What Every Private School Needs to Know About SEO

What Every Private School
Needs to Know About SEO?
Presented by Daren Worcester
Tuesday, November 19, 13

Why is SEO important?
Ranking on Search Engine
Result Pages (SERPs) drops
significantly with each
position.
SEO best practices are also
key to building an
organization’s online brand
presence.
Source: Source: http://connect.relevance.com/a-tale-of-two-studies-establishing-google-bing-click_through-rates

Source: http://www.webpagefx.com/united-states-of-search/
“Every month, roughly 117
million searches are made for
“Google” in Bing. ...4 million
searches are made for ‘Bing’
in Google.”
— Slingshot SEO

Source: http://mozcast.com/
Google makes 300 - 400
algorithm changes a year!
The Mozcast
Takeaways:
1. SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it action
2. Don’t get caught with all of your SEO eggs in one
basket

Influential SEO Factors

Source: https://adwords.google.com
Step 1: Determine the
keywords you want to
optimize.
Google Adwords is a good
(free) resource for pinpointing
the best terms.
Most people find schools on
SERPs via “branded” or
“longtail” searches.
On Site: Content

Content Keywords within
Google Webmaster Tools is a
good resource for
understanding how Google
views your site’s content.
Source: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en
On Site: Content

Search Queries in Google’s
Webmaster Tools is an
important resource for
identifying the right keywords
to target.
On Site: Content

• Reviewing Search Queries data
with that of Adwords helps
prioritize your school’s content
optimization efforts.
• Here, trying to get better results
for “onMessage” is an easy win
because it’s just off the main page.
• “School software” will take more
work, but considering the search
numbers, it’s probably worth the
effort.
•
On Site: Content

Step 2: Create unique,
authentic, engaging content
and sprinkle the content with
keywords.
Ideally variations of keywords
appear in page titles; URLs;
headers; body text; internal
links; media titles, alt tags and
captions.
Source: Rand Fishkin, http://moz.com/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization
On Site: Content/Technical

In addition to the actual page
content, don’t forget to populate the
meta description, which is what
typically displays on the SERP.
The meta description has no direct
impact on search standings; however,
a well written description can affect
the click-through rate.
Meta keywords aren’t necessary.
On Site: Technical

Try to get keywords into page titles
as often as possible, especially since
onMessage uses the titles to create
the page URLs.
The recommended max is the real
character number to stay under for
meta descriptions and keywords.
On Site: Technical

Page load time can have a
significant impact on SEO. One
easy way webmasters can help the
cause here is by saving photos for
Web. The image quality difference
is barely noticeable.
On Site: Technical

Google looks at navigation from
the top down, assuming the most
important pages are at the
beginning. As webmasters we
should approach the navigation in
the same way.
Duplicate content should be
avoided whenever possible.
On Site: Structural

A good, clean navigation structure
is also key to page URLs. Avoid
“stuffing” URLs with repetitive
keywords.
Also, try to keep navigation to 4
levels or less — ideally no more
than 3.
On Site: Structural

On Site: Structural
Links in body text are known
to help site optimization. The
closer to the top of the page
the links appear, the better.
Moreover, the text, and the
links, should be written in a
way to enhance the user
experience.

On Site: User Metrics
Google is looking for
engagement. How long
are visitors on the site?
What do they click on?
And do they come back?
“Bounce Rate” is good to
look at but it can be
misleading. Factor in
“Avg. Time on Page” for
the full picture.

Under Audience > Behavior >
Frequency & Recency, Google
Analytics has a variety of
reports to track user
engagement.
The report here shows the
amount of days between
visits. This can be customized
to specific pages such as those
in the admissions section
during application season.

Another helpful
engagement report, Page
Depth shows the average
amount of pages viewed
per visit.

Off Site: Links
Google highly values inbound
links as they are seen as
votes of approval for a site.

Off Site: Links
Google created a link analysis
algorithm called Page Rank to
assign a numerical weight to
the authority of a site. Page
Rank works on a scale of 1-10.
When one site links to another,
the linking site transfers some
of its Page Rank value
(commonly referred to as “link
juice”) to the linked site.

Off Site: Links
The SEO goal of link building is
to get as many quality links as
possible. Start by reviewing
the existing sites linking to
your site—are there sites
similar to those shown that
could link to yours? What
about organizations the school
belongs to?
Link building can be tedious and time consuming work. It’s important
to create a strategy for naturally cultivating links. For example, in
media relations, ask for a “citation” linking back to the school’s site.

Off Site: Links
Reviewing the site content
that receives the most links
will help you determine what
content to create more of to
garner the most links.

Off Site: Links
It’s also important to protect
existing links by putting in a
redirect whenever you delete
or move a popular page.

Off Site: Social
Social Media shares,
followers, likes, pins, RTs,
etc., all bear weight on SEO.
Similar to link building, it’s
important to develop a
strategy and engage in
activity and content
population that fosters social
media growth.

Off Site: Social
Make sure your school’s site
has links leading to its
various social profiles, and
conversely there are links
leading from the profiles to
the school site. This helps
Google establish authorship.

Off Site: Social
Don’t forget Google+!!!
Widely dismissed as a failure
upon its release, Google’s
methodological business
strategy has turned Google+
into one of the fastest
growing social media
networks today.
What’s more, Google+ has
staying power, leading some
to predict it will overtake
Facebook.
Source: http://blog.searchmetrics.com/us/2013/06/20/social-media-growth-forecast-google-to-overtake-facebook/

Off Site: Local
Google takes user location
into account when returning
search results. To ensure your
school is appearing in
localized searches, display
the address in plain text on
the site, and make sure its
listing is correct in directories
such as Yelp and Google
Local.

Off Site: Brand Recognition
Brand recognition, or trust, is
highly influential on SERP
listings, which is to say
there’s still a place for good,
old-fashioned advertising and
marketing in your Web site’s
strategic planning.
Brand recognition can be
measured for search by the
site’s direct traffic and
“branded” search results.

Branded Keywords
It’s important for schools to
“own” branded keyword
results.
Social media accounts are a
great way to fill branded
search results with online
properties controlled by the
school.

So...what is SEO?

SEO is part of everything you do.

WhippleHill’s SEO Services
SEO Foundation Training
Eight one-hour sessions covering:
1. Introduction to SEO
2. Page Optimization
3. Keyword Research
4. Content Strategy
5. Link Building
6. Local SEO
7. Using Google Analytics
8. Social Media & SEO

SEO Foundation Training & Initial Site
Optimization
•8 training sessions
•Perform keyword research
•Optimize browser page titles & meta
descriptions for 25 pages
•Content editorial recommendations
•Create a list of backlink prospects
•Setup custom google analytics reports
•Provide WhippleHill’s Independent School Guide
toSEO with additional documentation
WhippleHill’s SEO Services

Additional Resources
Google: How Search Works
http://www.google.com/insidesearch/howsearchworks/thestory/index.html
Google: Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-
starter-guide.pdf
Moz: The Beginners Guide to SEO
http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo
Search Engine Land: The Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors
http://searchengineland.com/
The Short Cutts
http://www.theshortcutts.com/

What Every Private School Needs to Know About SEO

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