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an SEO illustration |
MADONNA UNIVERSITY, NIGERIA
A SEMINAR REPORT ON
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
BY
######### ####### ####
CS /12/###
SUBMITTED TO THE
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE,
FACULTY OF SCIENCE
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE AWARD OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (B.SC) DEGREE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE
SUPERVISED BY
###. #. #. ########-###
DECEMBER, 2015
DECLARATION
This is to certify that this seminar work titled: Search Engine Optimization was fully carried out by registration number CS/12/### in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. This seminar research was done by ######### ####### #### , and has not been submitted elsewhere for the award of a certification in diploma or degree.
……………………………… ………………………………..
######### ####### #### (CS/12/126) DATE
(Student’s name)
……………………………….. ………………………………
######### ####### #### DATE
(Supervisor/HOD)
DEDICATION
This Seminar Presentation is dedicated to my beloved Mother – ######### ####### #### .
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Special thanks to my Heavenly Father, provider, keeper and lover of my soul for His love and grace towards me throughout my seminar work.
I also wish to express a profound gratitude to my supervisor and acting H.O.D. of Computer Science Department ######### ####### #### who approved this Seminar topic and for all her useful critiques of this seminar report. Also, wish to thank all the Lecturers and Staff of Computer Science Department for their immense effort and contribution to my life in general.
My heartfelt thanks go to my parents and siblings for their constant prayers and provision. A big thanks and admiration goes to my prodigy ######### ####### #### for serving as a source of inspiration to me.
Table of Contents
DEDICATION...................................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.....................................................................................................................iii
ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................................... v
CHAPTER 1...................................................................................................................................... 1
INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................. 1
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY......................................................................................................1
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT....................................................................................................... 1
1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF STUDY.................................................................................. 1
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY.................................................................................................... 2
1.5 SCOPE OF STUDY................................................................................................................... 2
1.6 LIMITATIONS OF STUDY..................................................................................................... 3
1.7 GLOSSARY.............................................................................................................................. 3
1.8 ORGANIZATION OF CHAPTER............................................................................................. 7
CHAPTER 2. ...................................................................................................................................8
LITERATURE REVIEW............................................................................................................... 8
CHAPTER 3................................................................................................................................. 10
FINDINGS.................................................................................................................................... 10
3.1 OVERVIEW.. ..........................................................................................................................10
3.2 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION.................................................................................... 11
3.3 TYPES OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION..................................................................11
3.3.1 BLACK HAT SEO............................................................................................................... 12
3.3.2 WHITE HAT SEO........................................................................................................ ........13
3.4 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES. ..........................................................14
3.5 APPLICATION AREA. ...........................................................................................................16
3.6 IMPORTANCE OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. ...........................................................................................................................16
3.7 DISADVANTAGES OF SEO.................................................................................................... 17
3.8 BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION.............................................................................................................................. 17
3.8.1 ON PAGE SEO.. .....................................................................................................................17
3.8.2 OFF PAGE E SEO.................................................................................................................. 18
CHAPTER 4.................................................................................................................................... 19
CONCLUSION/SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATION. ..................................................................................................................19
4.1 CONCLUSION. ..........................................................................................................................19
4.2 SUMMARY. ...............................................................................................................................19
4.3 RECOMMENDATION. ..............................................................................................................19
REFERENCES. ...................................................................................................................................20
ABSTRACT
Search Engine Optimization is the process of affecting the visibility of a website on search engine result page. In a more generic view, the more frequently a site appears in the search results page, the more visitors it will receive from the users of Search Engine. The rapid growth in website development has called for webmasters to establish an effective method for optimizing contents for search engine and users. Search Engine Optimization helps enhance users experience while performing queries on search engines. The objective of this seminar report is to demonstrate the shortcomings of web developers and Digital Marketers while providing a solution strategy to curb these shortcomings. This paper is primarily targeted at Webmasters, Search Engine Optimization Experts and Companies, Individuals, Researchers, Educators and Organizations with an interest in improving their website visibility on Search Engines Result Page. The way Search Engine Optimization improves websites visibility were discussed. The advantage, disadvantage, application area and the techniques deployed in Search Engine Optimization were also discussed. This report has covered the types of Search Engine Optimization and explores how it works in achieving great traffic to websites.
