Introduction to eManagementMGMT 230

WEEK 5: FEBRUARY 5

Digital design and usability search engine optimization. Measurement and evaluation. Web

analytics and data mining

Today’s Class

● Search Engine Optimization

● Case Study

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is often referred to as "natural," "organic," or "earned" results

In other words, SEO is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's unpaid result

Search Engine Optimization

Organic Search

● How does it work?○ A spider or crawler

■ component of a search engine (SE) gathers listings by automatically "crawling" the web

○ The spider follows links to web pages, makes copies of the pages and stores them in the SE’s index

○ Based on this data, the SE then indexes the pages and ranks the websites

○ Google, Altavista, Msn, Aol, and lycos index pages using spiders

Keywords

● Valuable in optimizing rankings ● Research what keywords are people searching for using tools

○ e.g. Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com)○ Moz.com

● Web sites are then indexed based on keywords● Can be key phrases or a single keyword● Words such as “and” “the” and “of” are ignored by spiders● Balance keyword-rich and readability● Always have text in your page: at least 300 words

Link Strategies● the text in the links should include keywords● the more inbound links, the higher the SE ranking● if the site linking to you is already indexed, spiders will also receive your site ● quality of inbound links is critical● how to increase links:

○ a) creative content / copywriting ○ b) quality outbound links ○ c) target a list of sites from which you can request inbound links

● Excessive link usage can damage your search rankings

Responsive Web Design (RWD)

● an approach to web design aimed at

designing sites to provide an optimal

viewing and interaction experience

● Includes easy reading and navigation

with a minimum of resizing, panning,

and scrolling

● across a wide range of devices (ie

phones, computers, tablets)

Content

● Your content needs to accomplish two goals: ○ appeal to the end-user (customers, clients, prospects, readers, etc.) ○ solve a particular problem.○

● Copywriting is the art and science of creating content that prompts the reader/end-user to either buy a product, subscribe to a list, take a test drive or take some other action that will benefit you

●● A copywriter is someone who understands people, knows what his audience likes and chooses the

words that will appeal to them○ The headline, words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs used in the content have to persuade

and cause readers to take a specific action○ An SEO copywriter also understand how Google feels about certain words and phrases,

especially long tail phrases.

Domain Authority

Site Speed

● Critical the the site and pages within

load fast.

● Google Amp pages

Tools to Monitor and Optimize

● Google Analytics

● Google Search Console

● Google Penguin

Analytics. Monitor and Optimize● Acquisition and behaviour

○ Acquisition shows you how your visitors found your site, broken down between organic

traffic (via unpaid SE or social networking), paid keywords (such as AdWords campaigns) and

organic keywords (words used to generate free traffic on SE)

○ Behaviour shows you how these visitors navigate your site including bounce rate, average

time on page, page sessions and goal conversions

● Analyzing your behavioural flow can help you understand potential problems on your site

○ Ie changing the page that most visitors are exiting on

● Analyze what visitors are searching for and how many page views, time on page, etc.

● Device segmentation

SEO Don’ts● Flash and shockwave:

○ Spiders do not pick up these files● Image only sites:

○ Spiders do not pick up images● Image maps:

○ Spiders cannot read image maps.○ Do not use them on your home page or critical pages.

● Frames:○ Only one page can be titled (titling is critical in search rankings)○ If the spider cannot read the complete page (because of the frames), it will not be indexed properly○ Some spiders may not even read a frames website

● Password protected pages ○ Spiders cannot enter password protected pages

● PDF files: ○ Can be problematic for spiders.○ Although some search engines can index them, the pages must be interpreted into HTML and can lose much

of their content.○ Place PDFs lower down in your site

Digital Strategy Case Study

Case Discussion

● What did these marketing professionals do well?● How did they leverage analytics to inform their marketing

practices?

Digital Strategy Case Study

Case Discussion

● What did these marketing professionals do well?● How did they leverage analytics to inform their marketing

practices?

Next Class

Wednesday’s lab will be used to commence your web site project with a WordPress tutorial