Search engine optimization is composed of many different processes and many different factors from analysis to implementation. Its important that as many areas are covered when running through any SEO project. Imagine a competitor, then imagine beating the competitor, its easily done when you know what your competitor is doing. Stop competitors from getting the edge on your search engine campaign by covering all the available bases.
Lets break SEO down into all its components:
SEO Anatomy | Website Auditing
This will usually be the first step, and that is to audit a website. A website audit can only be performed by those who have a general knowledge of SEO. SEO Website auditing allows for the identification of the websites SEO status within search engines. An audit will identify the current position of the website, how it ranks, what the problems are and what the solutions are.
An audit is typically provided to a company/business before they go ahead with any SEO project.
Audits will identify a lot of the website, but not everything, at the same time as identifying the problems, its important to be careful that not too much information is given away, some clients have been known to cancel further work and to do the work themselves.
Overall, an audit will be the analysis and identification of website issues.
SEO Anatomy | Keyword Research and Identification
This process is an incredibly important part of any SEO project, and will usually be the first step when an SEO project goes ahead. Here the website will have its assigned keywords generated based upon the websites theme, against the market that the website is in.
Typically, a websites theme will have a group of keywords most relative to it, these are sometimes referred to as "Core" or "Central" keywords, which means they are most relevant to the website.
A secondary group of keywords will also be generated based on data from what people are searching for. With the Main website keywords, these will be fed into a tool where the tool will check them against popular search data to find out how popular the keywords are, and to return similar keywords that could also be used. These similar keywords will often become an important part of the project.
A website will generally have a core and secondary set of keywords.
Keyword research is vital to identify keywords with good potential from keywords that do not have much potential, either for the website or click through rates.
Correct keyword selection can make or break an SEO campaign, later in this document you will learn how to perform effective keyword research.
With good keyword research, you will be able to drive traffic from secondary keywords until the core keywords return the website in a prominent search position leading to large traffic boosts.
SEO Anatomy | Competitor Analysis
This process will involve a quick analysis of the top performing websites for the keywords selected. This will not be required on secondary keywords as the competitor levels are likely to be far lower. Competitor analysis would typically be performed on the 3 highest performance keywords generated from the keyword research.
This process will identify practices used by the competitors, and will also identify the websites on site and off site status. Later on in this guide you will learn how to analyse competitors and how they can benefit your search campaign.
Knowing what your competitors are doing is vital in any search market, using competitor data you can find ways to exceed what they are doing which is likely to result in a better position, even if its in the long run.
SEO Anatomy | On Site or On Page SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
On site or On page search engine optimization is the group of processes that are designed to improve the website itself. This will focus on all the factors that are affecting the websites build quality. On site SEO really is what it says on the tin, it only involves the building blocks that have been used to create the website.
On Site SEO is composed of analysis and implementation on lots of different elements from title tags to header tags. Later in this document you will learn more about On Site SEO and all the factors that contribute to it.
SEO Anatomy | Off Site or Off Page SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
This part of the project involves the optimization of the websites profile across the internet. Again, this is exactly what it says on the tin, its off-site and does not involve anything to do with the websites build. This involves improving the websites profile across other websites on the internet.
This will typically focus on getting other websites to link back to the website being optimized, simply because websites with more popularity are given more prominence in Google's & Yahoo's search results.
Links that link from other websites back to the website being optimized are often called backlinks. Backlinks act like a vote, the more links a website has, the more popular it becomes. Of course other factors contribute to this process such as the quality of the websites linking and more.
Later in this document we will cover link development and identification in great detail.
SEO Anatomy | Ranking Reports
Ranking reports are useful for tracking the websites progression whilst its being optimized and on completion of the optimization. Ranking reports will be useful for the journey through SEO to monitor how the keywords are performing throughout the project.
Ranking reports should be ran and checked frequently in the event the website begins to slip, frequent checks will help keep you up to speed with how the website is being treated by search engines.
Ranking reports are also useful for benchmarking with a before and after report which will show the progression that the website has made.
Ranking reports can contain an unlimited volume of keywords, although it is ideal to just focus on keywords that are generating traffic or keywords that offer large traffic potential in the long run.
Its also important that ranking report applications are setup correctly to prevent search engines from banning you from searching for time periods ranging from an hour to a whole day.
Search engines do not like applications making automated requests because it puts a load on search engine servers and can disrupt search facilities for those using the services manually. Because of this, search engines will monitor the level of queries made from your IP address. Ranking report applications typically have a search engine friendly query system where they only make queries every 10 - 30 seconds, making the searches appear as if a human was doing them.
