Transcript SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

search en·gine
It is an information retrieval system designed to help find information
stored in a computer system
the birth of a search engine
The grandfather of all search engines was Archie, created in 1990 by Alan
Emtage, Bill Heelan and J. Peter Deutsch, students at McGill University in
Montreal.
Archie
Veronica and Jughead
VLib
Excite
World Wide Web Wanderer
ALIWEB
Primitive Web Search
Infoseek
Altavista
Galaxy
YAHOO!
WebCrawler
Lycos
LookSmart
Inktomi:Hotbot
GOOGLE
Ask.com / Ask Jeeves
MSN
Open Directory Project
Overture
alltheweb
Snap
Livesearch
Cuil
bing
how search engines operate?
• Web Crawling
• Indexing
• Searching
web crawling
A Web crawler is an Internet bot that systematically browses
the World Wide Web, typically for the purpose of Web
indexing.
A Web crawler may also be called a Web spider, an ant, an
automatic indexer, or a Web scutter.
web crawling
Panda and Penguin
Panda updates are designed
to target pages that aren’t
necessarily spam but aren’t
great quality.
Penguin is an important algorithm
change targeted at webspam. The
change will decrease rankings for
sites that are violating Google’s
existing quality guidelines.
indexing
: collects, parses, and stores data (keywords or keyphrases)
to facilitate fast and accurate information retrieval.
searching
: is the activity of obtaining information resources relevant to
an information needed from a collection of information
resources.
SERP
SERP or Search Engine
Results Page is the
listing of results
returned by a search
engine in response to a
keyword query.
SERP
Organic Search
Results
Paid Search
Results
You have a website,
but are you SEARCHABLE?
search engine optimization
or SEO is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page
in the search engine.
purpose of seo
• Visibility
• Traffic
• Sales
purpose of seo
Visibility
Increasing your visibility online will increase
the chances of someone actually coming
across your site and using it.
purpose of seo
Traffic
Search engine optimization brings customers
to your door step as they enter your
websites by using relevant keywords/phrases
into the search engines.
purpose of seo
Sales
With better visibility & increased traffic, you
have an increased chance of getting more
sales leads.
search engine optimization
is traditionally divided into two major parts.
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On-page Optimization
Off-page Optimization
search engine optimization
is traditionally divided into two major parts.
•
On-page Optimization
title tags
The title tag tells search engines what the page is about and that the
page on your website is relevant for that keyword or keyword
phrase. Title tags should be unique for every page.
In search results, search engines will highlight your keyword phrases
if a user has searched for those terms. This increases visibility and
click-through rate.
Example of a Page Title in SERP
title tags
Best Practices
• Your title tag should be written like this: Primary Keyword –
Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
• Use a DASH in between your keyword phrases and a PIPE at the
end before your brand name
• Avoid duplicate title tags
• Keep title tags at 66 characters or less in length, including spaces
meta descriptions
Meta descriptions should include a compelling description on which
a user would want to click on. Much like title tags, the SERPs will
highlight keywords that the user searched for, increasing the
likelihood of the user clicking through to your website.
Example of a Meta Description in SERP
meta descriptions
Best Practices
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Write compelling meta descriptions
150 to 160 characters is the recommended length
Avoid duplicate meta descriptions
Do not use quotes or any non-alpha characters (Google, cuts
them out of the meta description)
meta keywords
Keywords or key phrases are the search terms someone types into a
search engine, when they are looking for certain information.
Why do KEYWORDS matter?
People are constantly using keywords whether they are in search of
a specific product or just browsing to conduct personal research.
meta keywords
Sample META data tags
header tags & keyword phrases
A header tag, also known as an H1 tag, is much like the subject line
of your web page. You should only use your keyword phrase once in
the H1 tag.
This should be included on a page to which you are trying to drive
unique traffic to. You can also use H2 tags (second header) if there
are multiple sections.
header tags & keyword phrases
Example of Web Content with highlighted keywords
header tags & keyword phrases
Example of an H1 tag being optimized for ‘nfc reader’:
header tags & keyword phrases
Best Practices
• Use your keyword phrase once in your H1 tag
• Use H1 tags on pages you are trying to drive unique traffic to
(SEO page)
• Use H2 tags if there are multiple sections
internal page linking with anchor text
Internal linking refers to a link on a page that points to another page
on the same website. Internal linking is important because it helps
strengthen those keywords internally for those pages, it allows users
(and search engine robots) to navigate through the website, and it
tells the search engines that the page is relevant for that keyword
phrase.
This should be included on a page to which you are trying to drive
unique traffic to. You can also use H2 tags (second header) if there
are multiple sections.
internal page linking with anchor text
Example of how to use anchor text in your internal links:
internal page linking with anchor text
Best Practices
• When linking to another page on the same site from within
content, select good anchor text (keywords) to use in the actual
link and do this often.
alt tags, filenames and image optimization
An alt tag is essentially the name of an image. All images should use
appropriate alt tags. Not only are alt tags good for search engines;
they are also good for accessibility.
alt tags, filenames and image optimization
How to optimize images
• Use the most relevant and high- quality image.
Using a keyword-rich filename helps search engines determine
relevance.
Use descriptive text.
<img src="/img/contactless_acr122_big.png" alt="ACR122U USB NFC Reader" border="0">
Making an image smaller or bigger by using height and width
different from the image size is bad for website performance (and
image quality).
