SEO for Beginners

SEO principles for beginner website owners and WordPress beginners.

Transcript

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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