SEO Training WorkshopClassroom Based. 2014 Agenda.

Agenda (Day 1) SEO course objectives Day 1

Background - business, marketing and SEO goals Introduction to SEO Google Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird changes Google penalties Review our bespoke keyword and marketing reports SEO checklist Keyword planning Market research and competitor analysis On-page SEO (optimisation of keywords, meta data, URLs and HTML tags)

Off-page SEO (do’s and don’ts of link building) SEO and website copywriting SEO strategy and action plans SEO tools (basics)

Agenda (Day 2) Day 2

Revisit day 1 Competitor research for link building Recommended business directories Social media, blogging and content marketing Getting to grips with Google and Bing Webmaster Tools 301 redirects, canonical tags and duplicate content Getting the most from Google Analytics Things you can do to improve click-throughs and conversions SEO plugins and best practice Joomla, WordPress or Magento (if applicable) Social media best practices and tools (time permitting) Questions and Answers

SEO course objectives Understand the basics of SEO and best practice Learn how to carry out competitor research and identify the right

keywords Learn how to write for SEO and your audience Learn how to apply on-page SEO techniques Learn how to apply effective off-page SEO strategies Learn how SEO and social media is changing and the future of search Appreciate the impact of latest Google updates, including Panda, Penguin

and Hummingbird and how to avoid Google penalties Implement tools to monitor and review the effectiveness of your SEO Have a practical action plan for progressing the SEO in-house

Day 1

Background(understanding the company or organisation)

SEO, technical and marketing knowledge within the team Amount of resource to support SEO Previous SEO work carried out Effectiveness of current SEO and marketing Is there anything that that the search engines may not have liked

Business, marketing and SEO goals Business vision and goals USPs / competitive differentiators SEO and marketing objectives

Workshop:Define goals & USPs related to

SEO

Introduction to SEO It’s as simple as….

1. Keywords2. Links

Or is it? SEO definitions and popular terms Keywords Links Anchor text Meta Data/Tags ALT Tags Nofollow PageRank Robots Domain Authority Canonical / 301 Redirect …

Google Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird changes

Overview of recent Google algorithm changes and why these were rolled out:

Panda Penguin Hummingbird

Google Penalties Why websites are being penalised How do you know whether you’ve been penalised What you can do to overcome a Google penalty Link Audits, Removals and Disavow

Workshop:Look over Google Analytics and

Webmaster Tools data

Keyword & Marketing Reports Run through our bespoke keyword and marketing reports and

how to interpret the data

SEO checklist and review Explanation of our SEO checklist and how to use it

Workshop:Audit website according to

checklist

Keyword planning Keyword brainstorming and research

Get ideas - ask team, customers, prospects, friends and family… Brainstorm ideas (there’s no right or wrong answer) Research competitors (see next section) Use the Google Keyword Planner Tool!

Deciding on the right keywords for each page Do you have the right content to begin with Prioritise keywords based on business/marketing objectives Map keywords to pages and identify gaps within your content - pages,

sections, categories, products, etc.

Workshop:Brainstorm keywords and try

mapping to pages on your website

Market research and competitor analysis

How to do competitor analysis for SEO How to spot what keywords they are optimising for (free tools)

look at competitor link anchor text - http://www.opensiteexplorer.org get suggestions from Google based on competitor domain -

https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home review competitor traffic (although not always accurate)

http://www.semrush.com http://www.alexa.com

get other ideas based on industry/niche - http://www.wordstream.com/keyword-niche-finder

How to check competitor rankings for keywords – there are lots of tools to choose from, some free, but to get all of the features you will most likely have to pay!

Workshop:Try to identify new keywords

based on competitor research

On-page SEO(optimisation of keywords, meta data, URLs and HTML tags)

Keyword / HTML optimisation URLs and meta data optimisation Important HTML elements - headings, sub headings, image

ALT tags, links, and body text Importance of blogging and content freshness SEO copywriting (see following section)

Off-page SEO(do’s and don’ts of link building)

How can you build high quality backlinks? Content is king!

Guest blogging and content marketing Visual content – video, images, infographics Social media marketing and social sharing

Link baiting techniques original content, ideas and research - anything interesting enough to

catch people's attention ground breaking news (get there first) quirky content which could go viral don’t be scared to be controversial

Off-page SEO (2)(do’s and don’ts of link building)

Things to avoid Article and press directories Poor quality business directories, which look like they’ve been built for SEO Duplicating / spinning content and submitting to multiple sites Over-linking content to your website Over-use of anchor text in links – keep your links varied and natural! Over-use of keywords in content (keyword stuffing) Spammy blog/forum commenting Buying links although we do appreciate there are cases where this might make

sense if these links deliver high quality targeted traffic to your site - just make sure ANY link is set to nofollow to avoid a Google penalty

Link wheels, blog networks or anything that looks artificial

Off-page SEO (3)(do’s and don’ts of link building)

The trick is to find high quality, relevant websites that have good quality controls, then look for opportunities to gain backlinks – it’s all about content!

SEO and website copywriting Learn how to write for SEO but target your audience - and not

Google - with compelling ‘calls to action’ and engaging content that users will read and share

Be mindful of keyword and keyword densities but don’t obsess on them http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density http://www.ranks.nl/cgi-bin/ranksnl/spider/spider.cgi?lang

= Consider what is a meaningful and appropriate amount of

content – look at a range of competitor’s content who rank well for your keywords

Workshop:Based on your keyword research:

a) write a well optimised page for your website; and b) write an engaging blog post.

