Search Engine Optimization
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Once you have the basics of SEO down, you can decide later if you want to take your optimization to the next level by bringing in a dedicated SEO professional. For now, here are the six steps you should follow to get results with DIY SEO:
Other tools that marketers can use to set a baseline for their search position include those offered by Google and Bing. Below, we offer a step-by-step guide to track your domain using one of these analytics tools.
Search engines prioritize content that is valuable to the end-user. Google has even established loose criteria to assess value, the EAT principle: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Backlinks (links from other websites to your own) help establish your EAT. Links from high-authority, high-traffic domains are the most valuable and worth pursuing as part of your digital marketing strategy.
Identify and target a specific keyword phrase for each authoritative content page on your website. Think about how your reader might search for that specific page with search terms like:
Answering yes to these questions can improve your search engine ranking. Be natural and user-friendly, though. For instance, you do not want the word "engineering" to show up three or more times in the URL or have the phrase Northern Lights repeated in the page title and also every heading. Readability and usability still trump search engine optimization.
You've probably noticed that we feel pretty strongly about content. Search engines do, too. Regularly updated content is viewed as one of the best indicators of a site's relevancy, so be sure to keep it fresh. Audit your content on a set schedule (semesterly for example) and make updates as needed.
Writing additional content, rich with keyword phrases, on your departmental news blog can also boost your search engine rankings. Blog posts can even be shorter updates about the specific topics you are targeting. Interlink your related CMS webpages and blog posts when it helps give the reader a better picture or additional information about the topic.
Title metadata is responsible for the page titles displayed at the top of a browser window and as the headline within search engine results. It is the most important metadata on your page.
Keyword metadata is rarely if ever used to tabulate search engine rankings. However, you should already know your keyword phrases, so it doesn't hurt to add them into your keyword metadata. You'll want to include a variety of phrases. As a general rule, try to keep it to about 3-7 phrases with each phrase consisting of 1-4 words. A great example would be "computer science degree."
A webpage which is content-rich, authoritative, unbiased, and helps visitors learn more about what they are interested in is most likely to attract links from other websites, which improves your search engine optimization.
We all do. If you have a web presence, and want people to find your information, you need to pay attention to search engine optimization (SEO). Unlike how it may sound, we are not trying to make a search engine, say Google, better. We are, however, making our website better for Google to understand. (FYI: We'll be using Google as an example of a search engine throughout this tutorial as including Google Images, Google Maps, and YouTube, more than 90% of web searches happen on Google. These tips and tricks are good for any search engine.)
As the name indicates, search engines actually search, or crawl, other websites in order to answer their users' questions. Back in the early days of search engines (AltaVista, anyone?), keywords--terms folks are using to search--were all the rage. But in 2013, Google created a new algorithm that cannot only see relationships between keywords but identify the intent of the user, making search a lot more sophisticated and understanding SEO even more important.
By making your website easier to find, your ranking on the search engine results page goes up. Location, location, location is just as important in this virtual real estate market as it is in the real world. Statistics show that if you aren't one of the top four organic search results--meaning not a paid ad--on the page, people will not be making their way to your page, resulting in a lower Domain Authority (DA) ranking, aka a website quality and trustworthiness rating. It's a vicious cycle.
Let's be honest, the term meta description is not really descriptive enough for the general web content contributor. That's why in our editing system we call it "Page Description." This description is what shows up under the website link on a search results page. Why is filling out this field so important? While keywords in it are important, this is also a way to get people to actually click through to your page by telling them what is on your site/page. Consider the goal for the page. Description should align with and support this goal. In other words, think of it as a one- to two-sentence sales pitch. It's best never to leave this field blank. However, if you do, some search engines will simply pull in the first 160 words of the first content of that page, so make sure a keyword or two shows up early in your page content.
Don't forget that images included on your page are also counted as content which needs to be optimized. This not only matters for search engines but also for accessibility for those with visual impairments. As your images may be appropriate for print (pixels, pixels everywhere!), you'll want to reduce the size of the file as much as possible without sacrificing picture quality. If you don't have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, try using a program such as PicMonkey or Pixlr.
You may think that headings listed in the drop down menu are simply there to make formatting your text easier, but the fact is that they are also very important to SEO. In fact, not only to they help search engines find your content, but if the search engine likes to spit things out as lists, your content will make sense. It's kinda like writing an outline for English class (but hopefully more fun). Also, using headers makes your content much more accessible to those who need to use screen readers, due to visual impairment. Here's a way to think of the organization:
WordPress, straight out of the box, comes ready to embrace search engines. Its features and functions guide a search engine through the posts, pages, and categories to help the search engine crawl your site and gather the information it needs to include your site within its database.
WordPress comes with several built in search optimization tools, including the ability to use .htaccess to create apparently static URLs called permalinks, blogrolling, and pinging. There are also a number of third party plugins and hacks which can be used for search engine optimization (SEO).
A search engine enters your site and, for the most part, ignores the styles and CSS. It just plows through the site gathering content and information. Most WordPress Themes are designed with the content as close to the top of the unstyled page as possible, keeping sidebars and footers towards the bottom. Few search engines scan more than the first third of the page before moving on. Make sure your Theme puts the content near the top.
Your site may not have much text, mostly photographs and links, but you have places in which to add textual content. Search engines look for alt and title in link and image tags. While these have a bigger purpose of making your site more accessible, having good descriptions and words in these attributes helps provide more content for search engines to digest.
A search engine crawls through your site, moving from page to page. Good navigational links to the categories, archives, and various pages on your site will invite a search engine to move gracefully from one page to another, following the connecting links and visiting most of your site.
It is also useful for traffic generation and search optimization purposes to submit your site to directories. Both comprehensive directory sites and those specific to the subject or localisation of your site can be used.
WordPress comes built-in with various feeds, allowing your site to be viewed by various feed readers. Many search engines are now accepting feed submissions, and there are many site which specialize in directories of feeds and feed services.
Permalinks are enhancements to your existing URLs which can improve search engine optimization by presenting your post, page, and archive URLs as something like -cheese-sandwich/ rather than =423. See Using Permalinks for more information.
Another key difference between paid and organic search is time. With paid search, you get near instant results, sometimes in minutes; whereas, with organic search, results take more time - often weeks, months, and even years. So you have to play the medium to long-term game with organic search.
When it comes to paying, well, as the name suggests, with paid search traffic is paid. You pay-per-click (PPC) on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. What that means is, you pay a fee every time a user clicks on your ad. So instead of relying on organic traffic to your website, you buy traffic for your page by paying Google to show your ad when your visitor does a search for your keyword. For organic search, traffic is free, although it does require an investment of both resources and time.
In terms of the return on investment or ROI, it's actually much easier to measure with paid search. That's partly because Google provides more keyword data that you can capture in Google Analytics. However, with paid search, ROI can stagnate or decline over time. With organic search, ROI is a little bit harder to measure, but it often improves over time. Over the long term, organic search can offer a very good return on investment.
Search engines are used by people when they have a query and are searching on the internet for the answer. Search engine algorithms are computer programmes that look for clues to give searchers the exact results they are looking for. Search engines rely on algorithms to find web pages and decide which ones to rank for any given keyword. There are three steps to how search engines work: crawling, which is the discovery stage; indexing, which is the filing stage; and ranking, which is the retrieval stage. 781b155fdc