline / contextual links
- 33. The TITLE tag Thesingularly most important on-site factor! If you do one thing to your site, then this should be it! This is what appears in the top bar in your browser Almost always the heading that Google chooses for its listings – therefore it needs to be enticing or contain a call-to-action
- 34. The TITLE tag •Include your chosen keywords within the TITLE tag – preferably near the start of the tag • Try to keep it to 70 characters • Must be relevant to the page content • Very important - each page should have a different TITLE tag
- 35. Exercise • Open your own website in your browser • View the source code (View menu) • What is your TITLE tag? • Is it appropriate? • Could it be better? • What does your main competitor have as their home page TITLE tag? Is it better than yours?
- 36. Metadata Tags • Searchengines also use a series of metadata tags that reside in the header of the page to index websites • These tags can’t be seen by human visitors to your website – but they’re still interrogated by the search engines
- 37. The DESCRIPTION tag •A textual description of what the page is about • Regularly used in Google search results as the description of your site
- 38. The DESCRIPTION tag •Include keywords close to the start of the tag, but don’t repeat more than 3 times • Try to keep it to 150 characters • Must be relevant to the page content • Each page should have a different DESCRIPTION tag
- 39. The KEYWORD tag •Less important than TITLE and DESCRIPTION, but still worth including • Up to 10 individual words, separated by commas
- 40. Body Text • Googleloves original, high quality textual content • Body text is extremely important for search engine rankings because this is what human users come to see • Keywords, synonyms and variations of the primary keyword combination should be included in the body text, but not so that it reads ‘artificially’. It should read naturally.
- 41. Keywords in URLs •URLs that contain keywords are better than those that don’t • Quite easy to do if your website is static, a little more difficult for database-driven sites • Don’t make the URLs too long because this will be seen as an attempt to manipulate the search results • Good and bad: • www.mysite.com//health-insurance • www.mysite.com/search.asp?insuranceI D=435&locID=32
- 42. Heading Tags • Headingtags – eg. <h1>, <h2> - within the HTML identify headings within the page copy and break up the text • They are used by search engines to determine page content • Use keywords in these tags, but don’t overdo it. • Use Web Developer Toolbar to evaluate the same.
- 43. Link Anchor Text •The ‘anchor’ text contained within hyperlinks provides Google with an understanding of what the linked content is about • Every hyperlink on your site should have descriptive anchor text, rather than ‘click here…’ • Inline links or contextual links are best • eg. • Blue Train Enterprises offers a free white paper on how to optimise your website for the search engines
- 44. Image ALT Text •There is the opportunity to specify ‘alternate’ text for every image on your website • The ALT text is displayed if the image doesn’t load in the user’s browser • It also can have a positive effect on your website rankings • The ALT tag should describe the image • Keep it short and to the point • Don’t use ALT tags as a place to stuff keywords
- 45. A word ondomain names… • Domain names can assist search engine rankings too • If you are thinking of changing names, or planning a new business, think carefully about the domain name you choose • Best to have .in for Indianmarket, but if possible secure .com as well • Try to keep it short, memorable • Try to include keywords in the domain name • Register the name for as long as possible
- 46. Customer Assurance Factors •It is recommended that your website contains: • Business information – • Telephone number – 1800 adds credibility • A physical address • Information about your business – ‘about us’ • Policies • Privacy • Security • Terms of use / disclaimers • A sitemap with links to major pages
- 47. Getting Value fromLinks
- 48. Getting Value fromLinks • Links – both inbound and outbound – are important factors for Google when assessing a website’s importance
- 49. Inbound Links • Theseare links on other websites that link to your site • Good quality inbound links serve as a ‘vote of confidence’ for your site – if a good site links to your site, then by association, your site must be good, too • Try and get links from ‘authority’ websites to your site • Thematically-linked sites • It’s not the volume of inbound links that is important – it’s the quality
- 50. Inbound Links • Whenrequesting a link, try and engineer it so that your keywords are included in the anchor text – eg. Compare Health Insurance Deals
- 51. Outbound Links • Thereis evidence to suggest that your outbound links contribute to your rankings • Only link to good quality, thematically-aligned content on third party websites • Only link to sites that would be of interest to your audience • Be aware that outbound links take visitors away from your site – and that is not necessarily what you want to do.