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
It is not enough to own a website, blog, YouTube Channel, etc. What you need is a little technique on how to get traffic (views) and customers to your product/service. This is only achievable through Search Engine Optimization.
Over the last decade of SEO, there has been a remarkable change in how searchers perform queries and interact with search results; in how engines crawl, index, and rank pages; and in how marketers effectively influence the engines to send them traffic. But, in spite of these monumental shifts, a shocking amount of misinformation about the practice of SEO persists. That's why I'm so interested in addressing some of the issues that continue to bog down both aspiring and long-time practitioners of SEO.
What is presented in this seminar report are some effective strategies that would give you a head-start to achieving the right position on search engine results? Please enjoy and apply these techniques. Good luck with all your Search Engine Optimization efforts.
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
The current problem with the traditional method of optimization (like Keyword Stuffing, Cloaking, and Black Hat SEO in general) is that Search engines no longer consider them as ranking factors rather webmasters and SEO experts get penalized for deploying such methodology, Hence, the need for implementing an effective Search Engine Optimization. The implementation of good SEO practices will help curb the problem penalty by Search Engines.
1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
- This seminar topic is generally conducted to under-study the latest trend in Search Engine Optimization. This Seminar report will throw more light on how search engine marketers can by the use of effective SEO capture their targeted customers. The objective is to analyze SEO and its manifesto in theory and practice while providing a more objective and versatile view of the topic.
- To find out if Search Engine Optimization is an appropriate tool for webmasters, companies, business, etc. in garnering more traffic to their contents.
- To analyze the impact of Search Engine Optimization in checkmating poor traffic.
- To compare the effects of Search Engine Optimization on websites that is optimized and one which is not optimized.
- To examine the possibility of using Search Engine Optimization in curtailing poor traffic problems.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
This seminar presentation is significant in several aspects. Apart from being a necessary condition in Madonna University, it is also an opportunity for the researcher to conduct an independent study based on empirical data.
I decided to write on this topic because; it’s amazing to see how Search Engine Optimization will help websites owners/webmasters in solving traffic problems. The contribution of this research is assisting organization in evaluating how Search Engine Optimization assists in providing Search Engine Marketers with their targeted consumers.
Since Search Engine Optimization has not been thoroughly examined in the academic literature, other contributors to the study are to give a foundational knowledge on Search Engine Optimization for students, educators, etc. who intend to take Search Engine Optimization as a career path.
Furthermore, it will help to advance knowledge and hence, be of great value to other researchers taking Search Engine Optimization as a course and/or researching on related issues and to members of the academic in general.
Finally, recommendations made in this study will serve as possible solutions to appropriate agencies in adopting Search Engine Optimization as means of getting their targeted online customer.
1.5 SCOPE OF STUDY
The scope of the study was restricted to Search Engine Optimization (SEO); it will focus on Search Engine Optimization and its practices. This report will also focus on the history, How SEO works, application, importance and limitations of Search Engine Optimization. This report will not include the Search engine algorithm and approach in providing best results for searchers rather it highlights what to do for a website to be indexed and rank on Search Engine Result Page. This report will provide methodologies for the implementation of effective Search Engine Optimization.
Despite the scope and limitation of the study, notwithstanding, the seminar is well undertaken and the result valid for any consideration.
1.6 LIMITATIONS OF STUDY
This study is designed specifically to examine Search Engine Optimization, a tool for improving website visibility on search engines, hence because of research constraints such as TIME which is of the essence and no researcher have the luxury of it all and FINANCE that is usually inadequate and limited at the disposal of the researcher. Another limitation is poor internet access that is, low bandwidth which was insufficient at the time of compilation of this report.
1.7 GLOSSARY
Algorithm: A program used by search engines to determine what pages to suggest for a given search query.
Alt text: A description of a graphic, which usually isn’t displayed to the end user, unless the graphic is undeliverable, or a browser is used that doesn’t display graphics. Alt text is important because search engines can’t tell one picture from another. Alt text is the one place where it is acceptable for the spider to get different content than the human user, but only because the alt text is accessible to the user, and when properly used is an accurate description of the associated picture. Special web browsers for visually challenged people rely on the alt text to make the content of graphics accessible to the users.
Analytics: A program which assists in gathering and analyzing data about website usage. Google analytics is a feature rich, popular, free analytics program.
