SEO & WEB ANALYTICS

ART340

SEO

SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

SEO is the practice of getting your site to appear higher in the search engine results.

The idea behind it is that there are certain keywords that people search for, and by including them in a certain way on your site, you will appear higher in the results.

Top 5 Search Engines

Google (#1)

Bing

Yahoo!

Ask

Aol Search

November 2012: www.ebizma.com/articles/search-engines

How Search Engines Work

To understand how SEO works, it is first important to understand how search engines work.

Search engines have two main purposes: to crawl and to build an index.

SearchIf you were trying to crawl the web, how

might you get to your destination?

Spiders

Through links, search engines crawl sites using automate robots called “spiders.”

Spiders crawl billions of links documents including web pages, PDFs, jpegs, etc.

Once found, the info is stored in massive hard drives, to be later retrieved in a fraction of a second.

Search Results

Once a person does a search, the search engine works as quickly as possible to return results that are both: Relevant: Hundreds of factors determine

what results are most relevant. Useful: Mostly determined by popularity.

To do so, search engines use complicated algorithms, or mathematical equations to calculate these responses.

Search Engine Ranking

When ranking your site, search engines include both: On-page techniques:

Keywords in text and HTML code Appropriate text in image’s alt text

Off-page techniques: Getting other pages to link to your site

Keyword Placement

There are 7 key places where keywords should appear in order to improve your site’s rank: Page title <title> The url (include keywords in filenames) Headings <h1> Text (repeat keywords 2-3 times in content) Link text Image alt text Meta description tags

Keyword Research

Determining the keywords/phrases to use on your site is the bread and butter of SEO.

Here is a helpful six-step process: 1. Brainstorm: What words do people use to

find your site? Ask others. 2. Organize: Create lists for different pages.3. Research: (select “exact match”)

www.adwords.google.co.uk/select/KeywordToolExternal

www.wordtracker.com www.keyworddiscovery.com

Keyword Research

4. Compare: Assess the competition in the search results.

5. Refine: Decide which keywords/phrases are the winners. Above all else, they should be relevant to your site.

6. Map: Create your plan-of-action. You should have 3-5 keywords/phrases for each page of your site.

What Not to Wear Do

Pages that are all images that do not have text.

Too much Flash. Frames

For More Info…

Visit: http://seomoz.org Here you will find a comprehensive

resource on anything Search Engine Optimization.

WEB ANALYTICS

Web Analytics

A means to analyze the visitors coming to your site, including: Demographics How they arrived What they were looking at Where they left

The most popular, free service to analyze the statistics on your site is Google Analytics.

Google Analytics

To sign up, visit: www.google.com/analytics

The site will provide to you a tracking code that you will insert into each page of your site (before the closing </head> tag).

Every time someone visits a page of your site, Google Analytics tracks their behaviors and stores in a web-based interface.

Analytics Terms

Visits: The number of times people have come to your site.

Unique Visits: The number of people who have visited your site over a period of time.

Page Views: The number of pages visitors have viewed on your site.

Landing Pages: The pages that people arrive on when first visiting your site.

On pgs. 483-486 in HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites

Analytics Terms

Exit Pages: The pages people most commonly leave from.

Bounce Rate: The number of people who left on the same page that they arrived on.

Referrers: Sites that have linked to you, and the number of people who have come via those sites.

Direct: Shows how users arrived to your site, if they did not come from another site (type URL, bookmark, link in email, etc.)On pgs. 483-486 in HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites

Analytics Terms

Search Terms: Extremely useful. Shows the terms entered into a search engine to find your site. Can help you fine tune the keyword verbiage you are using on your site.

On pgs. 483-486 in HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites

References

Duckett, Jon. HTML & CSS: Design and Build Websites. Indianapolis, IN : Chichester: Wiley, 2011. Print.

“The Beginner’s Guide to SEO.“ SEOmoz. Web. 27 Nov 2012.<http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo>.

Niederst Robbins, Jennifer. Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to (X)HTML, Style Sheets and Web Graphics. 3rd ed. Beijing ; Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2007. Print.