Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Best Practices

1. Intro: Hi. My name is Kimberly Portuondo, and I own a marketing firm called KP Creative that specializes in helping businesses large and small improve their online presence. The number one way that we do this with all of our clients is search engine optimization. So what s CEO is for those of you who don't know is setting up your social profiles. Your blog's your website would have you so that it will be found online on search engines when people are looking for the products and services that you offer. So the process to do this is actually quite simple. It just takes a lot of time. And that's why I'm gonna be walking through in this course. You don't need any kind of experience to do this. I'm gonna take you through the basics all the way through the finish line so that by the end of this course, you're either going to have already optimized your website or you're gonna be passing a document with code for your Web developer to copy and paste into your site. Look forward to working with you guys. Let's get started 2. Your Assignment: All right, everyone said before we jump in I wanted to give you a quick overview of the different activities we're gonna be doing throughout this course. So the main one is gonna be using this broadsheet to map out your website with your keywords and your metadata for S E O. So if you haven't already gone to the your projects tab, make sure that you dio and make sure that you save your own copy of the sheet. So far, all the instructions here to save your own copy of this sheet and as well, we're going to be using the keyword planner tool from Google AdWords to generate a keyword list for you based on your location and the products and services that you're providing. In order to do that, you need to have an AdWords account set up. So if you don't already, I'm gonna share this link in the your projects tab as well, so that you can walk through the process. Main thing to note when setting this up is that when you are setting up on AdWords account , you do have to set up a campaign so you can just breeze through that process and just make sure when you're Doan that you pause the campaign or also you will be getting charged because you do have to provide credit card information as well. So once you guys have done all of that, go ahead and watch the next module and we can jump into the exercises. 3. Selecting Your Keywords: All right. So step number one towards S CEO is to generate a keyword lists for you to pull from when it comes to optimizing your site. So by the end of this module, you're gonna have a list like this with terms and this data for you to go through when selecting which keywords make the most sense for the pages of your website. In order to do that, we need to go to AdWords, doc, google dot com and then select the keyword planner tool. So for this activity, we're gonna be using the search for new keywords using a phrase website or category option on. The first thing you want to do is go to your own website and then copy and place the link and put it in. And I would recommend obviously of many pages on your website I would recommend doing those you Earls of your site, which best describe the products or services that you offer even though we're gonna be mapping each euro. But for example, contact pages is pretty standard. So copy those year olds and go to this exercise multiple times. Once you have the URL and you're gonna type in the keywords that you would think people would search for to find your site. So I do digital marketing, Web design and ASIO. Now you should type as many iterations of those terms as you can think of just to expand upon the list and then this tool do that for you as well. I'm sorry, designer Well, so once you have that built out really well, the next thing that you'll do is select your product category. So mine is business and industrial business management and then advertising and marketing. And if you want to get really specific you can or you can do kind of a broader category, then you also want to target by location by language so you can do our move. All defaults is all locations you can do by countries you can do by states you can even Dubai cities and you can do counties. So whatever targeting makes sense based on what you offer. Go ahead and select that so that you can get that data and then if you have language limitations, then you can also narrow it down like that. So let's say if I only want English speakers, then I'll do that. If I don't have any language limitations, I can leave it open for negative keywords. What that means is, if you don't want to see So I don't want somebody looking for free social media marketing because I charge money for that. That's how I make my income. So I'm gonna put negative key term free so that I won't see data for that, and then this You can leave to the default, then you'll get ideas. So everything that you typed in is gonna be at the top up here, and then they're going to give you a list of their suggestions below, and that list will be pretty large. So you want to dio is review these terms and add terms to your plan That makes sense based on the products and services that you offer, And they would be terms that you would want to rank for on search engines. So a term with high competition and low volume is not necessarily something that you want to include in your list. So high competition means that a lot of people are attempting to rank for that, and then the search volume is pretty low. so I don't wanna be trying to run for that term. This is good volume, and this is a good competition level. So I'm gonna add that to my plan. Same thing with Web design. Same thing with social media marketing anything that's got low competition level in pretty decent volume is also something good for you to include. So basically, you want to look for terms that have a pretty good quality number of monthly searches and then medium or low competition levels. That would mean that you would stand a better chance of ranking for it. And this data that it showing to me is based on average monthly searches in Broward County . So if I want to see those numbers bump up, I can do the whole entire state of Florida and see how all those numbers just bumped up, obviously, because I expanded my reach. So if you're limited just to the area that you're end, then you definitely want to do location targeting like that. So you'll want to take the time to go through this list and add the terms to your plan that make the most sense. You can also view a sort Instead of just having a list of