Create separate files for different image sizes instead.
alt tags, filenames and image optimization
Best Practices
• Name all of your images in a way that describes what they are
• Use dashes between the words, rather than underscores ( purplehat.jpg rather than purple_hat.jpg)
• Do not use non-alpha characters in your image or file names (so
no %, &, $, etc…)
xml sitemaps
is an xml page on your website that incorporates a list of links in
every single page on your site.
It can also detail the hierarchy of pages on your site.
http://www.acs.com.hk/sitemap.xml
xml sitemaps
Note:
Without a quality sitemap, pages that are buried more than a couple
of clicks from the home page will take longer to get indexed and in
some instances, Google (and other search engines) may not index
them at all.
robots.txt
A Robots.txt file complements your XML sitemap by providing search
engine crawlers with instructions on how to read and index your website.
Robots.txt tells search
engines which pages to
index and which to skip,
so that private
information stays
protected.
robots.txt
Example:
Inside ACS’ robots.txt file…
robots.txt
Not indexed by Google
seo friendly url
SEO-friendly URLs are purely structural URLs that do not contain a
query string:
[e.g., www.example.com/?p=578544]
but use keyword-rich naming conventions instead:
[e.g., www.example.com/products/smartcardreader]
content with targeted keywords
With the latest Google Panda updates, it is extremely important
that your content is unique and relevant.
If you have multiple pages with the same content (or if you have
your content on other people’s websites), you will run the risk of
getting penalized by Google and your search rankings will suffer.
Best Practices:
• Create content that is extremely relevant for that keyword phrase
• Use your keyword phrase 4 times within your content
• Use multiple variations of that keyword phrase – singular and plural versions,
abbreviations, acronyms (SEO vs. search engine optimization) and synonyms
• Include links from other pages within your website that point back to this page
• Create unique content for every medium (press releases, blogs, guest blog
posts, etc…).
make content easy to read
This is not a huge factor in search engine rankings, but will help your
users easily scan your content and find the keywords they are looking
for.
You should use bolding and bullet points to set apart words in the text,
and this further tells the engines what is important on the page.
Best practices:
• Paragraphs should be roughly three sentences long. Extremely long sentences will lose
the users’ attention
• Use bullet points and bolding to break up large blocks of content. Users tend to scan
content looking for keywords
• Do not overuse bullets and bolding
search engine optimization
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Off-page Optimization
off-page optimization
Off-page SEO is all about building online authority –
trust and reputation – for your website.
It has been defined by the quantity, quality, and
relevance of links to your website that establish
your SEO authority and ultimately influence your
search results ranking.
link building
Is the practice of building inbound links to help give your website
authority.
link building
Why do search engines care about links?
link building
The number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or
importance of that website or page.
Search engines’ major ranking factors that is put into consideration :
link building
The Wrong Way to Build Links
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Spamming
Buying a massive number of links
Publishing low-quality article
Over-using one article
social media
is a new platform presenting an opportunity to connect and
have real conversations with your audience.
Social media signals are
search engines’ signals as
natural ranking factors.
social media
Search Engine Signals
SERP Ranking
social media
Bookmarking
A social bookmarking
service is a centralized
online service which
enables users to add,
annotate, edit, and share
bookmarks of web
documents.
social media
Sharing
Sharing represents the
extent to which users
exchange, distribute, and
receive content.
social media
Interaction
Visitors spend the most
time on websites where
they can voice and share
their opinions. If you can
engage with visitors to your
site, they will hang around
for longer. And the longer
they hang around, the
better exposed they are to
your brand.
Example of ACS’ social media account enhancing customer engagement
by interaction:
PR
Press Releases boost exposure online and are usually recognized
and indexed by all major search engines.
Press release is a good tool for reputation management and search
engines’ ranking factor.
blogging
Content marketing,
article writing or
blogging is critical to
your online visibility. It
generates search
engine traffic by
providing inbound
links and can get you
leads for your
business.
Example of ACS’ blog with inbound links to acs.com.hk
visual content
Information graphics
or infographics are
visual representations
of information, data or
knowledge intended to
present complex
information quickly
and clearly.
Example of a top ranking infographic from visual.ly with inbound link to the
author’s blog
seo metrics
pagerank
Is a scoring system that Google uses to determine the
importance of a web page.
PageRank is scored on a logarithmic scale between 1
and 10.
pagerank
PR checker
http://www.prchecker.info
pagerank
Example of High Ranking Websites
twitter.com
addthis.com
leru.org
unesco.org
miibeian.gov.cn
hhs.gov
google.com
ipod.com
facebook.com
youtube.com
yahoo.com
baidu.com
alexa ranking
This is a ranking system set by alexa.com (a subsidiary of amazon.com)
that basically audits and makes public the frequency of visits on various
Web sites.
The global traffic rank is a measure of how a website is doing relative to all
other sites on the web over the past 3 months.
The rank is calculated using a combination of the estimated average daily
unique visitors to the site and the estimated number of pageviews.
The site with the highest combination of unique visitors and pageviews is
ranked #1.
Example Alexa Traffic Rank
SERP ranking
The rank where your
website appears on the
Search Engine Results
Page (SERP).
1st page is usually every
website’s target as it
gets 75-95% clickthrough rate.
key drivers of good seo to note
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Relevancy
Authority
Quality
sources
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Wikipedia.com
Advancedhtml.co.uk/robots-sitemaps.htm
Htmlbasictutor.ca
searchengineland.com
seo-creare.co.uk
Hubspot.com
w3schools.com
googleblog.blogspot.com
alexa.com
managewp.com/the-importance-of-social-media
thanks!