Custom SEO Strategy – Udemy Course
5 Step Keyword Research Process
1. Generate a list of potential keywords
2. Determine the search volume for each potential keyword
3. Check the ranking data & competition
4. Narrow down & organize the final keywords
5. Put your keyword research into action & begin SEO work
Signs of a successful keyword
1. Good traffic numbers
2. Sponsored ads in keyword – no one is going to pay for something not profitable
3. Relevant to website
4. Competition you can outrank
5. Will bring targeted traffic – targeted to what oyu do and why you want people on
your website
Search Intent
- Informational vs transactional keywords
- Informational = what people search for when looking for info
o E.g. cat ownership, flu symptoms, blogging tips
- Transactional = what users search for when they want to perform a certain activity
e.g. purchase, register for a form
o Get car insurance
o Subscribe to xyz program
- Look for buyer intent keywords
o brand names
o key words like buy, discount, coupon, purchase etc.
o Best, top, review show buyer intent
- Product keywords have a higher conversion rate – highest
- Service based keywords = hire vs buy, free consultation, consult etc.
- Use terminology based on what you want your visitors to do
Types of keywords
1. Head (broad) keywords e.g. cats
a. Shorter (1-2 keywords)
b. Less specific
c. Higher search volume
d. Search intent unknown
2. Body (targeted) keywords e.g. cat toys
a. Short but more specific
3. Long Tail keywords – buy cat tails
a. 3-4+ Keywords
b. More specific and targeted
c. Lower search volume
d. High converting keywords
e. Less competition
f. Good search volume
4. People will move down the keyword list as they realise their query isn’t being
answered and need to be more specific
- Initially start SEO campaign with keywords that give ‘quick wins’ – keywords you can
rank for the quickest – put websit eon map and give early organic search momentum
Keyword Research Tools
Free Keyword Research Tools
Google Keyword Planner
keywordtool.io (with Pro access available)
Ubersuggest (international)
Premium Keyword Research Tools
SEM Rush
LongTail Pro
WordTracker
Using What You Know to start Keyword Research List
- Brainstorming Keywords
o How would you describe the information, products or services on the website
o What is your Unique Selling Proposition
o How would does competition describe what you do as?
o Check the thesaurus
- Breaking Down Keywords into categories to Generate More Ideas
- Then go to google with these keywords and search up the keywords looking at
search suggestions and the related at the bottom of the page
- Google trends can be used to see trends
- Ubersuggest finds loads of keywords
- Can use Google Keyword Planner for long tail keyword ideas
o Can also enter landing page of DA + Articles of DA + Competitor of DA URL +
Competitor blogs + Product categories in Google Keyword Planner to get
more keyword ideas
- Download Google Analytics on the Website so you can go to campaigns > organic
keywords
- Can get keyword ideas from competitor websites + other websites by right clicking >
View page source. Search “keywords” – usually at the very top. BUT some companies
do not have this
How many keywords to target
- Start with 5 keywords – balance time with results you want to achieve
- Website will naturally rank for more keywords / keyphrases than what you target
Search Volume
- What to consider
o What is the value of a lead, commission or sale on the website – a highly
valuable low volume searched product may be better than a cheap high
volume searched product
o Conversion opportunity with keyword – buyer intent
o What revenue does the website use?
o Targeting a number of keywords simultaneously
- Can find using Keyword Planner
o Put keywords in and then you can see search volume (choose the ones with
higher bid prices)
- Can also find using SERPStats
Analyse Keyword Competition
- Check google to see competition – skip the big authoritative competition keywords
like Microsoft, Telstra, Wikipedia etc.
