Presentation given to the University of Edinburgh web publishers community in January 2018 on the use of Keyword research tools for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
2. What is SEO?
⢠SEO - âsearch engine optimization.â
â It is the process of setting up your content in order
to maximise traffic from the âfree,â âorganic,â
âeditorialâ or ânaturalâ search engine results.
⢠The main points:
â www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/UWP/SEO+advice
â edin.ac/wpc-jul-16
â Effective Digital Content course
3. What is keyword research?
⢠In order to optimise, need to understand what terms
you are optimising for.
⢠âKeywordsâ (for SEO) are the search terms your users
submit to find your product/service
⢠To determine these terms, you need to put yourself
in the place of your users
4. What can keyword research reveal?
⢠Keywords â what terms are your users currently (or
might in future) using to try to find you/your service?
How do they understand what you do?
⢠Frequency/recency â how often do your users use
these terms, and when?
⢠Relevance â are these terms that are actually relevant
to your business goals? Do/will they drive the right
kind of traffic to your site?
⢠Competition â how many others are trying to optimise
for the same keywords?
5. Keyword âidea stormingâ
⢠Get stakeholders together and ask:
⢠What services do you offer?
â What are (all?) the keywords of these services
⢠from user perspective
â Exact terms donât matter too much at this stage
⢠Based on these words, investigate search volume
â Free tools: Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner,
Google analytics
â There are paid alternatives
⢠moz.com/explorer/keyword (20 free per month)
8. Google Analytics
(best for internal users)
⢠analytics.google.com
⢠Behavior
â Site search
⢠Search terms
⢠Segment for
your users
⢠Secondary dimension
â for start page
9. Desired results
⢠Popular(ish) terms
â Group terms into topics (for content analysis)
⢠Low competition
⢠Very relevant to our business goals
â Descriptive keywords in less-common variations
are a rich source of traffic (and conversions)
10. Taking an example
⢠âOnline learningâ
â A very competitive market!
⢠Google, Lynda.com, University of Edinburgh, TedX, youtubeâŚ.
â And not wholly clear what the searcher wants:
⢠What subject? What mode of study? Cost?
⢠Likely to be an iterative search (online course history, free course medicine, distance
learning course Scotland)âŚ
⢠âiterativeâ searches are a good target for content
optimisation:
â Less frequent
â Less competitive
â Very relevant
⢠And therefore a better target for âSEOâ
â Existing pages and presences that perform well likely do not need
âSEOâ in these terms
11. Keyword distribution â
content modelling
⢠Align content with target keywords
⢠List site pages (snapshot can do this: edin.ac/snapshot)
â Group content around audience understanding
(keywords) â not organisational expediency!
â Category â sub-category â deeper-sub-category
â Website Programme â EdWeb â Training ?
â Assign these categories to pages â one page per deeper
keyword
⢠What should contain keywords?
â Title, Summary, headings, URL, Links (internal to that
page), alt text
⢠So you should not repeat titles, summariesâŚ
⢠Remove duplicate content and fix broken links
12. Evaluation 1
⢠How will we measure success? Depends on business goals:
â Increase in traffic acquired through search only?
â Conversions from this source: Leads, applications, enquiry
reduction
â Reduction in on site search refinements?
â âBetterâ landing pages found â adheres to content model?
⢠Increase in search results ranking position
⢠run the search yourself - periodically
⢠Repeat exercise â iterative, not project
â Our google analytics will only show existing data â not
missed opportunities (external audiences)
13. Evaluation 2
⢠SiteBeam
â Automated
tester
⢠Has a shot at
looking at SEO
â Will find
duplicate
titles/long
summaries
⢠But use your
judgementâŚ
14. Evaluation 3
⢠Funnelback â new search engine, March 2018
â Has a back-end that provides analytics on search,
including local SEO analysis
⢠ease of use/quality to be confirmed
â Once details confirmed, will return to community
15. Having said all thisâŚ
⢠âThe end of keywords?â: Semantic and voice search
â Google trying to find meaning, not specific words
⢠So âholisticallyâ assessing your site
â âOnline learning historyâ vs âfind me free online history coursesâ
â Project underway to understand impact of this on our
websites/content (www.projects.ed.ac.uk/project/ltw007)
⢠Other factors
â Site speed â search prefers faster sites
â Mobile optimised sites
â Security (SSL â https://)
â Schema.org â meta tags in page code
⢠Help search process and understand content
⢠Allows rich results (the future!)
18. Help with content and analytics
⢠Website support clinic- help with:
â Website objectives & appraisal
â Google Analytics
â Weâre learning about search⌠more to come
⢠Book in advance: website.support@ed.ac.uk
â More info: edin.ac/support-clinics
⢠Interested in discussing more about SEO?
â Please get in touch: Duncan.MacGruer@ed.ac.uk