SEO
Search Engine Optimization Best Practices
SEO
SEO is a process for making your site
more visible in search engines.
SEO
Good SEO focuses on improving the user
experience.
•
•
•
Write compelling and useful content
Include words someone might type in search to find
the type of content on your page
Make it easy for users to navigate your site
SEO
How to measure SEO effectiveness
•
•
•
Organic search traffic
Keyword rankings
Authoritative referring sites
Organic Search Traffic
SEO
Food.unl.edu
Last 30 days report
Organic Search Traffic
In Google Analytics
Acquisition>All Traffic>Channels
SEO
Quality Organic Traffic
• Bounce rate
• Pages/session
• Average Session Duration
• Goal conversions
SEO
In Google Analytics
BEHAVIOR>Site Content>Landing Pages
Good
Quality
Traffic
Poor
Quality
Traffic
Keyword Rankings
SEO
Keyword Rankings (Average Position)
In Google Analytics
ACQUISITION>Search Console>Queries
food.unl.edu
URL appeared in the 3rd
or 4th position, on
average, for the search
query “how to cook
beans”
SEO
0
Food.unl.edu
1
2
3
Google’s featured
snippet box displays
an answer to a user’s
question (zero rank)
SEO
If the average position is on page one but
the click through rate is low, check how the
meta tag description and page title display by
searching for the keyword phrase.
SEO
I’m not a writer, I can only
work with what you give me
Google Bot
SEO
If your site doesn’t rank for expected
keywords, review your content and make
sure it’s relevant to the keywords.
SEO
Can someone tell
me what content
these go to?
58BG9%20x.jpg
read more
/fcnt
click here
/current
Google Bot
SEO
That’s much better!
/images/cooking-beans.jpg
/food-center
cooking with dry beans
/current-students
Google Bot
black beans and rice salad
SEO
Include relevant keywords in your content:
•
Browser title <title></title> descriptive, not vague like
welcome or home
•
Meta Tag Description <meta description=“…>
describes the page content
•
URLs include recognizable words separated by
hyphens
•
Anchor text describes the content you’re linking to
SEO
• Headings <h1>-<h6> use in proper order and for
structure not styling
• Image names include recognizable words separated by
hyphens
• Image Alt text <img alt=“…>describes the image, if the
image is a link it describes the content it links to
SEO
Browser title
<h1> heading
Cooking with Dry Beans | UNL Food
Cooking with Dry Beans
Page URL
Image name
http://food.unl.edu/cooking-dry-beans
cooking-dry-beans.jpg
Anchor Text
Alt text
Related Recipes for Cooking Dry Beans
Cooking dry beans in pot on the stove
Authoritative Referring Sites
SEO
Votes cast by pages that are themselves
"important" weigh more heavily and help to
make other pages "important.”
-- Google Support
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en&ref_topic=3309300
SEO
Authoritative Referring Sites
In Google Analytics
Acquisition>All Traffic>Referrals
SEO
food.unl.edu
Authoritative Referring Sites (.edu and .gov)
snap.nal.usda.gov
dhhs.ne.gov
healthymeals.nal.usda.gov
wicworks.nal.usda.gov
extension.iastate.edu
fnic.nal.usda.gov
extension.psu.edu
blogs.extension.iastate.edu
ncfreshproducesafety.ces.ncsu.ed
u
depts.ttu.edu
edis.ifas.ufl.edu
fns.dpi.wi.gov
foodsafety.wisc.edu
fsrio.nal.usda.gov
he.k-state.edu
ksre.ksu.edu
msue.anr.msu.edu
nal.usda.gov
nda.nebraska.gov
sites.psu.edu
worklife.columbia.edu
wserver.scc.losrios.edu
SEO
Resources
Google Search Console
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en
Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//webmasters/
docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
Google Webmaster Guidelines
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769