search engine optimization (seo) attendee workbook · 2020. 11. 30. · top seo ranking factors...

NYC Department of Small Business Services

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

ATTENDEE WORKBOOK Digital Marketing Course Series

Digital Marketing Attendee Workbook Search Engine Optimization

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SBS Business Course Pathway

SBS Services


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Course Objectives

By the end of this course you have:

• Defined the top 9 factors that search engines use to rank websites • Developed “keywords” and “tags” for your website that can raise your website’s ranking • Understood how to include “backlinks” on webpages that link back to your websites • Determined your website’s ranking for different keyword searches using audit tools

Course Summary

Topic Time

Standard Opening 15

Where SEO Fits in a Marketing Strategy 20

Ranking Factors 90

Measuring SEO 15

Closing 10

TOTAL TIME 2.5 hours


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What Is “SEO” & Where Does it Fit in Your Marketing Strategy?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): improving a website to increase the number of non-paid visitors who

find the website on a search engine.

Remember the “hub and spoke” model from our Build a Business Website course?

1. Paid- banner ads, Facebook ads, sponsored articles, Etsy pages, Amazon pages, etc.

2. Owned- Facebook page, Youtube Channel, Email, Blog.

3. Earned- organic rankings or SEO, press, shares on social media, etc.

93% of people use a search engine when looking online to by a product or service and 90% of them use

Google.


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The Conversion Probability Matrix

Your goal with SEO is to

1. Find the right potential customers and

2. Bring them to your website.

In marketing language, you want to find the right prospects, and convert them into website visitors.

• Prospect quality is the degree to which a website visitor matches your ideal quality.

• Conversion probability is the degree to which a visitor will do what you desire. This may be

watching a video, going to your website, or buying a product.

Your goal is to find the highest quality prospects, and to convert them into paying customers. Different

tools produce different levels of prospect quality and conversion. The table below illustrates for this for

such tools as advertising, social media, and email.

The best tool to find prospects and to convert them into paying customers are search engines. SEO is

critical for this reason.

Why is ‘Search’ the best for prospect quality and conversion probability?


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Top SEO Ranking Factors

Google uses an algorithm that organizes the order that websites appear in during a user search. That

algorithm is based on ranking factors.

These factors are ranked by their importance below. You can use the lines to take notes on each.

1. Keyword in Title Tag a. Fewer than 65 characters including spaces b. Include your keywords within the first three words if possible c. Include your brand name at the end if there’s room d. Explain what the page is about without listing keywords e. Include your geographic area if applicable f. Example: Pizza & Pasta in Greenpoint Brooklyn | Ria Bella

2. Keyword in H1 Tag a. Your H1 Tag is the largest, most important text on the page. b. It can be the same as your Title Tag without your brand name at the end. c. Example: Pizza & Pasta in Greenpoint Brooklyn

3. Description Tag a. Fewer than 160 characters including spaces b. Include your keywords words if relevant c. Explain what the page is about without listing keywords d. Include your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) e. Include a Call to Action (CTA) f. Example: Ria Bella is the highest rated Italian-family owned restaurant in Greenpoint

serving up traditional and non-traditional pizza and pasta for families since 1989. Stop by tonight.

4. Keyword in domain a. If possible, include a keyword or geographic identifier in your domain.

5. Content length a. At least 2,000 words for your homepage b. At least 500 for each category or product page

6. Content Density a. This means words, not only images and videos b. Include your keywords and synonyms of your keywords in your content c. Do not include keywords for the sake of doing so—it should be natural and relevant

7. Backlinks a. A hyperlink on a relevant publisher’s site that links back to your site b. If possible, the hyperlinked words should be your keyword and not your brand name—

its ultimately up to the publisher, but you can attempt to influence the words they use 8. Page load speed

a. Less than 3 seconds 9. Domain age

a. How long you have owned the domain; you can’t really control it 10. Domain penalties

a. Don’t purchase links b. Don’t create content that doesn’t make sense just to meet standards


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11. Secure site (SSL) a. The website is safe as indicated by HTTPS b. SSLs can be purchased directly through Wix, Squarespace, WordPress, etc.

12. Mobile-optimized a. Your website automatically adjusts to mobile screens b. Most website builders, like Wix, do this automatically


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Keywords

Your potential customers do not search for your brand name. They search for keywords that describe

your business. You need to identify the keywords for your type of business and include them on your

website. This means including keywords on different pages of your website, in the domain, and in the

Title tags and H1 tags.

You should identify keywords that have:

• High intent. This means that the people who search this word will take your desired action.

• High search volume. This means that there are a significant number of searches that include the word.

• Geography – if you run a business that sells to a specific neighborhood or city. o Note: In New York City, most people search “NYC” not “New York, NY, ” “New York City”

or zip codes. When using Google Keyword Planner, note if people are searching for neighborhoods where you sell — neighborhoods are very high intent.

Google Keyword Planner

There are tools you can use to determine which keywords have high intent and search volume for your business type. One effective tool is Google Keyword Planner – tinylink.org/keywordplanner. You will need to sign up for AdWords by entering your Credit Card because Google wants you to spend money with them eventually by running ads, but it’s not required to use the free Google Keyword Planner.


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Select “Find new keywords” and then enter three keyword ideas you have. Google Keyword Planner will return hundreds of actual searches that your potential customers are performing.


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Follow the steps below to identify keywords for your business:

1. Type in three keyword phrases into Google Keyword Planner.

2. Sort the list by Volume.

3. Use your judgment to determine the level of intent.

4. Identify keywords with high intent that have at least 100-1k average monthly searches.

5. Consider the Competition for this keyword. This refers to how difficult it will be to rank for this

keyword.

