Module 5

Certified Digital Marketing Professional
Module 5 : (S.E.O) SEARCH ENGINE

OPTIMIZATION
PRESENTED BY
[SOBOTAMOH Elias M. Ngi]
Version 7.0
Certified Digital
Marketing
Professional (CDMP)
Module 5
SEARCH ENGINE
OPTIMIZATION
Version 7.0
SOBOTAMOH Elias Manyi NGI
Board Chair @ AdMeUp Digital Academy
• Digital Investment Consultant .

• Board Chair of 4 ROCKS Investment LLC.
• Board Chair of AdMeUp Digital Academy LLC.
• 19 Years experience in investment management
• Expert in Digital strategy and planning.
• Researcher in the applicability of IoT
• Member of IEEE.
Search Engine Optimization
Set Keyword Optimize Measure

Intro to SEO
Objectives Research Performance
Set Optimize Measure

Intro to SEO Keyword Research
Objectives Performance
SEO AGENDA
Introduction to 1. Paid Versus Organic Search
SEO 2. How Search Engines Work
3. Keywords
4. SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)

Paid Versus Organic Search
What is Search Engine Optimization?
The process of getting traffic from the free,

organic,editorial or natural search results on search
engines.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a sub-section of Digital Marketing.
For English speaking countries, Google is typically the largest search
engine with 70%+ market share. Bing and Yahoo are typically the next
biggest players. Google is also the biggest search engine for many non-
English speaking countries but there are exceptions like the search
engines Yandex being the biggest in Russia and Baidu in China.
Even though SEO is free, in that you don’t pay search engines for clicks,
it does incur a cost of time and resources for you and/or your team.
What’s the difference?
Organic Paid
Results take time; often weeks, months and

Near-instant results and often in minutes
sometimes years
Traffic is “free” but requires resources and time Traffic is paid. You pay-per-click (PPC) on a cost-
investment per-click (CPC) keyword basis
ROI is harder to measure but often improves ROI is much easier to measure but can stagnate
over time and/or decline over time
70-80% of searchers click on SEO results 20-30% of searchers click on paid results
Organic search (SEO) requires patience and persistence. The fruits of your
labour today can be enjoyed in the weeks and months ahead. Aside from being
free, SEO has approximately three times the amount of traffic compared to paid
search. With this in mind, it’s important to set expectations for all involved
including key stakeholders like marketing managers, CEOs, clients etc.
Paid search can work together with SEO and is particularly useful at the
beginning of SEO work and where there is a proven return on investment.
What’s the difference?
A. Paid Search A
• Pay Per Click (PPC)
• Cost Per Click (CPC)
B. Organic Search
• Search Engine optimization (SEO)
• ”Free”
B
Paid search is Google’s number one revenue earner and appears above organic
listings. People tend to click in the organic listings more because they have more
trust in them compared to ads. While paid search can provide a great return on
investment, sometimes the introduction of more competitors can increase the
Cost Per Click which in turn reduces the return on investment. As a result of this,
some marketers decide to invest more in SEO.
Similarities between the two
Keyword Landing
Traffic
Research Pages
Both require Keyword Research. If you want to rank on search engines, you first need to know
which keywords to rank for.
1. Both require relevant Landing Pages. Once you know which keywords to target, you’ll
need to optimize web pages to make them relevant. You can use the same landing
pages to target SEO and paid search.
2. Both result in search engine traffic which can help a business grow by meeting its
business objectives.
In addition to the similarities to SEO, it’s not uncommon for marketers to combine both organic
and paid search as part of their marketing mix. When starting from scratch, SEO can take 6-12
months to see worthwhile progress, so marketers often turn to paid search to get momentum
and test out the market.
When good SEO progress is made, many marketers continue with paid search, either to target
the keywords they are not ranking well for, or in some cases to complement the keywords that
rank well. The latter depends on the businesses’ circumstances and search engine strategy.
How Search Engines Work
The three pillars of SEO
Technical On-Page Off-Page
Non-content onsite Content and keyword Offsite activities, like gaining

activities that improve SEO targeting onsite activities external links (backlinks), to
that improve SEO improve SEO
While SEO changes frequently in small ways, the key principles do not. Since Google
came onto the seen in the late 90s, we can break SEO into three components:
• Technical:non-content onsite activities that improve SEO
• On-Page:content and keyword targeting onsite activities that improve SEO
• Off-Page:offsite activities, like gaining external links (backlinks), to improve
SEO
We will be coming back to these three key pillars in more depth in later sections of
this module.
Three key steps
1. Crawling
2. Indexing
3. Ranking
Search engines rely on algorithms to find webpages and decide which ones to rank for any given keyword.
There are 3 steps to how search engines work:
1. Crawling
o Discovery stage
o Automated crawlers are sent to find new and previously known pages by following links from one page to another
Search engines send out web crawlers to find new pages and record information about them.
They discover new pages by following the links on pages they already know about.
For the pages they have previously visited, crawlers are periodically sent back to check whether the content has changed.
Sometimes websites instruct search engines not to crawl certain web pages and these are left out of the index.
2. Indexing
o Filing stage
o Some results are filtered
Most web pages that offer unique and valuable content are placed into the index.
Common reasons for pages not placed in the index are that the content was considered:
• Duplicate
• Low value/spammy
• Couldn’t be crawled
• The page or domain lacked inbound links
2. Rankings
o Retrieval stage
o Search engines scan their indexes
o They select webpages that provides the best answers
o There are over 200 rankings factors
Search engine algorithms
Search engine algorithms are computer programmes

that look for clues to give the searcher back exactly
what they want
Google’s main algorithm is called Hummingbird

In 2013, Google upgraded its main algorithm and named it Hummingbird. This
upgrade included Google being more intelligent in understanding the meaning of
keywords and being better able to return more relevant results.
In 2015, Google announced RankBrain which is a sub-algorithm of Hummingbird and
an artificial intelligence system. This further illustrates the importance of
understanding the true meaning of keywords, rather than just matching up keywords
to pages which mention them.
Keywords
What is a keyword?
A keyword is a word or phrase that a user

enters into a search engine to accomplish a task.
Keywords
Types of keywords
Navigational Informational Transactional

Broadly speaking there are three type of keywords:
• Navigational
• Informational
• Transactional
Depending on the topic or page you are researching, the types of keywords you will
wish to target are likely to require different types of content and a slightly different
approach for SEO. We’ll now review each one.
Keywords
Navigational queries
Navigational queries are keyword searches for a

specific website or webpage
Examples:
Navigational • Moz
• Moz.com
• Rand Fishkin moz
We can think of these types of keywords as signposts that direct searchers to a place
they already have in mind. If you search Google for a brand name, a person’s name
or a URL, you are using navigational queries. Queries and keywords are used
interchangeably in SEO.
Keywords
Informational queries
Informational queries are keyword searches that
help searchers find information
Examples:
• How to do keyword research
• Keyword research guide
• What’s the difference between navigational
Informational and informational keywords?
Collectively, informational queries make up the largest proportion of keywords and
because they happen at the earlier awareness stage of the buying cycle, so are harder to
convert into customers. Blog posts are examples of content where informational keywords
are often targeted. That’s because a blog post is more about informing, rather than selling.
For this reason, informational content tends to be more successful on social media.
Keywords
Transactional queries
Transactional queries are keyword searchers where

the searcher is showing signs that they are ready to
buy and spend money
Examples:
Transactional
• Keyword research tool
• Best keyword suggestion tool
• Buy keyword analysis software
Transactional queries happen at the last decision stage of the buying cycle, so
are easier to convert into customers, but tend to be more competitive to rank
for. As the name suggests, transactional keywords are targeted on sales pages,
so they are often the first types of keywords we research and optimize for. They
are also the most likely to improve the bottom line of your business and help
meet business goals.
Keywords
Keywords and the buying journey
Informational Keywords
Awareness • Collectively the largest proportion of all keywords
• Earlier stage of the buying
cycleHarder to convert into sales
Interest Less competitive to rank for
Navigational Keywords
• Smaller proportion of all keywords
Consideration
• Often brand related keywords
• Can occur at all stages of the buying cycle
Conversion
Transactional Keywords
• Smaller proportion of all keywords
• Last stage of the buying cycle
Retention
• Easier to convert into sales
• More competitive to rank for
As you might expect, transactional keywords are the most likely to help with sales
and help a business grow. But they are also the most competitive type of keywords,
so the hardest to rank for. Some businesses that are new to SEO, ONLY target
transactional keywords which means they struggle to rank for any keywords. By
targeting informational keywords, it often means progress can be made quicker,
particularly at the start for SEO.
SERPs
What is a SERP?
SERP stands for a Search Engine

ResultsPage. These are the results you see
after you search for a keyword.
Search engine results pages are web pages served to users when they search for something
online using a search engine, such as Google. The user enters their search query (often using
specific terms and phrases known as keywords), upon which the search engine presents them
with a SERP.
Every SERP is unique, even for search queries performed on the same search engine using the
same keywords or search queries. This is because virtually all search engines customize the
experience for their users by presenting results based on a wide range of factors beyond their
search terms, such as the user’s physical location, browsing history, and social settings. Two
SERPs may appear identical, and contain many of the same results, but will often feature subtle
differences.
The appearance of search engine results pages is constantly in flux due to experiments
conducted by Google, Bing, and other search engine providers to offer their users a more
intuitive, responsive experience. This, combined with emerging and rapidly developing
technologies in the search space, mean that the SERPs of today differ greatly in appearance
from their older predecessors.
SERPs
Types of SERPs
Classic Universal Extended

SERPs can vary from being relatively simple as in the case with the classic type,
to being much richer and more visual as with universal results and also very
direct where search engines often try to answer queries in the extended results.
Gradually, you’ll see search engines change their look and feel.
We’ll now review the different types in more detail.
SERPs
Classic SERPs
A
B
A. Title Tag
B. URL
C. Meta Description Tag C
D. Rich Snippets
D
E. Sitelinks
E
Classic SERPs are the more typical results and what most people think of when referring to SEO.
This will be the main focus for this module.
A.URLS: URLs are short for uniform resource locator and act as a web address. URLs are
always unique so search engines use them when filing and retrieving pages from their
index.
B. Title Tags: Title tags contain the blue clickable link text that you can click on to visit a
page.
C. Meta Description Tags: Meta description tags contain the short snippet of text
summarizing what a page is about and sits below the title tag.
D.Rich Snippets: Rich snippets help make your listings more visual and stand out.
Examples include product reviews (similar to the example on the slide) or event
information and only appears for some listings.
E. Sitelinks: Sitelinks are extra results below a search result. They are most often shown
for navigational queries as they help a user to quickly navigate your site.
SERPs
Universal SERPs
Videos Images Maps/Local Shopping News