- Page rank (not updated often)
o Page rank is assigned by Google
o Based on a scale of 0-10 (with 10 being the highest)
o Webpages with a PR 4-5+ are considered very good
o Avoid keywords with authoritative sites in top search engine results
- Page authority (updated regularly)
o Google focuses on individual pages
o PA = indicator of how much authority a webpage has in the eyes of google
o The lower the PA and PR the better
- Domain authority
o DA refers to the entire websites authority in the eyes of google
o Take into consideration when selecting keywords but give PA more weight
- Find webpage rank using:
o Mozbar + SEOQuake – free extensions
- The numbers
o PR = 1-2 maybe even 3
o PA = 40 or less + low DA
Backlinks
- An incoming link from a website to yours
- One of Google’s top criteria for ranking webpages
- Quality over quantity
- Check your competitor’s (including total count, quality and sources)
- Can see backlinks of Mozbar the number next to PA. Click on it to see more info – the
backlink quality.
- Can also use SERPStat to see compare competitors and see backlinks.
SEO Audit
- Key areas of focus
o On and off site optimization
o Social metrics
o Competition analysis
o Promotional analysis
Questions to ask before SEO Audit
1. Any previous SEO work – and can they get the findings from that?
2. What do you hope to get out of the audit
3. What are the most important pages & products / services
4. What is the current marketing strategy
5. Are the website statistics accessible
6. Is there anything I missed?
First get general overview
1. Look at website
a. Social proof – testimonials
b. Call or text/facebook
c. Call to action on the front page
d. Content of website – don’t really need an about us on front page
e. Check social media
f. Check what’s listed when you search them up on google - are their most
important pages showing?
g. View website on different devices e.g. mobile
h. Check google analytics
i. Browseo shows keywords, titles, how the search engine would view the page
On-page SEO Audit
- What keyword are you trying to rank for
Titles & Descriptions
- Displayed on browsers, in search engine results, and external sites
- Must be unique for EVERY page & accurately describe the page
- Should entice visitor to click on the link
- Should include keywords
- Keywords should be as close to the beginning as possible
- Titles should have have 50-60 characters
- Descriptions should have 150-160 characters
- Remove title from small business/ put it to the end and focus on compelling title
- Use www.seomofo.com/snippet-optimizer.html to get title and description of
website.
- Rate your title on coschedule.com/headline-analyser use to generate ideas for title
URL Structure
- URLs should be SEO & user friendly
- Should describe page
- Less than 255 characters including domain name – make as short as possible
- Include the page’s main keyword in the URL
- Separate keywords with a hyphen
Canonicalisation
- Set your preferred domain in the settings of WordPress or google webmasters tools
account (check udemy)
- Siteliner.com finds duplicate content
- Relationship canonical tag seen below tells Google that this page should be seen as a
duplicate and the original is the one that precedes it e.g. adding an item to multiple
categories
-
Header tags
- Tells search engines what your page is about
- Represented by h1 – h6 tags – h1 being largest size, h6 being the smallest size. Use
h1 for maintitle and h2 for subtitle text
- Can find these on mozbar left most search thingy on the mozbar
- Include keywords in those titles as well
Text formatting
- Use lists, bolded & italicized text – tells search engines and people whats important
here.
-
- Bold + italicize keywords where it is important
- Always use the text formatting that is best for the site visitor
High quality and unique content
- No duplicate content
- Use https://www.copyscape.com/ to check for any duplicate content
- Check quality of the content on the most viewed pages first
- Make sure those pages are high quality, use proper formatting & optimized
- Each page should have enough content to:
o Provide value to the reader
o Allow for natural internal links
o Room for main keywords to be integrated naturally
- Remove or update old content
- Search engines look at how much, how often and how important of changes are
made
- Give users a way to share your content – share buttons for fb, linkedin etc.
Internal links
- Page to another page on your website
- Help search engines find all your pages
- 2 – 5 internal links per page
- The pages you want to rank should have the most internal links
Image Files, Sizes & Tags
- Images can slow down a site, compress images using photoshop, compressor.io.