ideas here, you can go by groups that will group similar terms. So terms like digital advertising, and then you'll just add them to your plan as you see fit. So once you've done that and I would suggest that you have a minimum of 100 keyword ideas in your plan just so that you have a really full list to choose from, Once you've done that, you're gonna download your plan. All right, so let's open that up. And this is going to give you a lot of data that you don't need for the exercise that we're doing. So I'm gonna pull a lot of this out just so that it's clean. We really only need to see the key words and the search volume so you can do that too, if you want. If this doesn't bother you, then you can leave it. We don't need suggests a bit amount fever. And then I like to change this to a percentage just so that it's easier to see what it's saying. Okay, so you have yours will be a lot bigger than this will be like the original one that I showed you. And then it would probably make the most sense for you to sort the data by the search volume from largest to smallest. Because that's really gonna dictate what you dio. So once you've generated your keyword list, you're ready to move on to the next step, which will go through in the next module. 4. Mapping Your Site: All right. So once you selected your keywords, you're ready to jump into mapping your website out in this template. So again, make sure that you've saved a copy so that you're not modifying the template that everybody's basing this off of. Once you're working your copy, what you're gonna do first up is copy and paste every single euro from your website here, starting with the home page first and then down. And this is because we're gonna go through and map keywords for each euro on your website and then optimize every page on your website. So far, all the process like I'm doing. And once you're done with, that will jump into the next step, which is actually mapping keywords based on relevance for each site. 5. Selecting Keywords for Each Page: Okay, So now that you have your Urals mapped, it's time to select keywords for each page. So we're going to be pulling from the list that you guys created and keyword planner. I'm choosing keywords for each year old. So a few things to keep in mind before you start doing that, you don't want to repeat keywords within your website. So let's say on the home page would be very easy for me to just dio Social Media s CEO and digital marketing. But if those terms make more sense to be used on the patron describing those services, for example, on this page I talked about SDO on this page, I talked about social media marketing. It's better to use those terms on the pages that there are more relevant to. So the process is something like this. Do you want to select key words that make the most sense for that specific page and then mark them off in whatever way? So you don't repeat them. So on the page I'm talking about s CEO, I'm going to use the term ASIO. It's got high volume, pretty low competition level. So that's here. Um, ASIO services is another good one. And then I like SDO consultant as well. And then for the home page, I could use ASIO company since it's similar toe s seo consultant, And I don't want to repeat that anyway on that same page. So I'll do after your company here. And basically you're going to do this for every single page. Keeping in mind that whatever the primary term is is the one that you want to run for the most. And the reason that they're differentiated like that is that you have character limits on the page title on page description, so you're most likely only going to be able to use maybe one or two of those terms. But when you're actually changing the text on your website, you'll want those three terms. You're so that you're not repeating the same thing over and over again. So go ahead and select keywords for every page of your site. And once you have that done, we'll go through the next step in the exercise, which is drafting your page titles 6. Drafting Page Titles: all right, So once your keywords or mapped for each page of your website, you're ready to start drafting page titles. And what a page title is is what shows up in the top of a browser on each page of your website and then also shows up as the main heading of your pages in search. Under the results says Obviously, very important. Consider it like a headline for all intensive purposes, and you want to use those keywords in your page title. So it's also considered best practice to use your site name in every page title on the home page. You'll start with your site name. Any other page under that is just going to end with your site name. So on Lee, the home page will start with it. All of their pages will end with it. In addition, anything over 64 characters is going to be cut off so well. Anna dot, dot dot. So you really want to keep your page titles under that 64 character Max count. So let's try drafting a home page title, and I'm gonna use the exact keywords that I'm at, and we'll see if that fits 63. So I'm right within the limit. That's great. All right, let's do another one. So we'll do the our team page talking about me and my employees. Well, dio Murn so are Mark. All right, I got some wiggle room in there, so that's too long. So let's say we can trim it down closer and we can just do it like that. One more thing to keep in mind when you guys air Drafting these page titles is if you are a local business and you're limited to the areas that you can service, you definitely want to include those locations in your page title if possible. So, for example, in this one, if I if I am only able to work in Fort Lardo, which is where I'm based out of instead of fitting in all of those keywords, I would do something like this, so you need to play around with it, see if you can get it within the character count and do that for every single page of your site, and then we'll move on to doing the descriptions 7. Drafting Your Page Descriptions: the next step in the S E. A process is going to be to draft your page descriptions, and the page descriptions won't show up anywhere on your website. What they are is what shows up underneath your page title in search engine results. So this one has a character max limit of 150. So again, if you go over that character count, it will just on adopt out, out. It's not as big of a deal in the page description if that happens, but it looks better and performs better if you keep it within that 1 50 count. You also want to make sure that you're close to that count. It can be very easy to stay well under that. But the more information you can provide, the more likely you are to have click over. So again, keeping in mind the keywords for your site, you're gonna drop your page descriptions. - Okay , so that's not too bad. We could even beef that up even more so. Key components for business through, um, more. That's closer, so that's gonna be a little bit better. So you'll want to go through this exercise for every page of your site, keeping the key word length in mind and try to work each generation of those keywords into the description. 