2. What Is Search Engine Optimization
(SEO)?“it’s pointless having a website if no-one can find it!”
SEO is a way of creating more visibility on Search Engines
such as Google, Yahoo and Bing! by ranking websites higher
in results, which in turn lead to more click-troughs and
conversions.
3. WHAT CAN I DO TO IMPROVE SEO?
• Technical Improvements (Code)
• Content
• Links/Social
5. CASE-STUDY – SHOPCADE.COM
After implementing most of the technical improvements, the site
went from 34K indexed pages to 85M on Google in a year
6.
7. CRAWLERS / SPIDERS
Crawler-based search engines have three major elements. First is the spider, also
called the crawler. The spider visits a web page, reads it, and then follows links to
other pages within the site. This is what it means when someone refers to a site
being "spidered" or "crawled."
8. TECHNICAL IMPROVEMENTS – WHAT CAN I DO?
• Setup the “robots.txt” to allow “crawlers” to index your pages
Improper configuration might prevent the pages to be indexed
• Improve site speed
Slower sites will be penalised
• Every image should have an “alt” attribute
This helps the automated “crawlers” understand the content of the images
• Every page should have a canonical URL and make use of
pagination meta tags
The Canonical URL is the owner of the content, even if there are multiple URLs
that serve the same content. This avoids penalization for content duplication.
<link rel=“canonical” href=“http://example.com/page-a”>
• Make use of http redirection (301) when necessary to avoid
duplicate content
e.g., http://www.example.com, https://www.example.com, http://example.com,
9. TECHNICAL IMPROVEMENTS – WHAT CAN I DO?
• Make use of the HTML5 semantic Tags
Use tags like article, section, aside, summary, …
• Use H1-H6 in order to demonstrate hierarchy
H1 being the most important to H6 the least
• Add a Meta Title tag
This should be relevant to the actual content of the page. Should not be longer
than 50-60 characters, as Google truncates the rest in the search results. Avoid
duplicate meta titles
• Add a Meta Description tag
This should be relevant to the actual content of the page. Should not be longer
than 150-160 characters, as Google truncates the rest in the search results.
Avoid duplicate meta descriptions
• Avoid broken links and have a helpful 404 (page not found) error
page
10. TECHNICAL IMPROVEMENTS – WHAT CAN I DO?
• Add Social Meta Tags (Facebook Open Graph, Twitter Cards,
and Google Publisher)
These tags, help understanding the content of the website, and allow those
companies to better represent the content of the page on a snippet. Google
Publisher will eventually add more credibility to the site, by showing your latest
posts and profile on the top right side of the search results page
• Submit sitemaps regularly
Submitting sitemaps helps the Search Engines to be aware of your latest pages,
updates, etc
• Make use of rich snippets by using Microformat, Schema.org, …
By using this special markup, “spiders” will be able to better understand the
content and provide rich snippets on the search results. Available formats can
describe a Product, a Person, Comments, Reviews, etc
11. TECHNICAL IMPROVEMENTS – WHAT CAN I DO?
• Think Mobile
Optimize the website for mobile, by creating a specific mobile website when
possible. Search results vary if made from a desktop or from a mobile device
• Use Google Analytics (GA) and Google Webmaster Tools (GWT)
They provide very insightful data about how is your site performing. GWT also
provides SEO recommendations
• SEO friendly URL structure
Which one is sexier? http://example.com/page.php?p=918726 or
http://example.com/awesome-article
The URL string is also searchable, which helps your page to be findable
13. HOW DO I KNOW MY SITE IS BEING INDEXED?
Getting your site indexed is just one of the steps. You can verify that
your site is being indexed by searching for “site:
www.sitename.com”
14. OK, so what should I do next?
“Content is king…”
15. CONTENT – WHAT CAN I DO?
Now that we’re sure our site is being indexed, we need to rank
higher than our competitors for the selected keywords. About 85%
of the users find what they’re looking for in the 1st search results
page.
16. CASE-STUDY – SHOPCADE.COM
This website by implementing a series of non-technical
improvements, consistently started to rank even higher than the
actual brand that also sold the products, consequently improving the
click-through rate by 50% - 80%.
17. CONTENT – WHAT CAN I DO?
• Content is King
Quality, well written, fresh, unique content,. One of the most important factors
for SEO. Sell through content
• Start a Blog
Use the blog to keep users engaged and add more content. Use the blog to
cross-sell some products / articles
• Inform the client
Users who are informed are more likely to buy. As an example, we have the
eBay Buying Guides, that explain what to look for in a certain product. They also
