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The essentials of SEO in a clear, straightforward, no-nonsense way.
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SEO – The EssentialsIt has very little to do with links!
Craig Murray
Halma PR Services
Halma Marketing Event - 19 June 2013 1
I have very few links…
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1. Choose your Keywords
Q. What phrases do you want to rank for?
A. The ones potential customers are using.
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Who is this?
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What is this?
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What are these?
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Competing phrases
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Keyword Toolhttps://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool
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Aim for:
• Relevant to your business
• Popular search terms
• Low competition (although this is less important)
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Google Analyticswww.google.com/analytics/
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Google Webmaster Toolswww.google.com/webmasters/tools/
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Other resources
Autocomplete Related searches
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2. Use Keywords properly
1. Use them
2. Don’t overuse them
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You must actually use your keywords…
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Very simple rule…
Specific term generic term
e.g.
Vantage Plus LED indirect ophthalmoscope
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Where to use them?
• Meta data– Title
– Description
• URL
• On page– Headings
– Body text
– Anchor text (the text of a link)
– Image ‘alt’ attribute
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Do not overuse keywords
We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.
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3. Ensure your website is optimised
1. Search engines want to return quality sites
2. It must be crawlable
3. Code should be used properly(semantic HTML)
4. You will be 80% of the way to having a quality site
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Check your site is being indexedSearch for site:www.example.com
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Check your site is easy to navigate
• Simple navigation – text preferable
• Breadcrumbs
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Use a robots.txt file to stop irrelevant directories being indexed
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User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /images/
Enforce either…
www.example.com or example.com
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Check your meta data (in head section)
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<head>
<title>…</title>
<meta name=“description” content=“…” />
<meta name=“keywords” content=“…”/>
</head>
<body>
...
1. Title tag is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing to optimise
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You see hundreds of them every day.Search engines rate the title tag very highly
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Title tag checklist
• Different for every page
• Between 50 – 70 characters
• Contains keywords for that page at the start
• Put company name at the end
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If you take only one thing away…
OPTIMISE YOUR TITLE TAGS
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2. Description meta tag
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<head>
<title>…</title>
<meta name=“description” content=“…” />
<meta name=“keywords” content=“…”/>
</head>
<body>
...
Description tag checklist
• Different for every page
• About 150 characters
• Contains more keywords for that page
• Call to action/advert
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If you don’t have a description…
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3. Keywords meta tag
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<head>
<title>…</title>
<meta name=“description” content=“…” />
<meta name=“keywords” content=“…”/>
</head>
<body>
...
Keywords tag checklist
• Google ignores it
• May be useful for Bing and Baidu
• List keywords for that page
• Don’t spam it with hundreds of keywords
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Check your URLs
• Use keywords, not /index.php?page=154
• Use dashes as separators
• Should be similar to page title
• Don’t spam with keywords
www.alicat.com/products/gas-flow/mass-flow-meters/
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Check your body content
Use semantic HTML
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Headings: almost as important as Title for SEO
• Use keywords
• Main page heading should be in <h1> tags
• Only one <h1> heading – do not use for logo
• Use <h2> tags for sub-headings
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Second thing to take away…
OPTIMISE YOUR MAIN
HEADINGSHalma Marketing Event - 19 June 2013 36
Body text
• Do not stuff with keywords. Must read well.
• Use <p> tags for paragraphs
• Use <em> tags for italics
• Use <strong> tags to bold text
• Use <ul> tags to create bullet points
• Use <ol> tags to create numbered lists
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Anchor text (the text of links on the page)
• Do not use “Click here”
• Be descriptive
• Use keywords
More about trapped key interlocks.
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Images
• Memory size must be as small as possible
• Use the alt attribute
• Be descriptive
• Use keywords
• Don’t spam – must read well
<img src=“…” alt=“Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, the Batman, in The Dark Knight Rises” />
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4. Create QUALITY content
1. The search engines want to provide users
with high quality results
2. People will link to it and share it
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How do the search engines determine quality?
• Was based primarily on links
• Now based on over 200 factors
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Content should be well written
• Good grammar and spelling
• Make it readable
– Short sentences
– Short paragraphs
– Use headings
– Use bullet points
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Be interesting / answer questions
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Provide useful information / tutorials / services
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People love lists
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Images and videos rank highly in Google
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In summary
• Use the keywords your potential customers use
• Use them correctly. Don’t overuse.
• Title tag and main <h1> heading are most important
• Create high quality, well written content
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