- Use seo tool by feedthebot and look at the image section to see if you used alt tags
for the images – use alt tags with keywords
-
- When you upload images use descriptive file names
Broken links
- Google webmasters tools under crawl errors to see if any broken links
Page Speed
- Check www.webpagetest.org grades in a number of areas. Content breakdown at
bottom which shows what is taking the longest
- Pagespeed by varvy – really good shows how to fix everything
- Developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ - shows how fast webpage loads
on desktop and mobile
THE PAGE IS Render blocking CSS / JS found FIX NOW
Sample code for On-Page Optimisation
Keyword tags
<meta name=”keywords” content=”keyword1,keyword2,keyword3”>
Title tags
<title>Example Title</title>
Description tag
<meta name=”description” content=”include description here that would like to appear in search
engine results page”>
URL Structure
http://www.yourdomain.com/category-keyword/subcategory-keyword/primary-
keyword.html
Canonicalisation
<link href=http://www.yourdomain.com/canonical-version-of-page/”rel=”canonical” />
Header tags
<h1> Main title text <h1>
<h2> Subtitle text <h2>
Text formatting
<b> Place words to be bolded here </b>
<i> Place words you want to be italicized here </i>
<ul>
<li>Place bulleted text here</li>
<li>Place bulleted text here</li>
<li>Place bulleted text here</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li>Place bulleted text here</li>
<li>Place bulleted text here</li>
<li>Place bulleted text here</li>
</ol>
Internal links
<a href=http://www.yourdomain.com/ “ title=Keyword Text”> Keyword Text</a>
Image Tag
<img src=”imagename.jpg” alt=”Image Description/Title”>
Website Analytics & Basic SEO Tracking Tools
Google Analytics
- Main reports
o Acquisition > All traffic > Channels – shows how much traffic is coming and
where they are coming from e.g. directly searching up DA, referred from
other website
Click on organic search under channels to see what keywords people
are searching up
o Behaviour > Site pages > All pages – shows most popular pages > landing
pages – shows where people land
o Behaviour > In-Page analytics (at the bottom) – shows where people click on
pages
Google Webmaster Tools
- Can check to see if your site has been indexed
- Find out any errors Google finds
- Search Traffic > Search Queries – breakdown what people search for to get your
website and shows your position in Google
- Search Traffic > International Targeting – choose what country you want to target
- Google Index > Index status – shows how many pages are indexed by google
- Search Traffic > Links to your site (may not be indexed – get indexed) – shows how
many links go to DA
- Crawl > Crawl errors (index pages first) shows errors
XML Sitemap for Search Engines
- Helps search engines crawl website
- XML Sitemap is uploaded on the google search masters tool go xml-sitemaps.com –
check udemy
Robot.txt
- Tells search engines how to crawl your website and which pages to index
-
Tells the search engine not to index ANYTHING
- Create a robot.txt file if you want to exclude search engines from indexing certain
pages or directories
Off-Site SEO
Link Analysis
- Can check how many links come to DA using Moz open site explorer or using ‘links to
your site’ in webmasters account
- Once you see all the links
o Check unique links – how many times has a single website linked to you
o Check how trust the websites linked are – DA
o Check where they link – all to your home pages, variety, services page etc.
o Check the anchor text – what people have to lcick on to be redirected to your
website
- Develop an action plan
o Build links by:
Submitting your link to other sites
Guest blogging
Asking for links
Focus on quality links not quantity
Website Domain Authority
- How likely a domain will rank
UH OH EVERYTHING LINKS TO WWW.DA.COM
Competition Analysis
How to perform a competitor analysis
1. Do SEO Audit from scratch
2. Use moz open site explorer compare metrics feature + SERP Stats
Identifying SEO competitors
1. Search up keywords on google and see competitors
2. Serpstat your domain name to see competitors
Questions to ask in Competition Analysis
Types of Backlinks
What types of backlinks are they receiving (review sites, new sites, industry related websites,
etc.)?
How are they receiving these backlinks (asking for them, providing valuable content others
want to link for, guest blogging, etc.)?
Are they posting content (whether articles, videos or images) to other websites?
Did they submit their site to directories?
Content Marketing Strategy
Are they using a content marketing strategy?