Google SERPs also offers videos, images, maps, shopping and news results which are all types of universal
results. This makes for a fuller and more visual searcher experience.
• Videos can be from YouTube, Vimeo or from other popular video hosting websites. They can also
come from websites that have hosted their own videos. In Google, a video result will have a
thumbnail image with a play button on it (e.g. Google “Golf swing”) and in addition to being found in
regular SERP results, they can be found by clicking the Videos tab in a Google SERP.
• Images are sometimes integrated into the main SERPs (e.g. Google “Golden Retriever”) and they can
also be found in the “Images” menu tab of a Google SERP.
• Maps results are also known as local SEO (e.g. Google “plumbers in Los Angeles”). The results often
appear under a map.
• Shopping results allows searchers to easily compare products and often sit above Google Ads (e.g.
Google “Ethernet cable”).
• News results are shown as “Top Stories” at the top of SERPs only when they are considered current
and newsworthy (e.g. Google “Justin Bieber” or another celebrity who has been in the news recently).
As an exercise, think of a handful of keywords that you’d expect a website would like to rank for. Observe how
often universal results are shown. For some industries it will be very often, e.g. Large Publishers and Google
news or Hotel companies and Google Maps, but for other industries they will appear far less frequently.
SERPs
Examples of Universal SERPs
Maps/Local Search
Maps and local search is an example of Universal Search. They occur when you see maps
results e.g. ”plumbers in Los Angeles”, “Hairdressers in north Sydney” or “landscape
gardener in Toronto”. The process of optimizing maps/local search is known as Local SEO
and is quite different from normal SEO.
To appear in the maps and local Google search results, it starts with registering for Google
My Business. For more information on local SEO, see the Moz article in the references.
SERPs
Extended SERPs
Knowledge Direct Related App Twitter

Graph Answers Question box Packs Cards
• In 2012, Google introduced the Knowledge Graph which understands facts about people, places and
things – and the results are often shown to the side of the results. E.g. Google “Digital Marketing
Institute” and you’ll see DMI information pulled off from Wikipedia on the side.
• Google later introduced featured snippets and direct answers, meaning you no longer need to click a
result to get the answer you are looking for e.g. Google “who ran the first 4 minute mile”.
• Related question boxes appear under the heading “People also ask”. E.g. If you Google “how to tie a
tie” you may see a related question box with further answers to questions like “How do you tie a tie
easily?”, “How long should a tie hang down?“, “How do you tie a tie for dummies?” and “How do you
tie a tie by yourself?”
• App packs are listings of mobile apps that appear for certain keywords e.g. Google “Calendar app”.
• Twitter cards can be shown in SERPs for trending topics on Twitter e.g. Google your local sports team
when a game is on.
As search engines expand and experiment, expect new extensions to be added and occasionally existing ones
to be removed. By looking at what competitors are doing in extended SERPs, ask yourself if this is something
that you can incorporate into your SEO strategy.
SERPs
Example of extended SERPs
Knowledge Graph
Summary
Introduction to SEO
• SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is • Keywords can be navigational, informational and
the process of getting traffic from the free, transactional.
organic, editorial or natural search results on
search engines.
• SERP stands for “search engine results page” and
refers to the listings search engines display after a
• Search engines work by crawling, indexing and listing has be shown.
ranking web pages.
• SEO can be broken down into three core areas:

1. Technical Optimization
2. On-Page Optimization
3. Off-Page Optimization
SERPs
Example of extended SERPs
The Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base used by Google to enhance its search engine's
search results with semantic-search information gathered from a wide variety of sources,
including Wikipedia as in the above example. At the the end of 2016, the knowledge
graph held over 70 billion facts. As Google uses real facts, the Knowledge Graph tends to
be shown for more established businesses, so it can be hard for smaller or newer
companies to influence.
SEO AGENDA
Set SEO 1. Types of SEO Objectives
Objectives 2. Setting Objectives

Types of SEO Objectives
The importance of setting SEO objectives
They They help to

encourage buy- formulate your
in from key SEO strategy
stakeholders
They ensure
objectives
are met
Benefits of setting SEO objectives:
• They encourage buy-in from key stakeholders
• e.g. CEOs, marketing managers & clients
• They help to formulate your SEO strategy by creating a target and a goal to
move towards
• This is key for motivation and lack of it is one of the main reasons
when SEO fails
• They ensure objectives are met
• “What gets measured, gets done”
Types of SEO objectives
What should you measure?
Keywords
Lead Generation
Traffic
Reputation/Backlinks
Market Share E-Commerce
Brand/Product Awareness Ads Revenue

While there are lots of criteria that can be measured for SEO, you don’t have to measure them all, only the ones most
relevant to your business and your SEO strategy.
•Keywords: where a website ranks for a list of keywords on a search engine.
•Traffic: how many organic visits a website gets and this is measured in a web analytics tool like Google Analytics.
•Market share: by researching the keywords of a market and what the overall demand in search volume is, you
can estimate the market share a website has by the percentage of traffic acquired against the total that exists.
•Brand/product awareness: brand and product keywords can be measured in terms of search volume and targets
can be set to increase both over time.
•Lead generation: common examples of leads that can be measured on a website are PDF downloads, contact
enquires or brochure downloads. This typically involves the “lead” supplying their email and/or phone number
in exchange for information or something useful. Targets can be set to increase specific leads or leads in
general.
•Reputation/backlinks: the number of backlinks a website has can be measured through tools like Open Site
Explorer and Ahrefs. Targets can be set to increase these over time.
•E-Commerce: measuring the impact for SEO in sales using a tool like Google Analytics. If a website does not sell
items directly, you can measure how leads are generated using Google Analytics Goals.
•Ads Revenue: some large publishers and blogs’ main source of income is through selling ads on their sites. The
more page views they generate the more ads they can sell. Objectives can be set around page views of pages
with the highest ad revenue.
Setting Objectives
Make your objectives S.M.A.R.T.
As with setting any goal or objective, especially marketing ones, it helps if they
follow the S.M.A.R.T. methodology. Such that your objectives are:
• Specific: not vague and clearly describe what it is you set out to achieve
• Measureable: there needs to be clear metrics that can be measured
before and once a goal is met
• Achievable: they need to be realistic for your business by a certain time
• Relevant: these should relate to the overall business or personal goals
• Time bound: setting a targeted date for the goal to be completed
encourages action to be taken and the goal to be completed
Setting Objectives
Examples of SMART SEO objectives
Move 50% of our top 20 keywords onto the

first page of Google within 9 months
Improve our Year-On-Year organic traffic by

20% in Quarter 3 and 25% in Quarter 4
Grow our SEO market-share from 3% to 5%

in the next financial year
Build 12 relevant backlinks from recognized

industry websites within 12-months
Remember, the most common SEO objectives involves the measurement of
keywords, traffic and conversions/sales. If you are unsure, those are good
starting places.
If you are very new to SEO, keyword rankings is probably the best place to start.
That’s because initially, you’re unlikely to see much organic traffic or sales until
you get on the first page of a search engine. By monitoring keywords, you can
see progress towards rankings on the first page.
Setting Objectives
Examples of SMART SEO objectives
Generate 15% more “request a brochure” leads from

organic search within three months
Generate 35% more online sales from SEO for our top 10
converting landing pages in the next 10 months
Double the page views for our highest ad

revenue pages in 24 months
Raise our product awareness by being

referenced in three of the top five industry news
websites in the next six months
Remember, you don’t have to set SEO objectives for all of these, just the ones
most relevant for the business and/or website you look after. If you work in a
team or are new to the business, consider asking more senior members what
the business goals are, and see how they can be integrated into SEO objectives.
Setting Objectives
Setting objectives for different types of business
settinglead generation SEO goals
Transactional
• E-commerce sites: objectives

areoften in tracking sales and
lead conversions
• Non e-commerce commercial
sites: mostly interested in
nessor increasing their traffic
• Large publishers: interested
inad revenue goals e.g.
increasing organic page views as
Informational they make X$/1000 page views
• Bl
og
s:
lo
ok
for
br
an
d
aw
are
If your business is transactional i.e. you sell a product or service, ultimately the
most important metric to measure is the sale of that product/service. If that’s
not available then you will want to measure a lead (e.g. web enquiry) that helps
convert into a sale.
If your website is more informational, you’re objectives will likely differ and may
be more traffic or brand focused.
Setting Objectives
Have a go!
#1 #2 #3
Have a website in Decide if the Choose your top 3

mind website is objectives for SEO
transactional or
informational
Have a website in mind, this may be a website that you look after or
know well.
• Review whether it is more of a transactional or informational
website
• Decide what the top three objectives for SEO are:
• Tip #1: if the website seems both transactional and
informational, transactional objectives usually take priority.
• Tip #2: if it’s the first time you have set SEO objections,
consider starting off with keyword based ones.
Summary
Set Objectives
• SEO objectives encourage buy-in from key • SEO objectives can be keywords, traffic, market-
stakeholders e.g. CEOs, marketing managers, share, brand/product awareness, lead generation,
clients. reputation/backlinks, e-commerce and/or ad
revenue based.
• They help to formulate your SEO strategy by

creating a target and a goal to move towards.
• SEO objectives should be S.M.A.R.T.

udamentals
SEO AGENDA
Keyword 1. Types of Keywords
Research 2. How to Conduct Keyword Research
3. Turning Research into Content

Types of Keywords
What is keyword research?
Keyword research is the process of discovering the

keywords used by potential customers to find your
products and picking the most relevant keywords that
are within your reach and that have good search volume.
Types of Keywords
The importance of keyword research
• Get the right kind of visitors to your site
• Identify keywords with high search volume and omit low volume terms
• Identify content gaps on your website
• Target keywords that are within your reach

Good keyword SEO before and felt lost, there’s a
research gives you strong chance you didn’t have an
confidence. If you end goal in mind, and that’s what
think keywords are good keyword research provides.
important, and the
keyword data backs it
up, you know you’re
onto a winner. If you
have ever looked at
Snowboards
Types of Keywords
The long and short of keywords
Short-tail keywords
Typically one or two words
Less specific
Skiing
Ski Holidays
Self-drive ski holidays France
Best snowboard for all mountains
Long-tail Keywords
Typically
three or
more
words
More
specific
Best time
to go to
Whistler
The longtail is an idea that was popularized by Chris
Anderson in his book by the same name. Here is a summary
from the book:
“The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy
is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively
small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets)
at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge
number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and
distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to
lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all
containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf
space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-
targeted goods and services can be as economically
attractive as mainstream fare.”
In the above definition, the small number of “hits” are what
we consider the short-tail, the more generic way of
describing a market or topic. They are hits because
individually the search volume is high, but there aren’t that
many of them.
In the world of SEO, there is now more of an expectancy
that a specific search query will be answered by a hyper-
focused topic on a webpage both by search engines and by
its users.
Types of Keywords
Short-tail versus long-tail keywords
High Volume
/ High
Competition
Low Volume /
Low
Competition
The Short-tail
accounts for 30% of all
search
traffic
The Long-tail
accounts for 70% of
all search traffic
Hard to Rank / Easy to Rank