Anchor text: The user visible text of a link. Search engines use anchor text to indicate the relevancy of the referring site and of the link to the content on the landing page. Ideally, all three will share some keywords in common.
Authority (trust, link juice, Google juice): The amount of trust that a site is credited with for a particular search query. Authority/trust is derived from related incoming links from other trusted sites.
Authority site: A website which has many incoming links from other related expert/hub sites. Because of this simultaneous citation from trusted hubs an authority site usually has high trust, page rank, and search results placement. Wikipedia is an example of an authority site.
Back link (inlink, incoming link): Any link to a page or site from any other page or site.
Black hat: Search engine optimization tactics that are counter to best practices such as the Google Webmaster Guidelines.
Blog: A website which presents content in a more or less chronological series. Content may or may not be time sensitive. Most blogs us a Content Management System such as Wordpress rather than individually crafted Webpages. Because of this, the Blogger can choose to concentrate on content creation instead of arcane code.
Cloak: The practice of delivering different content to the search engine spider than that seen by the human users. This Black Hat tactic is frowned upon by the search engines and caries a virtual death penalty of the site/domain being banned from the search engine results.
Content Management System (CMS): Programs such as Wordpress, which separate most of the mundane Webmaster tasks from content creation so that a publisher can be effective without acquiring or even understanding sophisticated coding skills if they so choose.
Comment spam: Posting blog comments for the purpose of generating an inlink to another site. The reason many blogs use link condoms.
Content (text, copy): The part of a web page that is intended to have value for and be of interest to the user. Advertising, navigation, branding and boilerplate are not usually considered to be content.
Crawler (bot, spider): A program which moves through the worldwide web or a website by way of the link structure to gather data.
Directory: A site devoted to directory pages. The Yahoo directory is an example.
Doorway (gateway): A web page that is designed specifically to attract traffic from a search engine. A doorway page which redirects users (but not spiders) to another site or page is implementing cloaking.
Duplicate content: Obviously content which is similar or identical to that found on another website or page. A site may not be penalized for serving duplicate content but it will receive little if any Trust from the search engines compared to the content that the SE considers being the original.
Gateway page (doorway page): A web page that is designed to attract traffic from a search engine and then redirects it to another site or page. A doorway page is not exactly the same as cloaking but the effect is the same in that users and search engines are served different content.
Googlebot: Google’s spider program
HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) directives or “markup” which are used to add formatting and web functionality to plain text for use on the internet. HTML is the mother tongue of the search engines, and should generally be strictly and exclusively adhered to on web pages.
Indexed Pages: The pages on a site which have been indexed.
Keyword - key phrase: The word or phrase that a user enters into a search engine.
Keyword cannibalization: The excessive reuse of the same keyword on too many web pages on the same site. This practice makes it difficult for the users and the search engines to determine which page is most relevant for the keyword.
Keyword density: The percentage of words on a web page which are a particular keyword. If this value is unnaturally high the page may be penalized.
Keyword research: The hard work of determining which keywords are appropriate for targeting.
Keyword stuffing (keyword spam): Inappropriately high keyword density.
Link: An element on a web page that can be clicked on to cause the browser to jump to another page or another part of the current page.
Link building: actively cultivating incoming links to a site.
Link exchange: a reciprocal linking scheme often facilitated by a site devoted to directory pages. Link exchanges usually allow links to sites of low or no quality and add no value themselves. Quality directories are usually human edited for quality assurance.
Link juice (Trust, Authority, Pagerank)
META tags Statements within the HEAD section of an HTML page which furnishes information about the page. META information may be in the SERPs but is not visible on the page. It is very important to have unique and accurate META title and description tags, because they may be the information that the search engines rely upon the most to determine what the page is about. Also, they are the first impression that users get about your page within the SERPs.
Mirror site: An identical site at a different address.
Natural search results: The search engine results which are not sponsored, or paid for in any way.
Nofollow: A command found in either the HEAD section of a web page or within individual link code, which instructs robots to not follow either any links on the page or the specific link. A form of link condom.
PageRank (PR): a value between 0 and 1 assigned by the Google algorithm, which quantifies link popularity and trust among other (proprietary) factors.
Robots.txt: a file in the root directory of a website used to restrict and control the behaviour of search engine spiders.