- 52. Caution… • Reciprocal links– I’ll link to you, if you link to me • You can get some value from these only if the two sites are thematically aligned and are both high quality • Most requests for reciprocal links should be deleted, particularly three-way link swaps • Paid Links • Google frowns upon paid links – the Google algorithm is sophisticated and can detect links which seek to artificially manipulate its rankings • Link Farms & ‘Bad Neighbourhoods’ • These are sites that allow you to post your link for free alongside thousands of other sites • Being linked from these sites can damage your standing
- 53. Getting listed inDirectories • Being listed in major directory-based websites can boost your rankings considerably • http://www.dmoz.org - a difficult one to get into • http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html • http://www.google.com/local/add - a very important one that will see your business plotted on Google Maps
- 54. Other ways toget Inbound Links • Articles / interviews published on other websites • Press releases • Forum posts • Blog comments • Guest Blogging • ‘Link bait’ – controversial is best!
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- 56. Content is King •Ever heard the saying? • Search engines are simply a means to locate great content • Does your site have great content? • Or is it ‘brochure-ware’? • Does your site ‘do’ anything else that will bring visitors back time and again?
- 57. Content is King •Add content that people want to read and will pass on – top ten tips, ‘how to’ guides, free white papers • Text should be in short sentences, compact paragraphs, be well punctuated, and contain headings to break up the text – time-poor people don’t read, they scan • Pages should not scroll and scroll and scroll… • One page per theme (optimised for that theme) and cross-link
- 58. Content is King •Text should be written from a WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) perspective – no fluff, just tell the customer what they want to hear. • Add content regularly – if your site remains static, then it will lose its prominence in the search engines (and visitors won’t want to come back)
- 59. Add content regularly •Some ideas for new content for your website: • New products • Company activities • Special offers or discounts • Achievements – awards • New staff profiles • Case studies about your products or services • Testimonials from customers • ‘How to’ guides • General advice about products or services • Observations about the market
- 60. Web 2.0 Content •Web 2.0 is a term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and its hosted services, such as social networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, etc (Wikipedia) • Google loves this content and you should employ it where appropriate
- 61. Blogs • Blog =web log • In essence, an online journal or diary, ordered by date • An excellent way of adding content regularly to your website • You can quickly establish yourself as an expert in your field via a blog • Can be setup within minutes online: • Wordpress.com • Blogger.com • TypePad.com • But it takes dedication and patience!
- 62. RSS • RSS =‘really simple syndication’ • A ‘push’ method of distribution for new content • Allows users to receive automatic updates when content is released • RSS feeds generally viewed in RSS readers – inc. browsers, Outlook • Can also distribute to mobile devices and social networking sites
- 63. Video • The biggestgrowth area on the web as broadband uptake and bandwidth increases • Over 20 hours of video every minute is uploaded to YouTube • Video can be done cheaply with a handheld camcorder • Viral impact can bring thousands of visitors to a website in a short space of time • Examples: • Elf Yourself • The Greatest Job in the World • The World’s Greatest Business Mind
- 64. Social networking • Webbased services that allow users to create online communities based on shared interests and activities – there are over 2,000 of them!
- 65. Facebook • Over 175million users worldwide • Has beaten MySpace in Australia – 41.88% of social networking traffic goes to Facebook (Source: Hitwise) • Businesses can establish a Facebook Page or Group • But many businesses still block access to Facebook in the workplace…
- 67. Twitter • Fastest growing,hottest property right now – anybody using it? • Micro-blogging; 140 character limit – basically ‘SMS on the web’ (but also can be done via mobile device) • You follow people, they follow you; your ‘tweets’ are seen by your followers, you see the ‘tweets’ of people you follow • But who would be interested in this seemingly banal, nebulous information? • Business can use it as an information channel to ‘push’ information to prospects – and it helps with search engine rankings!
