24 Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Website's SEO

About Me

•DNN SEO Strategist

•10 years working in SEO

•SEO strategy for DNN’s products

•SEO strategy for DNN’s website (dnnsoftware.com)

Twitter: @brucerchapman | @DNNCorp

24 Tips to Improve SEO

Simple EasyActual Work

Basic SEO StrategyStarting with the Right Plan

Tip # 1: Be on the Internet for the Topic at Hand

Have a website page on the topic

Make sure it’s publicly accessible

Make sure it’s indexableby Search Engines

Tip # 2: Your ‘SEO’ Pages, Not Your Entire Website

Optimize your home page for your most valuable search intent

Optimize all your other pages for specific search intent, and don’t overlap

Domain names give authority, but pages rank for keywords

Winning is done one URL at a time

Tip # 3: Develop a List of Key Phrases

3-Step Process

1. Understand what customers in your space are searching for

2. Compile a list of keywords and phrases that customers are using

3. Verify estimated traffic and choose the target keywords (and intent)

Tip #4: Sign Up for Google Webmaster Tools and Use It

Google/Bing have Webmaster Tools accounts

• Check for crawling issues

• Understand how search engines see your site

• Understand your Conversion Rate (CTR)

• View your search traffic based on keywords

Check often – put it in your calendar

Tip # 5: Sign Up for an Analytics Account and Use It

Google Analytics or other Analytics Product

Measure Organic Search Visitors

Understand how your search traffic is converting

>Use the results to modify your strategy

Google Analytics

Bing Analytics

Evoq 8 Content Analytics

On-Page SEO BasicsMake the Most of Your Content

Tip # 6: Start with On-Page Ranking Factors

SEO On-Page Factors: URL, Title, H1, Description, Alt Tags

http://www.dnnsoftware.com/products/evoq-content/content-personalization

Tip # 7: Tag Your Images with Alt Text

Tag each image element with alt text

(use a descriptive filename as well)

Works for the page, and works for the

image

Also helps with visually impaired visitors

Don’t do keyword stuffing

Alt Tags helps with Image search

Tip # 8: Know How Your Pages Appear to Search Bots

Bots render pages like a browser (not text browser)

Tools

Webmaster Tools includes ‘Fetch as Googlebot’

Tip # 8: Know How Your Pages Appear to Search Bots

Bots render pages like a browser (not text browser)

Tools

https://www.feedthebot.com/tools/• Useful page for reading bot results

Tip # 9: Check robots.txt File for Disallow on Resources

Robots.txt files can be forgotten after site setup

2014 – change in Google bot rendering for modern sites

Search engine bots respect the file – for all resources

Check to see that all resources are allowed - including script, image and CSS files

Mobile Visitors and SearchCan Your Visitors Find You?

Tip # 10: Know Your Mobile Visitors and Conversions

Understand what proportion of visitors are mobile

Use the Google Analytics Industry Comparison tools to assess position

Tip # 10 : Know Your Mobile Visitors and Conversions

Understand what proportion of visitors are mobile

Use the Google Analytics Industry Comparison tools to assess position

Tip # 11: Use a Modern Responsive Theme for Mobile Optimization

• What is responsive design?

• Responsive Design to match device display

• Can be separate site or separate page

• Fonts, buttons, images suitable for mobile devices

• Optimize search conversion with CTA first on mobile

Tip # 12: Use Mobile-Friendly Code and Components

Avoid flash – use HTML players instead

YouTube embeds –use iFrame not Object

Avoid any type of library or code that increases the page payload

Pictured: A website as seen on my desktop.

Tip # 12: Use Mobile-Friendly Code and Components

Avoid flash – use Html 5 players instead

YouTube embeds –use iFrame not Object

Avoid any type of library or code that increases the page payload

Pictured: That same website on my iPhone.

Wait, what happened?