Hard to Convert /Convert
According to Moz.com:
“It's wonderful to deal with keywords that have 5,000 searches a day, or even 500
searches a day, but in reality, these popular search terms actually make up less than 30%
of the searches performed on the web. The remaining 70% lie in what's called the "long
tail" of search. The long tail contains hundreds of millions of unique searches that might be
conducted a few times in any given day, but, when taken together, comprise the majority
of the world's search volume.”
In the above graph, we can see that long-tail keywords accounts for 70% of keyword
search traffic. Individually, the search volume is less compared to the short-tail keywords
but collectively it is significantly bigger. And because long-tail keywords are more specific,
the user knows what they are after, so when the keyword is transactional, they tend to
convert much more easily. As long-tail keywords are often less well known, they are less
competitive, and easier to rank for.
Types of Keywords
Key differences between long and short keywords
Feature Short-tail Long-tail
Intent Vague Specific
Rank Harder to rank Easier to rank
Conversion Harder to convert Easier to convert

Higher individual search volume but Lower individual search volume but
Search volume lower collective search volume higher collective search volume
Research Easier to research Harder to research
Traffic 30% of all traffic 70% of all traffic

Requires more in-depth and a greater
Content Requires a smaller amount of content amount of content
Long-tail keywords are often less competitive because they are less obvious. This makes
them easier to rank, and because they are more specific, they tend to be easier to
convert. One of the downsides of long-tail keywords, is that they take more time to
research and more content is needed to target them. Long-tail keywords can be
transactional, navigational and informational in nature – although it’s perhaps the
informational type of keywords that is the biggest opportunity for long-tail. That’s why
blog posts, particularly long-form blog posts, are a great way to target the long-tail.
How to Conduct Keyword Research
The four steps to successful keyword research
#1 #2 #3 #4
Pick a Topic Brainstorm Review Prioritize

Keywords Keyword Keywords
Value
Before proceeding with on-page optimization (keyword targeting and writing the
content), we need to take a structured process of picking a topic to research,
brainstorming keywords, reviewing the keywords value and then prioritizing
keywords.
1. Pick a topic: focus on one topic or theme at a time. Imagine what the
webpage you want to optimize looks like.
2. Brainstorm keywords: research similar meaning keywords around a closely
related topic. Quantity over quality at this stage.
3. Review keyword value: gather keyword data to help decide how useful the
keywords are and whether they are within reach.
4. Prioritize keywords: decide which keywords are the most important and
which ones you wish to focus more on.
Step 1: Pick a topic
Do Avoid
• Focus on one topic at a time • Going too generic
• Think of topics closely aligned • Researching the whole

to your objectives or industry website at one time
• Have a webpage in mind
• Think of the needs of your

customers
A topic could be for a product or service (transactional keywords), a source of information
(informational keywords) or around a brand or personal (navigational keywords).
For example, “what size snowboard do I need?” has signs of both being informative and
transactional but it’s more an informative keyword because the searcher is researching for
information before deciding whether to buy or not.
Have a webpage in mind, that you would like to optimize, even if it isn’t one that has been
created yet. This will help you throw out keywords that may be too specific or too broad.
The biggest mistake SEO newbies make in keyword research, is focusing on short tail
keywords that are too generic for the page they wish to optimize. For example, targeting
the phrase “shoes” on a running shoes page is too generic and not relevant enough for
search engines to chose and searchers to be happy with.
Step 1: Pick a topic
When you type a keyword into Google and most search
engines, you’ll see related suggestions below. If you put a *
before your keyword, often you’ll get more specific topics
suggested. These can be a great way for coming up with new
topics.
Step 2: Brainstorm keywords
• Aim for quantity, rather than quality (10+ where possible)
Do
• Think of closely related
keywords
• Think synonyms
• Include plural and singular

keywords
o find perfect match
keywords
• Stopping at two or three

keywords
Avoid
• Straying off topic
• T
r
y
i
n
g
o
n
l
y
t
As long as you stay on topic, try and think of as many closely related keywords
as possible.
A good test to see if you are going off topic is to recall what the page/topic
you’re researching might look like and ask whether the keyword is best served
on it or another page. If it’s better served on another page, then you should put
the keyword to the side and re-visit it when you research that other page. As
this is at the brainstorming stage, try and think of as MANY related keywords,
rather than the absolute best. We’ll filter out some and prioritize the best
keywords later.
Step 2: Brainstorm keywords using search engine suggestions & related searches
Earlier we put the * before our keyword but you can also
include it within the keyword to get even more keyword
suggestions. Once you have a topic in mind, this is a
great way of discovering longer-tailed keywords.
Another way, is to look at the related searches which tend
to be at the bottom of SERPs.
Step 2: Brainstorm keywords using Google Keyword Planner
Google’s Keyword Planner is part of Google AdWords and is a great way for brainstorming and researching keywords.
It works where you provide an initial seed keyword, and Google provides related keyword ideas that you may find useful, plus
some extra keyword data like keyword search volumes.
It does require an AdWords account and if you are not spending money on Google adverts, the keyword search volumes are given
in vague ranges. We’ll look at overcoming this by getting more specific search volumes for free later.
For the most part, the results you get from the Google Keyword Planner are usually on topic but in the above example, this is not
the case.
You will see at the top of the image, we are researching the “what size snowboard do I need” but the suggestions are to do with
snowboard boots.
Keyword Options → “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms”
If you select this option from the side menu, you will get less results but more specific results. 70%+ of the time this is not
necessary but in this case it is because the results shown without it are too generic.
With “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms” enabled you can see the results are more on topic.
More specific search volumes
You may have also noticed that an extra column has appeared in the above image with exact search volumes, rather than ranges,
which is far more useful. This is using a free Chrome extension which we will now cover.
Important to note:
Google only gives keyword volume ranges, unless you spend money with them, but with some magic, you can get the exact search
volumes without spending a penny.
Make sure to check out the Google Keyword Planner Tutorial in the Resources section.
Step 2: Brainstorm keywords using Keywordseverywhere.com
Reveals keyword
volumes on a
number of websites
Keywords Everywhere is a useful tool that reveals precise
keyword search volumes in Google Keyword Planner,
Google Search Console, Google, Amazon and many other
sites. It works as a browser extension in Chrome and Firefox.
Step 2: Brainstorm keywords by conducting competitive research
SEMRush and Spyfu are tools that report back what keywords
a URL or website ranks for. This can be great for
brainstorming keywords and keeping tabs on what
competitors are up to. Both offer a freemium model, meaning
you get some functionality for free.
When compiling your list of keywords that closely relate to

your topic, aim for 12 or more.
Include the search volume in brackets after each keyword.
For very niche topics, 3 – 6 keywords may only be possible,
but aim for as many as you can.
Step 2: Brainstorm keywords
Keyword Monthly search Keyword Monthly search

volume volume
Snowboard size guide 320 Snowboard boot sizing 90
Snowboard sizing 320 Snowboard sizes 70
Snowboard size 320 Snowboard binding size 50
Snowboard size chart 170 Ideal snowboard length 30
What size snowboard do I need 170 What size of snowboard do I need 20
Snowboard size calculator 110 Snowboard height size chart 10
Picking a snowboard 90 What size of snowboard do I need for my

0
Snowboarding size chart 90 height
What snowboard size do I need 0
When compiling your list of keywords that closely relate to
your topic, aim for 12 or more.
Include the search volume in brackets after each keyword.
For very niche topics, 3 – 6 keywords may only be possible,
but aim for as many as you can.
Step 3: Review keyword value
Topic
Search Volume Relevancy
Score
For beginner SEO’s deciding which keywords are the best for their topic and their
business, there are two key considerations; search volume and topic relevancy score.
The search volume and topic relevancy is available to everyone and should always be
used.
• Search Volume: we’ve covered that search volumes can be gained through
Google’s Keyword Planner/AdWords and also with the Keywords Everywhere
plugin. Be mindful that for SEO, we tend to target keywords to a country level, so
select the most relevant country that you wish to target. Targeting globally
becomes more relevant once you start to dominate your local country first and is
outside the scope of this module.
• Relevancy Score: is a subjective grading between1 (high) and 3 (low) on how
relevant a keyword is to a topic. Judging the relevancy score is subjective. if you
are new to the industry or the products/services/topics you are researching, you
may need help from a colleague to best help grade how relevant keywords are to
the topics you are researching. If you are getting help from others, emphasize that
you are judging the relevancy to the topic and not the website as a whole.
Step 3: An example of reviewing keyword value
Topic
Monthly Google
Keyword Relevancy
Search Volume
Score
snowboard size guide 320 1 Topic: what size snowboard do I need?
snowboard sizing 320 1
snowboard size 320 1
what size snowboard do I

170 1
need?
snowboard size chart 170 1
snowboard size calculator 110 1
picking a snowboard 90 3
snowboarding size chart 90 1
In the above example, we have graded “picking a
snowboard” as a 3 for the relevancy to the topic. The topic
is about snowboard sizing, so while “picking a snowboard”
is a related topic, it’s actually a parent topic and best saved
for another page.
Step 3: An example of reviewing keyword value
Monthly Topic
Keyword Google Search Relevancy
Volume Score
snowboard boot sizing 90 3
snowboard sizes 70 1
snowboard binding size 50 3
ideal snowboard length 30 2 ?
snowboard weight 30 2 ?
snowboard height size chart 10 1
what size of snowboard do I need for my

0 1
height
what snowboard size do I need 0 1
You’ll see there are a number of keywords also graded as 3s which are best
saved for other topics/pages. We’ve also put an X against keywords with
zero search volume.
Note: In some very niche industries, especially where there is a high
average order value, you may still wish to target keywords that are flagged
with zero search volume as it’s still possible they may bring in traffic and
convert.
Step 4: Prioritize keywords
Title tags need keywords but we

can’t fit all our keywords in there
Title tags need keywords but it’s not possible to fit
all the keywords that we want to rank for in there,
and even if it was, that could look like keyword
stuffing which is frowned upon. Instead we need to
focus on the most important keywords and that’s
why prioritizing them helps.
For on-page optimization, keyword targeting and
prioritizing keywords is important. There will be
more on this later.
Step 4: Prioritize keywords
Monthly Topic
Keyword Google Search Relevancy Priority
Volume Score
snowboard sizing 320 1 P1 Always one P1 keyword
snowboard size guide 320 1 P2

Two P2 keywords
snowboard size 320 1 P2
what size snowboard do I

Three or more P3 keywords
170 1 P3
need
snowboard size chart 170 1 P3
snowboard size calculator 110 1 P3
snowboarding size chart 90 1 P3
snowboard sizes 70 1 P3
Now we will look at prioritizing keywords by collecting
keyword data from brainstormed keywords. The goal here
is to pick a half dozen or so keywords to target and order
them by importance.
Turning Research into Content
Have a go!
This can also

This can be for include“content
pages that gaps” where
already exist on content doesn’t
your site currently exist
Build the
keyword
research list into
a spreadsheet
The best way of learning is through doing, so why not conduct keyword research for 10
topics? This could be for a website you look after or know well.
• Identify the top 10 pages for your site that you would like to rank on search engines
• Repeat the keyword research for each in a spreadsheet (like in the following slide)
• Explore relevant topics that are not covered by existing content
• Research further pages and content gaps
Turning Research into Content
Using a spreadsheet to guide you
Topic P1 Keyword P2 Keyword P2 Keyword P3 Keyword P3 Keyword P3 Keyword P3 Keyword P3 Keyword
what size snowboard

