1. MA Project Development
Week Three | Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

2. Week Three
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Overview
● How Search Engines Work
● SEO
○ Technical
○ Content / On-Page
○ Off-Page
● Further Reading

3. 1. How Search Engines Work

4. How Search Engines Work
Googlebot
Googlebot is Google's web crawling bot (sometimes also called a "spider").
Crawling is the process by which Googlebot discovers new and
updated pages to be added to the Google index.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/182072?hl=en
Follows links
User agent
Reads HTML
Begins with list
of URLs

5. How Search Engines Work
Googlebot
The Web
Link
Google’s
Index

6. How Search Engines Work
#2
#1

7. How Search Engines Work
Google’s IndexUser’s Computer Explicit Search
Implicit Search
Search Results

8. How Search Engines Work
Explicit Search
What the user has searched for.
● Keyword
Implicit Search
What Google knows about the user - ie. the
explicit search plus:
● Location
● Device (laptop / mobile…)
● Browser
● Search history
● Likes
● Dislikes
● Age
● Name
● Hair colour
● favourite meal
● Pet’s name
● Everything else

9. How Search Engines Work

10. How Search Engines Work
Google knows I am a
geek, so when I search
for ‘ruby’ it shows me
the programming
language instead of
the stone.

11. How Search Engines Work
What? So what?
Google shows people things they like Make sure they like you
Results are tailored to the user Connect directly with them (authorship & social)
Results are localised Write for your audience
Results biased towards fresh content Stay up to date
Why should I care about all of this?

12. 2. Search Engine Optimisation

13. Elements of SEO
SEO
Technical Off-Page
On-Page

14. Technical SEO
Technical
Status Code Description
200 OK Page works
404 Not Found Page not found (broken link)
301 Moved Permanently
URL has permanently to
another location
302 Found
URL moved temporarily to
an alternative
HTTP Status
Codes
XML Sitemap
Robots.txt
Allows you to tell search engines
about pages on your site that they
may not otherwise discover.
Use to guide crawlers / robots
around parts of your website. Can
be used to stop robots accessing
unnecessary parts of your website

15. On-Page SEO
On-Page Page provides genuinely
unique and valuable content
Technical SEO
Website is easy
to use
Content is created to be
shared and social sharing is
a feature of the page
Page targets one
clear ‘theme’
Content can be viewed
on various devices
Context added by
including authorship
information / Schema.
org markup etc
Source: Moz.com

16. Off-Page SEO
Off-Page
Link building Trust Social
Links from trustworthy,
related websites.
Factors include:
- Number of links
- Quality of links
- Anchor text
Negative factors:
- Paid for links
- Spam
Verify who is behind a website
and where it is based.
Local factors include:
- How old site / domain is
- Has site been flagged for spam?
- Local SEO factors
Social media can become
primary source of traffic to
your website.
Social factors include:
- Reputation
- Shares
- Authors

17. Periodic Table of SEO
Source: Search Engine Land

18. 3. Further Reading

19. Further Reading
Websites:
Search Engine Land
Daily search engine news website
Moz blog
Daily updated SEO / marketing blog
White.net blog
Regularly updated award winning online marketing blog
by the company I work for!
Books:
Search Engine Optimisation Secrets
Danny Dover & Erik Dafforn
The Art of SEO
Eric Enge, Rand Fishkin et al