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SEO for Beginners

SEO for Beginners

SEO principles for beginner website owners and WordPress beginners.

Kristen Symonds

February 12, 2015
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  1. SEO for Beginners

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  2. SEO
    = Search Engine Optimisation
    ≢ Search Ranking
    Stuff you can do to
    make your site as
    good as possible
    Where you appear in results:
    the combined effects of
    SEO, link signals etc
    or On-page vs Off-page SEO

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  3. Some notes about search
    EVERYONE gets personalised search results
    Location
    History
    Social signals
    Google wants to produce the best & most relevant
    results, so BE relevant & be user-friendly

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  4. What contributes to SEO?
    Speed
    HTML
    Theme
    Plugins
    Content

    Content
    Readability
    Clarity
    Metadata
    Titles
    Descriptions
    Everything on your site!

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  5. Assessing your theme
    Read the description
    Look at the demo
    Reviews
    ThemeCheck (plugin or website)
    w3 validator

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  6. ThemeCheck.org
    Thesis 2.1
    0
    Genesis 2.1.2
    56
    Lawyeria
    Quark 1.3
    100 96
    Assesses security and code quality

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  7. validator.w3.org
    Thesis 2.1
    Genesis 2.1.2
    passed
    Lawyeria
    Quark 1.3
    2 errors passed
    4 errors

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  8. Content
    Quality
    Research
    Words
    Engagement
    Freshness
    http://searchengineland.com/seotable

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  9. Content in WordPress
    Title
    Don’t be obtuse
    Formatting
    Use it!
    Headings & subheadings
    Lists
    Blockquotes

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  10. Content in WP: images
    When uploading/
    inserting images give
    them a decent title
    Give them a descriptive
    Alt Text

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  11. Content in WP: links
    Add or Edit links using the icon in the editor
    First select link text, then click icon
    Use relevant keywords
    Title ≢ link text
    Easily find URLs on
    your own site

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  12. Metadata
    Title
    URL (permalinks)
    Description
    Canonical URL
    Robots
    Keywords

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  13. SEO Plugins
    WordPress SEO by
    Yoast
    All in One SEO
    probably several others

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  14. WordPress SEO by Yoast
    FREE: wordpress.org/
    plugins/wordpress-seo/
    Features: yoast.com/
    wordpress/plugins/seo/
    SEO Guide: yoast.com/
    articles/wordpress-seo/
    I ♥
    Yoast

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  15. Text
    Speed
    image be Martin Heigan

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  16. What impacts site speed?
    Hosting
    Number of files
    CSS
    JavaScript
    images
    Code quality
    Number of plugins
    Caching

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  17. Text
    Caching
    FASTER
    image from http://www.wpbeginner.com/
    blueprint/w3-total-cache/

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  18. Caching plugins
    WP Super Cache
    Quick Cache / Zen Cache
    Hyper Cache
    W3 Total Cache

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  19. Minifying
    Reduces file sizes
    Reduces number of files
    Plugins
    Autoptimize
    W3 Total Cache
    Better WordPress Minify
    AssetsMinify

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  20. CDNs
    Content Delivery Network
    Comprehensive services: Cloudflare, MaxCDN
    Easy image CDN: Photon in

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  21. Text
    A quick note on mobile friendly
    google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

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  22. Guaranteed front page?
    All of this doesn’t guarantee you front page search results ☹
    There are still the off-page factors to consider
    Who links to you
    What text they use to link with
    Social shares
    But it gives you a MUCH better chance
    SUCCESS
    NOT
    GUARANTEED

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  23. Anything else I can do?
    Webmaster Tools
    Submit a sitemap
    Monitor crawling
    problems

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  24. Text
    Even more info
    moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors

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  25. Text
    SEO Table of Elements
    searchengineland.com/seotable

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