Are they using press releases (such as prweb.com, prnewswire.com, prlog.com, free-press-
release.com, etc.)?
Are they using video?
What topics are they covering (news, promotion, educational/informational)?
Which of their content is being shared the most?
Can their site visitors share their content (via social sharing buttons for example)?
Are they on social media? And are they engaged?
Anchor Text
What words are other websites using to link to the competitor (are they keywords, the
website name, the page name, etc.)?
Do they use a variety of anchor text or are they using one or two phrases excessively?
Local Businesses
Does the business have any reviews on local review sites?
Do they ask for reviews on their website or social media pages?
Are they listed in local business directories?
4 more tools to spy on competition:
1. Wappalyzer
This is a great tool to help you quickly identify which tools any website uses
including content management system, advertising platform, analytics tools
and so much more.
2. Google Alerts
If you haven't already, you should sign-up for Google Alerts so you will be
notified when others mention your product, brand, website, etc. But another
good strategy is to use this same technique for your top competitors. This is a
super easy way to find out who is mentioning them and where. Now you can
go to that source and try to get mentioned as well.
3. Social Mention
This is another website you can use to get free notices for your website as
well as your competitors. Here you can find out when a brand is mentioned
on different social media and blogging platforms.
4. Ghostery
This tool allows you to see what plugins, advertising platforms, and tools a
competitor uses on their site but the best part is you which analytics
platforms they are using which can give you a better idea of how much their
analyzing their traffic.
BrennanIT
- Uses https://prwire.com.au/yourReleases for backlink
- https://website600.com/it-consultant/ - guest post
- https://tomaltman.com/guest-blogging/ - guest blogging for IT services
- https://www.strategydriven.com/strategydriven-guest-submissions/ - guest blogging
- https://axleration.com/write-for-us/ - guest blogging
- https://www.techopedia.com/about/contributors - guest blogging
Stanfield IT
- Uses https://www.eventbrite.com.au/ to show events
Ubertech
- Uses http://www.folkd.com/page/social-bookmarking.html as a directory
- Uses https://www.linkcentre.com/addurl/ as a directory
- Uses http://www.mysheriffau.com/profile/internet-services/drummoyne/3054325/
as a directory
- Uses
https://www.businesslistings.net.au/Business_IT_Services/NSW/Drummoyne/Ubert
ech_is_the_go_to_IT_support_services_provider_for_all_small_to_medium_sized_b
usinesses/69391.aspx as a directory
- Uses http://www.ourpatch.com.au/australia/categories/business-systems-
consultants/businesses/299882-ubertech-is-the-go-to-it-support-services-provider
as a directory
- Uses https://www.fyple.biz/company/ubertech-is-the-go-to-it-support-services-
provider-8t9x4b1/ as a directory
Geeks2u
- Google+
Sydneytech
- http://www.sbwire.com/pricing/# - free press release coming soon
Sydneyitsolutions
- Does videos on dailymotion + youtube
-
Australian directories list
Cloudtango
https://www.marketingmix.com.au/australian-local-business-directories-list/
Website promotional strategies
- Can focus on one service and have blog releases about them
- Set up different social media platforms
- How to make website mobile friendly:
https://developers.google.com/search/mobile-sites/get-started
Link Building
2 Questions for back links – not all backlinks are equal
1. If its hard to get the backlink, it’s probably worth it
2. Would I want this link if Google didn’t exist
Criteria for determining the value of a backlink
1. Is the website relevant?
2. Is the website a trusted source? – DA should be 20-30+
3. Will the back link result in any traffic? - Consider link positioning on the page as well
try to get in-content links. The more valuable for searchers = more valuable for your
site
4. Anchor text – Varied anchor text
5. List website with as few other websites as possible – less links about different
companies the better and have your linked placed within a page’s content when
possible
6. Keep an eye out for opportunities to get links with authoritative websites
7. Avoid reciprocal link building (link exchanges)
Places to avoid backlinks from
Google webmasters shows what sites link to your site and check which is linked to you
