SEO Training

It can seem like an impossible choice. SEO or Usability. Where is the compromise?

SEO is vital to the success of any website.  After all, if you can’t get found, then you can’t give your message.  However, once you have been found, it would be nice if people actually stayed on your site and read some of your content instead of clicking off somewhere else within seconds.  Content writing skills are extremely important.

Why are SEO and User Experience often opposites?

It all comes down to how the human mind works and how algorithms work.  Take pictures for example.  Google can’t “see” your graphics in the same way as humans do.

Despite huge improvements in search algorithms, the bottom line is that they still place a massive emphasis on original text content.

This contradicts what humans like to read.  We are the exact opposite.  We don’t really like reading online.  We like pictures and lots of them.

Heuristics – what have they ever done for us?

Jakob Nielsen is regarded by most as the father of usability heuristics (heuristics simply means that the rules are only loosely defined rather than strict).  It is worth reading through them.  What usability heuristics do is give us a rough template on how to not annoy users of both applications and websites (websites being a type of application really).

Keep Visitors Longer

By sticking to heuristic principles we have more chance of keeping our visitors for longer on our site, and of giving them an experience that in all probability they don’t particularly notice.  Not getting noticed in this case is a good thing.  We have all been frustrated on websites by not being able to simply navigate to where we want to go.  Mostly we just look for a new site when that happens.  This is the converse of heuristic principles.

This eye tracking study shows how we tend to read in a vaguely f shaped pattern online. This shows the importance of top google ranking too by the way.

How humans read web pages

We, as humans, read web pages quite differently to how we would read a book.  Broadly speaking, we scan down the left hand side of a web page, reading headings and only some of the words in the paragraphs below them.  How much depends on the level of interest the headline and the first few words invoked.

Thus, the way I wrote that last paragraph was not ideal from a heuristics point of view, since I essentially repeated the heading in my first line.  However that was ideal from an SEO perspective.  I train people to write like that.

Humans like short and snappy text, preferably backed up with pictures.  Google likes text, text and more text.  This is why content writing is such an artform.

How to please both humans and search engines with your content

I was recently working on a site relaunch for a recruitment agency specialising in Medical Jobs.  The website ranked really well for their chosen keywords within a very competitive niche market (no prizes for guessing who does their SEO!). However, the front page had a LOT of text on it that 99% of visitors would never read.

For the relaunch user experience was high on the list of priorities.  But we were faced with a problem.  A good user experience and lots of text on the front page do not good bedfellows make.

The solution was to turn to javascript and make the front page into a slideshow.  Not any javascript will do, and Ajax will not do at all.  The key to this is to make sure that when you view the source of your page, all the content is visible.  This means that search engines get to read all of your text.

Users get movement and interaction (which are plusses) while having the information broken down in such a way that they are more likely to read more of that text.

Did making a slideshow help keep visitors?

Yes it did.  Putting the information into a slideshow increased the average time on the front page of the site by 16 seconds straight away.  This means that people are actually staying to read the information, which is what you want if you have a website.

Benefits of Heuristics to SEO

Google take things like bounce rate and time on site into consideration for SEO too.  So, by providing a better user experience and keeping visitors longer through the use of heuristic principles, you are also improving your standing with the search engines.

How do I know if I should break up text on my page?

It is not always the case that text needs to be broken up for humans to appreciate it properly.  It is very simple to find out if your page needs help.  Use your analytics.  The key factor here is the amount of time spent on the page.  If it is really low on a page that has a lot of text then it stands to reason that your users are not reading it.  If that doesn’t upset you it should.  The only reason it would not upset you is if the content is really only there for the search engines.  In other words it’s spam content.  There should be nothing on your website that you do not want people to read.  Spam content can be recognised by search engines simply by measuring the time your visitors spend on your page.  If it’s too short for the amount of content, then the quality of the writing must be really bad. Thus at the very least, the page does not deserve to be ranked highly.