SEO Anatomy | Analytics & Tracking
Analytics and tracking systems are used to monitor the visitors that have reached your website. Analytics will show you how visitors have found your website, what they have searched for, what website referred them and much more. Analytics and tracking is vital to any SEO project as it provides a window to the amount of traffic coming to the website as a result of marketing efforts such as search engine optimization.
Tracking is also important for many other reasons including, the ability to find popular entrance and exit pages of the website, the keywords used to reach the entrance page, the duration and pathways of the visit and much more.
Later on we will look at analytics and tracking in more detail, including recommendations for some good services.
SEO Anatomy | Website Status Codes (301/302 Re-directs, Permanent Re-directs, Temporary Re-directs)
Website status codes are often over looked, sometimes, not even mentioned. A status code is returned from EVERY server, the status code tells the browser or user agent that the website either exists, or that it has moved, or a series of other reasons why it is or isn't accessible.
The status code basically instructs on the status of the website when requested. This is an important part of SEO because these codes will also tell the search engine crawlers the status of the website. If the search engine crawlers or bots get a code other then http 200 (document ok) or 301 (document moved permanently) then the website may be in jeopardy.
The most commonly used codes include:
HTTP 200 - OK
HTTP 301 - Document Moved Permanently
HTTP 302 - Document Moved Temporarily
HTTP 404 - Document Not Found
We will elaborate on these and more codes later on in the guide, if you would like more information now visit http://www.assertive-media.co.uk/http-status-codes.html
SEO Anatomy | Domains and Top Level Domains
Domains are used to represent IP addresses on the internet and are used as a reference. When you type in www. And then a set of words, this is the domain. A domain will start with www. And will end in one of many possible extensions such as .co.uk, .com, .net, .org etc.
Top level domains are the part of the domain which ends with .co.uk etc. There are hundreds of different domain extensions, most are based on geographic location, whilst others are based on the website type. For example websites in Ireland may use .ie at the end, websites in Australia may use .au.com and government domains might use .gov.uk etc.
Top level domains are assigned based on location, status or user preference. Not all top level domain extensions are available to the public, for example a member of the public could not have a .gov, .mil, .edu, .ac.uk domain because they are from governmental bodies or authoritive boards.
Choosing the right top level domain is important, remember your domain will associate your website with the intended location of that domain. For example, if you choose a .IE domain, your website will be given more prominence in Google.ie, if you choose a .CO.UK domain than your website will be given more prominence in Google UK, the list goes on.
You should choose a top level domain based on your websites target market, so if you are looking to target the USA then use .com etc.
Later on in the document we will cover more on domains, registrars and how to find out if domains are available etc.
SEO Anatomy | Geographic Targeting
Geographic targeting is the process where your website has the features associated to a particular location around the world. The next part of the process involves search engines such as Google recognizing your target Geographic's and making sure you rank within that geographic.
The process involves using hosting, and a top level domain in the country that is the target market. This helps to regionalize search results, which means local searches are more likely to return the website.
This system protects people searching in one demographic from being inundated with foreign websites. For example, searching for a shoe shop in Google UK would be pointless if the results that come back included shoe shops in Berlin or Japan.
Google uses geographic filtering to return results related to the users search location and the TLD on Google. I.e. if you search from Google.IE (Google Ireland) then the results will be affiliated to that region.
This process is essential, if it is ignored it can have profoundly negative results on the websites ability to rank.
SEO Anatomy | Website Hosting
A host, sometimes referred to as a server is the location where your website is stored on the internet. A server is an online hard disk that stores files for your website. Using a hosting company means that you are subscribing to their services, as a subscriber you will be entitled to webspace along with other facilities such as domains, mySql, and much much more.
The location of your webhost is important when it comes to geographic targeting.
SEO Anatomy | Title Tags, Page Titles (Meta Title Tags)
Title tags are an important on page factor. Title tags act like the spine of a book on each webpage throughout the website. A title is a short descriptor for the document, and search engines display the title tag in search results as a clickable link. The title tag is vital as it is used as the descriptor for the document, and within the short allocated area, keywords relative to the pages content should be used.
Title tags are used by search engines to determine the pages theme and content coverage. The level of relevancy between the title tag and the pages content is vital, if it differs to much then search engines may class this as misleading which would have a negative impact on the rankings for the page.
The title tag is only short, and should remain below 120 characters in length to avoid truncation. Truncation is where only some of the text is shown and the rest is cut off, usually represented by multiple full stops together to show that the text has been cut.
Title tags are often the biggest issues with websites and their search performance.
