Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012 Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM

DonorCommunityeLearning Series

v1.2, February 2012v1.2, February 2012

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) GuidelineSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) GuidelineImproving Your Ranking




Topics CoveredTopics Covered

1.SEO Basics

2.Managing Your SEO – Quick Overview

3.Managing Your SEO

4.SEO Resources

5.SEO Success

6.Need Assistance?

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Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO)1. A search engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc), uses a combination of

techniques to gather information about web pages so they can

organize, index and categorize the data for use during search requests

2. Search engine ranking means where your page appears in the list of

returned search results provided by a search engine

3. SEO is the active practice of improving internal and external search

engine factors to improve search engine ranking

SEO BasicsSEO Basics

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Understanding SEO Factors You Can Influence or Control1. Friendly URLs - using URLs that reflect the contents of a page is a

very good way to increase the chances of having that page being at the

top of the search results

2. Page Title - Short description of the contents of the page

3. Page Description - Longer description of the contents of the page

4. Page Keywords - a comma-separated list of words that identify the key

subjects covered in the page

5. Sitemap - an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about

pages on their sites that are available for crawling

SEO BasicsSEO Basics

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Managing Your SEO – Quick Overview1. Login as admin user.

2. Customize your SEO data by using the Manage Pages tool found

under the admin menu for each page in your site

3. Create your Site Map page, if it does not exist

4. Notify [email protected] when you would like us to

publish your sitemap to Google and Yahoo.

Managing Your SEOManaging Your SEO

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Managing Friendly URLs and Page Title


Select the Page you wish to manage

Enter or change the HTML Title to identify the primary page content. Ideally you should create a unique title for each page. Your home page Title is a good place to briefly describe your focus or mission statement.

Enter a value for Friendly URL that best describes the primary page content. You may use a phrase separated by dashes or underscores, but avoid overly long phrases. Using keywords in your title is very helpful, as is lowercase names.

For example, let's say we have a site focused on Cancer with a Facts page:/facts is not a very friendly URL./cancer-facts is much more search-engine friendly.

Important: Remember to include the leading slash (/)

Select the Page you wish to manage

Enter or change the HTML Title to identify the primary page content. Ideally you should create a unique title for each page. Your home page Title is a good place to briefly describe your focus or mission statement.

Enter a value for Friendly URL that best describes the primary page content. You may use a phrase separated by dashes or underscores, but avoid overly long phrases. Using keywords in your title is very helpful, as is lowercase names.

For example, let's say we have a site focused on Cancer with a Facts page:/facts is not a very friendly URL./cancer-facts is much more search-engine friendly.

Important: Remember to include the leading slash (/) Back to Contents




Managing Meta Tags, Keywords and Meta Robots


Resources

Maximizing Your Description:http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/09/improve-snippets-with-meta-description.html

Google Keyword Tool - search for keyword ideas by entering a keyword related to your organization:https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000

Note: Review the Help contents too.

Resources

Maximizing Your Description:http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/09/improve-snippets-with-meta-description.html

Google Keyword Tool - search for keyword ideas by entering a keyword related to your organization:https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000

Note: Review the Help contents too.

Enter or change the Description to more fully describe the primary page content. It should support your page Title.

Enter Keywords that best describes the primary page content. Effective keywords involve

Setting the value of the Meta Tags - Robots section to "nofollow" will tell search engines that all links on this page shouldn't be followed and it will prevent your page's reputation from being passed to any linked content.

Using the Meta Robots section, you can assign a Page Priority to improve a page's importance in search results compared to other pages within your site or exclude a page from being crawled and exclude it from the Sitemap.

NOTE: Be awar that giving all pages maximum priority or maximum frequency of change will not yield any improvements.

Enter or change the Description to more fully describe the primary page content. It should support your page Title.

Enter Keywords that best describes the primary page content. Effective keywords involve

Setting the value of the Meta Tags - Robots section to "nofollow" will tell search engines that all links on this page shouldn't be followed and it will prevent your page's reputation from being passed to any linked content.

Using the Meta Robots section, you can assign a Page Priority to improve a page's importance in search results compared to other pages within your site or exclude a page from being crawled and exclude it from the Sitemap.

NOTE: Be awar that giving all pages maximum priority or maximum frequency of change will not yield any improvements. Back to Contents




Managing and Submitting Your Sitemap - Overview1. After editing your site's page Titles, Friendly URLs and Meta Robots values it

will be time to notify Google and Yahoo about your updated sitemap.

2. Create a Site Map page, if one doesn't already exist, by adding the Site Map

component to a new page (Add Application | Content Management | Site Map)

3. Notify [email protected] when you would like us to publish your

sitemap to Google and Yahoo and we will gladly assist.

4. You may elect to publish your sitemap to other search engines, such as

ask.com, Bing (Live.com) or Moreover.com. Visit the target search engine sites

directly for instructions or you can utilize a submission service.


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Creating Your Sitemap


If you don't have a Site Map page, simply add a new page to your site and place it where you want the page to appear (e.g under the Contact Us page) and title it "Site Map", then select "Add Application" from the admin menu.

Then click on the Content Management group to expand it, then click on the Site Map component and drag into position on your new page. The Site Map will be autogenerated.

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Other Steps to Consider1. It is important to have a strong presence on social media sites. Open an account on

YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Digg and others and post updates and cross-link to content

on your site.

2. When linking, avoid always linking to one page or linking to a single anchor text. Avoiding

this tendency helps you build a natural link profile which improves ranking.

3. Write your content for your audience, not search engines. Search engines are

increasingly modifying their algorithms to detect search-engine targeted optimizations and

are discounting such targeted content.

4. Keep your content fresh and update it frequently and monitor your rankings with search

engine reporting to guide your ongoing SEO efforts.


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How to Avoid Being Banned by Search Engines1. Do not redirect to another domain – this should only be done in a very

controlled manner, such as a sub-site redirection from a page with a low

priority.

2. Do not link invisible images

3. Do not include invisible text on your pages (text with a color the same as the

background, or text with an ultra-small font size, such as 1px)

4. Do not create doorway pages (very simple pages that are written to optimize

heavily on one or two keywords or keyword phrases that are designed so that

search engine spiders see them, but regular visitors are taken to the real site)

5. Do not display different content to a spider/robot/crawler than site visitors

6. Do not try to use large lists of keywords


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Additional ResourcesGoogle SEO Starter Guide

Google Webmaster Central

Yahoo SEO Basics Guide

http://webdesign.about.com/od/seo/tp/seo_tips_and_tricks.htm

www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm

http://www.seorankings.com/tools/

SEO ResourcesSEO Resources

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DonorCommunity SEO ServicesDonorCommunity provides professional SEO services that can improve

your rankings and free up your valuable human capital to focus on other

activities that are core to your mission.

Our SEO services include:SEO Assessments and Action Plan

Organic Ranking Improvement

Keyword Research and Optimization

Link Building Service

Monitoring Service

Google Adwords Advisory Service

Please contact us at [email protected] to discuss how we can help you!

SEO SuccessSEO Success

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If you need any assistance, If you need any assistance, please contact us atplease contact us at

[email protected] [email protected]

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guideline Powered by DonorCommunity TM DonorCommunity eLearning Series v1.2, February 2012 Search Engine Optimization