What size snowboard do I snowboard snowboard snowboard snowboard snowboardi snowboard
snowboard size
need? sizing size guide size do I need size chart calculator ng size chart sizes
Snowboard boots / bindings
Picking a snowboard
Burton snowboard bindings
Best snowboard bindings
Ladies snowboard jacket
Snowboard maintenance
Snowboard accessories
You may like to research your topics using a spreadsheet like the one above.
The main idea is that:
• You enter your topic in the left column
• Have one P1 keyword per topic
• Two P2 keywords per topic
• Typically around three P3 keywords but can be less or more depending
how big the topic is
Remember a topic will translate into a webpage that you can optimize the
keywords into. If it helps, you can add a column to the spreadsheet for the
URL of the webpage that you plan to associate to the topic.
Summary
Keyword Research
• Keyword research is the process of discovering the • The 4 steps to successful keyword research:
keywords used by potential customers to find your 1. Pick a topic: just one at a time
products and picking the most relevant keywords that 2. Brainstorm keywords: the more the merrier and
are within your reach and that have good search around a closely related topic
3. Review keyword value: such as the search volume,
volume.
relevancy score and keyword difficulty
4. Prioritize keywords: so you know how much focus
• Long tail keywords are less obvious, less competitive and to give each keyword when doing on-page
optimization
collectively have the larger search volume; so they are
worth spending the extra time researching and creating
extra content.
SEO AGENDA
Optimize 1. Technical Optimization
3. Off-page Optimization
4. SEO Action Plan

The optimize process is broken down into the three core and timeless SEO principles:
1. Technical Optimization
3. Off-Page Optimization
It also looks at how we can apply the theory into a real-life successful SEO campaign.
Technical Optimization
What is it?
SEO activities completed on your site that are designed

to improve SEO but are not related to content.
While it can help if you have a technical background, many technical
optimization tasks can be either completed or directed by a non-technical
person. Remember Technical Optimization is one of the three Pillars to SEO. We
can think of these as broad categories for SEO that everything else fits under.
Examples of technical optimizations are making sure a website has clean code, is
free from site and URL errors and has minimal duplicate content. We’ll now
discuss some of these and others in more detail.
Features of technical optimization
Time
Ranking investment
Factors
Technical
Tools
Help
Activities
Features of technical optimization:
• Activities: involves SEO activities completed on your site that are designed to
improve SEO but are not related to content
• Ranking factors: this stage is largely about optimizing the crawlability of the site so
that content can be easily found and indexed. Contains a small amount of less
important ranking factors but is still important to get right
• Tech Help: they may require the help of a web developer or someone technical
because many changes require code tweaks within the website
• Time investment: this is largely up-front work, with some ongoing maintenance
• Tools: there are lots of great tools that can help diagnose technical issues,
including Google Search Console, Screaming Frog SEO Spider and Xenu Link Sleuth
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free service offered by

Google that helps you monitor and maintain your
site's presence in Google Search results.
Note: Google Search Console was called Google Webmaster Tools, so you when you research online you may see both being
referenced.
The following is text is borrowed from the Google Search Console help pages and you can find a link in the references below.
What is Search Console?
Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor and maintain your site's presence in Google
Search results. You don't have to sign up for Search Console for your site to be included in Google's search results, but doing
so can help you understand how Google views your site and optimize its performance in search results.
Why use Search Console?
Monitor your site's performance in Google Search results:
• Make sure that Google can access your content
• Submit new content for crawling and remove content you don't want shown in search results
• Create and monitor content that delivers visually engaging search results
• Maintain your site with minimal disruption to search performance
• Monitor and resolve malware or spam issues so your site stays clean
• Discover how Google Search—and the world—sees your site:
• Which queries caused your site to appear in search results?
• Did some queries result in more traffic to your site than others?
• Are your product prices, company contact info, or events highlighted in rich search results?
• Which sites are linking to your website?
• Is your mobile site performing well for visitors searching on mobile?
Who should use Search Console?
Anyone with a website! From generalist to specialist, from newbie to advanced, Search Console can help you.
• Business owner who delegates. Even if you don't think you know how to use Search Console, you should be aware of
it and become familiar with the basics. You might hire your webmaster or a marketing specialist to help you set up
your website with Search Console. In that case, you can work with that person to ensure you have access and
control to all of the reports for your website. In addition, it's a good idea to learn all you can about how your site is
performing in search results so you can make important business decisions about your site.
• SEO specialist or marketer. As someone focused on online marketing, Search Console will help you monitor your
website traffic, optimize your ranking, and make informed decisions about the appearance of your site's search
results. You can use the information in Search Console to influence technical decisions for the website and do
sophisticated marketing analysis in conjunction with other Google tools like Analytics, Google Trends, and
AdWords.
• Site Administrator. As a site admin, you care about the healthy operation of your site. Search Console lets you easily
monitor and in some cases resolve server errors, site load issues, and security issues like hacking and malware. You
can also use it to ensure any site maintenance or adjustments you make happen smoothly with respect to search
performance.
• Web Developer. If you are creating the actual markup and/or code for your site, Search Console helps you monitor
and resolve common issues with markup, such as errors in structured data.
• App Developer. If you own an app, you want to see how mobile users find your app using Google Search. Search
Console can help you integrate your app seamlessly with with the website world.
Diagnosing technical issues with Google Search Console
Google Search Console
1. Verify as site owner (when no other site owners exist). Follow Google’s site verification process by acting as site owner
e.g. uploading a HTML file to your site.
2. Ask a colleague to be added (when a site owner already exists). Find out who is the site owner and ask them to grant
you Google Search Console access for a website.
Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing offers a similar product to Search Console called Bing Webmaster Tools. Follow a similar process to above.
The following is text is borrowed from the Google Search Console help pages and you can find a link in the references below.
Verify your site ownership
What is verification?
Verification is the process of proving that you own the site or app that you claim to own. We need to confirm ownership because
once you are verified for a site or app you have access to its private Google Search data, and can affect how Google Search crawls
it.
Verification associates a specific user with a specific property. Every Search Console property requires at least one verified owner,
though it can have more.
Note that you could add any site or app as a property to Search Console, but until you verify ownership of it (or an owner grants
you rights on it) you can't use it in Search Console. For example, you could add www.wikipedia.org as a property to your Search
Console account, but you wouldn’t be able to access it until a Wikipedia developer helped you prove ownership (or a Wikipedia
Search Console property owner added you as a user to the Search Console property).
Verify a website
1. Either add a new site (see link in references) or click Manage Property > Verify this property on the Search Console
home page next to the existing property that you want to verify.
2. Choose one of the verification methods listed below and follow the instructions. Not all verification methods are
available for all properties; the verification page will list which methods are available and recommended for your site.
o Verification methods include (more detail in the link in the references section):
o HTML file upload
o Domain name provider
o HTML tag
o Google Analytics tracking code
o Google tag manager container snippet
o Google sites
o Blogger
Multiple people can add and verify a site separately, using the same or different methods. If you use the same
method, just be sure that you don't overwrite any verification tokens of any other owners.
Crawlability optimization in five steps
1. Minimize site errors
2. Use redirects wisely
3. Create & submit an up-to-date XML sitemap
4. Minimize duplicate content
5. Check for indexed pages

Step 1: Minimize site and URL errors
Minimize site errors: Site example shows a very high
and URL errors can restrict number of Not Found URL
access to useful pages and errors, so further
if too frequent, can lower investigations need to be
the overall trust of a made so the appropriate
domain. In Google Search fixes can be put in place.
Console, you can find Site
and URL errors under Crawl
→ Crawl Errors. This
permanently” “Moved
Temporarily”
Step 2: Use redirects wisely
301 302
“Moved “Found” or
Meta Refresh
"If you are not

redirected in five
seconds, click
here."
Use redirects wisely: if a URL has changed, redirects can be used to take the user or search engine to the right place and
preserve the page’s trust and reputation, while avoiding URL errors.
There are three main types of redirects:
1. 301, "Moved Permanently"—recommended for SEO. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect which passes between 90-
99% of link juice (ranking power) to the redirected page. 301 refers to the HTTP status code for this type of redirect. In
most instances, the 301 redirect is the best method for implementing redirects on a website.
2. 302, "Found" or "Moved Temporarily“. Some of Google's employees have indicated that there are cases where 301s
and 302s may be treated similarly, but our evidence suggests that the safest way to ensure search engines and browsers
of all kinds give full credit is to use a 301 when permanently redirecting URLs.
3. Meta Refresh. Meta refreshes are a type of redirect executed on the page level rather than the server level. They are
usually slower, and not a recommended SEO technique. They are most commonly associated with a five-second
countdown with the text "If you are not redirected in five seconds, click here." Meta refreshes do pass some link juice,
but are not recommended as an SEO tactic due to poor usability and the loss of link juice passed.
The most recommended redirect is the 301 redirect as this is thought to pass the most amount of reputation.
The majority of Content Management Systems (CMSs) allow for non-technical people to implement redirects. WordPress
is a popular CMS and the simplest way to create a redirect is by installing a redirect plugin. For some CMSs, you may
need to get help from a technical person to help implement redirects.
Step 3: Create and submit an up-to-date XML sitemap
This site has an index rate of

around 12%, meaning that the
majority of pages submitted in the
XML sitemap are not included in
Google’s index
1. Create your sitemap:
The most commonly used sitemap is the XML sitemap. This is designed for search engines, rather than people,
and is one file that contains a collection or all of your web pages. While search engines predominately crawl
web pages by following links from one web page to another, they also use XML sitemap for discovering pages.
Most CMSs will automatically create an XML sitemap but you need to make sure this has been enabled.
If one exists, you can often find your XML sitemap at www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
2. Submit your sitemap to Google:
There are two different ways to make your sitemap available to Google:
1. Submit your XML sitemap via Google Search Console -
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/sitemap-list
2. Insert the following line anywhere in your robots.txt file, specifying the path to your sitemap:
Sitemap: http://example.com/sitemap_location.xml. Be very careful when making changes to the
robots.txt file and always check with an expert if you are unsure as you can accidently de-index
useful pages.
Once you have submitted your XML sitemap to Google, you’ll be updated on how many of the submitted pages
have been indexed. You’re goal is to get all your useful pages indexed and aim for 95%+ of all pages. The
example screenshot only has 12% of the submitted pages indexed which is not good and would need further
investigation.
Step 4: Minimize duplicate content
Search engines They will not index

prefer to index duplicate content or place
unique content it in a secondary, lesser user
index
While a small amount of duplicate content is ok, search engines prefer unique content and
may choose to not index content that it considers duplicate. Duplicate content can be
identified through:
1. HTML improvements in Google Search Console where duplicate pages
will be highlighted if they exist.
2. Copying an extract of text found (e.g. 10 words or so) in a web page
and pasting it in quotes into a search engine. If multiple pages are
shown in a search engine, this may be a sign of duplicate content. For
each web page checked, you can repeat this process three times.
Step 5: Check for indexed pages
This will show whether the page

was indexed and if so, when it
was indexed and what the page
looked like
Or, copy the URL and paste it into the address bar of
Chrome with cache: before it e.g.
Select cached from cache:https://www.facebook.com
green triangle icon

