7. Eye Tracking Heat Map Research
It’s important to be above the fold
The top 2 organic results receive
more than 50% of the clicks on the
SERP
Users read from top –down, and from
left – right ( F-shaped pattern)
~ 80% of searchers click on organic
results
~ 20% of clicks on PPC
8. SEO/ SEM S.W.O.T
SEO SEM
Strengths • High level of clicks and trust ( brand
value)
• More relevant ( more contextual)
• Long-lasting results
• Low cost
• Immediate results
• ROI-focused
• Google’s best friend
Weaknesses • Takes time to be on #1 page
• Hard to predict. Depends on competition
& Google’s Dance
• Less contextual Low clicks & trust
• High cost
Opportunities • Untapped huge reach potentials
• “Focus on the users, all else will follow” (
Google’s #1 philosophy)
• Google Product Listing Ads | Re-
marketing/targeting
Threats • Google updates search algorithm on the
whim
• > 200 ranking factors
• Negative SEO
• Google “Not Provided” Keywords > 90%
• Google disallows ads or bans accounts
• Intense competition: everyone has the
same tools, can’t think out of the box too
much
9. We cannot build a House in a Day…
SEO is not an overnight work. It takes 3-6 months ( even more) to see results
SEO must be done in line with Google standards
Never employ black hat solutions for quick fixes
SEO is a long-term investment yet long-lasting impacts
The Devil is in the Details
10. SEO Ranking Factors ( 2014)
Factors Details
Content High quality/media rich, relevant
Technology Robust site architecture ( breadcrumb, clean URL, optimal linking
structure)
Short loading times
Presence of meta tags
Sitemap(s)
Backlinks/ Inbound Links Quantity & quality. Referring domains
Social Signals Indication of whether your content/website is of good quality
User Signals First time there is a relation between rankings and higher CTR, lower
bounce rates , and high time-on-site
Searchmetrics Study, Sep 2014
11. Content
High quality, Unique,
Relevant
The 3C’s of SEO
Connection
Links, Authority, Click-
ability
Crawl-ability
Index-ability, Technical,
Sitemap(s)
SEO is the
combined effects
of all these
12. Copywriters,
Marketers
Who are Taking Part?
Bloggers, Links/
Email Outreach
Developers,
UI/UX
SEO is the joint efforts
of cross-functional
collaborations
internally & externally
13. The 3C’s of SEO
Crawl-ability
Index-ability, Technical,
Sitemap(s)
Sitemap(s)
Robots.txt / Meta Robots
Tag
Website Architecture
URL Structure
Page Speed
Focus on the users, all else will follow ( Google’s #1 philosophy)
14. Crawling
Indexing
Ranking
Which pages are crawled by the search
engine?
What kind of pages are they?
Has the search engine indexed all of the
crawled pages ?
How does the search engine rank ?
Relevant
Useful
15. Crawl Efficiency Checklist
Ensure page load times aren’t slow to reduce number of pages crawled
Ensure server is responsive
Use compression
Return a 404 for not found content
Ensure each page has at least one link
No duplicate ( if possible )
Avoid infinite redirects and redirect loops
Ensure most important pages are linked from home page
No JavaScript redirects or meta refresh redirects (if possible)
Reasonable use of Google Webmaster Tools crawl setting
Many more…
17. How to Improve Crawl-ability
Focus on the users, all else will follow ( Google’s #1 philosophy)
18. The Index-ability Story
Indexing is like buying lottery tickets – without a ticket, we have no chance of
winning
Do we have spider traps and barriers to indexing?
Improper redirects
Incorrect robots coding
JavaScript
Multiple dynamic variables & Session ID’s
Session ID’s or cookie restrictions
20. Indexing Instructions | Robots.txt
Primary used to tell search engines what
to exclude, not what to crawl
Keep spiders from specific section of
the site ( private, sensitive, user profiles)
Done wrong, can block bots from entire
site
User-agent: * applied to all robots
Disallow: / what pages they shouldn’t visit, crawl
and index
Focus on the users, all else will follow ( Google’s #1 philosophy)
21. Indexing Instructions | Meta robots tag
Focus on the users, all else will follow ( Google’s #1 philosophy)
Page-level meta tag
Sits in the <head> part of page’s code
<meta name =“robots” content=“noindex”>
What For Note
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”><meta
name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow”>
Do not index this page (noindex,follow) is optional
Link juice flow through by
default
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,nofollow”><meta
name=”robots” content=”none”>
Do not index this page
Do not follow the links on it
<meta name=”robots” content=”index”><meta
name=”robots” content=”index,follow”>
Index this page
Follow links from it
No need to set for this case.
Default condition for a page is
to be indexed and followed
<meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow”><meta
name=”robots” content=”index,nofollow”>
Index this page
Do not follow links on it
“index,nofollow” is optional
Being indexed is by default
Note: meta robots can’t work if you’ve blocked a page from being crawled with robots.txt
22. Website Architecture : Flat vs. Deep
A clear structure is easy to navigate and
crawl
Link Juice ( PageRank) flow through easily
Focus on the users, all else will follow ( Google’s #1 philosophy)
singtelshop.com
singtel.com
3-click Rule
23. Link Juice Flowing
The deeper the site structure is,
the thinner the link juice is passed
on
The flatter the site structure is, the
greater chances of boosting
ranking
Focus on the users, all else will follow ( Google’s #1 philosophy)
24. How Link Juice is Passed
Every web page has a limited amount of
link juice it can pass ( determined by
PageRank)
Case 1: PR points = 20, 5 do-follow links
Each link gets 20/5 = 4 PR points
Case 2: PR points = 20 , link to 5 links, 4/5
have “nofollow” tag
Do-follow link gets full 20 points of link juice
Is this always the case to prevent link
juice dilution? The answer is Depends
25. rel=“nofollow”