I don’t like slideshows (other ways to break up text)

If you have a lot of text on your page that you realise could not possibly be read in the time your analytics say people are taking to read it then you need to make some changes.  The following are ways of breaking up text in a page to make it more accessible…

• Lists.  Put your content into lists.  They are easier to read than straight paragraphs.
• Plenty of headings.  These hugely increase the chances of people reading more of your content.
• Boxes.  Place your content into bite sized individual boxes.
• Pictures. Pictures and picture captions are about the only thing that will distract us from reading down the left hand side of a page at the speed of light.  We love images.  However, stock images that we have seen before tend to be ignored.  Your pictures have to get attention too.
• Ruthless editing.  Big long sentences are bad.  Get rid of your verbose ramblings and stick to the point. (I could do with remembering that one).
• Highlight text. Using bold or italic text helps to get pertinent points noticed.

As always, remember that keyword stuffing is really annoying to users.  I don’t want to read about seo training in the latest seo training article on this seo training website.  Neither do search engines.  It may work to some extent, but it’s effect on users is to make you look bad, so don’t do it!

Do you want the content you have written for the internet to rank higher than your competitors?  Of course you do.  In order to rank highly you must first understand how Google works.  This should be a starting point for any SEO training.

Understanding How Google Search Algorithms Work in Simple English

Here is a simple version of how Google works in laymans English.  If you know how Google looks at a page then you can make sure that your content is written in a way that is complementary and therefore help you to rank higher on Google and other search engines.

At the core of Google is a set of mathematical algorithms.  Their purpose is to  try to determine the relevance of your page as opposed to other pages for a specific search term.  Imagine being given a billion pages of text in a language you don’t understand and having to give back the most relevant page for information on a word you also don’t understand.  You may know that there are pictures, but you can’t see them.  That is what it is like for the algorythm!

I am going to describe the process the Google search algorithms have to go through as if I was the algorithm.

If somebody was to do a search for “flabrat” then I am first going to look at URL’s to see if any of them have “flabrat” in them.  This is because flabrat.com is more likely to have information on “flabrat” than “globsheen.com”.  However, globsheen.com/flabrat.html is also highly likely to have some relevance.

Unfortunately there is no guarantee that a pages content has any relevance to its name without going and reading it.

Meta Title

The first information I will find on a page is the Meta Title.  This is the text that will be displayed in my search results.  Does this say “flabrat” in it?  If it does then I could be on the right track.

Meta Keywords

I’m going to take a cursory look at the Meta keywords too if they exist.  Not that I am going to put any weight behind them at all.  I’m just checking to see if they look spammy to me.  If they do I’m going to assume that the rest of the page is also trying to pull the wool over my eyes a bit.

H1 tag

Next comes the H1 tag.  This is really really really important.  The h1 tag is the heading for the whole page.  It is the heading that people will actually see when they view the page.  If the word “flabrat” is used in the h1 tag then there is a good chance that the page is actually about flabrat. See The importance of h tags for more information.

Other Header tags (h2, h3 etc)

These are sub-headings and should relate to the content in the text that comes after them.  They are not as important as the h1 tag but are still useful, particularly for breaking up your text and making it more readable for us humans.  The header tags used in these segments are h3 tags.

p tags

Not content with just looking at the title, like Google, I will then look at the actual content of your text contained in p tags or paragraph tags.  The first paragraph is particularly important, but if it was me I would be looking for the word flabrat throughout the entire document.

I would become suspicious if it appeared a lot though, so don’t overdo your keyword density.

Pictures

Google can’t actually see pictures.  Google can however read text associated with pictures.  For this reason your picture file names and alt text should both reflect your keywords.  Think of it as another way of getting your keywords onto the page without being overly spammy.  Without alt text in your images (img src=”images/picture.jpg” alt=”a flabrat in full bloom”) your pictures are doing precicely nothing for your Search Engine Optimisation.

Google search algorithms are a lot more complicated than that.

What I have just described is a very simplified version of what actually goes on to choose which page gets ranked highest in Google.  There are over 200 factors involved in Google’s search algorithm and nobody knows exactly what they all are or what weighting is applied to each one.

What I have done in this post is give you a foolproof method of ensuring your on-page SEO is good enough to help you get ranked higher.  Depending on what market you operate in, it could even be enough to get you ahead of some of your competitors.

On-page SEO is only half the battle though.  You will need to do some off-page or external SEO too if you want your page to rank in any but the very least competitive of markets.  My next post will be describe off-page SEO in simple terms.

