A Beginner s Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Transcription

1 A Beginner s Guide to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) L.E.K. Consulting llc, 75 State Street, 19th Floor, Boston, MA 02109, USA T: F: Auckland Bangkok Beijing Boston Chicago London Los Angeles Melbourne Milan Mumbai Munich New Delhi New York Paris San Francisco Shanghai Singapore Sydney Tokyo Wroclaw

2 About Me Digital Marketing L.E.K. Consulting, a top global management consulting firm 7+ years of experience in healthcare and digital marketing - Agency side Started my career at pharma ad agencies in NYC Transitioned to digital marketing at SEO/SEM firm in Boston working primarily with pharma clients - Corporate side Managed website and all digital marketing initiatives for a Healthcare IT software company in Boston Small business owner ( Passionate about patient advocacy and improving the patient-physician relationship Contact - t.lo@lek.com - tiff@pyramode.com

3 What is SEO? Often referred to as organic, natural, or free search results Process of getting traffic for free from search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc. when a user types in a keyword or keyphrase The results (The SERP) are based on what the search engine deems as relevant to the user based on the keyword/keyphrase searched - Determined through proprietary algorithms which are constantly changing What We See vs. What a Search Engine Sees 2

4 The SERP (Search Engine Results Page) User-generated keyword Paid Search Results Organic Search Results 3

5 Key Principles of SEO Indexability - Evaluate your site architecture. - Is your site fully crawlable by search engine spiders or bots? - Google Webmaster Tools Relevance - Content is king. - Keywords, tags, URL s and more - Google Adwords Keyword Tool - Google Analytics Authority - Linking Internal & External - Social Media 4

6 Indexability The potential for your website or its content to be crawled or indexed by search engines Content on any site is being downloaded by these spiders and stores in the master database of Google, the Google index Also referred to as crawlability or spiderability HTML text is the way to go. Alternatives such as images, flash files, Javascript, PDF s and other non-text content can often by ignored or devalued by search engines - If you must, find alternatives to make sure text is as optimized as possible for example, video transcripts, alt attributes, etc - It doesn t matter how gorgeous your site is, if it s not indexable, you re missing out on significant opportunities to gain additional traffic Use Google Webmaster tools to see if any issues in particular have been flagged Error pages (301 redirect these immediately) - Any orphan pages? (not being linked to from anywhere on site and thus crawlers cannot access) - Sitemaps (HTML and XML) - Site speed & page load time 5

7 Google Webmaster Tools ( 6

8 Relevance Content is king! - Is your content valuable? Does it have substance? - Does it contain targeted keywords? - Is your content engaging? - Are you keeping your content fresh? - Could this content by spammy? Don t have multiple pages targeted towards the same keyword (cannibalism) Write for users, not search engines. Use Google Analytics & Google Adwords Keyword tools - Broad, phrase and exact - Local vs. Global - Long-tail keywords Optimize your PDF properties and filename Be aware of duplicate content! - Use robots.txt files, no follow no index tags or canonical tags to block certain pages of site from search or tell Google which pages are priority. 7

9 The Elements Title Tag Domain Name Meta-Description URL URL Link Text ALT Attribute Text 8

10 The Elements - Guidelines Meta-Description 160 characters or less - Can be longer but make sure you have the important keywords at the front and give the user a reason to click through Page Title Tag 70 characters of less - Include important keywords towards the front - Include brand name at the end. For example, Masters in Health Communication Tufts University URL length Usually a maximum length of 2000 characters but PLEASE keep it short and succinct with your primary keyphrases as close to the front of the URL as possible Own a unique domain name for best optimization as opposed to using wordpress, blogger, etc ALT Tag/Attribute 125 characters or less - Optimize for no more than 1-3 keywords and keep it as short as possible to make sure you re not diluting the text - Pretend the person reading can t see the image, how would you describe the image? 9

11 Google Adwords Keyword Tool Broad match: The sum of the search volumes for the keyword idea, related grammatical forms, synonyms and related words Phrase match: The sum of the search volumes for all terms that include that whole phrase Exact match: The search volume for that keyword 10

12 Screenshot of Google Analytics ( 11

13 Authority Links, audience and influence. - Internal linking (passing authority throughout your site) - External linking Paid and Unpaid Directories 3 rd party links - Use link text Social media - Choose what s right for your Brand - Be authentic - Keep your channels updated - Be influential - Monitor for reputation management Social Mention Kurrently 12

14 Thank you! Questions? 13