What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation is not some mystic black art!
Search Engine Optimisation is simply understanding how search engines rank content and using this understanding to ensure a website or some other digital assets ranks well.
Value of SEO
Organic search results drive more clicks than paid search results. On Google’s search result page, Paid search picks up around 25% of the click-share , whereas organic search results account for around 75% of clicks. Consequently, optimising the organic search listings is of upmost importance.
Leaked data from AOL showed that number 1 organic search result has a click through rate of 42%, the second result 12%, and the third result 8%. Based on these figures, if you rank number one, you’ll get 3.5x more traffic than if you rank number 2, and 5 times the traffic than if you rank number 3!
The search engine market share in the UK is heavily skewed to Google, according to Hitwise, Google have over 90% of the UK market share!
Conclusion: Ranking in position 1 in Google UK is the key objective!
How search engines rank content
Simply put, search engines crawl the web to understand what web-pages are about in order to serve relevant pages to people searching the web
But don’t forget, SEO is an art built upon science. No one knows what all the definitive ranking factors are!
Simply put, search engines rank content based upon on-site ranking factors and off-site ranking factors
On-site ranking factors
How does a search engine understand what a web-page is about when looking at the page? It considers the following on-page factors including the following: Web-site topic, Title tag, URL, Internal link structure, Internal link anchor text, H1 heading, Words used in first paragraph, Semantically related words, ALT image attribute, H2 heading, Words used in lists, File-name, Text in bold, Text in italics, H3 heading, Meta description, Meta keywords
But remember, optimising a web-page is not about keyword stuffing, it should simply involve ensuring that key meaning of the page is easily understood by search engines.
Keywords
A good understanding of keywords is important when optimising a web page. An understanding of the short tail and long tail is essential. Although short tail keywords drive a large volume of traffic across a small number of terms these terms are highly competitive. In contrast, long tail keywords drive small volumes of searches across many terms and as such are less competitive.
You can use the Google Adwords keyword tool and Google insights to get a better understanding of what keywords people are searching for.
Learning to optimise text is a skill. Think about:
Semantically related and topic-related keywords
Modified keyword for phrase-based targeting
Synonym usage
Pluralised keywords
Off-site ranking factors
A website is part of an online ecosystem - The internet is a mass of websites as part of an international ecosystem. Each website has an ecosystem created by one page on a website linking to another. Search engines use this link ecosystem to understand what websites are about and which are the most important websites on the web
What are some of the key factors that search engines consider when looking at the links pointing to a web-page?
Words used in the anchor text of external links
Quality of links pointing to the web-page
Quality of links pointing to the web-site
Number of links pointing to the web-page
Number of links point to the web-site
Diversity of link sources
Words used on the linking page
Relevance of link sources
So if links are very important, how can you increase the number and quality of links pointing to your charities websites? Here are the key two main areas of getting links:
Link-baiting – Developing assets to draw links. Some examples of this are apps, tools, calculators, media content, infographics and excellent content.
Link-building – Going out and getting links. Some examples of this include leveraging partnerships, directory listings, press release syndication and articles.
Conclusion: Leverage your non-profit status for SEO benefit
Ask for links - Always ask for people to include links back to relevant content on your website
Optimise assets - Think about your target keywords and on-page ranking factors when making changes to the website
Use your stats - Spend a bit of time each week looking through Google Analytics to understand where your traffic has come from
Search Engine Optimisation is not some mystic black art!
Search Engine Optimisation is simply understanding how search engines rank content and using this understanding to ensure a website or some other digital assets ranks well.
Value of SEO
Organic search results drive more clicks than paid search results. On Google’s search result page, Paid search picks up around 25% of the click-share , whereas organic search results account for around 75% of clicks. Consequently, optimising the organic search listings is of upmost importance.
Leaked data from AOL showed that number 1 organic search result has a click through rate of 42%, the second result 12%, and the third result 8%. Based on these figures, if you rank number one, you’ll get 3.5x more traffic than if you rank number 2, and 5 times the traffic than if you rank number 3!
The search engine market share in the UK is heavily skewed to Google, according to Hitwise, Google have over 90% of the UK market share!
Conclusion: Ranking in position 1 in Google UK is the key objective!
How search engines rank content
Simply put, search engines crawl the web to understand what web-pages are about in order to serve relevant pages to people searching the web
But don’t forget, SEO is an art built upon science. No one knows what all the definitive ranking factors are!
Simply put, search engines rank content based upon on-site ranking factors and off-site ranking factors
On-site ranking factors
How does a search engine understand what a web-page is about when looking at the page? It considers the following on-page factors including the following: Web-site topic, Title tag, URL, Internal link structure, Internal link anchor text, H1 heading, Words used in first paragraph, Semantically related words, ALT image attribute, H2 heading, Words used in lists, File-name, Text in bold, Text in italics, H3 heading, Meta description, Meta keywords
But remember, optimising a web-page is not about keyword stuffing, it should simply involve ensuring that key meaning of the page is easily understood by search engines.
Keywords
A good understanding of keywords is important when optimising a web page. An understanding of the short tail and long tail is essential. Although short tail keywords drive a large volume of traffic across a small number of terms these terms are highly competitive. In contrast, long tail keywords drive small volumes of searches across many terms and as such are less competitive.
You can use the Google Adwords keyword tool and Google insights to get a better understanding of what keywords people are searching for.
Learning to optimise text is a skill. Think about:
Semantically related and topic-related keywords
Modified keyword for phrase-based targeting
Synonym usage
Pluralised keywords
Off-site ranking factors
A website is part of an online ecosystem - The internet is a mass of websites as part of an international ecosystem. Each website has an ecosystem created by one page on a website linking to another. Search engines use this link ecosystem to understand what websites are about and which are the most important websites on the web
What are some of the key factors that search engines consider when looking at the links pointing to a web-page?
Words used in the anchor text of external links
Quality of links pointing to the web-page
Quality of links pointing to the web-site
Number of links pointing to the web-page
Number of links point to the web-site
Diversity of link sources
Words used on the linking page
Relevance of link sources
So if links are very important, how can you increase the number and quality of links pointing to your charities websites? Here are the key two main areas of getting links:
Link-baiting – Developing assets to draw links. Some examples of this are apps, tools, calculators, media content, infographics and excellent content.
Link-building – Going out and getting links. Some examples of this include leveraging partnerships, directory listings, press release syndication and articles.
Conclusion: Leverage your non-profit status for SEO benefit
Ask for links - Always ask for people to include links back to relevant content on your website
Optimise assets - Think about your target keywords and on-page ranking factors when making changes to the website
Use your stats - Spend a bit of time each week looking through Google Analytics to understand where your traffic has come from