next to URLs in
Google
If you want to view what a webpage looked like the last time Google visited it and also
when it happened, you can check Google’s cache of the page and this is the version stored
in its index.
How to get to a cached link:
1) In a web browser, do a Google search for the page you want to find (you can paste
the URL into Google). In the Google SERP, click the green down arrow to the right
of the site's URL and then click Cached.
2) In Chrome, copy the URL path you wish to check. Then type into the address bar
cache:www.url-you-wish-to-check.com e.g. cache:https://www.facebook.com
If a 404 page is returned from the cache command, it means the page has not been
cached and it’s not in Google’s index. If you see a version of the page, this is what is used
in the index and the date and time of when it was last cached will be displayed. This
means that when you make changes to the content of web pages, it can take time for
Google to update it’s index.
Technical SEO ranking factors
HTTPs
Mobil
e
Site Speed friendliness HTTPs
You’ll remember earlier that technical optimization or technical SEO is primarily about making
your website free of errors, easy to crawl and easy to index. Compared to on-page optimization
and off-page optimization, technical optimization plays a smaller role in keyword rankings but
we will now look at three technical factors that matter:
• Site speed: it was quite rare back at the time, but back in 2010, Google officially
announced a ranking factor for SEO. It was for Site Speed and it was rare because
ranking factors were mainly kept a secret. Although, as it is only a slight ranking factor,
improving site speed is more likely to be noticeable in your bottom line in helping
improve conversions and sales, rather than SEO. That said, if web pages are noticeably
slow, this could have a significantly negative effect on both conversions and SEO.
• Mobile friendliness: with the use of mobile overtaking desktop, this ranking factor has
become more important than ever.
• HTTPs: this means making your pages more secure.
We will now look at each of these factors in more detail.
How to improve site speed
• Should be aiming for 2 seconds or less

• Make image file sizes smaller
• Compress text and files
• Minimize the number of requests made
• Upgrade your web hosting and many more
Site Speed
Albeit a slight ranking factor, site speed offers additional benefits for
conversions/sales, rather than SEO alone. Independent studies by Kiss Metrics
and Google suggest a page should load in 2 seconds or less. If a page takes much
longer than two seconds it has a bad impact on user experience and could leave
the user frustrated and not want to continue using the website. In a later slide,
we’ll look at Pingdom which helps diagnose areas of a web page that can be
improved for speed such as making larger images smaller, compressing text and
files, and minimizing the total numbers of requests being made.
Often a technical person or web developer is required to make improvements
on site speed.
Google PageSpeed Insights
Test My Site – Think With Google
Google also offers a dedicated mobile page speed testing tool: Think With
Google. This goes more in-depth and may indicate that mobile site speed may
become a more important ranking factor in the future. Google mentions that
“70% of cellular network connections globally will occur at 3G or slower speeds
through 2020”, so it’s key to get a fast loading site under such conditions, so
bear that in mind for your current and future web builds.
Pingdom
Pingdom is an independent tool that also grades how well a web page is
optimized for site speed. It has the added benefit of providing a page speed
loading time.
Google’s Maile Ohye, states that “2 seconds is the threshold for e-commerce
website acceptability. At Google, we aim for under a half second. Half a second
is fast, to put it in layman terms, it’s close to a blink, while two seconds is
shorter than one breath”. Bear in mind, while this advice is still relevant, it was
provided in 2010 but the general consensus is that these are still sensible
targets to aim for, especially with the rise in mobiles and tablets that often rely
on phone data signals.
Mobile Friendliness
• Google announced mobile-friendliness as a

ranking factor back in 2015
• Mobile usage overtook desktop in 2015
• Google announced that it plans to have a mobile-
first index
Mobile
friendliness
Google announced mobile-friendliness as a significant ranking factor back in
2015. Although feedback from the SEO industry suggested its initial impact was
relatively small, the announcement suggests it will become a stronger ranking
factor in the future. This is enhanced further with Google’s plans to prioritize its
index for mobile over desktop in the future.
Responsive web design is the most common way of making a website mobile
friendly. It works by making your web pages look good on all devices (desktops,
tablets, and phones). Responsive web design uses HTML and CSS to resize,
shrink or enlarge content to make it look good on any screen.
Mobile Friendliness
• Test individual URLS
• The mobile usability

report tests a whole
website
If you wish to test whether a website is mobile friendly, the best way is through
the Mobile Usability report in Google Search Console. Here you will be able to
check if it is and if not, what areas and pages need improving. This requires a
verification process to see the data. If you do not have such access or wish to
quickly check one URL at a time, you can use Google’s mobile-friendly test tool
which will provide similar information but on one URL at a time.
HTTPs
• Google announced HTTPs as a ranking factor back

in 2014
• HTTPs was primarily used to protect pages that collected
information like a contact us or a shopping cart page
HTTPs
• Implementing HTTPs from HTTP requires careful
redirect planning
HTTPs • Moving to HTTPs requires an SSL certificate

• Google announced HTTPs as a ranking factor back in 2014 albeit, a very slight ranking factor.
• HTTPs was primarily used to protect pages that collected information like a contact us or a
shopping cart page. Recently, there has been a shift where ALL pages have HTTPs as this gives
all pages a slight ranking boost.
• Implementing HTTPs from HTTP requires careful redirect planning
• Moving to HTTPs requires an SSL certificate
Adding HTTPs to your site makes your webpages more secure. To do this you you need to include a SSL
(Secure Sockets Layer) certificate which traditionally is something you need to buy, although in recent
years you can do it for free e.g. through Let's Encrypt.
When adding HTTPs (from HTTP), you are changing the URL that search engines need to index. It is
critically important that you redirect the old HTTP URL to the new HTTPs URL and this should be done
through a 301 redirect.
On-Page Optimization
What is it?
On-Page Optimization is the process of ensuring your

content is both relevant and provides a great user experience.
It includes targeting the right keywords within your content
and plays a leading role in search engine rankings.
In the old days, many approached on-page optimization as simply keyword stuffing; that
is, you mention the keywords you would like to rank for as many times within the content
as possible. This made for a bad user and reading experience. These days on-page
optimization includes smart keyword targeting, where keywords are mentioned in key
elements while still providing a good user experience. This means that the reading
experience needs to be good and also that your content satisfies what the user is actually
looking for.
On-Page Optimization plays a significant role in the rankings process. Changes are made
through a Content Management System, meaning a non-technical person should be able
to do it. If you have a modern Content Management System like WordPress, it should be
easy to target keywords in key elements. We’ll cover the key elements shortly but they
include making images, headings, main body copy, meta description tags and title tags.
Time investment is split between up-front work and ongoing maintenance.
Tools of the trade
SEOptimer, Mozbar and SEO SiteCheckup are SEO tools that are all able
to grab the important on-page elements from the HTML for a webpage.
This is useful when we want to quickly review whether an existing page
has been optimized or not. It also saves time in having to dig around in
the source code.
Mozbar
Mozbar is a Chrome and Firefox extension created by Moz.com. It has more functionality in Chrome as
do many other SEO browser extensions.
1) When installed, you can click the M icon in the top right of the browser so it is selected and turns
blue (you can click it again to toggle it off when finished).
2) Then click the Page Analysis icon on the top left to inspect the most important on-page SEO
elements.
Two categories of on-page optimization
Pre-click on-page optimization as the name suggests is optimizing for what’s visible to the
user before they click on a result. This includes:
• The title tag
• The URL
• The meta description
As you’d expect, part of this process involves encouraging the searcher to click on your
listing, rather than the others.
Post-click on-page is everything the searcher sees after they click on a listing and when
they visit your site. So this is what the visitor sees when they land on your webpage. It
includes optimising keywords and the user intent of keywords into the main copy,
headings, hyperlinks and images.
Do your keyword research and prioritization before you begin
Monthly Google Topic Relevancy

Keyword Priority
Search Volume Score
snowboard sizing 320 1 P1
snowboard size guide 320 1 P2
snowboard size 320 1 P2
what size snowboard do I need 170 1 P3
snowboard size chart 170 1 P3
snowboard size calculator 110 1 P3
snowboarding size chart 90 1 P3
snowboard sizes 70 1 P3
Before starting on-page optimization you need to decide
what page you are optimizing and what keywords you wish
to target. This requires keyword research and ideally
prioritizing the keywords like we did in an earlier exercise. For
the upcoming on-page optimization lessons, we’ll show
examples of how you would optimize the snowboard sizing
page.
Portent’s SERP Preview Tool
Portent’s SERP Preview Tool is an excellent way of visually seeing what a Google
search result would look like before you make the pre-click on-page
optimization changes. This way you can make sure your snippets are the right
length and that they look enticing for the user to click through.
Amazon is incredibly dominant in SEO and there are lots of reasons for this.
They provide a great user experience on their site, have a big product range and
have a colossal domain authority. Although as we can see from the above slide,
their title and meta description tags are a little on the long side and get
truncated which isn’t ideal for click-throughs.
Title tags
Sometimes they are

visible in the tab
area next to the
URL
Title tags are the blue

clickable links in SERPs and
the first thing a searcher
sees
Aside from the main body copy, title tags are the single most important on-page element to get
right. They are the first part of a listing a user sees after they make a search and search engines
pay close attention to what words are provided which influences how well your web pages will
rank.
Source:
You can see the title in the source code by right clicking on the webpage and selecting “view
source code”. It will appear as <title>Corporate Training | Digital Marketing Institute</title>
Why Title Tags are important:
• It's a heavy weight on-page SEO signal and the single most important place
to include keywords
• Getting it right has a direct impact on higher rankings

If you look carefully at the top of an internet browser, you can hover over the tab which is next
to the address bar and see the full title tag.
How to optimize title tags
Work in Use the space Be descriptive

keywords provided and engaging
70 characters (600
pixels)
The most important part when optimizing title tags is to get the right blend of keywords. If it looks like
one long keyword list, you may be considered a spammer, but if it includes your main keywords (your
primary (P1) and secondary (P2) keywords) and is written in natural compelling English, then you should
be on track.
One of the reasons we prioritize the keyword research is for the title tag optimization. This is because
it’s hard to work more than three or four keywords into a title tag, so we tend to just focus on the
primary and secondary keywords; which are three keywords in total. Often the tertiary keywords (P3)
are closely related to the primary and secondary keywords, so they are fairly well represented.
How to optimize title tags:
1. Work in keywords (this is the most important part to get right)
• Include main (primary and secondary) keywords

• Main keywords nearer the beginning help
• Don't keyword stuff
2. Use the space provided
• Max space is 600 pixels (around 70 characters including spaces)
• Over 600 pixels gets truncated off the SERP listings

