BTEC NCF Dip in Comp - Unit 15 Website Development Lesson 04 – Search Engine Optimisation Mr C Johnston

Learning Outcome Understand how search engines work Understand techniques that can be used so web pages are optimised for search engine spiders Recommend SEO procedures for a business

Starter How do search engines work? What are there main components? How Search engines work

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) What is SEO? SEO is the act of modifying a website to increase its ranking in crawler-based listings of search engines How do none paid for search listings work? A spider or crawler which is a component of a search engine gathers listings by "crawling" the web The spider follows links to web pages, makes copies of the pages and stores them in the search engines index Based on this data, the search engine then indexes the pages and ranks the websites Major search engines that index pages using spiders include Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, MSN, AOL, Lycos

SEO Strategies1 Domain Name Linking strategies Crawler-friendly Domain names are traffic magnets Choose a domain name that will increase your search engine ranking. How? use keywords, location, advertising terms, product names choose a keyword that is important for your business Linking strategies Link relevancy is critical in getting your site indexed by search engines The text in the links should include keywords The more inbound links the higher the search engine ranking if the site linking to you is already indexed, spiders will also receive your site Crawler-friendly Choose simplicity over complexity Ensure all your web pages can be seen by crawlers so limit the number of subfolders

SEO Strategies2 Keywords are important in optimizing rankings Keywords are words that appear the most in a page the spider chooses the appropriate keywords for each page then sends them back to its SE Your web site will then be indexed based on your keywords can be key phrases or a single keywords - write keyword-rich text spiders ignore common words e.g. ‘the’ ‘and’ ‘of’ use full exact phrases e.g. “Apple iPhone” rather than “iPhone” include geographically information balance keyword-rich and readability always have text in your page: at least 100 words the optimum page size is 500-3000 words (or 2000 to 20,000 characters) ALT property of IMG tag Used to describe images for those with sight impediments Use keywords in ALT property and these will be picked up by the search engine

SEO Strategies3 Title tags Meta description tags Meta keyword tags Important in optimizing rankings The first thing that a search engine displays on a search return Should have the exact keyword you use for the page Every single web page must have its own title tag You can use up to 65 characters - example Meta description tags Displayed below the title in search results Use dynamic, promotional language Use keywords Meta keyword tags No longer carry weight with major search engines A myth that meta keywords alone affect rankings Manually submit site details to search engines

Title tag Meta description tag (or first para of text on page if no meta des has been added)

SEO Bad Practices Spiders do not pick up Flash and shockwave Images only Image maps Image based drop down menus Frames - only one page can be titled If the spider cannot read the complete page (because of the frames), it will not be indexed properly. Misspellings, JavaScript or HTML errors (validate your code) PDF files can be indexed but content cant be read

Summary Critical Elements No Nos domain name, links, keywords, title, meta description, alt tags, submitting your website to search engines keywords galore: include in page copy, title, description, domain name, ALT tags No Nos flash, image-only sites, image maps, frames, password protected pages, code errors

Activity Produce a SEO plan for these businesses including TopDog Promotions Mobile Disco Coventry are producing a website to help promote their business activities They propose the following pages Home – business details and prices Gallery – pictures and video of previous bookings Booking – where clients can book Equipment – details of the rig currently been used 4Js Pizza & Kebab Coventry are producing a website to help promote their business activities They propose the following pages Home – business details and offers Menu – details of the food served Order – where people can order food Contact – page showing details of the shop for collection orders Produce a SEO plan for these businesses including Potential domain names Advice on getting their link out there For each page include: Advice on how content can be optimised Suggested title tag A draft META description tag A draft META keyword tag