use it as an opportunity to cross-sell by suggesting a few products
• Tweak the page title to provide more information about the
product
e.g. simply prepending “35% Off” Product Name, made the users click this site
instead of others
18. CONTENT – WHAT CAN I DO?
• Allow users to add comments / reviews
Not only it adds unique content and freshness, it also helps other users to make
the purchase / keep engaged. Be aware of spam comments and links (we
should add “nofollow” to those links)
• Use Google Trends and other similar tools
Find out which keywords are trending and create content around it to try to
capture a few more users into your website and then convert them
• Use Google Webmaster Tools
Find out how your users are discovering your website and try to explore it even
further. Either by creating content around it or by doing more of what is currently
converting better
• Target long tail queries
Easier to rank due to less competition. The more specific the higher the
intention. E.g. “Adidas Originals ZX Flux” as opposed to “adidas running shoes”
20. LINKS / SOCIAL – WHAT CAN I DO?
• Social Media
Share your articles / content in Social Media accounts and allow users to share
and spread the word. Consider owning a #hashtag. Create competitions to keep
users engaged and go viral
• Link Building / Establish Relations
Engage other users to write content / reviews about your product (should be
natural and not paid)
• Link Quality
Authority website links will count more than regular and “spammy” websites
• Link Without Any Conditions
All links should feel natural. Having links to other websites, is like voting for
those websites. Avoid linking to spammy websites and don’t impose linking back
22. USEFUL LINKS
• Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.co.uk/en/uk/webmasters/
docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
• Basic SEO Presentation
http://www.slideshare.net/namtrok/hope-seo
• How To Improve Your Site’s SEO
http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2013/08/21/how-to-improve-your-sites-seo/
Visibility and Reputation lead to sales / engagement
There is no Silver Bullet about SEO, just recommendations through experience. Google doesn’t share. Folow Google guides
I’ll say many times Google, but in fact I mean Search Engines (Yahoo is bigger in US compared to UK, Baidu in China)
I’ve split in 3 main areas.
I’ll try not to be very boring on the Tech side, but there are improvements require the technical side to be in place, rely on actual content. Title tags…
Code has little impact on the overall, but is required as a first step.
Code – 10%
Content – 45%
Links/Social – 45%
To make your website visible / indexed, discoverable
So, Shopcade is a social e-commerce website, Facebook meets Amazon. With a catalog of 100M products.
You can clearly see when they were implemented by looking at the graph
Usage in conjunction with Google Analytics, by adding a comment every time we improved something
Have I got your attention?
To make your website visible / indexed, discoverable
You can clearly see when they were implemented by looking at the graph
Usage in conjunction with Google Analytics, by adding a comment every time we improved something
Image titles are worse, make use of alt tag. We can clearly distinguish the big titles, the importance.
On the left, how humans see and perceive
On the right how Crawlers see
Since crawlers/spiders are robots, we need to help them to understand the content, by using the correct meta tags, semantic tags, alt attributes
Crawlers and spiders are robots, we need to tell them where to get the information
Amazon reported a 1% increase in conversion rate per 100/ms site speed reduced
Pagination meta tags - <link rel=“next” …> and <link rel=“previous” …> . Wordpress as an example
Avoid User-Agent Cloaking – By showing different content depending on User-Agent the site is Penalized
Alt Attribute – Alternative Text to display
Semantic tags and title tags might be used by the people who write articles
301 allow link juice to be kept
Broken Links are a bad User Experience, therefore penalized.
Google makes use of that information as well.
Also make use of Google Now Cards by using schema.org for email (airline ticket, bills, …)
URLs – Avoid making them too deep, and if it takes many clicks to get there, then the content is less relevant or important. Also, if we make categories like http://example.com/product/product-name, http://example.com/product/ should also be available as a page, that contains products…
URLS are also case sensitive, avoid duplication
Memorable URLs
Market Target.
US: Bing
Russia: Yandex
China: Baidu
So, I’ve implemented all those improvements, now it’s time to see if they’re working.
So, I’ve implemented all those improvements, now it’s time to see if they’re working.
Where do we want to be? Goal – to be on top of the search results
More than 85%
We should clearly define which keywords are relevant to our content
e.g. Lucozade as a keyword vs energy drink or feeling down…
So the website was indexed, but performing poorly.
Our goal is to be on top of the search results!
E.g. Adidas products, versus Shopcade offer products
Buying guides also link back to the products, increasing the importance. Cross-sell
One website created a very interesting and engaging blog, that led users to go to the main website.
Link Juice – Some people don’t believe in keeping users engaged as it might drive away the user from the Conversion / Sale perspective. See Buying Guides…
Create lists about your products, Create articles like Who the famous “TV SERIES” Are you? – Target keywords to drive traffic.
Caution with the benefits of having comments. It might imply an overhead due to moderation, risk of being bullied, …
E.g. affiliate feeds, all content is the same, duplicate. They make your page unique.
Google Trends, target the right keywords with content. Them sell! The same for GWT
E.g. Super Bowl, Create an article or a product list targetting, and them try to convert the users.
Long tail queries – users who are specific clearly show interest / buying intention
Word of Mouth – Discoverability, e.g. Sainsbury’s Dare to Share got immense exposure (300K indexed pages) in 3 weeks live.
Establish a Network of Bloggers, partners
Quality Links have much more value
