2. 1 Week to Better SEO
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Day 1 – Check Your Site
Day 2 – Keywords, Keywords, Keywords
Day 3 – Analysis
Day 4 – Update Your Content
Day 5 – Stay Local
Day 6 – Get Social
Day 7 – Rest, of Course
Rinse & Repeat as Needed
3. Day 1 – Check Your Site
Our site is
under
attack!
4. How to Tell
Not a good
sign.
Use a site like
sitecheck.sucuri.net
to verify.
5. How to Prevent it
• If your user name is Admin, change it.
• If your password is ‘password’ please leave
immediately. Use a complex password.
• Check often – Day 1, for example – for
WordPress updates and Plugin updates.
• Backup your site regularly. If you do get
hacked it will make it easier to recover.
6. Day 2 –
Keywords, Keywords, Keywords
Ok – I’m guilty too, but you just can’t set and
forget when it comes to keywords.
Tom’s Number 1 Pet Peeve
Don’t ask me to optimize for a keyword that
doesn’t appear anywhere on the site
This is a good time to check your Titles,
Headers, Alt Tags and Meta Descriptions
(yes, I still use Meta Descriptions)
Forgetting about
your keywords is
highly illogical
7. Day 2 –
Keywords, Keywords, Keywords
Bing Webmaster Tools is a good alternative
8. Day 3 - Analysis
Chekov, are you
looking at
Google
Analytics
reports again?
Worse,
Google’s
Webmaster
guidelines!
9. Day 3 – Use Your Tools
• Look at Google Analytics
• Look at Google & Bing Webmaster Tools
• Run performance tests
A bad workman always blames his tools.
( -Old Proverb)
10. Google Analytics
• If you don’t have Google Analytics on your
site, please leave after the folks that have
‘password’ as their password have left.
• Make sure it’s installed correctly.
• Explore – Don’t just look at visits and
keywords.
• Set up goals and funnels.
12. Webmaster Tools
• Both Google and Bing offer Webmaster Tools.
• Both will alert you to potential problems on your site.
• The latest Google update made the organic keywords
section of Google Analytics useless.
While not as robust as Google
Analytics, Webmaster Tools will
at least give you some keyword
intel
13. Don’t Ignore Mobile
This site is getting more than half it’s traffic from mobile devices. Sure hope
his site either has a mobile version or is using responsive design
16. Where am I?
Check your rank on your target keywords.
If you only manage one site check out Cute Rank – free for one site.
17. Day 4 – Update Your Content
• The search engines like fresh content.
• It gives people a reason to come back to your
site.
Tom’s Theory
of SEO.
Content is, and
always will be,
King.
There are, however,
a lot more queens,
princes and
princesses than
before.
Captain, this site is
useless – it was last
updated 3 months
ago…
18. Day 5 – Stay Local
• The Search Engines
are looking at your
overall web presence
more than ever.
• Make sure your NAP
(Name, Address &
Phone Number) is
consistent across all
of the main and
secondary outlets.
19. Day 5 – Stay Local
• Getlisted.org is a
good place to start
20. Day 6 – Get Social
• Overall web presence includes social outlets
like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc., etc., etc.
I hate
Facebook
& Twitter
Do as I say, not as I do
21. Major Tom’s Toolbox
These are some tools, sites & extensions I use on almost a daily basis
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Screaming Frog
Cute Rank
Spyfu.com
KeywordSpy.com
Getlisted.org
Moz.com
Xenu Link Sleuth
Sitecheck.sucuri.net/scanner/
www.webpagetest.org/
www.seoptimer.com/
IIS Search Optimization Toolkit from
Microsoft
• Bing & Google Webmaster Tools
• Adwords Keyword Tool
• Google Analytics Lessons
Extensions
• SEO Site Tools
• Mozbar
• Web Developer
• SEO for Chrome
• Mobile/RWD Tester
• Analytics Helper
• Fireshot Webpage Capture
• Woo Rank
• SEO Analysis with Seoptimer
• YSlow
22. Day 7 – Rest, of Course
• Relax, after working on your site for a week you’ve earned it.
• But remember… We start again tomorrow…
Using WP as Example but principles applyNot going to do all of this every week but you should check periodically
Many sites are always under attack, especially WordPress due to popularity.A hacked site will kill you in the rankingsIt may not be easy to recover from a hack
These are basic first steps to protect your site.Many updates are for security, not feature enhancement. Think of it as updating your virus patterns or Windows Updates.
This is normally number one, but security tops the listDon’t assume that the words you think are good are the ones people are usingAdwords tool is great, but you need an Adwords account
Avoid single work search terms – too broad.In the case of ecomm long tail, although searched on less, converts better. Keyword Spy and Spyfu both have limited free options but let you see what your competitors are ranking on.
WordPress has plugins that will let you add Google and Bing snippets very easily.Yoast is my favorite, but there are others.Yoast had versions for many other CMS platforms.
I find in a lot of cases the code is not on every page or is in the wrong place on the pageThere is a lot of good data to be had beyond visits and kewordsMobile usage is one we will talk about laterInternal site search if you have it Top landing and exit pagesSet up trackable goalsVisit Google Analytics Lessons https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3424288?hl=en
Google first started not providing search terms about 2 years ago for people who were logged into their Google account.In addition to people logged into the Gmail on a computer that’s also all Android users.Google’s last major update a few weeks ago broadened that to include all Google Searches
This will at least show you search keywords and your average position. You lose site interaction.
43% of people will not go back to a site if it does not display correctly on their mobile device.Industry average is 35% mobile usage currently.
Search engines prefer responsive design.In responsive design the site is build to scale on different devices.If that is not an option there are sites that will let you convert your site to mobile.Instead of a free option with a different domain, pay a little extra and use your own. You can use extensions like Mobile/RWD Tester to see how your site looks.
A lot of these items are at the hosting level and you may not be able to impact.You can, however, compress images, save as progressive JPG and cache static content.Progressive images will not really have any impact on a computer but will on mobile.Content caching can speed up a sluggish WordPress site.
CuteRank is a nice little rank checker free for one site.Don’t overuse, search engines don’t like you doing automated searches.
Keep it fresh. Keep it real. Compelling content will be shared. Sometimes people lose focus on their content when the latest trend is spotted like links. I am not saying that links aren’t important, but don’t forget the content.
Local search is having a big impact on not only on local site promotion but in larger sites as well. Search engines are looking at a business’ web presence in its entirety. The NAP info MUST be consistent.Local businesses beware of companies that offer local promotion where you do not own the end results.When the contract is up you don’t get the logins to the various platforms.In some cases they set up a promotional site and when you leave will use that site to promote you competitor.
Check your business on Getlisted.org. The Chamber has multiple listings – this dilutes the value.
I don’t Tweet. I don’t Facebook. I don’t Pin. Sorry, I don’t.However, I have a person in my office that does.Unless you have someone in your office, then you need to as well.Social is a BIG part of that overall web presence we spoke about.Bing and Google came out