On-page SEO is massively important.  It is the foundation to getting found online.  It is always my starting point.  Get it right and everything else you do will work better too.

All heading tags are important, but it is a serious offence to omit your h1 tag

I thought I’d write a little about H tags and how important they are to SEO.  This was highlighted to me recently when I was given a very small budget to do some SEO work on a site.  I would have liked to do a complete redesign, but there were very good reasons for keeping the budget low.

I love a challenge, so I thought I’d see what could be done with the site as it was.

The first thing that struck me was that there was a complete lack of H1 tags on the site.  It had been built using a CMS and the content had been written by the business owners themselves.  The second major problem with the on-site SEO was that nearly all the pages had the same title.

The coding was verbose but I could do nothing about the page structure (no access to files on the server – just the CMS).

Do H tags make a measurable difference to position on Google?

The short answer is “yes they do”.  I made several changes to the site’s content.  H tags were at the core of what I did though.

The Results

Original Position on Google for local search terms (ie. “industry locality“): Page 3 at highest.

New Position on Google for the same terms: Nearly all page 1 with some at position 2.  Those on page 2 were in the top position there.

How I went about achieveing a page 3 to page 1 jump in rank without any inbound linking.

For on-page SEO I usually start with determining a keyword or two.  This was a local business targeting the local area.  The search terms that would be most likely used to find it seemed obvious and checking with Google Trends confirmed this.

Keywords chosen, relevance must be established within the page.  What I am looking for here is continuity.

• URL : Try to get a keyword into the URL
• Page Title (Meta) : Use the same keyword in the Page title (this appears on the tab of your browser)
• H1 tag: Use the keyword here too.
• H2, H3, H4 tags: Less important, but same principles apply.
• p tag: Use the keyword in the body of your text, but not too much.  How much is too much?  As a rule of thumb, if it doesn’t read like good english then it is too much.

Basically, if you do hot have a h1 tag on your page it is like handing up a college thesis without a title at the top.  You are going to lose marks for it (or in this case SERPs rank).

SEO for Dummies does exist, you can buy it. It is far from the best book on the subject though. If fact, books are generally outdated nearly as soon as they go to print!

SEO for Dummies. It is an attractive prospect.  It brings to mind a quick, easily digestible way to get your website to the top of Google. There are lots and lots of sites and people proclaiming to be able to show you how to do this.  These are the snake oil salesmen and women of our modern world.

Is there an easy way to learn SEO?

Frankly there is no easy way.  This site “SEO training” will be going for years and will never cover everything completely.  There are a few reasons for this:

1. SEO is a huge topic
2. The SEO goalposts keep moving

I really want to learn SEO though.  How can I get started?

The starting place for every budding SEO practitioner should be Googles’ Webmaster Guidelines. Go and follow all of the advice they set forth and you will be half way there.  I do mean all of it by the way.  There is no point picking and choosing which bits suit you.  This is the “white hat” SEO way.  It means that you are doing what Google want you to do.  Your reward shall be no penalties.  This does not guarantee you better ranking though….. Google Webmaster Guidelines are just a starting point!

Following Google guidelines looks like tons of work!

Indeed.  Making sure that your site is structured as Google would like it to be can be a lot of work depending on how  well your site was put together in the first place.  In some instances it is easier to start from scratch!

Google Guidelines seem very technical, is there an easier to understand version?

No. There is no easier version.  The Google guidelines are the easy version.

You said this article was about SEO for Dummies!

This article is about SEO for Dummies.  The point is that if you go and look at Google Webmaster Guidelines and find it too technical or do not have the time to put into learning everything there then you are better off hiring a professional SEO consultant. They do not have to do all the work for you, but they should be able to at least give you the tools you need and the understanding to be able to tackle the job yourself.  More importantly, they can bring you to the next level and bring you from conforming to performing.  To do otherwise would be dumb.  Here is the reason:

SEO starts with diagnosis

In the last post I wrote I mentioned the importance of SEO analysis.  You need to know what is wrong with your site before you can fix it.  When my car breaks down I sometimes have a fair idea of what is wrong, but I will bring it to a mechanic to find out for sure.  He is a professional.  He knows more about it than I do.  If I fiddle about with my car I am likely to spend money on parts I don’t need, waste time “fixing” the wrong thing and end up with a car that may be fixed, but in my case is more likely to be more damaged than it was originally.

