How to do the right website analysis

Jackquiline Belhida-Doring-Partner of NewMedia316-Vice President of Communication for The Vine Co-working Space-Project Manager of Coco Treasure, LLC-Supermom

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I. What is Search Engine?

A search engine is a software system that is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are generally presented in a line of results often referred to as search engine results pages (SERPs). The information may be a mix of web pages, images, and other types of files.

How Search Engine Operates?

PROVIDING ANSWERSProviding answers to user queries, most frequently through lists of relevant pages that they've retrieved and ranked for relevancy.

CRAWLING AND INDEXINGCrawling and indexing the billions of documents, pages, files, news, videos, and media on the World Wide Web.

How Search Engine Determine Relevance and Popularity?

Popularity and relevance aren’t determined manually. Instead, the engines employ mathematical equations (algorithms) to sort the wheat from the chaff (relevance), and then to rank the wheat in order of quality (popularity).

Search engines typically assume that the more popular a site, page, or document, the more valuable the information it contains must be. This assumption has proven fairly successful in terms of user satisfaction with search results.

These algorithms often comprise hundreds of variables. In the search marketing field, we refer to them as “ranking factors.”

How Search Marketers Succeed?SEO INFORMATION FROM GOOGLE WEBMASTERS GUIDELINES

Google recommends the following to get better rankings in their search engine:

Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, a practice commonly referred to as "cloaking.“

Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.

Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content. Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate.

Use keywords to create descriptive, human-friendly URLs. Provide one version of a URL to reach a document, using 301 redirects or the rel="canonical" attribute to address duplicate content.

SEO INFORMATION FROM BING WEBMASTES GUIDELINES

Bing engineers at Microsoft recommend the following to get better rankings in their search engine:

Ensure a clean, keyword rich URL structure is in place.

Make sure content is not buried inside rich media (Adobe Flash Player, JavaScript, Ajax) and verify that rich media doesn't hide links from crawlers.

Create keyword-rich content and match keywords to what users are searching for. Produce fresh content regularly.

Don’t put the text that you want indexed inside images. For example, if you want your company name or address to be indexed, make sure it is not displayed inside a company logo.

II. What is SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of getting traffic from the free, organic, editorial, or natural search results on search engines.

Types Of SEO Techniques

WHITE HAT SEOutilizes techniques and methods to improve the search engine rankings of a website which don’t run afoul of search engine (mainly Google) guidelines

BLACK HAT SEOexploits weaknesses in the search engine algorithms to obtain high rankings for a websitesuch techniques and methods are in direct conflict with search engine guidelines

SEO SUCCESS FACTORSOn-The-Page SEO• refers to how well your website’s content is

presented to search engines.

Off-The-Page SEO• refers to your site’s “authority” on the internet.• is the process of optimizing your webpages outside

your website by getting backlinks from other sites

SEO Violations and Ranking Penalties• make sure to follow Search engines guidelines to

avoid ranking penalty or , worse, being banned from search engines entirely.

SEO OBJECTIVESIMPROVE RANKINGS

Having your website list prominently across a range of keywords on Google is a key part of any SEO.

IMPROVE NON BRANDED ORGANIC SEARCH VISITSIncrease the number of visitors to your site

which is not using the brand name

IMPROVE SEO CONVERSIONSImprove website ROI from the non-branded organic

traffic. IMPROVE DOMAIN AUTHORITY

Improve domain authority through offsite SEO strategies.

SEO STAGES

1. Data Gathering

Where to get your data?

• Google Search ResultsGoogle Search ConsoleConsumer SurveysMajesticSemrushMeltwater

SEO STAGES

2. Keyword Researchis the process of determining what keywords are

used in search engines by potential customers is one of the most important, valuable, and high return activities in the search marketing field. Ranking for the right keywords can make or break your website.

SEO STAGES

3. Keyword Allocations/Information Structurethe art and science of SEO engineers

organizing keywords throughout your website in a manner that balances optimization for human users and a SEO friendly structure for search engines4. On-the-Page Analysis

outlines all the onsite changes or recommendations that need to be made to your website 5. On-the-Page Implementation

execute SEO recommendations

PAGERANK

PageRank is a link analysis algorithm used by Google to help determine the relative importance of a website. Every website is given a Google PageRank score between 0 and 10 on an exponential scale.

HISTORYWay back in 1998, the two guys who created Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, came up with a new way to analyze websites based on their linking relationships with other websites.