Scrape: copying content from a site, often facilitated by automated bots
Search engine (SE): a program, which searches a document or group of documents for relevant matches of a user keyword phrase and returns a list of the most relevant matches. Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo search the entire internet for relevant matches.
SEM Short for search engine marketing, SEM is often used to describe acts associated with researching, submitting and positioning a Web site within search engines to achieve maximum exposure of your Web site. SEM includes things such as search engine optimization, paid listings and other search-engine related services and functions that will increase exposure and traffic to your Web site.
SEO Short for search engine optimization, the process of increasing the number of visitors to a Web site by achieving high rank in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that users will visit the site. It is common practice for Internet users to not click past the first few pages of search results, therefore high rank in SERPs is essential for obtaining traffic for a site. SEO helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be indexed and favourably ranked by the search engine.
SERP Search Engine Results Page
Site map: A page or structured group of pages which link to every user accessible page on a website, and hopefully improves site usability by clarifying the data structure of the site for the users. An XML sitemap is often kept in the root directory of a site just to help search engine spiders to find all of the site pages.
Spamdexing: Spamdexing or search engine spamming is the practice of deceptively modifying web pages to increase the chance of them being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned in a dishonest manner. - Wikipedia
White hat: SEO techniques, which conform to best practice guidelines, and do not attempt to unscrupulously “game” or manipulate SERPs.
1.8 ORGANIZATION OF CHAPTER
For systematic presentation, this work is planned in four chapters. Each chapter deals with a particular aspect or segment of the work. CHAPTER 1 starts by introducing the topic, which gives an insight and in-depth analysis of the seminar work, which was closely followed by the Problem Statement and objectives of the topic, which gave rise to the significance of the topic, followed by the Scope, limitation, Glossary and crowned by the organization of the topic. CHAPTER 2 deals with the literature reviews. CHAPTER 3 focuses on the discussion of the topic, which was closely followed by a purpose of the research, application, advantage and disadvantage of implementing Search Engine Optimization. Finally, CHAPTER 4 summarizes the topic, enumerate conclusion and proffers recommendation for the topic and the way forward.
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Anderson, 2015, Google ranks websites relevancy by the number and quality of incoming links to a site from other websites amongst hundreds of other metrics used (Anderson, 2015). This implies that the number of links you have pointing to your website and the quality of such link will help increase the visibility of such websites among other ranking factors. The process by which a website attracts links from other websites (domains) is termed Off-Page Search Engine Optimization. What Anderson is saying, in summary, is that a website needs to communicate with other websites in order for search engines to consider it (the website) good and worth listing on the SERP.
In the aspect of making your website easier to navigate, improving your site structure will play a vital role. Those things that webmaster puts in place to enhance the visibility of their webpages on the SERP is what is termed On-Page SEO. Here is what Google has to say concerning On-Page SEO; “Create a naturally flowing hierarchy: creating complex webs of navigation links, e.g. linking every page on your site to every other page, going overboard with slicing and dicing your content (so that it takes twenty clicks)” (Google Inc., 2009). What Google is advising all webmasters is that they (webmaster) creates a website that can link with each other. It is also very much advisable to use anchor texts for this internal linking.
According to Hubspot report in their book titled “Introduction to SEO”, SEO is part of the topic called Search Engine Marketing (SEM. SEM involves both the organic and in-organic search. The in-organic search which is popularly known as paid search. With in-organic search, webmasters can buy their way to the top of SERP. What this means is that you can actually pay to list your website on a search engine result page so that your webpage can appear when users type on some specific keyword or key phrase. Both the organic and in-organic listings appear on search engine result page but they are displayed in different locations of the SERP. Hubspot also highlights the importance of getting listed on the SERP stating thus ‟ On Google alone, there are over 694,000 searches conducted every second. Think about that. Every second that your website is not indexed on Google, you are potentially missing out on hundreds, if not thousands of opportunities for someone to visit your website, read your content, and potentially buy your product or service”. Hubspot however, discourages webmasters from running paid search campaigns as it is very expensive. This is because about 88% of search engine users never click on paid search ads. Hubspot in their article stated clearly that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the best way to stay away from paid search.