3. Be descriptive and engaging
• Describe the page in a natural human-friendly language
• Make enticing enough to encourage click-through
Some extra info:
• Common sentence separators are "|" and "-”
• Brand is optional and commonly used after a sentence separator at the end. The exception to
this is for the homepage where the brand is typically at the beginning of a title tag.
Very occasionally Google will write its own Title Tag in the SERPs
An example of how to optimize title tags
Keyword Priority
snowboard sizing P1
snowboard size guide P2
snowboard size P2
what size snowboard do I need P3
snowboard size chart P3
snowboard size calculator P3
snowboarding size chart P3
snowboard sizes P3
This is for a fictitious snowboarding company called “SnoWayBro”. Normally, we
pay most attention in optimizing the P1 keyword and P2 keywords. But in this
case because many of the keywords are so similar in meaning, we managed to
accommodate all of the P3 keywords pretty well, asides from “what size
snowboard do I need”. That’s because so many of the P3 keywords were close
variants of the P1 and P2 keywords, e.g. synonyms or plural/singular differing.
The chosen Title tag is: Snowboard Sizing Guide, Charts & Calculator | Sno Way
Bro
You can see we have used Portent’s SERP preview tool which helps illustrate
what the title tag will look like and whether it’s within the recommended size
limits.
Meta tag descriptions
Meta tag descriptions are the

short snippet of descriptive text
below the URL in SERPs
Meta description tags are only visible in the SERPs and the source code. You cannot see them when you
are viewing the main content of a page. As you’ll find out in this SEO module, there is quite a bit of
work involved in ranking for a keyword but one of the most overlooked aspects of SEO, is improving the
click-through rate in a search engine listing where you actually rank.
Source:
You can see the meta tag description in the source code by right clicking on the webpage and selecting
“view source code”. It will appear as <metaname='description' content=' Transform your business by
providing digital marketing & social selling training solutions to your employees. Find out how it can
impact your business today. ' />
Why Meta Tags are important:
o It's a medium weight on-page SEO signal although it doesn’t have a direct impact
to higher rankings
o It plays a big role in enticing the user to click-through to your listing
If you have an uninspiring or keyword stuffed meta description, you may get half the clicks of a well
written and more click-worthy one. So they really are worth the time and effort.
How to optimize meta description tags
Make descriptive Keep short and Be careful with

and engaging concise keywords
Max 156 characters

The meta description can be thought of as your chance to sell the page, so it
encourages the searcher to click on your listing. If the page has any unique selling
points that none or few of the competitors have, then list them here.
How to optimize meta description tags:
1. Make descriptive and engaging (this is the most important part to get right)
• Try to make your listing stand out from the crowd. Does the page
contain any unique selling points?
• Describe the page in a natural language and enticing enough to
encourage click-throughs
2. Keep short and concise
• Max space is 156 characters (around two short sentences)

3. Be careful with keywords
• Include main keyword or close variation

• Keywords in meta description DO NOT directly improve rankings,
so avoid keyword stuffing
Some extra info: Occasionally Google will write its own Meta Description tags in the
SERPs if one hasn’t been written or isn’t deemed relevant enough to the keywords
used by a searcher.
An example of how to optimize meta description tags
Exact keywords and close

variants get bolded
easy. It’s written with the user in mind with “your specific riding habits”. It
includes the main keyword but in a way that makes the snippet relevant to the
user and not spammy.
The chosen meta description tag is: Quick and easy snowboard size calculator
and sizing charts, to help you find the right gear for you and your specific riding
habits.
Note:
In this example, the user searches for “snowboard sizing” and even though that
exact phrase isn’t mentioned, a close variant (snowboard size) is mentioned, so
Google choses to bold the text. When text is bolded, this improves the chances
of the listing being clicked on.
URLs
Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)

are web addresses seen in SERPs
Over time a page will build up trust and authority which is assigned to its URL.
Changing a URL without redirecting appropriately can lose trust. Because of this, it’s
best not to change a URL where possible and to try and get them right from the start.
Why URLs are important:
o It's a light weight on-page SEO signal
o They are seen in the search results so they can attract click-
throughs when relevant
o Search Engines index and retrieve pages based on the URL – and
build up search engine trust through them
How to optimize URLs
Include main Keep short and Set URLs right Stick to

keywords or concise at the conventions
close variation beginning
70 characters
By default URLs are often generated from the main heading of the page by the CMS. This
is good as a default as relevancy is added but the downside is that they often become long
and repetitive, so ideally they need to be changed to something different and shorter.
How to optimize URLs:
1. Include main keyword or close variation
2. Keep short and concise (around 70 characters before truncation)
3. Set URLs right at the beginning
4. Stick to conventions
• Use dashes "-" instead of underscores "_" to separate words
• Use lowercase characters

An example of how to optimize URLs
2
In this example, both URLs would score about the same for relevancy.
The first one (“/snowboard-sizing”) is the simplest to do but the second one
(“/snowboards/sizing”) would be better for larger sites with lots of different
types of products because it gives an idea of the relationship of products to
their parent categories.
The two suggested URLs: 1) www.snowaybro.com/snowboard-sizing and 2)
www.snowaybro.com/snowboards/sizing
Headings
H1 tag
H2 tag
Headings help outline what a webpage is about. They are used in a similar way as
Microsoft Word. The main heading should be within a H1 tag, secondary headings in H2
tags, tertiary in H3 tags and this can go all the way up to H6 tags.
Why headings are important:
Headings are one of the first things a user notices and the main heading (H1 tag) needs to
be relevant to what they have searched. Users scan a page's headlines before deciding
whether to read the whole page or go back to where they have come from.
• It's a medium weight on-page SEO signal and adds relevancy to the page.
There are six header tags (H1 through to H6) which are used to outline the hierarchy of
content. The main heading should be in a H1 tag. Secondary sub-headings should be in H2
tags. H3 - H6 tags aren't used as often in body copy but work in the same hierarchal sub-
heading way.
How to optimize headings
Add headings Tailor keywords to Try to add

and sub-headings the type of page targeted or
for the user first similar meaning
keywords
One of the key things to avoid with headings or any on-page optimization it trying to force too many
keywords in and jeopardise the readability of the page. While you get more bang for your buck in
making the main heading (H1) more relevant than sub-headings, you don’t always need to use the
exact keyword(s) that you want to rank for; often similar meaning keywords can be enough.
How to optimize headings:
1. Add headings and sub-headings for the user first, not SEO
2. Adding keywords can work differently depending on the page type:
• Transactional pages: tend to be more keyword focused and usually includes the
main keyword or close variant
• Informational pages: like blog posts tend to be more user focused and sometimes
include the main keyword or close variant
3. Look for opportunities to add your targeted keywords or similar meaning keywords as part of a
heading
An example of how to optimize headings
H1 tag
Snowboard
Sizing
What Size Snowboard Do I Need? H2 tag

In this example, we have used two exact keywords from our targeted
keywords list. This is because it makes sense to do so and helps the user.
The two suggested Headings: H1: Snowboard Sizing and H2: What Size
Snowboard Do I Need?
Note: while it won’t hurt having your keywords in headings, you should
write them for the user first which means sometimes they will not
contain keywords, especially for informative types of pages.
Main copy
Snowboard
Sizing
Main copy is text on a web
page that features after the
main heading
What Size Snowboard Do I Need?

The main copy is ultimately where the user is going to find what they are looking for or
not, so search engines pay close attention to it.
Main copy:
The main copy is text on a web page that features after the main heading:
• It’s also known as body text
• It can include hyper links

Why the main copy is important:
• It's a high weight on-page SEO signal and adds relevancy to the page
• The main content is where the user is ultimately satisfied or not with
what they are looking for
Keyword frequency in the main copy
Matt Cutts says there isn’t an ideal keyword density formula
and hints that thinking about it in such a way can be
unhealthy and may encourage you to over optimize and
load too many keywords into your content. He does
however say that including the keywords you’d like to rank
for is a good thing, but it should be done in a natural way
that enhances the readability of the page.
How to optimize main copy
Ignore keyword
No strict guidelines density and don't
on length repeat keywords too
often
How to optimize main copy:
1. There are no strict guidelines on length
o The content should be long enough so that:
✓ It satisfies what the user is looking for and
✓ Search engines understand what the page is about
2. Keyword usage
o Ignore keyword density and don't repeat keywords too often
o As a loose rule for 500 words, mention:
✓ Primary keywords two or three times
✓ Secondary keywords one or two times
✓ Tertiary keywords zero or one times
o Use synonyms and close keyword variations
o Write in natural human-friendly language
As Matt Cutts mentions in the previous Google video, there isn’t a special keyword density
formula and when you mention keywords too often, search engine may see it as being
spammy and count against you. That’s why this keyword repetition recommendation for
500 words should be taken quite loosely.
Using synonyms and keyword variations can help, so instead of saying “seo training” ten
times, you could say it two or three times but then also mention things like “learn SEO”,
“SEO workshop”, ”class”, “search engine optimization tutorial” and “how to get to the top
of Google”. Even if such keywords were not in your targeted keyword list, they would help
by being synonyms or close in meaning to your target keywords, so would add relevancy
to a page – but again this should be done in a natural way that isn’t going to annoy your
readers.
Hyperlinks in the main copy
Relevance
Reputation
The words you use in the hyperlink
is called anchor text and pass The more internal links a page has the
relevancy to the receiving page more important it is deemed to be, so
it will stand a better chance of ranking
So SEO training will pass more
relevancy than click here
In SEO, hyperlinks help the page you are linking to. The way you link to pages internally plays an
important role in search engine rankings. Linking to pages with descriptive and easy to understand
anchor text, that doesn’t look spammy, will pass more relevancy. Also, make sure you are linking to
your important pages regularly. E.g. If you wrote a blog post about “5 Things to See and Do in Paris”, it
would probably make sense to link back to the Paris destination page.
The words you use in the hyperlink is called anchor text and pass relevancy to the receiving page
o So SEO training will pass more relevancy than click here
Hyperlinks also pass reputation:
o The more internal links a page has the more important it is deemed to be,
so it will stand a better chance of ranking
o Although don’t over link where it makes for a bad user experience
Images
Snowboard
Sizing
Images
What Size Snowboard Do I Need?