To tell search engine NOT to follow this specific links No Link Juice passing on
27. Should we rel=“nofollow” all external links?
Matt Cutts ( Google) says PR/ Link Juice is lost through
nofollow as it is through followed links
The web is no longer web
without links
28. URL Structure/ Naming Convention
SEO & user-friendly for both search engine &
online users ( visitors purchasers)
Comply with SEO best practices
Consistency across pages
Standard practices for all teams dealing with
online content
Focus on the users, all else will follow ( Google’s #1 philosophy)
31. Page Speed
One of Google’s ranking signals
How quickly do we deliver
content?
Dirty code
Unnecessary files
No Compression
Oversized images
Direct impact on user’s signals (
bounce rate, time spent on site)
PageSpeed Insights test ( link )
Don’t Waste the Spiders Time!
32. Increase Page Speed Checklist
What Actions
Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML Removing spaces, commas, code comments, unused codes
Reduced Redirects Reducing waiting time for users
Leverage browser caching Setting expiry date or maximum age in the HTTPs headers for static
resources to instruct the browser to load previously downloaded
resources from local disk rather than over the network
Improve server response time
Optimize images Properly formatting and compressing can save many bytes of data
Reference: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=singtelshop.com
Don’t Waste the Spiders Time!
33. Recap for Dev
Important SEO HTML tags
Title tag <head>
<title>keyword</title>
</head>
H1, H2, H3 <h1>Most important</h1>
<h2>Second most important </h2>
</h3>Third Most important </h3>
Bold, Strong <b>keyword</b>
<strong>keyword</strong>
Image <img src=”keyword.jpg” alt=”keyword” />
Hyperlink <a href=”http://www.website.com/page.html” title=”keyword”>keyword</a>
Hyperlink ( nofollow) <a href=”http://www.website.com/page.html” title=”keyword”
rel=”nofollow”>keyword</a>
34. Recap for Dev
Search Engine Indexing Limits
Sitemap XML Protocol to inform the search engine of our pages / http://www.sitemaps.org/
Robots.txt Available at www.yoursite.com/robots.txt)
User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /go/
Sitemap: http://www.mysite.com/google-sitemap-index.xml
Meta robots tag To give search engine instruction of page indexing and link(s) following
rel=nofollow Mainly used for low-quality websites that we link to or sponsored links
Clean folder/ file naming
convention | Clean URL structure
No hyphen, upper case, minimize parameters
No duplicate A page can be accessed by many ways ( rel=“canonical”)
Redirect 301 only
37. Relevancy
Ensuring that our pages are relevant to the query by :
placing keywords in location that send strong signals to the
search engine
providing rich/ useful content that answers users’ questions
39. Optimal Keyword Placement
Heading tags <H1> , <H2>, <H3>
First paragraph: proper sentence wrapped keywords
Body Copy : keywords appearing throughout page content
Anchor Text: say NO to “ click here”. Anchor text should be
contextual, providing a valid reason for users to click
40. Low-quality Content & its Impacts
Bad content
Thin
Spun/ Automated
Duplicate
Irrelevant
Bad User
Signals
Low CTRs
High Bounce Rate
Low Time on Site
Low amount of returning visitors
Bad Usability
Design, Layout
Navigation
Too many 404 errors
Flash
Website is indexed by Google still
But ranking gets hurt badly
Focus on the users, all else will follow ( Google’s #1 philosophy)
41. Keyword Research is Crucial
Search Demand
High Cost &
Competition
Low Cost &
Risk
Low
probability of
conversion
High
probability of
conversion
1-2 word phrases (
singtel, mobile phones)
> 3 word phrases. Specific &
descriptive (e.g. difference
between Samsung s4 and s5)
Low-hanging fruits for SEO
• content optimization
• CRO
47. The Web is no longer Web without Links
Search Engine look for clusters of thematically similar content. To do this, they look
at
Link Popularity : No. of links pointing to the site
Link Authority : Quality of links pointing to the site
Anchor Text, or Link Text : Keyword/phrase appearing in the title of page linking
to your site
Think of inbound links as “ votes of authority” between sites
48. The “ Click Here” Story
How confident are you
to click on “ Click here”
link?
Click for a Demo
Photos of my trip are here, here, and here
You can download it right here
How about?
View Demo
Photos of my trip: at the beach, on a boat, and going fishing
You can download Spotify on Google Play Store
51. Identify our audience ( persona) , their pain points, content they are
looking for
Build Content Calendar
Write relevant, useful content that address the need of users. Make it
sharable
#1.Focus on Audience, Build Content, not Links
How to earn Natural Links?
52. Help our customers. They will build links for us unconditionally
Find top influencers/ loyal customers online. They will be our brand
advocates
Strengthen relationship with our partners : Cross-linking exchange
Unlinked Mentions
#2. Build Connection/ Relationships
Act without expectation ( Lao Tzu)
How to earn Natural Links?
55. Glossary
1. Search keyword ( or search query): the word/ phrase that Internet users enter into the search box
2. SERP: Search Engine Result Page
3. PageRank : a link analysis algorithm used by Google to determine the relative importance of a website (0-10
scale)
4. Link Juice: The transfer of PageRank points when links are linked ( internally and externally)