On the aspect of Metrics for Measuring Search Engine Optimization here is what (MOZ, 2011) says; “It is difficult to optimize for specific behaviours of the search engines because their algorithms are not made public”. Moz also let webmasters understand the fact that combining several tactics have proven effective, and that new data is always emerging to help SEO experts track the variables that influence ranking, and fluctuations in ranking signals. (Hubspot, 2011)
Hubspot again in their article in their work titled “9 Step On-Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guide” Highlights the 9-Step cycle of ON-PAGE SEO which helps Search Engine Marketers and webmasters to optimize their web pages. The Guide outlines the most important factors to consider when optimizing your website for search engines. Hubspot also recommends creating new optimized content on a weekly basis as part of achieving long-term success with Search Engine Optimization. The 9 Steps incudes how to do the following: Choose Keywords, Page Title, Meta Description, URL, Heading Tags, Page Content, Add a Call to action, internal links and Images. (Hubspot Inc, 2011).
The writer of SEO Book “Aaron Mathew Wall” agrees that for competitive phrases or keywords that link popularity and the words in those links are the most important part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But getting people to link back to your with the desired key phrases is where the work lies. (Wall, 2010).
Wordstream in their book Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Best Practices stated clearly that developing a sustainable and defensible SEO strategy involves the use of right SEO tools and that these tools are very crucial to success in SEO. Wordstream put across to all SEO experts/professionals and webmasters that keyword database is more than a list of words. To this end, keyword database is a valuable, proprietary marketing asset that should be kept private and managed with utmost care. Wordstream also recommends that webmasters grow their keyword list over time to keep up with changing customers and a shifting market. They (Wordstream) conclude that SEO is not free regardless of what other Experts in the field of SEO say. (WordStream, 2010)
SEO professionals at tutorialpoint.com in their publication “Search Engine Optimization Tutorial” admits that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a subset of search engine marketing (SEM) and that SEO should be seen as SEO copyrighting, because most of the techniques that are used to promote sites in search engines, deal with text. They (Tutorialpoint) believes that starting optimizing websites for search engines requires the Optimizer understands how search engines work. (Tutorialspoint, 2015).
Macronimous Web solutions authored the book “Practical SEO Techniques” for which they urge webmasters to always keep in mind the fact that SEO is an ongoing process and should be incorporated into the annual online marketing budget, along with things like regular website updates, newsletter mailings to site subscribers, and online and offline media planning. (Macronimous WebSolutions, 2013).
Mark Nunney in his book SEO Made Simple says that there are two forces that have made SEO crucial to businesses in today’s economic climate namely; 1) more consumers and businesses are researching and making purchases via search engines. It’s now impossible to ignore online sales. 2) Challenging economic conditions make it important to find new and cost effective ways of marketing and selling. These forces combine to make SEO a unique opportunity for businesses. (Nunney, 2012)
CHAPTER 3
FINDINGS
3.1 OVERVIEW
Search Engine can be seen as a program that crawls indexed documents for some special keywords and returns a list of documents that matches specific keyword in question. This term is commonly used for web based search engines that search billions of web pages to provide an answer to search engine users queries.
Examples of Search Engines:
Google
MSN
Yahoo
Ask
AOL
AltaVista
Netscape
Etc.
The Top Search Engines
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| Diagram of presently existing top search enginesImage Source: (AIIDESIGNZ, 2010) |
3.2 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website, weblog, or webpage on search engine result page (SERP). It does not include paid results (inorganic result) it is often referred to as "natural" or "organic" or "earned" results. In a more generic view, the earlier and more frequently a site appears in the search results page (SERP), the more visitors it will receive from the users of Search Engine. SEO is a target for different kinds of search, including image, image search, local search, video search as well as academic search, news search and etc.
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| an SEO illustration |
Image Source: (SIGMATE INFORMATICS, 2015)
3.3 TYPES OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
There are basically two types of Search Engine Optimization, just the way we have both the good and the bad ways of getting things done so is Search Engine Optimization. The two types include:
- Black Hat Search engine optimization, and
- White Hat Search engine optimization
3.3.1 BLACK HAT SEO
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| picture of a black heart |
Black Hat SEO is the deceptive ways of optimizing contents for search engines. Basically, an SEO tactic is considered as Black Hat or Spamdexing if it has the following features:
- Attempting ranking improvements that are not approved by the search engines and/or involve deception(s).
- Redirecting users from a page that is built for search engines to one that is more human-friendly.
- Redirecting users to a page that was different from the page the search engine ranked.