The thing I am missing is an accurate diagnosis.  This holds for SEO too.  If I start tinkering with a site without knowing what I am doing then I am in danger of actually causing damage as well as not fixing my problems.  I need to know what to fix and why.

As a professional SEO consultant, the first thing I do is analyse the website I am going to work on.  That tells me where the sites strengths and weaknesses are and helps to ensure I target the areas that need it most.

SEO knowledge can be learned.  That is what this site is for.

I do not want to be negative about learning SEO.  It is not rocket science.  It does take time to learn though.  This post is really aimed at business owners or management who think it is a good idea to do their SEO in-house with no help from a professional source.  It is not a good idea.  I say that from experience.  I had to learn too.  I got as far as I could by reading everything I could and following guidelines.  Then it was time to get somebody to teach me.  I realised at that point that I could have saved a lot of time (and time is money) by using a consultant in the first place.

Since then I have learned a lot more from a lot of different sources, but the point is that using a GOOD SEO consultant is expensive, but prudent – it saves money in the long run.

When starting out on an SEO campaign where do you actually begin? How do you organise and prioritise? What is more important: social media, link building, content?

These questions are valid for everybody. They are particularly relevant if you have been charged with your company’s online marketing and are not 100% sure exactly what to do in order to get results that will get you a clap on the back.

Your SEO campaign needs planning to make you look good.

It all has to start with SEO analysis.  My granny used to knit a lot.  The house was littered with knitting patterns.  Try building a house without blueprints.  The same is true for online marketing and SEO.  Without a clear picture of what has to be done you will end up with a proverbial one armed jumper (an itchy one at that) or a house with architectural properties similar to that of my own (and the builders actually had plans!).

SEO analysis allows you to work out exactly where you stand right now and provides pointers for where you can achieve that all important traffic and Google rankings. Think of an SEO analysis report as an SEO blueprint.  A good SEO analysis report will tell you:

• What keywords am I using currently?
• Is my website standards compliant? (good code base)
• How can my site structure be improved? (for ease of use and for SEO)
• How does my site compare to that of competitors for SEO?
• What keywords are competitors using?
• What sites link back to my site?
• What sites link to my competitors sites?
• What are my sites Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats? (SWOT analysis)

A really good report will also bring in social media and assess what can be done there too.  It will also explain the effects of these different aspects on your websites online performance.

Webshed offer a SEO Health Check that incorporates these features.  That is because it is the essential building block of any online campaign.

If you are about to start an SEO campaign, do not go into it blind.  Have a clear plan based on facts and your life will be made that much easier and there is less possibility of spending lots of time on little return.

Twitter Tweet Button Slows down Wordpress index pages

Since adding posting about how to install the official Twitter Tweet button yesterday I have noticed an unfortunate side effect.  The button slows down the load time of wordpress sites significantly.

Originally I had placed the button at the top and bottom of each post on the index page.  I have since removed the twitter button from the bottom of the posts.

Why has the Twitter tweet button slowed down my site?

We have all experienced trying to log on to Twitter only to be met with a message that Twitter is over capacity – please try again later.  Well this is what happens…

For each instance of the button on a page the little bit of javascript makes a call to Twitter.  If Twitter is running slow then the query will take longer and it will slow down the page load speed on your site.  If you have 10 articles on a page, and a tweet button at the top and bottom of each article, then that is 20 calls to twitter.  If they slow to half a second then load time will be slowed by 10 seconds!

It’s not just the Twitter Tweet button, The Facebook share button has the same problem.

Maybe, like me you have the facebook share button installed on your wordpress site too.  The same thing applies.  The facebook share button has a far smaller effect though, load times are not effected as much.

Google Adsense Isn’t helping matters either!

Want to really slow down your site?  Add in Google adsense too!  Each of the Twitter button, the Facebook button and Google adsense, all make calls to external sites.  This leaves you at the mercy of their response times.

Should I remove the Twitter Tweet button from my index page?

I am leaving the Twitter button for now.  I may well remove it from the index page in the future.  It all depends on whether more people installing it (which will be millions of users) slows it down even more, or if Twitter address the problem somehow.  I could always go back to Tweetmeme, which seems to have these issues under much better control. Interestingly Tweetmeme are working with Twitter on the button.