1. Not indexed in Google
2. Domain or trustflow score below 10
3. Site sells links
4. No clear focus/ low quality content
5. Directories or pages with lots of links listed
6. Use of unnatural anchor text
7. Spammy web comments on the site
8. No contact information
5 reasons why someone would link to DA
1. Content is engaging / interesting
2. Existing relationship
3. You provide content
4. Monetary incentives
5. You promote their business
6. Think whats in it for them?
Understand Your Back Link Content Profile before getting started
- Use google webmasters
- Other tools mentioned later
Determine how many backlinks you want
1. How many keywords you are going after
2. How competitive those keywords are
3. The quality of back links that you go after
4. Number of sources – different websites giving links
How quickly you should have backlinks
- Google wants organic so too many at one time is not good
- Stay away from front-loading backlinks – link building should be a continuous
process
- Start 2-3 links per week and continue to build over time
How many backlink methods should I use?
- Different methods – directories, blogs etc.
- Varied link profile
Which pages should you link to?
- Get backlinks to the specific webpage you want to rank
- Link to homepage & internal links
Remove bad links
- Reach out to the owner of the site and ask them to remove the link to your site
- Low number of low quality back links – leave them be
- High number of low quality back links – use the disavow tool on Google Webmasters
-
Backlink Competition Analysis
- Use multiple tools to search competitors backlinks as you will never be able to see
100% of them with one of them – use them to see DA first
- Ahrefs (can use free version) – shows number of backlinks vs sources – shows top
content & shares – good to use what content you should create and how to title –
shows anchor text – shows top competitors
- SEMRush – shows backlinks, sources, top organic keywords, shows specific backlinks
– anchor text, where they go to etc., top anchor text
- Moz linkexplorer – shows backlinks, titles, gives spam score,
- https://majestic.com/ - shows links
Link building tactics & techniques
Internal Link Structure
- Create an internal linking structure on DA page
o Internal links can help pass authority from page to page
o Improve overall crawlability and user experience
- You can select the position of your link which page the link goes to and what anchor
text is use when
- Try to link internal navigation, in-content, the sidebar, the footer (from best to
worst)
- Make sure every single page is linked to from at least one other page on your site
- Use good and varied anchor text
- Add internal links to your top pages (viewed + most linked to)
- Link pages together with similar keywords
Searching for Link Building opportunities
- Look at your keyword (skip the first 3 pages – because they are focusing on your
keyword and won’t want to link to you) then find suitable people who may want to
link to you
- Search for what ever type of resource you want to link into on google using
blog(insert type here) + intitle:”keyword/(can also use this to find location specific
places e.g. replace keyword with ‘sydney’)”
Backlink from Traffic Generation Sources
- Questions
o What types of content generate traffic?
Blog posts
Infographics
Videos
Images
PDF downloads
Slides
Guides
o What topics are best to creatre?
Use buzzsumo to see most shared type of content about keyword
Ahrefs content explorer does the same
Topsy shows top tweets, videos etc. for keyword
o How can you promote it?
- Repurpose 1 piece of content into multiple by using different types of content e.g.
make a video with an infographic + slideshow
Promoting content – look below to see how to search for places to put content
- Articles
o Search for blogs that can link
o Write for other blogs and promote your content – to find google: keyword
“write for us/contribute/guest post”
- Infographics
o Infographics, images & videos are easier to get backlinks for
o Can use Canva to make infographic
o Create an embed code and include it on your website so people can include it
on their websites for a back link
o Give it out to the other websites
o Share infographics on infographics sites
o Keyword “infographic”
- Videos – backlink to your site
o Youtube
o Dailymotion
o Vimeo
- Audio
o Soundcloud
o Apple Music
- Slideshows
o LinkedIn Slide Share
- Images
o Flickr
o Instagram
o Pinterest
Using embed codes for non-written content
- Giving embed code people can copy and paste onto their own site can increase
backlinks
- Use sample embed code.