- Serving one version of a page to search engine spiders/bots and another version to human visitors. This is called Cloaking SEO tactic.
- Using hidden or invisible text or with the page background colour, using a tiny font size or hiding them within the HTML code such as "no frame" sections.
- Repeating keywords in the meta-tags, and using keywords that are unrelated to the website content. This is called meta-tag stuffing.
- Calculated placement of keywords within a page to raise the keyword count, variety, and density of the page. This is called keyword stuffing.
- Creating low-quality web pages that contain very little content but are instead stuffed with very similar keywords and phrases. These pages are called Doorway or Gateway Pages.
- Mirror websites by hosting multiple websites – all with conceptually similar content but using different URLs.
- Creating a rogue copy of a popular website which shows contents similar to the original to a web crawler, but redirects web surfers to unrelated or malicious websites. This is called page hijacking. Always stay away from any of the above Black Hat tactics to improve the rank of your site. Search engines are smart enough to identify all the above properties of your site and ultimately you are not going to get anything.
3.3.2 WHITE HAT SEO
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| white hat |
Image Source: Google Image Search
White Hat is the clean and effective method of achieving high rankings and traffic to websites. Basically, an SEO tactic is considered as White Hat if it has the following features:
- It conforms to the search engine's guidelines.
- It does not involve any deception.
- It ensures that the content a search engine indexes, and subsequently ranks, is the same content a user will see.
- It ensures that a web page content should have been created for the users and not just for the search engines.
- It ensures good quality of the web pages.
- It ensures availability of useful content on the web pages. Always follow a White Hat SEO tactic and do not try to fool your site visitors. Be honest and you will definitely get something more.
In this Seminar report, we will focus mostly on explaining how to get high ranking via the deployment of White Hat SEO. White Hat SEO is the future of effective SEO.
3.4 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION TECHNIQUES
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| an illustration showing "i want to be first on google" |
Image Source: (Internet Marketing News, 2012)
Every day in Nigeria, businesses and ventures are being established and 70% of which will need to have a blog or website to meet her online customers. The question is “What Techniques is put in place to achieve the online business goal?” The answer is an effective Search Engine Optimization Technique. Briefly, this seminar report will report on some strategic techniques deployable to achieving higher traffic to your website(s). The following are the deployable techniques that can help put your website on the top of search engines:
Commit yourself to SEO Process: SEO is never a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly hence, what seems to be working some years back might not work this year especially due to Black Hat SEO activities.
You should be Patient: Do not imagine the over-night impact, SEO effects can take a month to start showing.
Consider becoming an SEO student: Try to read journals, seminar reports on SEO, in order to know the trend in SEO.
Get web analytics in place at the start of your SEO campaign: There is certainly many web analytics on the web to keep track of your SEO. A good example is the Google Analytics. It is strongly recommended.
Build a great website: Do not misunderstand “great website”, a great website does not mean it should be built with flash and frames but a site that is simple to navigate and easy to understand. Such is a great website. More importantly, you should always check Google’s webmaster's guidelines for some useful tips in the developing a great website.
Include a site map page: This Aspect needs not be overemphasized because it will be too obvious that a webmaster finishes developing a site or blog without informing the search engine (bots) the location of its content. Hence it is recommended to submit your sit-map
Make SEO-friendly URLs: Some search engine will require that you include your keyword in your webpage URL. Secondly, your URL should be very descriptive and should be able to tell the user what the webpage is all about with a glimpse. E.g. webpage that focuses on this SEO technique should be in this form:
www.mcdoglaz.com/make-seo-friendly-urls.html. So when someone sees this, he/she is able to get an insight of what the page is about.
Do keyword research at the start of the project: You should be realistic to target keywords that have less competition. Tools like Google Keyword planner would of greater value in analyzing competition statistics and as well evaluate your chances of ranking #1 position on search engine result page (SERP). Ubbersuggest.com is another tool for suggesting keywords, get hold of it.
Use a unique and relevant title, content and Meta description: It is important to show off your uniqueness to search engines by creating unique contents. Unique contents and better description tag (META-TAG) will in the long run increase your domain authority. Avoid copied contents and poor Meta description. Remember that Meta tag in most cases acts as a SNIPPET on SERP. Also, remember the sayings “CONTENT IS KING”. If you have a great content, chances are that users keep on coming for more content on your website.