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- 69. Bookmarking / TaggingSites • Consider implementing an AddThis or AddToAny button on your pages • www.addthis.com • www.addtoany.com • A simple piece of code that adds a button to your page:
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- 71. Add Site& submit XML Sitemap Verify meta or html Once verified, go to diagnostic then click on crawl errors Download all crawl error source in csv (if error found) Convert CSV to XLS format and add three columns: Status (Fixed/NotFound), Comments, Last Updated Once errors fixed, regenerate xml sitemap, upload and resubmit Next in diagnostic go to HTML suggestions Check & download duplicate meta descriptions-if any issues found Check & download duplicate titles tags-if any issues found Pass the issues to related team member and get it fixed Update your log file
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- 73. W3C validation Update Static & XML Sitemap Navigation to be crawler friendly i.e. no js menu/no Fix broken links flash menu/avoid image rollover Google Analytics Code Integration and Goal Setting H tags distribution: H tags needs to be at relevant Google WMT & Bing WMT places verification file upload and verification Footer if possible to have address in micro format All footer pages to have link to static sitemap Alt tags as per mapping sheet
- 74. Check site’shome page for known issues in Lynx Browser Canonical Issues-Consistency in hyperlinking www Vs non www Vs index vs home Reduntant metas to be removed Spacing in code to be removed CSS external JS external
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- 76. MOST IMPORTANT ONPAGEFACTORS WHICH WE USUALLY FORGET • H Tag Distribution • Footer Optimization • Copyright (Keyword Rich) • Sitemap (Static & XML) • Verification (google & bing)
- 77. • Content isKing • Use relevant keywords or key-phrases with a density of between 3% and 5% • Bold helps 77
- 78. • Inbound • Higher ranking site • Text in link important • Outbound • Less the better • Crawler follows link • Intra site • Helps with navigation 78
- 79. • JavaScript • Some Crawlers can not navigate • Commonly found in Menus • Flash • Crawlers can not view • Use HTML version as option or SWFobject • Images • Should have alt tags 79
- 80. • Inbound • Higher ranking site • Text in link important • Outbound • Less the better • Crawler follows link • Intra site • Helps with navigation 80
- 81. • JavaScript • Some Crawlers can not navigate • Commonly found in Menus • Flash • Crawlers can not view • Use HTML version as option or SWFobject • Images • Should have alt tags 81
- 82. • “site:yoursite.com keyword” Result: shows if your site is indexed for a particular keyword • “inurl:keyword.” • Result: Web sites using keywords {or your brand} in URL • “site:yoursite.com” • Result: shows the pages of your site indexed 82
- 83. • “linkdomain:yoursite.com” Result: shows all links to your domain • “linkhttp://yoursite.com.page.html” Result: shows all links to that page • “linkdomain:yoursite.com-site: yoursite.com” • Result: shows links, excluding internal links 83
- 84. More things thatyou should do… • Monitor your server statistics – unique visitors is the key metric to track (not ‘hits’) • Set up Google Analytics on your site - http://www.google.com/analytics/ • Set up Google Webmaster Tools - http://www.google.com/webmasters/ • Set up Google Alerts for your business - http://www.google.com/alerts • Try out Google Adwords pay per click advertising using a trial offer - http://www.google.com.au/contactadwords
- 85. Other technical thingsto do… • Remove multiple ‘instances’ of your site with a Permanent 301 redirect to eliminate dilution of your website standing • Implement a robots.txt file • Implement an XML sitemap • Ensure that your pages load quickly by streamlining your code and optimising your images • Ensure that your site’s server has close to 100% uptime – if it isn’t live when the spider arrives, your rankings may be affected • Make your site W3C compliant – http://validator.w3.org
- 86. What you shouldNEVER DO • Hidden text • Keyword stuffing • Display duplicate content • Cloaking – displaying different content to visitors and spiders • Use Flash alone • Use Frames
- 87. A final thought •If you employ one of the strategies mentioned in this presentation, you will get some benefit in the search engine results pages • If you employ a couple, you will get much greater benefit • If you employ all of them properly, then you will most likely go to the top of the results • The little things count and, when you employ them together, they can make a big difference to your site performance
- 88. THANK YOU! Website: www.pagetraffic.in Email: nkaushal@pagetraffic.in Twitter: @navneetkaushal Blog: www.pagetrafficbuzz.com Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com