Keywords are ideal being placed in the title tag, but at the same time the title tag should be relevant to the page its on.
SEO Anatomy | Meta Keywords & Meta Description
The word meta is an attribute used to assign documents information. Meta keywords allows the webmaster to add his target keywords for the page to the keywords meta field. This will be read by some search engines and directory crawlers. Meta keywords allows the document to be assigned its target keywords, however due to its excessive abuse over the years most search engines no longer use the keyword field. Instead of using the meta keyword field search engine bots will crawl the content to establish the best keywords.
The meta description is still important and should provide an overview to the pages content/theme. The description should not exceed 250 characters, should contain correct spelling and should be directly relative to the page.
The description is also shown in search results which is why it is vital to ensure that the grammar and spelling is correct and that the description draws the visitors to click through.
SEO Anatomy | Header Tags
Header tags are a way of representing important information in a larger, bolder format of text. Header tags are pre-created giving assigned content a larger, bolder appearance.
Header tags make information stand out much like a newspaper has a large header tag with the headlines. Header tags come in six default sizes, ranging from H1 to H6, H1 being the biggest and H6 being the smallest.
Header tags are used as a standard for good coding compliance and to simplify the task of making content stand out. They should be used to good design standards along side SEO instead of SEO purposes alone.
Using header tags in a structured manner has been known to help towards a websites rankings. Header tags should be used in a hierarchy based on the information that comes after them. Like a newspaper a large title will be the overview headline of the text that follows it.
This should be the method used to represent important information throughout a page in a structured hierarchy.
Header tags, like many other tags and elements should be used in sensible moderation as excessive use will actually become detrimental towards the sites positioning for assigned keywords.
Later in this document we will elaborate further on Header Tags.
SEO Anatomy | Canonicalisation (Using Trailing Slashes in URLs)
URL's (Uniform Resource Locators) are typed in to reach a selected website. Websites often use file-names and directory structures within the URL as a way of separating information, for example, if a website was to have various pages on cars it might have URL's as follows
http://www.mycarwebsite.com/jaguar/
http://www.mycarwebsite.com/ford/
http://www.mycarwebsite.com/vauxhall/
In a URL there are 2 options that are available, that is you can either have www. Or non www. Or you can have a trailing slash at the end of the URL, or have the URL without the trailing slash, the combinations are shown below:
http://www.mycarwebsite.com/jaguar/
http://www.mycarwebsite.com/jaguar
http://mycarwebsite.com/jaguar
http://mycarwebsite.com/jaguar/
Although all 4 URL's appear the same, they will be treated as unique URL's in Google unless they are setup correctly. In any website, the alternate unused version should always re-direct to the version that will be used to prevent canonicalization issues.
If both versions of a URL are referred too Google may index both pages as the same page, using 2 URL's which means that the canonicalization issue can cause supplemental results. Supplemental results in Google means that the page is treated with very little credibility and placed into a separate search index where it is unlikely to be returned for any searches.
To avoid canonicalization, simply setup your hosting so that if the non used version of the URL is visited, it re-directs them to the used version. This guide will elaborate on this further at a later point. We will show you how to setup re-directs to prevent canonicalization.
SEO Anatomy | Sitemapping (Website Sitemaps, Google Sitemaps)
Sitemapping is a straight forward process that you will be required to do for medium/large websites that have multiple directory structures & sub structures. Sitemapping assists search engine bots with locating all pages throughout the website. Large websites sometimes produce crawl errors because of the way pages may interlink, or link using javascript/ajax based code.
Sitemapping is a good way to prevent supplemental results as a result of pages being difficult to find and index. A sitemap is generally used by visitors, however, in the recent years, sitemaps specifically for search engines are now available. XML Sitemaps are used by search engines to crawl documents throughout a website.
XML Sitemaps are search engine friendly and allow other attribute data to be added to each URL. There are thousands of online resources for XML Sitemap generation. Later in this document we will run through the process of creating and uploading XML sitemaps and what to do once that has been completed.
SEO Anatomy | Robots.txt (Website Crawl Permissions)
It might sound futuristic, like something out of space, but robots.txt is an important file that you can use to restrict search engines from indexing certain pieces of information or entire directories. Robots.txt file allows you to even specify which search engines follow various different rules. This document is completely flexible and allows you to protect various areas of a website from being indexed.
Robots.txt is useful for protecting various directories throughout a website, things such as payment systems, login systems and private directories such as forums, robots.txt is a great way to prevent search engines such as Google from indexing them.
