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

2. 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

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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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 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

7. 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

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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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