- Allows you to control the page the person can link to and the anchor text being used
- Check udemy how to embed + look below for instructions
Link building from reputation management sources – look below to see how to search
- Join in existing conversation – comments, blogs, reviews
- Join in on relevant conversation and add value
- Google Alerts – create alert for keywords to see whats being said about keywords
- Use socialmention to see social media mentions
- Can use Quora to answer questions for your particular industry. Set up profile and
email signature so when you post people will see link for your site and will be able to
get in contact
- OR use LinkedIn groups
- To find a forum search: forum + “keyword”
Social Media
- Tweets can help a post perform better in search results
- Boost social media with SEO efforts
- Complete profile fully – use consistency through social media
o Complete description – use keywords
o Link back to websites + other social media profiles
o Add phones, address
o Upload photos to make profile look complete
o Make reviews stand out
o Call to action (allowed on facebook)
o Make content informational
How to get .gov and .edu links – look below to see how to search
- Try several options
- Alumni of college – they may be willing to feature your businesses
- Comment on edu/gov websites – go on dropmylink and search up .edu/.gov – HIGH
QUALITY
- Search up - site:.edu.au “keyword”
- Educational blogs – can create blogs from the university site sometimes can also
create like top it student bloggers and reach out to them to get a back link
o Make sure blog is active, has contact info, has dofollow links
Using partners to your advantage
- Ask to get link from like Telstra or MS if possible
- Or with supplier partners
Testimonials
- Offer businesses you have used products of within 6 months and say you can give
them a testimonial and all you ask is a link to it at the end
- Collect testimonials on behalf of the company – write up a blog about it – they are
likely going to share it on social media – great way to get backlink
Directories to use – look below for list
- Stay away from directories mostly
- Google local pack – citation directories
- When using directories make it as specific as possible – go to the right category – go
to ones with most authority
- DMOZ is great
- Best of the web is great’
Searches to use for finding relevant websites
For writing opportunities
article + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
blog + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
website + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
write for us + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
guest blog + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
guest article + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
contribute + intitle:"keyword" OR inurl:"keyword"
become a contributor + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
become an author+ intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
news + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
magazine + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
research + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
For Link Submission and Commenting Opportunities
directory + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
links + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
resource + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
guide + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
news + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
magazine + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
research + intitle:”keyword” OR inurl:”keyword”
For Local Business Opportunities
Likewise, you can look for local relevant websites for a local business by doing similar searches. Put
the following searches into Google replacing the word 'location' with your location to find new link
building opportunities.
forum + intitle:“location” OR inurl:“location”
blog + intitle:“location” OR inurl:“location”
directory + intitle:“location” OR inurl:“location”
news + intitle:“location” OR inurl:“location”
newspaper + intitle:“location” OR inurl:“location”
businesses + intitle:“location” OR inurl:“location”
Top content submission sites
Infographics
Cool Infographics
Daily Infographic
Infographic Journal
Infographic Archives
Nerd Graph
Visual.ly
Infographics Only
Infographic Directory
Top Infographic
Media Caffeine
Reddit Infographics
Reddit-Infographic
Infographaholic
Videos
Yahoo Video
YouTube
Flickr Video
Daily Motion
Vimeo
Vine
Reddit Videos
PDF Guides/Slideshows
Scribd
SlideShare
SlideBoom
AuthorStream
Images
Pinterest
Instagram
Ello
Flickr
Reddit-pics
Weheartit
VisualizeUs
Imgur
Sample Embed Code
Replace the URL's in the following code and then copy and paste this code into
your site where you would like the embed code box to appear. You will want to
include the image / infographic above this box.
<textarea rows="7" cols="100" onClick=select() >
<a href="(URL Of The Image File">
<img alt="" src="URL Of The Image File" />
</a>
<a href="(Destination URL #1">Anchor Text #1</a> by
<a href="(Destination URL#2">Anchor Text #2</a>
</textarea>
Searches to use for finding .gov + .edu