Image optimization involves making:
o Image filenames and ALT text relevant
o The file size web friendly
Why image optimization is important:
o It's a light weight on-page SEO signal and adds relevancy to the page
o Alt text is often read out to visually impaired people through screen readers
While image optimization is only a light weight on-page ranking signal, it is one of the most
overlooked aspects but still does add relevancy to the page. Also, by adding relevant ALT text you
will be helping people who rely on screen readers that may be visually impaired.
How to optimize images
Add a description in Make file names Make images

the Alt text meaningful web-friendly
How to optimize images:
1. Add a description in the Alt text
• Try to accurately describe the image and this sometimes means including keywords
• Make them concise, typically two to five words

2. Make filenames meaningful
• Make them concise, typically two to five words
• Filenames and Alt text can be the same but they don’t have to be
3. Make images web-friendly
• Gif, Jpeg and PNG
• Balance of small file size and good quality

We need to be honest when describing images through Alt text and filenames, but where it makes sense we can sprinkle
some keywords in to add to the overall relevancy. You DO NOT need to be really strict here e.g. sometimes you can
include your P1 and P2 keywords but otherwise you won’t be able to.
If you have multiple images, they should have differing Alt text/filenames, otherwise this can look like keyword stuffing.
An example of how to optimize images
Alt text:
Snowboard sizing
Filename:
Snowboard-measurement.jpg
There isn’t an exact science here and it’s important that the Alt text and filenames
are descriptive and accurate first – and contain keywords or related words second. In
this case the Alt text contains one of the main keywords and the filename is a related
word that will add to the overall relevancy of the page. You’ll always want to keep
the size of images relatively low and often much smaller than the original image size.
This helps make the web page load quicker.
Off-Page Optimization
What is it?
Off-Page Optimization is the process of enhancing a

website’s search engine rankings through activities
outside of the website. This is largely driven
by building backlinks to your site.
At its heart, off-page optimization is about building backlinks to your website and this
practice is also known as link building. We do this because the more higher quality
backlinks you have from relevant websites, the more reputable your website is seen in
your industry by search engines.
This is often the part that SEOs find tricky at first but with persistence and researching
your competitors, it’s one of the ways to really significantly improve your SEO progress.
You may not be able to directly control how external websites link to your site but you can
influence them by creating great content and/or contacting them.
Off-page optimization requires some upfront work but is more ongoing and never ending
activity. If you are at the top of your industry, and stop acquiring backlinks, you may find
that your competitors continue to build them and overtake you.
Tools
Open Site Explorer, Majestic SEO and Ahrefs are SEO tools that help when
analysing both your own backlinks and competitors. They all offer a
freemium model, which means you can get a free account and use some of
the functionality for free.
What is a backlink?
• A backlink is an incoming
hyperlink from one website to
another
• Increasing the number of

backlinks to your site is one of
the key SEO goals
• A backlink is an incoming hyperlink from one web page to another website
• One of your key goals as an SEO is to increase the number backlinks to your site
• The text within the backlink is called anchor text and some relevancy through the
text is passed
• A credible page with valuable content can earn dozens, hundreds and even
thousands of backlinks
• Not all backlinks are created evenly. Some will pass more ranking powers than
others, which we will look at next.
Types of backlinks
High
Topical Authority Authentic
Relevant to your industry Respected and trusted Earned on merit
Search engines, especially Google, are getting very good at detecting whether a backlink should
add to your website’s reputation or not. Here are three keys to look out for:
• Topical backlinks that are relevant to your industry and are likely to bring in relevant
referral traffic. So not only will you get an SEO boost but you’ll also get some great
referral traffic.
• High authority and reputable websites will pass high levels of reputation and we’ll soon
discover how you can measure authority.
• Authentic backlinks are earned on merit, rather than fake backlinks built purely for SEO.
Search engines don’t like to be tricked and target sites building phony links with a search
engine penalty.
What is a PageRank?
• When a website receives a link from an external website

(backlink), some reputation is passed to it
• It acts like one webpage is voting that the page it links

to is credible
• Google has a sub-algorithm called PageRank which

calculates how much reputation is passed
“PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to
rank websites in their search engine results. PageRank
was named after Larry Page, one of the founders of
Google. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance
of website pages. According to Google, PageRank works
by counting the number and quality of links to a page to
determine a rough estimate of how important the website
is. The underlying assumption is that more important
websites are likely to receive more links from other
websites. It is not the only algorithm used by Google to
order search engine results, but it is the first algorithm
that was used by the company, and it is the best-known.”
How to measure PageRank
PageRank should be
considered more as
a concept and not
as a metric
40% 55%
Page Authority Domain Authority

How to measure the PageRank of a URL:
Moz and Ahrefs are popular SEO tool providers who supply metrics that mimic how PageRank may be
calculated and estimates a value of how reputable a page and domain is.
Moz’s Open Site Explorer offers:
• Page Authority (PA) is a score developed by Moz that predicts how well a specific page will
rank on search engine result pages (SERP). Page Authority scores range from one to 100, with
higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.
• Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how
well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). A Domain Authority score
ranges from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank.
Ahref offers:
• URL Rating (UR) measures the strength of a target URL's backlink profile and the likelihood
that the URL will rank high in Google. UR is measured on a logarithmic scale from 1 to 100,
with the latter being the strongest.
• Domain Rating (DR) shows the strength of a given website's overall backlink profile.
DR is measured on a logarithmic scale from 1 to 100, with the latter being the strongest.
Social media links, e.g. from Facebook and Twitter, are sometimes known as social signals and
there is a debate in whether they act like regular backlinks or whether they help with SEO at all.
At the moment the general consensus is that they don’t act like regular backlinks and do not
pass reputation directly. This may be because it’s hard for search engines to detect a strong
enough signal in all the social media noise although that’s not to say this stance may change in
the future. Also, many of the social media links contain “nofollow” attributes which means
PageRank isn’t passed.
However, social media often helps SEO in an indirect way and can play an important role. The
more followers you have on social media, the more “eyeballs” will see the content that you post.
Some of these people may have websites and may decide to link to your websites, so you can
earn regular backlinks through social media. Others may decide to re-share your content, which
in turn gets more publicity and increases the chance of receiving further backlinks.
The role of social media in the context of backlinks
• Links within Social media are also known as

social signals
• Different to backlinks because they tend not to

pass reputation or PageRank
• BUT the more “eye balls” you get viewing your

content, the more likely a person will link to you
from their website in the form of a backlink
Open Site Explorer
Enter competitor
URL to research
Review competitor’s
backlinks
Open Site Explorer is a tool provided by Moz and allows you to research where a
website has got it’s backlinks from. This may be the site you look after, a
competitor or any other site that you wish to research.
The backlinks are ordered by Page Authority, so according to Moz, you should
get the most important ones first.
Open Site Explorer is great for beginner to intermediate backlink analysis. Ahrefs
and Majestic SEO are better for more experienced SEOs because they have a
larger and more thorough index of backlinks. Bear in mind, although very useful,
these tools are likely to be a simplified version of what Google sees and uses.
SEO Action Plan
Mini technical SEO audit
• Have a website in mind
• Make a note of the homepage URL and

a relatively new URL
• For example, the latest blog post

We’re now going to do a mini SEO technical audit.
It involves having a website in mind, copying the
homepage’s URL and also finding a relatively new webpage
e.g. a recent blog post page.
This will help to make sure search engines can see your
content, have chosen to index it and that the pages are
considered search engine friendly.
SEO Action Plan
Check if a URL has been indexed
Type “cache:www.yourdomain.com/page1 into Chrome’s

address bar or a Google search
e.g. cache:https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/
The quickest way to check if a URL has been indexed is by checking if the current version
of it is stored in a search engine.
In Google you do this by:
• Entering “cache:” plus the URL you wish to check in the address bar or in a Google
search
• It’s important to not include any spaces, e.g.
cache:https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com
Check if both URLs have been indexed using the cache command:
• This includes the homepage URL and a newly created page’s URL
• Make a note of the time and date each were indexed
If you get a 404 page not found, this is a sign the page has not been indexed yet.
If your page has not been indexed, make sure it is linked from other pages on your website
and you can submit it to Google using “Fetch as Google” in Google Search Console.
SEO Action Plan
Check if a URL passes the Google Mobile-Friendly Test
Check if both URLs

pass the Google
mobile friendly test
Using the Google Mobile-Friendly Test, enter both URLs you wish to test to see if
they are acceptable for mobile. Hopefully, your webpages will pass first time. If
not, review the issues of what hasn’t passed. Issues could include the text being
too small, slow page load speed, or resources being blocked by Google. If you
are not very technical and have not passed the test, you may need to run this
past your web developer.
SEO Action Plan
Check if a URL passes the two second page load test
Check if both URLs pass the two second

page load test
• Use https://tools.pingdom.com
• Select test location to be the closest from
your location
SEO Action Plan
Review site & URL errors in Google Search Console
If you have access to Google Search

Console, review whether the website
has any URL and/or site errors
Open Google Search Console (if you have access to it),
check the crawl errors report to see if you can see any site
or URL errors. If there are URL errors, review what type of
errors there are and whether they are for important web
pages.
One of the most common types of errors is a “404 page not
found”. This means that a URL used to exist but it doesn’t
anymore. This could be that the page has been deleted or
the URL has been changed. If the page has been deleted,
sometimes it’s best to 301 redirect the old URL to the next
most relevant page. Similarly, if a URL has been changed,
the old URL should be 301 redirected to the new URL.
Soft 404 errors are strange because they often look like
normal error pages, where a message says the page could
not be found but rather than return a server response code
of 404, they actually return a server response code of 200. A
200 response code tells search engines that everything is
OK but in this case it is contradicted by a page not being
able to be found. The fix to this, it usually requires letting
your web developer or technical person know and they can
tweak the web sever settings.
SEO Action Plan
On-page optimization planner
The best way to learn SEO is through practice and repetition.
For this exercise, decide on a website that you wish to test
out your on-page optimization skills on. Pick 10
topics/landing pages to research, then decide on their best
keywords and then outline the key on-page optimization
elements. The reference URL below will take you to a Google
spreadsheet where you can follow the on-page optimization
template.
From there, you can:
• Download the spreadsheet (File → Download as),
or
• Make a copy (File → Make a copy..) which requires
you to be signed into a Google account
SEO Action Plan
Off-page optimization & competitor research
Pick a website and three

Homepage Domain Root Domain
Sites competitors to benchmark
Page Authority Authority Links
key Moz backlinks metrics
www.yourdomain.com 44% 42% 105
www.competitor1.com 40% 39% 97

You can use Open Site Explorer to benchmark your website against
competitors. If you haven’t used a Moz product before, create a free
community account:
https://moz.com/community/join
You will now need to benchmark a website against three of its top
competitors for key Moz metrics. You only need to enter the
homepage URL of each site to record the homepage Page Authority,
Domain Authority and Root Domain Links.
Review to see how far or close your website is from the competition
and gauge how much extra work is required for off-page
optimization success. The higher each metric is, the more likely it is to
perform for off-page optimization.
SEO Action Plan
Off-page optimization & competitor research
Tweak filters to include

this root domain, only
external and only follow.
Pick top three backlinks

from each competitor
(not necessarily by top PA
backlinks)
By changing the Inbound Links filter, you get a better idea of how the whole domain is
performing, specifically for backlinks that can pass PageRank.
What to do:
• Setting the Target to “this root domain” ensures backlinks are reported for the
whole domain and not just the URL (e.g. homepage URL) that you enter
• Setting the Link Source to “only external” ensures that you only get backlink
information and filters out internal links
• Setting the Link Type to “only follow” ensures that you’ll only see backlinks that
actually pass PageRank and filter out those that do not
Then, review the incoming link and highlight the top three backlinks that you feel offer the
most value.
When deciding on the best ones, bear in mind the page authority of each but also
consider how relevant the backlinks are to the industry and whether they felt authentic or
not.
Summary
Optimize
• Technical optimization is activities on your site designed • Off-Page Optimization is the process of enhancing
toimprove SEO but are not related to content: awebsite’s search engine rankings through activities outside
• Primarily about crawling and indexing of the website:
• Ranking factors include site speed, SSL and mobile • It’s the important ranking factor category
friendliness • Backlink analysis is a great way of seeing where your
backlinks are coming from
• On-Page Optimization is the process of ensuring yourcontent
is both relevant and provides a great user experience:
• Keyword research and prioritizing ensures you target the
right keywords
• Keyword targeting is about how you best work the
keywords into the content in a natural way
SEO AGENDA
Measure 1. Traffic sources
Performance 2. Types of SEO metrics
3. Measuring success
Traffic Sources
Monitor the sources of traffic to your website
Direct Traffic Referral Traffic Organic Traffic
• Type in URL • Visitors from • Visitors from

