SEO Workshop Keyword and Competitor Research and On Page Optimisation Marketing & Public Relations Department University of Newcastle April 2014
SEO Workshop Contents 2 What is SEO? STEP 1: Define Purpose of Your Page STEP2 : Keyword and Competitor Research STEP 3: On-page Optimisation
What is SEO? Search Engine Optimisation. SEO is the process of getting the highest possible page rank for a web page on search engines. The higher a page rank, the higher number of potential visitors to a website. 3 SEO consists on on-page and off-page SEO, in this workshop we focus on onpage SEO techniques. The SEO Process on-page techniques Step 1: Define Purpose of Page Step 2: Keyword and Competitor Research Step 3: On-page Optimisation
Three key SEO steps - Explained 4 Step 1: Define Purpose of Page WHY? Outlining the purpose of each page helps you to create content for all the right reasons. What objectives need to be achieved Who is your target audience/s their needs and wants The messages that need to be communicated The action / response you want your audience/s to undertake
Step 1. Define Purpose of Page PAGE ANALYTICS 5 Tool to use: Google Analytics - http://www.google.com.au/analytics/ WHAT: Google Analytics (GA) is a Google web analytics service that provides statistics and basic analytical tools for search engine optimisation and other marketing purposes. WHY: page or section. Use Google Analytics to review the web page analytics and keywords that drive traffic to the existing Before you get started: Create a Google account (which is FREE) using you UoN email. You then need to email the Web Service Team who will link your Google account to the UoN Analytics For today only login u: inghamlavinia@gmail.com p: SEOworkshop
Step 1. Define Purpose of Page PAGE ANALYTICS 6 Measure the results to keep you on track
Three key SEO steps - Explained 7 Step 2: Keyword and Competitor Research WHY? Planning and researching keywords sets up your SEO strategy to get the optimal SEO results for your web page, and the UoN website as a whole. Determine how popular and how competitive keywords are in search results Determine which keywords are valuable for the purpose of your page View keywords your competitors are successfully ranking for
Step 2: Keyword and Competitor Research KEYWORD RESEARCH 8 Tool to use: Google Keyword Planner - https://adwords.google.com/ko/keywordplanner WHAT: Google Keyword Planner allows us to identify good opportunity keywords (or phrases) that are popular in search results. WHY: Keyword and competitor research is undertaken to explore best keyword options for our page and brainstorm for opportunities. We can use variants and understand keyword volumes and trends. We re also able to review competitors keywords and levels of competitiveness.
Step 2: Keyword and Competitor Research INVESTIGATE EXISITING PAGES 9 Tool to Use: Google Search WHY: By undertaking a Google search using our targeted keywords we can view our UoN search page rankings and how they rank in comparison to our competitors.
Step 2: Keyword and Competitor Research COMPARE KEYWORDS 10 Tool to Use: Google Trends - https://www.google.com/trends WHAT: Google Trends is a Google tool for undertaking market research. Online trends can be viewed over time, meaning what people are searching for online. Google Trends allows for comparison in the volume of searches between two or more markets/items. This provides the ability to see the popularity between them. WHY: Use Google Trends to view how keyword variations are performing over time and across a specific location.
Three key SEO steps - Explained 11 Step 3: On-page Optimisation WHY? Using knowledge gained in planning stages, you can now SEO your page by inserting keywords on-page (into your web page content and meta data). Merge your keyword findings with the purpose of your page Understand meta-data tags Determine how popular and how competitive your keywords are in search results Determine which keywords are valuable for the purpose of your page
Step 3. On-page Optimisation NEW PAGE META DATA 12 Tool to use: SEO Page Content Define your new meta data into your SEO Page Content document. URL Must include a primary keyword in URL Header tags Headings should always follow a logical structure Add other title tags (H2 and H3 s ) when possible humans and search engines love header tags! Page description Create unique description for all pages, it should reflect page content Maximum length approximately 150-160 characters Must include primary keyword or secondary keywords Use a personal and warm tone Image tags (alt or alternative tags) Ensure all images have a unique description Descriptions should be concise, descriptive and include a keyword if possible Size of images should enable quick page load time, keep under 30-50K per image Important for accessibility
Step 2. META DATA, PAGE TITLE, PAGE DESCRIPTION 13 WHAT: Website meta data is the underlying structured description of the content, quality, or other characteristics of a web page. Look at the meta tags within meta data. WHY: Meta data provides information such as keywords that are relevant to a web page. Search engines use the information stored in meta data when indexing web pages. As meta data is a significant contributor towards successful SEO, carefully researched and structured meta data is essential in creating search engine optimised web pages.
Step 3. On-page Optimisation Quality content contributes greatly to SEO! 14 FREE SEO tools to remember: Google Analytics http://www.google.com.au/analytics/ Keyword planner - https://adwords.google.com/ko/keywordplanner Google Trends - https://www.google.com/trends Ongoing support from the Web Services Portal http://web.newcastle.edu.au/ Creative thinking Think outside the box when considering content creation, targeting your audience and our business goals. Remember, no page exists in isolation. So it s important to work as a team using existing documentation and tools. Aim that the best keywords will be used for your page in view of your page in context of the complete website.
Notes 15 How to: Access Google Analytics 1. Go to: http://www.google.com.au/analytics/ 2. Login at top right corner of page. Username: TBC Password: TBC 3. From the Dashboard, select All Website data. 5. Select Behavior > Site Content > All Pages from left navigation bar. 6. Enter the page name into the search box