From MailChimp: SEO is the process used to optimize a website’s technical configuration, content relevance, and link popularity so its pages can become easily findable, more relevant, and popular towards user search queries, and as a consequence, search engines rank them better.
SEO is the foundation of holistic marketing.
SEO should work together with other marketing efforts (i.e.: PPC)
Three types of SEO efforts:
Which one is your specialty?
• Quality of traffic:
To work well, you must guide the right searchers to your site and ensure you offer the answer they are looking for.
•Quantity of traffic:
Once you have the right people clicking through from search engine results pages (SERPs: Search Engine Results Pages), more traffic is generally better.
•Organic results:
Unpaid traffic
Based on the engines ranking algorithms rather than ad bids
• Website Reputation
• Main content quality and amount
• Information about the website/information about the person responsible for the website
• Expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of the website and its content (a particular focus on this came as a result of an algorithm update referred to as EAT)
A high-quality article, according to Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines is:
Irresistible, value-driven, long-form content that serves and delights your target audience. Focus on building a trustworthy, reputable brand and a strong profile of quality backlinks.
•First: Don’t ever compromise the user experience for ranking factors, but do be aware of them when you’re designing your site
• Pages that load faster get ranked first
• Sites that are not optimized for mobile will get pushed lower in Google’s ranking
• Google uses a metric called “dwell time,” so the longer people spend on it, the better it is for search rank (within reason)
• It’s an acronym to describe the resulting content after a user enters a search term.
• It stands for “search engine results page”
• SERP on Google contains a list of location results, native content, paid ads, and featured snippets.
• Brands that achieve featured snippets on the main SERP have achieved “page 0” results.
Example: Open Google, search for “pizza” and then describe the results.
• Keywords are the words people search for.
• They’re easier to rank for, but there’s way more competition.
• Example: “bicycle” (1,080,000,000 results)
• Long-tail keywords are made up of 3 or 4 words or a short phrase.
• Harder to rank for, but there’s less competition.
• Example: “how to ride a mountain bike” (263,000,000 results)
This model, organized similarly to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, shows the relative weighting of efforts to optimize for search; SEO can be described as having content components and technical components.
All but the top of the pyramid reflect the power of creating great content before addressing any technical components (we’re covering the content layer in this course).
Crawl accessibility refers to the ability for search engines to find a page on your site. Most pages can be found by search unless you specify otherwise through code on your website.
On-page SEO is a term used to describe ways to optimize for search on your website.
Focuses on improving the quality of your website
Keywords: Use the primary keyword in your page copy and blog titles.
Headers: Feature the primary keyword in one or two headers if you can naturally include it, but do not put it in every header just for the sake of it. H1 – H2 – H3 – p.
Interlinking: Link between related blog topics on your website to improve SEO.
URL structure: Make your URLs readable, for example, www.website.com/blog/blog-title
Examples:
Off-page SEO is a term used to describe SEO techniques that depend on other websites.
Focuses on leveraging other websites to increase credibility with Google.
Activities you do everywhere except your website to improve the ranking.
Backlinks
• Links to your website from other websites and social media posts are called backlinks
• High-quality backlinks from credible websites improve your SEO results
Link building
• Link building is a term for creating a list of other websites you’d like to link to yours.
• Before you make the ask, build relationships with other content creators by commenting on their blog articles, social media posts or following them on LinkedIn.
• Once you’ve established the relationship, then contact them to ask if they will link to your website by blog swapping (you post their content on your website) or doing a guest blog (you write a post for their blog)
Example:
Keyword: “best cats for apartment living”
How would you name the image?
What ALT text would be appropriate?
Use 3 SERP features to help build lists.
People always ask box: A dynamic feature from Google that contains questions related to the original search query.
Related search: Eight related searches are found at the bottom of the SERP that, when clicked, become the search query of a new SERP.
People also search for a feature only shown to users who click on a search engine result and return to the results page immediately.
• This is a paid tool.
• Shows search volume for keywords using data from Google Keyword Planner.
• Enter search terms related to your blog or business on Google, Amazon, Facebook, Pinterest, Etsy, or other websites.
• Look for keywords with high search volume and add them to your list.
• Enter a keyword you think your target audience might use to find your website or blog article.
• It’s possible to enter ten keywords simultaneously and filter out results from specific websites or brand names.
• Keyword Planner displays approximate search volumes of thousands of related keywords.
• Search volume is an approximation of how many searches of that term have occurred within the timeframe you specify.
• Competition tells you how many other companies are using that same keyword (terms with higher competition are harder to rank for)
• Look for keywords and phrases with higher search volume and lower competition.
• Use this information to create ideas for topics you can blog about.
Google Ads – Keyword Planner
Google Search Console is a tool available through Google; however, it only works for existing websites. If you have a website, you can sign up for an account.
The most significant advantage from an SEO perspective is that it shows which keywords your website ranks for.
Conduct online research to find out what questions people are asking related to the topic you’re interested in.
This gives your content relevance because it puts you in a position of being able to help.
Outlines increase your writing speed, prevent rambling or tangents, and give your creativity a honed focus because you’ll know exactly what to write about.
Once you’ve identified a topic, organize the content using an outline (think of it as a map or blueprint for writing the post)
Use the outline to help you plan keyword-optimized headings and subheadings and ensure you cover everything that needs attention.
Tell a story, but keep the most important information upfront.
Keep it conversational (write like you talk)
Use whitespace to break up long chunks of text.
Use subheadings and bullets to improve readability.
Include images to vary the way information is presented.
Add a call to action (tell readers what you want them to do)
Blog topic: this is not your post title, just the broad topic you will be covering
Long-tail Keyword: what phrase do you want to focus on for ranking
Post title: this is where your blog title goes. Remember to have your keyword(s) included here.