Will the Twitter Tweet button affect my SEO?

Google has intimated that they will be taking page load speeds into more consideration.  It stands to reason then that there is a possibility that installing the Twitter Tweet button could have a negative effect on your sites Google rank if the current load speed problems persist.  I for one will be monitoring it closely.

Page load speed not the only problem.

Page load speed has not been the only problem to affect the Twitter Tweet button.  Several major sites removed the button yesterday after discovering that firefox users were getting a pop up that rendered the site inaccessible.  Twitter have since stated that this problem has been recified.

The default way that Wordpress displays your page/post/comment/tag pages title is to have the blog name, followed by two >> marks and then the post title, tag title, comment title, or just the blog name if it is the home page. Here is how to do some simple optimisation (ok ok optimization just for you Americans) on your Wordpress site or Blog.

As you can see, on this blog things are a little different.  The home page displays the blog name “SEO Training” and also the site description (small text below the blog title).

On the other pages I have made the blog name go to the right.  Why?  because it is better to have the more important keywords near the beginning of the title for SEO.  This is particularly true when the blog title is repeated on every page as it is in this case.

This is another issue.  Should I have the blog title showing on every page?  Jury is out on that one here… so I’m experimenting.  Another blog I write on my home site about online marketing does not have the blog title on every page. If it is a tag page then the page title will be just the tag.  If it is an article then just the article title will appear in the meta title tag.  The blog is new, so I will give it six months and see if I can notice any discernable difference in performance.

Anyway, I digress a bit. Here is how to change your title tag in wordpress.

1. You need to open the header.php file in whatever theme you are using.  You can do this directly from Wordpress, by clicking on the appearance menu item on the left of your Wordpress dashboard and then clicking on Editor which will show up below it.  Once you are in editor you can select Header (header.php) from the list of pages on the right.  Your files must be writable though or it will tell you it could not save your changes.  Alternatively, if like me you prefer to use ftp, then the path is wp-content -> themes -> (whatever theme you are using) -> header.php.
2. Find the title tag. It will look like this: <title><?php wp_title(’&laquo;’, true, ‘right’); ?> <?php bloginfo(’name’); ?></title>
3. Change it to this: <title><?php if ( is_single() || is_page() || is_tag() || is_category()) {  wp_title(’&raquo;’,true,’right’); bloginfo(’name’);} else {
   bloginfo(’name’); echo ” &raquo; “; bloginfo(’description’);
   } ?></title>
4. Save it.  You’re done!

If you would like the blog title not to appear on every post then you want to use this instead: <title><?php if(wp_title(’&laquo;’,false, ‘right’)){wp_title(false);} else { bloginfo(’name’); echo ‘ &raquo; ‘; bloginfo(’description’);} ?></title>

That is all there is to it. Better SEO for your Wordpress site and it’s not even difficult! Enjoy!

Are your pages straining under the weight of keyword density and struggling to climb the Google ranks?

Keyword density is the number of keywords as a percentage of the total text on a web page.  Too little density and the search engine algorithms will presume that the page is not important for that keyword.  Too much density and the page will get penalised for keyword stuffing.

Since nobody has access to the search engine algorithms, how do we determine what the bounds are for keyword density?  What is the correct or optimum keyword density for your page?

If you have gone searching for the answer online you will have found the answer to be stated as anything between 1% and 8% (in general).  The truth is that keyword density is old news.  It just does not matter as much as it used to.  Nobody knows for certain, so this is just my opinion.  It is an opinion however, that is based on experience and experimentation.  Here is my view on Keyword density:

Forget about Keyword Density! The only check I do around density now is to make sure I have not gone too high.  I like to stick to not going over about 6% in general.  However, if the article reads well to me, then I’ll let it slide so long as it’s under 8%.  I do not have a minimum density.

Keyword Positioning is far more important than the number of times it is repeated.  I generally have the keyword in the title, and in the H1 / H2 tags and again in the body text.  This is particularly true of text immediately after headings.  I do not always keep the same word order, or even use exactly the same words.  I want what I write to be legible for humans.