SEO Anatomy | Anchor Text (Link Text, Clickable Links, On Page Text)
Anchor text is the text that represents a clickable link. All links are assigned clickable link text through the HREF html element. Anchor text is important for search engines and for usability purposes, when link text is used its designed to prove a very simple description of the page that the link refers to.
Good anchor text is link text that not only provides an accurate description, but also does it in the correct manner. There is a large correlation between relevancy and the text used in anchor text and title tags. When using title tags, the anchor text for the link that goes to the page should be directly relevant. So if the title tag mentions Vauxhall cars, the clickable link text for any link referring to the page should be "Vauxhall Cars". This helps to re-enforce the relevancy throughout the website.
Link text is important on all links, wether they are on page or off page. On page link text relates to the text used on links that are internal on the websites pages. Off page link text refers to the text used on links linking back to the website from other websites.
Later in this document we will look into anchor text further.
SEO Anatomy | Content Emphasis (Highlighted Text, Bold Text, Strong Tags)
Content emphasis is the method in which various pieces of text are highlighted using appropriate HTML tags. When content is highlighted, it is done so to ensure it stands out to the reader. There has been SEO benefits for content that has been highlighted in the correct manner.
Bits of content that are directly relevant to the theme of the page should be highlighted, providing at the same time its relative to the end user.
Highlighted content can be done using strong tags or bold tags, which achieve the same affect. Highlighted content should not be done in excess as it can appear spammy. Ideally, only a few words at a time should be highlighted instead of full sentences.
SEO Anatomy | Internal URL Structure (Internal Link Profile, Website Links)
Internal URL structure is a vital part of search engine optimization as the profile of the links will dictate what pages are given more priority and what pages should have more emphasis within search engines. Internal URL structure is vital, because it is the process which defines how the website links to pages, and what URLs are representing this information.
URL structures typically consist of directories given assigned keywords. When directories are added into a website, it adds an extension to the URL. URL structures are beneficial to SEO when keywords are implemented, however, this should be done in moderation as excessively long URLs can cause problems with indexing.
URL structures are the part of the URL followed after a trailing slash, i.e.
http://www.mywebsite.co.uk/product-1/shoes/black
Above is an example of URL structure. This can be utilized in many ways, typically websites will separate entire sections based upon a product or theme.
URLs should not become excessively long, adding in too many directories within a URL could be detrimental towards the websites ability to rank internal URLs.
Later in this document we will cover internal URL structure further.
SEO Anatomy | Domain Infrastructure & Age (Website Age, Sandbox, Google Sandbox, New Domains)
Domain infrastructure and age is a part of SEO that cannot be manipulated. There are many factors attributed to domains that can affect how they perform.
When selecting keywords for the domain name, when building age, what top level domain to choose and lots more.
The main attribute typically revolves around the domains age. Domain age is important within Google because the age gives Google the ability to understand how the website is maintained over a period of time. When Google monitors a website over a time period, it will monitor the level of changes made, to establish the websites update frequency and to see if the website stays fixed on its theme or whether it differentiates from its original theme.
Many used the saying, Sandbox, which was a buzz word for a process that is used by search engines. New domains are under more scrutiny then established domains because it is crunch time to see how the website is being monitored and maintained.
More information on domain infrastructure and domain age will be covered later on in this guide.
SEO Anatomy | Content Placement, Development & Value (Writing Good Content, On Site Content)
Content placement is important because a websites foundation and quality will be built around the placement of the pages and content. For search engine optimization, good content placement is vital, because it is the availability of the content, and how pages with relative content are placed that has the impact on rankings.
When website content is created, it should always sit relative to other pages covering the same subject but a different part of that subject. This is known as content segregation, and provides the user with broken down data. Putting content in line with a page by page structure will allow the website to rank in more areas. If a search engine can see a website providing a broader range of information, it will give the site a better position in natural search as it will treat the site as a more informative resource.
Websites that cover a larger subject/theme base are treated with more authority, because a search engines overall goal is to deliver the best quality results to the end user.
Content placement is also a part of semantic mapping, or LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). With good content placement, a website can expect lower bounce rates, better visibility in search engines and a lower volume of supplemental pages.
Writing good content is also key, when creating content for pages, the content should be descriptive, detailed and accurate. Search engines such as Google have become remarkably smart when it comes to their algorithms. Good content is easily filtered, leaving junk, poorly written text and spam like content which typically does not make it into the top 100 results.
Good content also centre's around true fact, when writing content, it should be factual, as Google's algorithm will be able to detect false information from accurate information. When a user performs a search query, the best results will be the results that are accurate, and not misleading.