They called this new system they came up with "Backrub" at first. Later they decided to call it "PageRank," based oddly enough on Larry Page's last name, and not on the fact that the algorithm was created to rank webpages.

HOW TO DO THE RIGHT SEO AUDIT

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODING Domain URL Google Analytics SEO-Friendly URL Broken Links Internal Duplicate Pages External Duplicate Internal linking Site Speed Sitemap Robots.txt

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CONTENT

Page Title Meta Description Headings (H1, H2 & H3) Lack of Content Image Alt Tags Blog

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGDOMAIN URL

Search engines do not like pages which duplicate large amounts of content on the same website, which can happen when the same page, due to Web configuration or CMS issues, is shown in different URLs.

A common scenario for this issue is found when the non-www and the www version of your site both feature your content. For example, when www.domain.com and domain.com show the home page information.

You should pick either version to show your site content and use 301 redirects to refer from the non-original page versions to the original ones.

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGDOMAIN URLBut. We need to stop saying ‘just do 301 redirects’For website that has so many pages like ecommerce website. Do the Optimal 301 Redirects

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGGOOGLE ANALYTICS

Web analytics let you measure visitor activity on your website. You should have at least one analytics tool installed.Access: http://www.google.com/analytics/

SEO FRIENDLY URL

Use short and sweet URLs that include your target keyword.Why does your URL matter for SEO?Just like your title tag and content, Google uses your URL as a clue to help them figure out the topic of your page. Super-short, keyword-rich URLs make a small but significant difference in rankings.

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODING302 REDIRECTS

“John Mueller says 302s Pass PageRank”

-Don’t let Google mislead you about 302s vs. 301s

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGCHECK FOR BROKEN LINKS

Broken links are a part of owning and/or managing a website and if they're not addressed, they can hurt your long term SEO efforts.

Tools Used:XenuScreaming Frog

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGCHECK FOR INTERNAL DUPLICATESTools Used:SiteLiner - http://www.siteliner.com/

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGCHECK FOR EXTERNAL DUPLICATESTools Used:CopyScape - http://www.copyscape.com/

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGCHECK FOR EXTERNAL DUPLICATES

Manual Check

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGINTERNAL LINKING STRUCTURES

Internal linking Structures are incredibly powerful asset.

Internal links with Anchor Text help to improve website navigation, usability and SEO. Use phrase when not just the targeted keyword. It is recommended to have a 2-3 internal links.

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGINTERNAL LINKING + ANCHOR TEXT

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGPAGE SPEEDPage Speed is one of the few ranking signals that Google has publicly confirmed. It’s that important.You can easily evaluate and improve your site’s loading speed using Google’s own PageSpeed Insights tool.Use the Google PageSpeed Insights tool to figure out your site’s loading speed. Wordpress free plugins W3 Total Cache, WP Smush It can help speed things up.

Tools Used:https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/https://gtmetrix.com/http://tools.pingdom.com/

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGPAGE SPEED

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGCHECK XML SITEMAPA sitemap lists URLs that are available for crawling and can include additional information like your site's latest updates, frequency of changes and importance of the URLs. This allows search engines to crawl the site more intelligently.

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CODINGCHECK ROBOTS.TXT

A robots.txt file allows you to restrict the access of search engine robots that crawl the web and it can prevent these robots from accessing specific directories and pages. It also specifies where the XML sitemap file is located.

You can check for errors in your robots.txt file using Google Search Console (Formerly Webmaster Tools) by selecting 'Robots.txt Tester' under 'Crawl'. This also allows you to test individual pages to make sure that Googlebot has the appropriate access.

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CONTENT

FRONT-LOAD YOUR TITLE TAGGoogle puts more weight on words found in the beginning of your title tag. You can see this in action by searching for competitive keywords in Google:

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CONTENT

FRONT-LOAD YOUR TITLE TAGFor example, let’s say you wanted to rank for the keyword “weight loss tips” and you were deciding between two headlines:

Include your target keyword in the beginning of your title tag.

Add modifiers like “2016″, “best”, “tips”, “guide”, and “review” to help you rank for long tail versions of your target keyword.

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CONTENT

META DESCRIPTIONIdeally, your meta description should contain between 70 and 160 characters (spaces included).Meta descriptions allow you to influence how your web pages are described and displayed in search results.