Tip # 13: Test your Pages for Google Mobile-Friendly Attribute

• Google Mobile Friendly Test

• Check the preview image

• Test all your pages, particularly those which convert search traffic

• Check for ‘Mobile Friendly’ marker on mobile search results

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

Tip # 13: Test Your Pages for Google Mobile-Friendly Attribute

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

Web Page PerformanceThe Web Likes Fast Pages

Tip # 14: Concentrate on Page Performance

Measure your page load speed

• Page speed is a ranking factor

Time To First Byte (TTFB) and rendering time is critical

• Google recommends < 200 msTTFB

Tip # 15: Analyze Slow Loading Pages and Identify and Implement Fixes

Tools:

Google Pagespeed (part of Chrome developer tools)

YSlow Plugin (published by Yahoo)

Identify the worst areas that are easiest to fix.

Iterate as changes are made and score improves.

Tip # 15: Analyze Slow Loading Pages and Identify and Implement Fixes

Tip # 15: Analyze Slow Loading Pages and Identify and Implement Fixes

Tools:

• Google Pagespeed (part of Chrome developer tools)

• YSlow Plugin (published by Yahoo)

Identify on the worst areas which are easiest to fix

- Tools provide suggestions

Iterate as changes are made and score improves

Conversion Optimization for SEOGetting Your Visitors to ‘Yes’

Tip # 16: Measure the Value of Organic Search

What is the search intent of visitors?

Are visitors converting to outcomes?

Tasks

Determine search intent by page

Set up goal measurement and reports in Analytics product

Tip # 16: Measure the Value of Organic Search

Tip # 16: Measure the Value of Organic Search

Tip # 17: Optimize and Test Conversion for Organic Search

•Try different page elements to measure and test conversion

• Links, Buttons, calls to action

•Use tools like Google Analytics or Optimizely to measure results

•Understand Statistical Significance when doing tests.

Tip # 17: Optimize and Test Conversion for Organic Search

Pictured: a test we performed on our “Employee Intranet” page.

The Search Long TailCapturing Different Searches with Content Creation

Tip # 18: Long Tail Keyword Research

Long tail keywords are used infrequently but are large in aggregate

Do research around search intent with different modifiers:

Action words: buy, compare, install, customize

Tools: mine your Webmaster tools data – it’s already full of long tail keywords

Head

“widgets”

Tail

“how do I upgrade from widget 1.4 to widget 2.4”

Potential : higher traffic, lower competition

Tip # 19: Create Content to Target Long Tail

Blogs are an excellent way to capture long tail

• Categories/Tags for specific topics

• Change theme if different look/feel desired

Microsites for strategic use:

Conference, Special Event, Promotion

Content Management Systems excel at long tail targeting by creating and managing content.

Tip # 20: Tap Into User Generated Content

Community Features on your site create content

Content is relevant, trend following and full of key phrases matching search intent.

Why Online Communities help lift SEO

Specific Case HandlingHow To’s

Tip # 21: Use Structured Data to Enhance Search Results

• Structured data is annotations to your html markup to provide context to data

• Also known as Microformats

• Can provided enhanced results with extra information

• Find data formats at http://schema.org/docs/schemas.html

• Restaurants

• Recipes

• Authors

• Product, Event, Place

Tip # 22: Use DNN to Help with SEO

DNN can help with many of these strategies

See my blog post ’10 Ways DNN Can Improve Your Website's SEO’

Tip # 23: What Should I Stop Doing?

SEO – what might have, but no longer applies

• Meta keywords data is not a ranking factor

• Googlebot can read:• Querystrings / Dynamically Loaded Content / Javascript/Css

Cloaked Content

• Google Toolbar PageRank score is not updated anymore

• Press Releases won’t give inbound links

• Search Engine Submission isn’t required

• Cloaking/Keyword Stuffing/Link Spamming

Tip # 24: Fix the Problems You Find

Identify 3-5 (or more!) tips from this presentation and apply them to your website.

NOW.

Why not?

Thanks for reading!

Next Steps

Read Related Blog Posts:

10 Ways DNN Can Improve Your Website SEO

A Q&A with Groupon on Their SEO and SEM

Strategies for SEO Keyword Research