For each, define the meta data and look at competitors to gauge how long the content should be

SEO strategy and action plans Create a digital marketing strategy which integrates SEO with

your other online marketing activities (e.g. social media, PPC, PR, blogging, etc.) and ensure these can all be tied back to the business vision and goals

Ensure larger sized SEO / marketing teams are clear on their individual roles and accountabilities - and ensure they are working together, towards the strategy

Plan your SEO work each month – create action plans and set targets with regards to activity

Monitor results, review effectiveness and revise the action plans accordingly

Workshop:Try to define a suitable monthly action

plan and clearly define any roles,

responsibilities and accountabilities within the team

SEO tools (basics) Setting up Google and Bing Webmaster Tools Creating XML sitemaps and submitting your site to search

engines Creating robots.txt files Monitoring your backlinks using Webmaster Tools Setting up Google Analytics set up for SEO reporting / metrics Rank tracking and performance monitoring (ROI)

Workshop:Set up Google Webmaster Tools and

Google Analytics if you don’t already have accounts

Day 2

Revisit day 1 any questions?

Competitor research for link building

Simply search for your competitor’s name in Google enclosed by quotes e.g. “competitor x” and see where they are listed

See where your competitors are getting their backlinks from using http://www.opensiteexplorer.org

There are lots of free and paid tools for checking backlinks

Recommended business directories for link building

There are still some good quality free business directories but there are also thousands that are low quality ‘designed for SEO’ directories that should be avoided like the plague

Submitting your site to the high quality business directories and social media sites will help, search, visibility and referrals http://www.yell.com https://plus.google.com http://www.freeindex.co.uk http://www.yelp.co.uk http://www.citylocal.co.uk http://www.crunchbase.com …

Workshop:Research competitor links using

www.opensiteexplorer.org. Look at Linking Domains. Order by Domain Authority and identify 5 potential sites to acquire links

from.

Social media, blogging and content marketing

Refer to earlier section about dos and don'ts of link building Types of content marketing

PR / news content (only use high quality moderated sites) – http://uk.prweb.com is probably the best known. Of all the PR providers they are usually the quickest to adopt changes in Google policies and practices

Blogging – maintaining high quality blogs will be the simplest thing you can do to aid your SEO. Consider on-site blog vs. externally hosted blogs Consider the options available - WordPress.com, Tumblr

and Blogger

Social media, blogging and content marketing (2)

Social media – Google is favouring social signals (social votes) so get active on social media. At very minimum reserve you social media accounts and have a social sharing widget on your website

High quality Infographics – infographics are very popular right now. If you can come up with visually appealing original content (the quirkier or more fact based the better), then people will want to share your content – each share equals a vote towards your SEO!

Video content – YouTube is considered as the no. 2 search engine by many and there is no doubt that people engage better with video than text. Video content also tends to rank very well in search results providing it has been optimised properly

Workshop:Create a content marketing ideas

document - identify ideas and topics for blogs, news/press, infographics and

videos. Consider how you would share this content using social media.

Getting to grips with Google and Bing Webmaster Tools

Monitor your messages through Webmaster Tools Monitor errors and clean-up any technical issues highlighted Watch out for manual actions (Google Penalties) Ensure your sitemap is up-to-date and pages are getting

indexed properly

Workshop:Review your Google Webmaster Tools

account

301 redirects, canonical tags and duplicate content

Duplicate content can happen for lots of reasons – glitch in your CMS, website migration (copy+paste), outdated SEO practices, etc.

Be aware of the dangers of duplicate content and how to overcome them 301 redirects (htaccess) Canonical tags Robots (noindex)

301 redirect checker - http://www.redirect-checker.org Duplicate content checkers

http://www.copyscape.com http://www.webconfs.com/similar-page-checker.php

Getting the most from Google Analytics

What does the data mean? Visits Bounce Rate Time on site Landing page Keywords and issue with (not provided) data

Setting up goals Tracking conversions/sales (for e-commerce sites) Funnel visualisation

Workshop:Review your Google Analytics account

Things you can do to improve click-throughs and conversions

Improving click-throughs from search results Goolge+ and authorship - your photo in search results Goolge+ publisher and company data Rich snippets – reviews, ratings, videos, recipies and

products data for e-commerce (price, brand, quantity) Improving conversions

KISS - "Keep it simple, stupid" One page checkout – a MUST for e-commerce!

SEO plugins for Joomla, WordPress or Magento (if applicable)

Magento Rich snippets -

http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/rich-snippets-suite.html

SEO suite (option a) - http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/seo-suite-ultimate.html

SEO suite (option b) - http://www.mageworx.com/seo-suite-ultimate-vs-pro

SEO suite (option c) - http://mirasvit.com/magento-extensions/advanced-seo-suite.html

And much more… see http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect

Workshop:Identify ways to potentially improve click-

throughs and conversions

SEO plugins for Joomla, WordPress or Magento (if applicable)

Joomla AceSEF -

http://www.joomace.net/joomla-extensions/acesef-joomla-seo-sef-urls

sh404 - http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/site-management/sef/10134

And more… see http://extensions.joomla.org Wordpress

All in One SEO Pack - http://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack YOAST - http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo And more… see http://wordpress.org/plugins/

Social media best practices and tools (time permitting)

Platforms https://en-gb.facebook.com https://twitter.com www.youtube.com https://www.pinterest.com https://uk.linkedin.com https://plus.google.com http://instagram.com

Which platforms are right for you

Social media best practices and tools (time permitting)

Uses of social media Writing compelling content for social media Frequency of updates and investment required Generating engagement (likes, tweets, pins, comments, shares, +1s) Tools for social media management and reporting Using social media hand-in-hand with SEO

Any questions?

Thanks for Attending