Certainly I have repeated the words “keyword density” a fair bit in this post, more so than usual.  It is just how this particular post has gone.  I find it harder to write “SEO training” in posts, simply because it does not fit into the general flow of what I write.

A word of caution.  If you have a density that is too high, it may work for you.  It may get you up there in the google ranks… but not for long.  Keyword Stuffing is bad bad bad!  It worked back in the 90’s, and many SEO consultants in Ireland are still recommending it on a smaller scale than before.  I completely disagree with this.  Keyword stuffing is outdated now to the same extent that travel by horses has been replaced by cars!  Keyword densities are a factor still, but are not something to be pushed to extremes and do not hold the same weight as they once did.

Get found online

Getting found online is not all that difficult.  It is not incredibly easy either.  Of course it depends on how much competition you have.  Why do some sites show up above others? On Google it is a combination of over 200 factors!

In general these are split into two types of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – On page (the actual website itself) and Off page (links from other sites to your site).

For On-page SEO all you need to do is follow Googles Webmaster Guidelines.  Although, there is quite a bit to that, and it may take some time and patience to work your way through it.  There are other issues too.  Try looking up information on keyword density for example.  The web is full of different opinions.  The reason that some people will tell you not to exceed 4% density (4 percent of total text on the page) and others 8% density for example, is that nobody knows exactly how many keywords will get your page flagged for keyword stuffing.

Here is the problem…..

You want your site to get found online for specific keywords (SEO training in the case of this blog for example).  In order to show that the site is all about SEO training, it is tempting to use the phrase lots.  However, if I do that, then it will look like I am trying to influence search engines and they will penalise me for it.  This is not to say that it does not work…. but eventually the chances are your site will plummet down the rankings if for keyword stuffing.  I always advise clients to stick to the webmaster guidelines rigidly.

Off site SEO is where a lot of people come unstuck.  How do you get links to your site?  How many links do you need? Should you pay for links? Does it matter where the links come from?

It is a mine field.  Get it wrong and you will pay for it!  Get it right and your site will reap rewards.  By the way NEVER pay for links! It does matter where the links come from too.  What is more, external link building should be something that is an ongoing practice.  I will be posting more on link building in the future.

If you want to get found online, then it really does pay to get somebody who knows what they are doing to either train you, or do it for you.  This saves a lot of time.  Nobody knows it all (the search engines do not release the details of their criteria) but using a SEO professional who has gained experience from spending time on research as well as experimenting and finding out where some of the limits are pays off.

Design your Website with SEO in mind. It is childs play really. . . . honest.

Web design and SEO should be symbiotic. After all, there is no point having a wonderful looking site if nobody can find it.  This site, by contrast, has no design whatsoever.  It can however be found.

Am I saying that SEO is more important than Web design?  Not really.  A good web designer will incorporate basic SEO into a site as they build it.  Not having any design (wordpress default style) is not a good thing though.  While the content on this site is good (or at least I try to make it good) a lack of design leads to me losing traffic.  This shows up as my bounce rate which is high enough for me to be embarrassed to print it here.

Of course there are other factors.  My writing style could do with an overhaul most of the time for starters.  There is no getting away from the fact though, that the first impression of this site is that it is unprofessional.  Nothing could be further from the truth in reality, but it is not a warm, inviting, friendly site.

This is not because I am not a warm, friendly or inviting type of person, it is purely down to how the site looks.

SEO will get a site noticed.  It will get visitors.  Keeping those visitors requires a little extra though.  Both Web design and SEO are extremely important.  The reason this site does not have any design is because I wanted to see the effects of bad design. The wordpress theme is not necessarily bad, but it gives an impression of little effort.  It also firmly aligns itself with spam blogs (splogs) by not altering the theme.  This is because the majority of splogs do not bother altering the theme either.

When I change the theme I expect to see a change in my stats.  That will not be for a while yet though.  I am not finished collecting data on the current setup.

For me, SEO is more important than design, but it is a mistake to ignore web design.  Equally it is a mistake to ignore SEO.

Of course to really market your web site online, holistic SEO is the way to go.  Do not look at the web in terms of SEO vs Design, Adwords Vs SEO or Social Media Vs Adwords.  Look at it in terms of a marketing medium and bring in everything.  There is no more cost effective medium for marketing.  Use it to its full potential to sell your business.