• Bookmark URL other websites search engines
• Untagged Emails • Backlinks • Unpaid traffic
• Links from PDFs
There are 3 key traffic sources to your website:
1. Direct traffic: are the visitors that typed your URL directly into their browser, or who
had bookmarked your site. They can also include untagged links within emails (e.g.
from a desktop email application like Outlook), or links from documents that don't
include tracking variables (such as PDFs or Word documents).
2. Referral Traffic: are visitors to your site that come from external links on other websites
rather than direct traffic or traffic from search engines. Backlinks contribute to referral
traffic.
3. Organic Traffic: are visitors referred by an unpaid search engine listing. Organic traffic is
another way of saying unpaid search engine traffic, or traffic that has come from SEO.
Google Analytics is free and easy way to measure these traffic sources. These reports can be
found in the Acquisitions --> Channels sidebar of Google Analytics.
Types of SEO Metrics
Real world SEO metrics
Keyword Organic Conversions Referral Link Building

Rankings Traffic & Sales Traffic KPIs
There are a number of ways you can measure the success of your SEO. Keyword
rankings, organic traffic, conversions and sales are the most common.
We’ll now look at these individually, as well as referral traffic and link building
KPIs.
Without measuring metrics for SEO, it’s hard to see if pogress is being made and
whether what you are optimizing is working or not.
Keyword rankings
KEYWORD RANKINGS
Early signs of SEO progress is seen at a keyword level first because you can see a rise in rankings before any
traffic, conversions or sales are generated.
• SEMRush is the leading tool for competitor keyword research. While SEMRush offers some
functionality for free, the majority, including keyword rankings, requires a subscription.
• SEOmonitor is another premium tool that offers keyword rankings. They also offer the ability to
benchmark how well you are doing against competitors and the tool hooks up to your Google Search
Console account, to help find keywords you may have missed.
• WhatsMySERP is a quick and free way to check your keyword rankings. While it works most of the
time, it can be a little buggy so an alternative free way to check rankings is the SERPs.com rank checker
tool.
• Wincher and Pro Rank Checker are both low cost but good quality and dedicated keyword ranking
checking tools.
There are a number of paid keyword ranking tools, many of which are part of a bigger SEO tool package. If you
are looking for a dedicated keyword ranking tool and not paying for extra features, Wincher provides a good
value option.
Lets say, you research 10 pages and average 6 keywords per page. That’s 60 keywords that you are targeting and
you will need a way of tracking their performance over time.
Organic traffic
Organic Search =
SEO or Organic
Traffic
Organic traffic: is best measured in a web analytics tool like Google
Analytics.
Organic traffic indicates that a visitor has come from SEO, so it’s a
good high-level way of reviewing progress.
You can monitor organic traffic for the whole of a website, a
section of it or for specific URLs.
Monitoring your SEO traffic is straightforward in Google Analytics.
You can do this by:
• Accessing Channels from the Acquisition menu and then
viewing Organic Search, or
• By using the built-in Organic Search custom Google
Analytics Segment
Like many of the other metrics you might like to keep a close eye
on it on a monthly basis and perhaps even compare it Year-on-Year
(from date picker) to get an idea of seasonality.
Conversions & sales
“Organic Traffic”
segment selected
Conversion
overview
selected Compare Organic
Traffic (orange)
with all traffic
(blue)
It is possible to have good keyword rankings and traffic but low or no
conversions/goals/sales. This may indicate that the keyword research and SEO strategy
was wrong.
Conversions and sales metrics are often considered the most important SEO success
metrics as they tend to be the most closely aligned to the business goals.
In Google Analytics, a conversion can be measured through Goals. This can include lead
generation e.g. newsletter sign ups, PDF downloads, brochure requests etc.)
Tracking sales or conversions in Google Analytics usually requires a bit of extra
customization your end but it’s really worth it as you can see how well SEO is performing
as a whole compared to other traffic sources and its also more granular, such as by seeing
what landing pages are organically having the biggest impact on your bottom line.
Once setup, monitoring your conversions and sales is straightforward in Google Analytics.
You can do this by accessing the conversions menu and by selecting the ”organic traffic”
segment.
Referral traffic
Top Referrer
Referral traffic is an important metric for SEO. It’s a good sign
that you are getting the right type of backlinks as people are
clicking from them to your website.
Tracking referrals is straightforward in Google Analytics. You
can do this by accessing the acquisition menu. If your link
building has resulted in relevant backlinks, you should notice
that your referral traffic improves over time.
Link building KPIs
Enter your
website
Take note
of the total
root
domains
Open Site Explorer is part of the Moz SEO toolset. It’s specifically for link analysis. To get the best out of it, try
the following:
• Enter the homepage of a website you would like to research to see how many and what backlinks it has
acquired. This could be for your own website or a competitor’s e.g. https://www.evo.com
• In the Page Link Metrics, review the number of Root Domains and Total Links. The Total Links are all
backlinks to the domain you are researching which may include one or many backlinks from the same
domain. The Root Domains count is for unique domains only. Often the Root Domain count is a better
metric for backlink volume as it’s possible to get hundreds of backlinks from the same domain which
would be included in the Total Links and skew the numbers.
• Consider changing the following Inbound Links options:
• Set Target to “the root domain”. This shows links to the whole domain and not just the
URL you entered.
• Set Link Source to “external”. This will exclude internal links and only show external
links/backlinks.
• Set Link Type to “only follow”. This will only show backlinks that pass SEO value.
• Review the backlinks that are shown for the domain. Note they are sorted by PA (Page Authority), so
according to Moz, you should see the most authoritative ones first.
Measuring Success
How to use metrics to measure performance
What SEO metrics to measure will vary from business to business and the most
typical are:
• Monitoring the rankings of a targeted list of keywords. E.g. 60 keywords for
the top 10 URLs (6 keyword / URL)
• Monitoring organic monthly traffic and often from comparing to the previous
month and previous year
• Monitoring total number of monthly sales and/or conversions e.g.:
• Contact form submissions
• White paper download
• Newsletter sign-up
• Number of external links
• Total number of root link domains
• Total number of backlinks
Measuring Success
What to do when SEO performance falters
Technical On-Page Off-Page
• Does Google Search • Have you followed • Does your site lack
Console report URL best practice in domain authority?
errors? optimizing keywords • Do your key landing
• Are your key landing into key landing pages lack page
pages indexed? pages? authority?
• Have you avoided • Does your site lack
keyword stuffing? backlinks?
If you find your SEO efforts are not paying off in the way you would like or have expected, here
is a few key questions for each of your SEO activities:
• Does Google Search Console report URL errors?
• Especially look out for URL errors reported for important web pages. If there are
errors, understand why those errors are happening. You may need to improve the
reliability of your web hosting and/or redirect URLs that have been changed.
• Are your key landing pages indexed?
• Remember you can use the cache command in Google (e.g. cache:www.url-you-
wish-to-check.com) to check if a URL has been indexed. Check that all you important
web pages are indexed.
• If some are not they may be lacking links (either internal and/or external).
Check that you are linking to all your important pages effectively internally. If
your website is new, you may need to build up some backlinks to it before
search engines decide your content is worthy for indexing.
• Have you followed best practice in optimizing keywords into key landing pages?
• Re-look at the Keyword Research and On-Page Optimization section of this course.
Are you targeting the right keywords and working them effectively into key
elements of the page? e.g. working keywords into Title Tags, Headings and the Main
Copy.
• Have you avoided keyword stuffing?
• If search engines feel you are trying to cram in too many keywords and it negatively
affects the readability of your content, you may be losing relevancy marks and
rankings.
In order to target competitive keywords, your website needs to have comparable off-page
optimization metrics when compared to competitors.
• Does your site lack domain authority?
• Does your key landing pages lack page authority?
• Does your site lack backlinks?
Review the top 5 landing pages you would like to rank and have optimized. Note the main (P1)
keyword you are targeting for each. Separately type each keyword into Google and review the
top three competitors. How do you compare in Open Site Explorer for Domain Authority, Page
Authority and number of Backlinks? If you’re metrics are noticeably lower, you will need to build
backlinks to boost your reputation and ranking power. You may also consider targeting less
competitive keywords.
Summary
Measure Performance
• After completing on-page optimization, monitor the • Where relevant, setup conversions and sales traffic in
targeted keywords on a regular basis. You can do this Google Analytics. If you are selling things online, take this
using cloud-based tools like Wincher or Open Site a step further and set up goals to track e-commerce also.
Explorer.
• Monitor organic traffic in Google Analytics. Remember to

set up a segment that will allow you to analyze organic
traffic only.
Module complete. Well done

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Certified Digital Marketing Professional

Module 5 : (S.E.O) SEARCH ENGINE

• Digital Investment Consultant .

Set Keyword Optimize Measure

Set Optimize Measure

Introduction to 1. Paid Versus Organic Search

SEO 2. How Search Engines Work

4. SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)

The process of getting traffic from the free,

Results take time; often weeks, months and

Technical On-Page Off-Page

Non-content onsite Content and keyword Offsite activities, like gaining

Search engine algorithms are computer programmes

Google’s main algorithm is called Hummingbird

A keyword is a word or phrase that a user

Navigational Informational Transactional

Navigational queries are keyword searches for a

Transactional queries are keyword searchers where

SERP stands for a Search Engine

Classic Universal Extended

Videos Images Maps/Local Shopping News

Knowledge Direct Related App Twitter

• SEO can be broken down into three core areas:

Set SEO 1. Types of SEO Objectives

Objectives 2. Setting Objectives

They They help to

Market Share E-Commerce

Brand/Product Awareness Ads Revenue

Move 50% of our top 20 keywords onto the

Improve our Year-On-Year organic traffic by

Grow our SEO market-share from 3% to 5%

Build 12 relevant backlinks from recognized

Generate 15% more “request a brochure” leads from

Double the page views for our highest ad

Raise our product awareness by being

• E-commerce sites: objectives

Have a website in Decide if the Choose your top 3

• They help to formulate your SEO strategy by

• SEO objectives should be S.M.A.R.T.

Keyword 1. Types of Keywords

Research 2. How to Conduct Keyword Research

3. Turning Research into Content

Keyword research is the process of discovering the

• Get the right kind of visitors to your site

• Identify content gaps on your website

• Target keywords that are within your reach

Hard to Rank / Easy to Rank

Feature Short-tail Long-tail

Intent Vague Specific

Rank Harder to rank Easier to rank

Conversion Harder to convert Easier to convert

Research Easier to research Harder to research

Traffic 30% of all traffic 70% of all traffic

Pick a Topic Brainstorm Review Prioritize

• Think of topics closely aligned • Researching the whole

• Have a webpage in mind

• Think of the needs of your

• Aim for quantity, rather than quality (10+ where possible)

• Include plural and singular

• Stopping at two or three

When compiling your list of keywords that closely relate to

Keyword Monthly search Keyword Monthly search

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