Keyword Relevance:

Keywords Average Monthly Searches

Competition Where to place on website


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Tags

A “tag” is a keyword on a website that search engines use to determine if the site should be included in

a user’s search results.

The image below illustrates how tags appear in search engine results. The user has searched for

“buttermilk frozen yogurt” and sees the website, “jenis.com.” This website appears high in the search

results because it includes both a title tag and description tag with the words, “frozen yogurt”

Title Tag

Description Tag


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Title Tags:

• Fewer than 65 characters including spaces

• Include your keywords within the first three words if possible

• Include your brand name at the end if there’s room

• Explain what the page is about without listing keywords

• Include your geographic area if applicable

• Every page on your website should have its own, unique Title Tag because each page solves a

different purpose.

Create your own:

1. ______________________________________________________________________________

2. ______________________________________________________________________________

3. ______________________________________________________________________________

Description Tags:

• Fewer than 160 characters including spaces

• Include your keywords words if relevant

• Explain what the page is about without listing keywords

• Include your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)- your opportunity to convince viewers why you’re

better than your competition

• Include a Call to Action (CTA)- what do you want viewers to do?

Create your own:

1. ______________________________________________________________________________

2. ______________________________________________________________________________

3. ______________________________________________________________________________


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H1 Tags:

• The largest text on the page (as indicated by the H1 style in your website builder)

• Should describe what the page is about.

• Can be your Title Tag without your brand name.

Create your own:

1. ______________________________________________________________________________

2. ______________________________________________________________________________

3. ______________________________________________________________________________


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Website Optimization Best Practices

Step Task Tool How Often Notes

1 Check for broken

links

Brokenlinkcheck.com Regularly

2 Check for large

images

Photoshop, photo

editors

When uploading

new photos

Photos should be

<100kb

3 Create a sitemap Most website builders

create them

automatically

Once

4 Sign up for

Google

Webmaster Tools

and have Google

analyze your

website

Analytics.google.com Once Check monthly to see

how your website it

doing


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Audit a Website for SEO

Audit a website for its SEO.

1. Go to WebsiteScore.org.

2. Type in your website address and a keyword of your choosing. If you do not have a website, type

in a competitor business’s website.

Good Signals:

Issues Found:

Page Grade:

Definition Your Score Next Steps

Page Load Speed Your page should load

in under three seconds

URL Your keyword should

be found in your URL

Title Tag Are the keywords you

want to rank for

included in the Title

Tag?

Description Tag Do you have a

Description Tag? Does

it meet the

requirements?


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Backlinks

Backlink is a link one website gets from another website. Backlinks should be natural, this means that a

website must not use artificial ways to create backlinks for their own websites. The quality of links is far

more important than the quantity.

Best Practices:

Relevancy. Find websites in your industry on which to backlink

• Business: Wedding Planner

• Appropriate Backlinks: The Knot- online wedding planner company

Hyperlinks. The article should include keywords that are hyperlinked back to your domain. Do not

include the domain name itself.


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Variety (synonyms and/or other common words)

• Best pasta park slope

• Best pizza park slope

• Italian restaurants park slope

• Italian food delivery park slope

Offer to Write. You can write for free for other websites that are non-promotion. In those articles, insert

hyperlinks that connect back to your website.

• Identity appropriate outlets

• Reach out with a pitch

• Create content of value

• Insert links to your business

Not a Backlink:

• Social Media post

• Comments on a website

• Yelp


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Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

Every action in digital marketing is measurable. The most important measures, or metrics, are called Key

Performance Indications (KPI).

KPIs are important to small business owners for multiple reasons:

• Hold an SEO agency accountable

• Hold yourself accountable

• Understand where you need to focus your time

There are a number of metrics and KPIs for SEO:

Ranking on Google

• Just google your keyword and see where you rank

• If you’re not ranking in the first 10 pages on Google, it’s because your website is not optimized and/or you don’t have enough backlinks.

Traffic from organic search

• Measuring traffic from organic search can be done within the built-in analytics tool within Wix.com or you can install Google Analytics on your website

• If you’re not getting at least 50% of your traffic from organic searches, that means that you’re

not ranking within the first 10 pages.


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How to use Google Analytics

1. Go to Analytics.Google.com and sign up for an account.

2. Set your time range to compare month over month:

1. Click Audience on the left side

2. Select Source/Medium

3. You want to look at traffic from Google/organic


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Key Next Steps

• Sign up for Google Analytics and add to your site: tinylink.org/analytics

• Learn about penalties that Google could impose: tinylink.org/penalties

• Learn how to enable HTTPS on your website: tinylink.org/ssl

• Check for broken links BrokenLinkCheck.com & fix them.

• Downsize large images to under 100kb increase load time.

• Create a sitemap.

• Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools & tell Google to

re-crawl your website

• Use the data from the WebsiteScore.org audit to improve your website

• Add Google Analytics to your Wix website by reading this article: tinylink.org/wixanalytics

Post Course Survey

Please fill out our survey at bit.ly/sbssearch. You can complete the survey on your phone or using

one of the tablets provided.

Stay Connected with SBS

1. Our website: nyc.gov/business

2. Our courses: nyc.gov/businesscourses

3. Facebook: facebook.com/nycbusiness

4. Twitter: @nyc_sbs

5. Instagram: @nycsmallbiz

http://bit.ly/sbssearch

search engine optimization (seo) attendee workbook · 2020. 11. 30. · top seo ranking factors...

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