The class materials presented during the Spring 2016 Girl Develop It SEO course.
http://www.meetup.com/Girl-Develop-It-Philadelphia/events/230028313/
Have you ever wondered how Google determines how to rank your website? Or why your competitors are beating you onto page one of Google? These things don't happen by chance. There isn't a person behind a computer at Google HQ deciding who will rank where. There's a science to all of it, and it's called search engine optimization (or SEO for short).
There are a number of factors contributing to how websites rank and learning about these factors will help you to "optimize" the sites you work on. This course will cover a variety of these topics:
• On-page: On-page optimization is one part of SEO that you may be most familiar with - we'll cover the basics from meta tags, in addition to other on-page factors that may help you rank.
• Technical: Discover the technical issues that may prevent search engines from crawling and indexing your site. We'll also cover some other technical aspects of the semantic web that are beneficial for SEO.
• Link Building: Learn about what link building is, why it's vital for every website, and how to get started.
• Social Media:Discover the ways that having a engaged social community can help with SEO. Learn how to find these people with the use of free tools and programs.
• Measurement: Learning to analyze your websites' performance is vital to determining its success or failure. We'll cover the basics of how to get started with Google Analytics and necessary metrics to be aware of.
What You Will Walk Away With:
• An understanding of the factors that help a website rank in search results
• A collection of tools you can immediately start using with your site
• Resources to explore to learn more — from beginner to more advanced
5. Seer Interactive
• Agency: Analytics, PPC, & SEO
• 1 office in Northern Liberties
• 1 office in San Diego
• ~100 full time employees
• Philly 100 & Philly Best Places to Work
• @seerinteractive
6. What we’ll cover today:
On page optimization
Technical SEO
Link building
Social
Measuring Success
7. What to expect:
A break(s)
Wide range of topics
Have fun!
Deck online after class
Additional resources online
Feedback survey
14. • Businesses started to understand that they could reach their customers on
search engines
• Thus marketing where people were searching happened
• SEO impacts the “free” (or organic) section
Search Engines & Marketing
23. Elements of a good user experience:
RELEVANCY – fresh, unique, quality content
24. Elements of a good user experience:
RELEVANCY – fresh, unique, quality content
QUALITY – technical, mobile, URL structure, load
times
25. Elements of a good user experience:
RELEVANCY – fresh, unique, quality content
QUALITY – technical, mobile, URL structure, load
times
AUTHORITY – links, citations, mentions, social
67. On-page SEO regroup
KEYWORDS – research; head terms vs. long tail
CONTENT – keywords on a page; user experience
META DATA – titles, descriptions, URLs, etc.
69. Try it out!
(10 min)
- Choose a page from the website you’d like to optimize
- Choose a keyword you think the page is relevant for (ubersuggest, google suggest, Google
trends)
- Write a title tag (Preview: http://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool)
- Where else might you insert that keyword on the page? (Alt text? H1? Within the content?)
129. Try it out!
Brainstorm value that your site, content, or employees have that could potentially
earn you links based on some of the examples that were shared.
134. The longer answer:
The impact of social engagement is still speculative, but projected to be a critical
ranking factor in the near future.
135. • Increased visibility & awareness = links = rankings
• Increased positive reviews on G+/Yelp = increased visibility in local
search
• Google+
• Posts are seen by Google almost immediately
• Using social influence to build relationships = links = rankings
• Audience analysis
How social [indirectly] affects SEO
136. How social [indirectly] affects SEO
Social Shares
Social Impressions
Influencer
Impressions
Links
137. Remember the relationships we’re
supposed to be building?
Identify influencers
Build relationships = awareness
Understand needs of others
138. • Identifying influencers
• Finding out what your audience likes; create content for
them that they’ll want to share
SEO Benefits of Building Social Relationships