Ensure that each of your web pages have a unique meta description that is explicit and contains your most important keywords for each page (these appear in bold when they match part or all of the user’s search query).

A good description acts as a potential organic advertisement and encourages the viewer to click through to your site.

Example:Web Force 5 is an experienced website design, digital marketing and graphic design company in Australia committed to provide outstanding services to clients. Call us today.

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CONTENT

HEADINGSUse your keywords in the headings and make sure the first level (<H1>) includes your most important keywords. Never duplicate your title tag content in your header tag.

While it is important to ensure every page has an <H1> tag, never include more than one per page. Instead, use multiple <H2> - <H6> tags.

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CONTENT

HEADINGS

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CONTENT

IS THERE ENOUGH CONTENT?

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CONTENT

IMAGE OPTIMIZATIONThis isn’t absolutely necessary, but optimizing your images for popular keywords can land you traffic from Google Image Search.

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CONTENT

BLOG

A blog is a great way to engage with your audience and increase your online visibility by attracting qualified traffic from new sources.

Adding multimedia – like images, screenshots, lists and videos – doesn’t have a direct effect on your page’s rankings. But I included it here because it boosts user-interaction signals that Google is paying more and more attention to (more on that later). Multimedia also increases the perceived value of your content. Higher perceived value=more links=higher rankings.

Include at least 1 multimedia type (video, audio, images and lists) in every blog post that you publish.

ONPAGE OPTIMIZATION: CONTENT

BONUS STRATEGY

For 90% of the sites on the web, your homepage is the more authoritative page on your site......which means it has the most PageRank to pass around to other pages. In other words: The closer a page is to your homepage, the higher it will rank in Google.

Make sure high-priority pages are no more than 3 clicks away from your homepage.

GOOGLE ALGORITH MAJOR UPDATES:

2011 UPDATESGoogle Panda Update – February 2011Google’s Panda Update is a search filter introduced in February 2011 meant to stop sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results. Panda is updated from time-to-time. When this happens, sites previously hit may escape, if they’ve made the right changes. Panda may also catch sites that escaped before.

2012 UPDATESGoogle Penguin Update – April 2012Google launched the Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites deemed to be spamming its search results, in particular those doing so by buying links or obtaining them through link networks designed primarily to boost Google rankings. When a new Penguin Update is released, sites that have taken action to remove bad links (such as through the Google disavow links tool or to remove spam may regain rankings. New sites not previously caught might get trapped by Penguin.

GOOGLE ALGORITH MAJOR UPDATES:

2014 UPDATESGoogle Pigeon Update – July 24, 2014Provide more useful, relevant and accurate local search results that are tied more closely to traditional web search ranking signals. Google stated that this new algorithm improves their distance and location ranking parameters.

2013 UPDATESGoogle Hummingbird – September 2013Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query — the whole sentence or conversation or meaning — is taken into account, rather than particular words. The goal is that pages matching the meaning do better, rather than pages matching just a few words. It is “precise and fast” and is designed to better focus on the meaning behind the words

GOOGLE ALGORITH MAJOR UPDATES:

2015 UPDATES

Mobile Update AKA “Mobilegeddon” – April 22, 2015In a rare move, Google pre-announced an algorithm update, telling us that mobile rankings would differ for mobile-friendly sites starting on April 21st. The impact of this update was, in the short-term, much smaller than expected, and our data showed that algorithm flux peaked on April 22nd.

More relevant app content in search resultsMore mobile-friendly websites in search results.When it comes to search on mobile devices, users should get the most relevant and timely results, no matter if the information lives on mobile-friendly web pages or apps.

GOOGLE ALGORITH MAJOR UPDATES:

2015 UPDATES

RankBrain – October 26, 2015Google made a major announcement, revealing that machine learning had been a part of the algorithm for months, contributing to the 3rd most influential ranking factor.RankBrain is Google’s name for a machine-learning artificial intelligence system that’s used to help process its search results.It is a learning system that interpret language, queries in a way that has a gut feeling and guessability of people

GOOGLE ALGORITH MAJOR UPDATES:

2016 UPDATES

Adwords Shake-up – February 23, 2016Google made major changes to AdWords, removing right-column ads entirely and rolling out 4-ad top blocks on many commercial searches. While this was a paid search update, it had significant implications for CTR for both paid and organic results, especially on competitive keywords.

THAT’S ALL FOLKS! THANK YOU EVERYJUAN!