8. Modifying Your Web Content: So once you're sheet looks like this, all you have left to do is modify the website copy with the key words that you map for each of these girls. So if you have a template site like Squarespace or WordPress or wicks or what have you, you can usually get in there on your own and just modify the website coffee. If not, and you need to send it to your developer than I would just suggest starting a Google doc or word document, where you simply copy the girl for the page that you're modifying and then actual page copy and then edit it right in that document. So what you'll want to do is at it each page with the key words that you map for them. So for this homepage will be doing, and it's definitely gonna be easier to include them on page. And then you'll want to find ways to naturally work them into the content on your site. So right here we can add management in This still makes total sense, and I would, whether it's highlighting it, changing it to a bright color red or orange so that your Web developer can see the changes that they need to make or so you can if you're going to implement them yourself and you would rather work offline. So a few best practices to keep in mind. Um, you don't want to just shove those keywords into your on site text. You want it to be done in a way that makes sense and sounds natural. So read it out loud. If it sounds natural, you're all set. If things don't really make a lot of sense when you're hearing them out loud, I would suggest rewriting, and you also want to avoid what's called keyword stuffing. So, for example, if I'm trying to rank for social media management, I could sit here and write the whole paragraph where I'm really over using that word. Okay, so you see every sentence that I wrote makes sense, and it's written properly. However, I'm obviously over using the term social media management, so be careful. Don't keyword stuff right in the way that you would write as if you're speaking, make sure that it makes sense and make sure that you're not keyword stuffing. So the last best practice for you guys to keep in mind is that for a page to even rank at all, it needs to have a minimum of 300 words on it. Um, so in terms of keyword stuffing, you're working with 300 words, and you obviously want some of those terms to be the key words that you're trying to rank for. But it needs to be a healthy mix, and there's no exact percentage that I can tell you are. It's not like, Okay, among those 300 words if it's used 11 times, you're good. It's really just using it so that you can tell the search engines. This is what this page is talking about, but not over using it. So they think that you're trying to trick their system. So once you've finished implementing all of those copy edits, the last step is making those page titles, page descriptions and copy, and it's alive, which I will show you in the next module 9. Implementing Your Optimizations: So once you finished optimizing your content, your last step is to actually implement all of the changes that you've taken the time to go through in this exercise. So if you have a template site like WordPress, squarespace or Wicks, you can usually get into the back end of your site somehow and get thes page titles and descriptions into the site. If not, then you need to get code over to your developer so you can either tell them. Hey, I need to change the page titles and descriptions on my site, and they should be able to just use this sheet and do it for you. If they don't really know how to do that, I would consider working with the different Web developer. But just in case you have tab in your sheet, that actually will let you. If you pace the page titles in here in between those two little carrots and then you paste the page description here in between the quotes for each page, you can get that over to your Web developer so that he or she can just copy and paste them directly into each page for the site. So make sure you include the euro, that they belong to the page side on the page description, and then you can send this to them so that they can implement those changes. And as for the content changes, very Web developer, you'll just need to send them whatever kind of working document you have so that they can make those on site changes. And then you should be all set. So the only thing left for you to do is measure your results, which I'll go over with you very briefly in the next module. 10. Measuring Your Results: Okay, so you have gone through the process of optimizing your website. Last thing that you need to do is set yourself up, said that you can measure and make sure that it's working. This process could be taught in an entirely different course, so I'll just go through it very briefly with you. You've got two options, both of which are free and both of which are tools from Google. So number one is setting up Google analytics for your website. A number two is using what was called Web master tools and is now called Search Council from Google and Search Council actually shows you how your website is being found online, the key words that are being used and you can view it as Google views that there's a lot of really helpful pieces of that. So go to Google support pages there, step by step instructions to set your website up with search console and stay tuned for a course for me will be walking you guys through. That process is well 11. Final Thoughts: This has been so much fun to record for you guys. I hope that you enjoyed it and found it helpful. I look forward to reviewing your documents if you comment them and below and giving you my feet back. One final thought to share with you is that I know this process can be tedious. And I know it might seem easier to just implement it and steps, but I would really recommend doing it all at once. That way on this day, you know, this site is optimized for search engine, so you can start to track results from that day forward. It will really help you to see what's working and what's not so that you can continue to tweak moving. All right. Anyway, best of luck. Talk to you all soon.