This a short SEO training course that I use for 1/2 day, or 3 hours, training for clients. It can be used across any industry.

1. EXPLANATION OF GOOGLE
SEARCH
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•How Google lists the search results
•Relevance to search term
•GoogleBans, Penalties, and Filters – Penguin &
Panda – images – text length & original
•Indexing & Cache – site:yoursite.com
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2. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORGANIC,
(80%), AND PAID RESULTS, (20 %
ADWORDS)
 Long term and short term results
 Filling the gap
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3. SCREAMING FROG
 Check once per month after first check
 Export html to spread sheet
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 Check for errors in file – 5XX and 4XX
 Page Titles – Useful, Descriptive, Duplicate,
Length 45 to 70 inc spaces
 Descriptions – Useful, Not Blank
 Redirects – avoid 302
 Headings & Sub Headings – H1, H2, H3
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4. KEYWORD RESEARCH
 Keywords are phrases that you want to have
your web site found in Google for
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 Keywords are typically two to five words
 The shorter a phrase generally the more difficult
to rank for
 Longer Keywords are typically associated with
better targeting and conversion
 E.g. Cinemas or Dublin Cinemas
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5. Copyright Cube Online Marketing
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KEY WORD RESEARCH

6. WHERE TO START?
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 Google External Keyword Tool -
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
 Analytics Data
 Remember to use Modifiers
 Google Search Suggest – drop down when typing
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7. KEY WORD RESEARCH
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 Competitors Sites – Look at titles
 Google Trends - http://www.google.com/trends
 http://www.spyfu.com/
 http://www.keywordspy.com/ - works for Ireland
 http://www.serparchive.com/ SEO Digger
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8. OTHER KEYWORD SOFTWARE
 http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
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 http://www.wordze.com/
 http://advertising.microsoft.com/learning-
center/downloads/microsoft-advertising-intelligence - a
Microsoft ad account is required
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9. PAGE TITLES
Page titles are the most valuable bit of real estate
on your page. It can have more influence than any
other single item.
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This is where you use your main keywords.
The text closer to the front of the title Google
considers more important.
Unique title for every page on your site.
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10. WEB SITE ARCHITECTURE
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 Page Titles 60 – 70 Characters
 Descriptions 150 – 167 characters
 Customize your 404 error page
 WWW versus Non-WWW
 File Naming Convention – keywords, lower
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11. ON PAGE OPTIMISATION
Key Word Density
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The main keywords that you are trying to rank the
page for need to be in the title tag and then used
throughout the page.
This should not be overdone, the page should read
well for humans, but make sure the keywords are
on the page.
Use H1, H2, etc to break up the page, add some
keywords in these & some un-related.
Use synonymous and related words 11

12. WHAT IS A LINK?
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 Links are hyperlinks
 Examples:
http://www.cubeonlinemarketing.ie/listofirishwebdirec
tories/
 <a href=http://www.cubeonlinemarketing.ie
target="_blank“>SEO Ireland</a>
 SEO Ireland is the anchor text
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13. INTERNAL LINKING USING ANCHOR
TEXT
 Internal Links
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Using internal links can help tell Google what a
page is about.
If you write a blog on your site add at least one link
from the blog or news page to one of the pages
that you are promoting.
This is known as web page/ site theme: e.g. in most
blog posts I write I will include a link to another
page on the site.
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14. IMAGES
 good alt text 2 – 5 key words – file name relevant
to image/ keywords, title = short sentence
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 E.g.
 <img src=”diamond-ring.gif” alt=”Diamond Ring”
Title=”Picture of a designer diamond ring.”
height=”100” width=”100” />
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15. LINKING OUT
 It is good to link out, your website appears more
natural to Google
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 There is no harm in linking out to most website,
however it is good to link to trusted sources
 Swop links with other business owners /
websites, reciprocal links should not make up
more than 15% of your overall inbound links
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16. SO, WHAT MAKES A GOOD WEB
PAGE?
 Text on page min of 300 words
 Good title tags – keywords, (less than 70
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characters)
 Good descriptions
 Keywords used on page
 Headings used on page, H1, H2, H3, etc
 Images, alt and title tags
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17. GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS
 Health – 404 errors need to be fixed
 Change Preferred domain to non www
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 Search Queries – with change
 Links to site
 Google Analyics
 Traffic Sources  Sources  All & Search
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18. INBOUND LINKS – WHERE THE
MONEY IS
What is a good link to get?
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 Age of site, older the better
 Relevance to your search term
 Anchor Text
 IP relevance
 Gov, edu, or .ac.uk
Most links will not satisfy many of the above
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19. WHERE TO GET LINKS FROM
 Not just anywhere
 If you start off with low level links this is how
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Google will view your website
 Never join link networks, or add any link code to
your page, web ring, etc
 Build links over time. If you add 100 links to a
website that only has 10 at present it will be
sandboxed, and it will not rank for much for
between 2 and 6 months, maybe longer
 Slow persistence is required month on month
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20. INBOUND LINK TEXT
Vary your site’s inbound links’ anchor text by adding extra modifying words.
The anchor text of your inbound links is crucial, but if they all have the same link text, search
engines will consider them artificial and penalise your site.
Here are some ways to link to a site naturally:
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 http://mysitename.com/
 www.mysitename.com
 my sitename
 my sitename.com
 my keywords
 owner’s name my sitename
 owner’s name sitename.
In order to keep your anchor text natural-looking, try to add modifiers to some of
your inbound links, and try to create at least a few links that are just your site name,
or some links that do not contain your keywords.
Rather than creating long anchor text like: ‘Search engine optimization SEO
marketing online internet web placement’. You are better off using
many smaller and more natural-sounding anchors.
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21. ANCHOR TEXT
 Anchor text is very important
 Search for Telecoms Poodle - Googlebombing
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 http://www.google.ie/search?
q=telecoms+poodle&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-
8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGLL_en-
GB___IE358
 After events like this and miserable failure –
which led to George Bush – Google changed their
algorithm and said a page would not rank unless
the text was on the page. Clearly this is not the
case – and that was 2007.
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22. FIRST LINKS
 Your Web Designer
 Your Local Chambers
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 IIA – rss your blog, add news with a link
included, and directory listing
 Trade Bodies
 Irish Web Directories -
http://www.cubeonlinemarketing.ie/listofirishweb
directories/
 http://www.irishbusinessforums.com/ - you can
add a profile about your business, write at least
300 words 22
 Reciprocal Links – no more than 25% of total
links

23. MORE LINK IDEAS
 Use Google Alerts for keywords & links
 Have an alert for ‘Your Keywords’
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Deep Links are links that point at inside pages of
your website. These are very good. Most links
will go to the home page, deep links help a page
rank higher and help the whole site.
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