Consider your users first before Search Engine: You really need to consider writing contents for your readers/customers before considering the search Engines. Avoid keyword stuffing rather get your articles optimized for your target keyword.
Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally: Although some SEO experts criticize this technique; I will recommend you still use this technique but not in excess though. Some experts say it leads to KEYWORD CANIBALIZATION.
Build links intelligently: Be it an external link or internal link, you should not build links as if you were a link-bot rather be slow and steady. Do not go round the web populating links back to your domain in a way that looks mischievous. Additionally, be careful to disallow links from poor domains pointing to yours and you should as well not submit your site to poor directories (Link Farms).
Use press releases: The power of press release cannot be undermined in the world of SEO, the reason is that press release gives you an opportunity to receive backlinks from other websites that will also feature the news.
Participate with others in your Niche: Participating with other students of SEO in your niche will give an opportunity to tell others in your field about your website and as well gain more ideas on how to optimize your website. It will give you an ample opportunity to understand the needs of your potential customers.
Use social media marketing: The number of times your article is mentioned or shared on social media (Facebook, Twitter, G+, etc.) often triggers the search engines crawl, index and rank such page. Reason; it is only good content that can be shared or mentioned. Hence, it is advisable to include social media campaign as a strategy to getting traffic from organic search.
Take advantage of local search opportunities: This is really interesting because Google now has what they call “Google Places”, you can now add your product and address on Google place. Secondly, you should target your audience by changing your Geo-Targeting to the country where your article, product and Services will be targeting.
Diversify your traffic sources: It is advisable to get an alternative source for garnering your traffic to avoid unforeseen circumstances like new updates from search engines. A few years ago, I got a ping from a friend telling me he was hit by Google new update in an algorithm (Google Penguin), the first questions I asked him was “Do you have subscribers?” The fact is that you always need spare in case if things get bad. The summary is that you need to create subscription portal for all visitors, you use Google Feed Burner, it is easy to use.
3.5 APPLICATION AREA
SEO is applied on websites contents like:
Apps
Blog Articles
Videos
Images
Audio
Products/Services etc.
3.6 IMPORTANCE OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
SEO is not a cost; it is an investment
SEO pricing is variable and is never too costly
SEO will help people find your website and leverage social sharing
SEO helps you capitalize on weak competition and as well beats paid traffic
SEO provides endless opportunity
SEO can convince even skeptics and can be outsourced to run hands-free
SEO is cost effective and can attract relevant traffic with high conversion potential
SEO drives offline sales and also a long-term strategy for offline sales
SEO helps build your brand and builds trust and credibility as well.
SEO has the potential to multiply your impact
3.7 DISADVANTAGES OF SEO
There is no serious disadvantage in SEO, but be that as it may let us accept the following as a setback:
You get noticed by Non-Targeted Audience/Customers: As you begin to make so much traffic to your website through your SEO effort, your competitors tend to raise an eyebrow and thereby start a competition. Once, your competitors’ finds out your techniques, they may as well deploy such technique and thereby rank more than your website.
Over Success: I don’t know why Over Success could possibly be a disadvantage, but let put it this way; If you cannot handle your leads (traffic) you got through Search Engine Optimization, chances are that opportunities will be lost and customers let down since you have created a product/service that needs such volume of audience/consumers.
In as much as every business wants to be successful, there is a real danger of too much and too fast. Be wise. Hence, it is very much advisable to make sure you have the right structures i.e. products/service in place to cope with the increasing number of traffic that you will get via an effective SEO practice.
Your Position on Search Engine Result Page is Unpredictable: Some Search Engines like Google changes their algorithm up to 12 or more times in a month and as such each algorithm released will have a different methodology by which it index, crawl and rank web pages. This may certainly change the position of your webpage on the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). This may lead to a competitor’s webpage being considered more important than yours hence, Search Engine may just have to do what it has to do with providing a good result which suits its algorithm. It might be your competitors’ website!
3.8 BASIC SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
There are basically two ways you can implement Search Engine Optimization. They two includes On-Page Search Engine Optimization and Off-Page Search Engine Optimization.
3.8.1 ON PAGE SEO
ON-PAGE optimization is an SEO technique implemented on the webpage(s) of the website itself. In ON PAGE SEO design website are done in a way that makes the website SEO-friendly.
