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INTRODUCTION TO SEO

WHAT IS IT?

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A DEFINITIONhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_SEO

“Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results.

In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.”

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SEO

CONTENT

RELEVANCE

UX

MARKUP

KEYWORDSRelevance

DensityProminence

Proximity

DEVELOPMENTHTML/CSS/AJAX/etc. (code)

Less code than contentRobots.txt & Sitemap.xml

URL structuringMetatags

Heading Tags <h1>Anchor & Alt Tags

Image Names & Alt TagsBold & Italic Tags

QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE

INDICATORSDomain Age & Name

Domain TrafficPage Rank & Inbound Links

Social Media MentionsContent Marketing & SEM

While there are a great many factors involved in SEO,

for the layman they can be summarised like this.

SIMPLEDIAGRAM

DESIGNVisual Hierarchy & Page LayoutImage, Video & Audio Content

Navigation Strategy

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SEO vs FINDABILITY

Looking at a bigger picture…

SEO is only one component of ensuring your market can find what they’re looking for!

• Can the search engine find the page? How easily?

• Can the search engine find everything it needs to rank that page? How easily?

• Can this page help the search engine find a better page? How easily?

• Can the user find this page using the search engine? How easily?

• Can the user find everything he or she needs on that page? How easily?

• Can this page help the user find a better page? How easily?

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SEO vs FINDABILITY

Looking at a bigger picture…

Ranking is the aim but only conversion brings ROI.

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THE SEARCH ENGINE SPIDERArtificial intelligence has its limits.

Think of search engine spiders as a kind of idiot savant user that’s inspecting your site.

An absolute genius in some respects, but pretty much crippled in every other way.

It understands mathematical calculations brilliantly, but is much slower when. it. comes. to. words.

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THE SEARCH ENGINE SPIDERArtificial intelligence has its limits.

Firstly, its artificial intelligence is not that of a fully functioning human being like you or I.

It really struggles to understand the context of words or phrases as you or I do.

This critical difference in meaning is lost on a spider!

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THE SEARCH ENGINE SPIDERArtificial intelligence has its limits.

Secondly, our spider is also dumb, blind and deaf. It cannot see the pictures or the design or structure of the site as you or I.

We have to help it understand the structure of the page and the contentby using clever html markup and content.

How would you build a web page to make it easier to understand for a blind and deaf user?

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• Content that is naturally keyword rich - no keyword stuffing or black hat tactics• Content that is easily visible to spiders and can be easily indexed• Content with a clear information hierarchy and that is relevant to the reader• Content which loads quickly and simply for spiders• More Content than Markup Code on a page• Markup Code which conforms to W3C Standards• White Hat SEO practices• Established domains with a history• URLs which are meaningful and have keywords in them• Inbound links from reputable sources

So what does

like?

CONTENT

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The rise of mobile has triggered a revolution in search towards voice or semantic searches.

How do people ask a question?

Queries are becoming more like the natural spoken word.

Concept recognition rather than simple keyword recognition.

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SEMANTIC SEARCH IS THE FUTURE

How can I take advantage of search terms that will drive placement as high as possible in search results?

Long tail search terms are becoming significantly more important in driving traffic.

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KEYWORD STRATEGY

What are the naturally occurring keywords

attached to my industry?

Organic Keywords

What keyword strings are my competitors using in their strategies?

Competitor Keyword Strategy

How do my potential

customers phrase their searches?

User Search Terms

At all times the spider is attempting two things:1. To establish if the content is natural or whether it has been keyword stuffed.

2. What the relevance and relationship between the keywords is.

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KEYWORD RICH CONTENTKeyword Density

Number of times keywords occur as a ratio against total words on any page.

Keyword Prominence

Where do the keywords occur in the sentence? e.g. Subject vs Predicate

Keyword Proximity

How close are keywords to each other?

Easy… right?

MARKUP

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HTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT need to conform to WC3 and other international standards.

Clean and structured code that strives to be less than the content of the page.

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BEST PRACTICE CODING

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HELP THE SPIDER FIND PAGES

Robots.txt is a file that instructs the spider which pages and content NOT to index.

Sitemap.xml is a file that lists all the pages within your site to ensure that the spider finds and indexes them all.

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STRUCTURE YOUR URLS

Keyword rich URL structure helps tell the spider how your content is mapped across your pages.

Readable URLs also mean that your end user is more likely to understand and/or retain the URL.

http://www.BusinessBrand.com/1225/jh67l/01.html http://www.BusinessBrand.com/About/Services.html

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EFFECTIVE METATAGS

Meta Title:The name you give your page.

Critical for both end users and spiders because it is the first indicator of keywords.

Meta Description:The snippet that describes the page.

A call-to-action for end users and also a re-iteration of keywords for the spider.

Meta Title

Meta Description

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HEADING TAGS AND HIERARCHY

Meta tags <h1> to <h6> are used to present structure on the page to users, but Search Engine Spiders utilize this information hierarchy as a guideline

in determining what to index.

<h1> is the most important tag on the page and should mirror the keywords contained in the meta title.

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ANCHOR TAGS WITH TOOLTIPS

Hyperlinking anywhere on the page has to capitalize on keyword usage.

In part this is solved by keyword-rich URLs, but also through effective title/tooltip attributes and relevant anchor text.

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IMAGE NAMES & ALT TAGS

Every image is an opportunity to drive keywords.

The spider cannot interpret the picture, so an alt tag is critical in confirming what the picture contains.

We see…

But he sees…

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BOLD <strong> and ITALIC <em>

Using italics and bold tagging within body content is a great way to ensure that the search engine spiders can

recognize intended keywords and also group them.

CSS can reset the way in which these elements are displayed.

andBeyond your leaders in luxury travel and accommodation with luxury lodges in Africa and India!

?andBeyond your leaders in

<em> luxury travel and accommodation <em>

with luxury lodges in Africa and India!

UX

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Poor graphic design can also fundamentally impair SEO.

The artist has to remain cognizant of how the design will translate into markup.

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DESIGN LOGICVisual Hierarchy

Is the page formatted for readability?

Can you immediately see and understand the structure of the content?

Page Layout Is the page structured in such a way as to ensure all the key markup strategies can be applied?

Navigation Is the navigation designed in such a way as to further enrich the markup,but is it also a clear and easy structure for the user experience?

How will the spider know?

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IMAGES, VIDEO & AUDIO

?

RELEVANCE

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DOMAIN AGE & NAME

The age of a domain gives the appearance of longevity and therefore a higher relevancy score in Google:

• The age of the website• The length of time a domain has been registered

Is the domain name relevant?

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PAGE RANK & INBOUND LINKS

We think we are the only people interested in the analytics,but that data is equally relevant to the way Google measures

the quality and relevance of your site.

The more traffic you have the more traffic you’ll earn.

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PAGE RANK & INBOUND LINKS

PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate

of how important the website is.

The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.

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PAGE RANK & INBOUND LINKS

The theory here is that the more Facebook likes, Tweets and Google Plus 1s a site has,

the more popular a site is.

This, in turn, may signal that a site is of good quality, thus justifying higher search rankings.

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THANK YOU