Subheading 1:
Subheading 2:
SEO title (60 characters):
SEO description (300 characters):
Image name: remember how this needs to be set up: image-name-here.jpg
Image ALT text (125 characters): not a place to keyword stuff, but be short and descriptive. This is also used for people with accessibility needs, so it should communicate the image context to the user.
• Metadata is a term used to describe “information about information”
• It gets displayed in organic search results.
• For SEO, it means the title and description for a page of web content.
• Google will automatically pick up the first few lines of your content, but you can customize it as part of your SEO strategy.
• Different web platforms like Squarespace, WordPress, and Wix allow this (they all work differently)
Math Rank
Feature your keyword in both
• Title: Put important keywords first. You can use the keyword and then separate longer text with a vertical line (|)
• Description: Describe what the searcher can expect to know, learn, or do.
• Character limits
• Title = 60 characters
• Description = 300 characters
Use title styles for the headline and subheadings, for subtitles, and body text for paragraphs
Use keywords in the URL for your web content.
• Use hyphens to separate words; there’s no character limit, but longer page names will be truncated.
• Examples for the keyword “title and descriptions for SEO”
• Search intent, sometimes known as keyword intent, is the ultimate goal of the person using a search engine.
• Matching your keywords to search intent is a way to get a better rank and a higher click-through rate (CTR)
Examples:
• Navigational intent, using Google to find another website and go there (to go somewhere)
• Informational intent, using Google to research information (to know something)
• Transactional intent, using Google to take an action (to do something)
• Freebies, using Google to find something for free.
• The latest Google updates will lower rankings for websites that don’t work on mobile devices.
• More people have mobile devices than desktop computers and often view your website on them.
• Pinching and zooming to read content, buttons too close together, and forms that don’t work are frustrating and indicate lower content.
• Google has a tool where you can enter your website’s address to determine how it displays on mobile, determine if the design is mobile-friendly, and report any errors.
For SEO, it means the title and description for a page of web content
Why are they important?
Meta descriptions are important for SEO, because they’re often used to generate snippets that tell searchers about your page. And help you stand apart from competitors on the SERP.
Google will automatically pick up the first few lines of your content, but you can customize it as part of your SEO strategy.
Use natural language that provokes curiosity and makes searchers want to know more
Put a keyword in the title and description to improve the ranking
Character limits:
Goal: get them to click!
• Blogs are a cornerstone component of an online content marketing strategy.
• Blogs are key for driving traffic to your website.
• It’s essential that the brand pays attention to content and topics that are meaningful and helpful to the target audience.
• From a search perspective, it allows a brand to go beyond its own messaging by sharing subject matter expertise that’s relevant to the target audience.
• It’s also where brands can create long-form content on their own platform.
• Most search results contain blog articles.
Types of blogs/content
• Use keywords to research online conversations and to assess what your competitors are blogging about.
• Write down topics relevant to your niche and your target audience.
Analyze the content and decide if:
• You could take a different angle.
• You could complete the story.
• There’s an opportunity to tell it differently.
Start with an outline.
• Once you’ve identified a topic, organize the content using an outline (think of it as a map or blueprint for writing the post)
• Use the outline to help you plan keyword-optimized headings and sub-headings and cover everything that needs attention.
• Outlines increase your writing speed, prevent rambling or tangents and give your creativity a honed focus because you’ll know exactly what to write about.
Blog topic:
Keyword:
SEO title (60 characters):
SEO description (300 characters):
Image:
Image ALT text (125 characters):
Page url:
Post title:
• Make your blog title as enticing as possible –envision it in Google search results.
• Include the keyword at or near the beginning to tell readers what your post is about and entice them to read.
• Keep it to 50-60 characters or about 8-14 words.
• Some of the best ways to introduce your blog topic.
Start with a number “5 ways to do….”
Address the reader “You…”
Start with “How to…”
Use keywords to improve search engine rank and (more importantly) validate its credibility of it from the searcher’s perspective.
• Use your keyword once in the headline.
• Use your keyword once in the opening paragraph.
• Use that keyword in at least one subheading.
• Write the body of your blog post. If the keyword feels natural in the text, do it; the same goes for related terms or secondary keywords.
• Include the keyword once in the closing paragraph.
Longer blog posts demonstrate your authority on a subject and make it easy for other sites to link to it
• Provide as much information related to your blog post (be thorough)
• Posts can be as short as 300 words or as long as 2,500 or even 10,000 words.
• Edit ruthlessly and be as clear as possible.
• Answer your reader’s question clearly.
• Write it to accommodate online reading.
• Ask a friend or colleague to read it before you publish.
• With formatting, be consistent.
• Use title styles for the headline and subheadings for subtitles, and body text for paragraphs.
Tell a story, but keep the most important information upfront.
• Keep it conversational (write like you talk)
• Use whitespace to break up long chunks of text.
• Use subheadings and bullets to improve readability.
• Include images to vary the way information is presented.
• Add a call to action (tell readers what you want them to do) goes here.
• ALT text is a name for “alternative text” that is read by screen readers or displayed for people who use assistive devices.
• It’s a description of the image.
• Don’t include “Image of” or “Picture of” in the ALT text (it’s not necessary)
• Keep it to 125 characters or less.
SEO hack: Use the keyword in the image name and the ALT text to improve search rank.
Get into groups of 2-4. Brainstorm keywords for the following business:
Choose one of the keyword groups from your brainstorm, and use askthepublic.com, Google predictive text, or Quora to uncover 2 to 4 blog ideas based on what people are asking(intention)about.