3.8.2 OFF PAGE E SEO
Off-page optimization is an SEO technique which covers activity that takes place elsewhere other than the website, for example, link-building on other websites and domains. Here, in the OFF PAGE SEO, webmasters do not change things on their website rather, they change the back-linking options, submit a site to Google and top Search Engines, Sitemap submission to Google webmaster and Bing Master, Feed submission and directory submission, social Networking and Book marking etc.
CHAPTER 4
CONCLUSION/SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATION
4.1 CONCLUSION
Search Engine Optimization, if successfully implemented will definitely change websites total turnout for online business/activities. Imagine having one million visitors on daily basis visiting your website for a product/service and you can imagine how much sales you can make. Having considered the above factors, you will agree to the fact that search engine optimization is of greater benefit. SEO experts/professionals and webmasters have got a job on hand to implement.
4.2 SUMMARY
SEO techniques are changing on daily basis, SEO experts and professionals are expected to keep up with the latest trend. Search Engine Optimization is the backbone of all Search Engine Marketing. To this end, Web/Digital or Search Engine Marketer, know that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is what you need to pull traffic and customers to your website.
4.3 RECOMMENDATION
This Seminar Presentation (Search Engine Optimization) is fully recommended to all bloggers whose essence is to make their contents (articles) visible to a wide number of online search engine users. It is recommended to all web developers/webmasters who intend to develop websites for online businesses or companies. This work does not leave the students of Computer Science behind, hence it is fully recommended to all students of Computer Science Department (from Level 1 to Finals) as they will be coding websites sooner or later. The presentation is recommended to all SEO Experts/Professionals (not excluding SEOMOZ, SEOBOOK, Wordstreams, VNTS, and Neil Patel) whose aim is to keep up with the latest trend in SEO world and to future researchers who will be writing on a topic similar to this work.
REFERENCES
AIIDESIGNZ. (2010). You're Probably Asking - What Is SEO? Retrieved November 23, 2015, from AIIDESIGNZ: http://www.aiidesignz.com/seo.html
Anderson, S. (2015, January 12). UK SEO - A Beginner's Guide. Retrieved November 12, 2015, from http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Hobo-UK-SEO-Beginners-Guide-v3.pdf
Google Inc. (2009, October 30). Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. Retrieved April 20, 2015, from Google.com: http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
Hubspot. (2011). Introduction to SEO. Retrieved November 20, 2015, from http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/53/file-13221845-pdf/docs/ebooks/introduction-to-seo-ebook.pdf
Hubspot Inc. (2011). 9 Step On-Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guide. Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/137828/file-27961559-pdf/docs/9-step-on-page-search-engine-optimization-guide.pdf
Internet Marketing News. (2012). High-Quality SEO tricks. Retrieved November 8, 2015, from Positive Results Marketing: http://positiveresultsmarketing.com/marketing-news/internet-marketing/high-quality-seo-tricks
Macronimous WebSolutions. (2013, September 13). Practical SEO Technique. 5029, Sreevatsa Center, G.N Mills, India. Retrieved March 5, 2015, from https://www.macronimous.com/resources/Practical_SEO_Techniques.pdf
MOZ. (2011, April 6). Beginners Guide to SEO. Retrieved November 25, 2015, from http://d2eeipcrcdle6.cloudfront.net/guides/Moz-The-Beginners-Guide-To-SEO.pdf
Nunney, M. (2012, June 5). SEO Made Simple. Wordtracker Free SEO Guide. Retrieved October 6, 2015, from http://www.wordtracker.com/attachments/seo-made-simple-2012.pdf
SIGMATE INFORMATICS. (2015). Search Engine Optimization SEO – Your gateway to success. Retrieved from SIGMATE INFORMATICS - Trading Technology: http://www.sigmateinformatics.com/services/seo/
Tutorialspoint. (2015, August 29). Search Engine Optimization. Retrieved November 4, 2015, from http://www.tutorialspoint.com/seo/seo_tutorial.pdf
Wall, A. M. (2010, May 17). Search Engine Optimization Book. SEOBOOK. Caldecott, Oakland. Retrieved November 10, 2015, from http://www.seobook.com/seobook53.pdf
WordStream. (2010, April 2). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Best Practices. Retrieved September 21, 2015, from http://www.wordstream.com/download/docs/wordstream-seo.pdf
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