WP Cowichan Valley Meetup 21-April-18 SEO for Wordpress Chris Hoffman, MA

About Chris Hoffman

What is SEO Ongoing Process of obtaining quality traffic from Search Engines via a high organic ranking placement in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

Paid Results Organic Results

Why Engage in SEO? Approximately 33% of Search Traffic Goes to the #1 result #2 Result gets 18% of Search Traffic Page One of the SERP gets 95% of the Organic Traffic

Traffic Versus Page Number

Why Engage in SEO? Good ROI Compared to a PPC Campaign Potentially low cost- depending on your market and your vertical Ancillary support to other business processes and referral building (compared to PPC) Long term No Barriers to Entry (you can start now!)

SEO 101 Benchmarks: Google Analytics, Google Search Console, (Paid:SEM RUSH/ AHREFS/ SERPSTAT) On Page SEO: Page Speed, Mobile Responsiveness, Content Creation, Structuring Content Off Page SEO: Backlinks, Social Media Marketing, Guest Blogging, Linked Brand Mentions, Directory Listings

Google Search Console Use for: SEO Benchmarking, Fetch as Google, Crawl Errors, Site Maps, Site Health, Top Pages, etc….

Google Analytics Use for: SEO Benchmarking, Click-flow, Bounce Rate, Demographics, Custom Alerts, etc.…

Page Speed Google’s latest research shows that the chance of a bounce increases 32% when the page load time goes from 1s to 3s. 1s to 5s increases the chance to 90% and if your site takes up to 10s to load, the chance of a bounce increases to 123%* Aim for <2 Seconds as a general rule *https://yoast.com/page-speed-ranking-factor/

Page Speed A slow load time typically means a high bounce rate, this leads to lower rankings Time to First Byte and load times are actively checked by Google Check the weight of your theme with Pingdom before you build! (https://tools.pingdom.com)

Page Speed https://tools.pingdom.com

Page Speed Tools Google Analytics (free, custom alerts) Google Page Speed Insights (free optimizations) https://gtmetrix.com/ (free, weekly report) https://www.webpagetest.org/ (waterfall report, different devices & locations) https://tools.pingdom.com/ https://loadimpact.com/ (load testing)

WordPress Speed Plugins WP Super Cache (One of the most widely used caching plugins available for WordPress) W3 Total Cache (Advanced Options and CDN support, not for beginners) WP Smush.it (For Image Optimization) PageSpeed Ninja (Free and Fast, fewer discrete options) Note: not all Caching Plugins are compatible with all WP themes. Always backup your site before activating the above plugins. Also be aware of page errors from minimization of CSS and HTML.

Page Speed Technical PHP 5 or greater (preferably PHP 7) HTTP/2 Limit the Number of deployed WP Plugins

Mobile Responsiveness Users are increasingly accessing your site via mobile. Google Search Console (fetch as Googlebot/ Fetch & Render as Mobile: Smartphone) https://blisk.io/ (limited free use) http://www.responsinator.com/ (free) https://www.browserstack.com (paid)

Blisk!! 

Content Content is King Research what Users are searching for & see what your competitors are ranking for! Keyword (KW) Tools: Google Adwords Keyword Planner (search volume & trends, competitors KW’s) Ubersuggest (KW suggestions & Search Volume) https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

Content SEM Rush (Paid) Topic Research (Headlines & Questions- for Featured Snippets) Answer to the Public (KW/ Idea Trees) https://answerthepublic.com FatRank Chrome Extension (Find out where a website ranks in Google for keywords and phrases) Keywords Everywhere Extension for Firefox

Featured Snippets (H1) or (H2)

KW Search: “trump hair” On https://answerthepublic.com

Content Video PDF Files & Forms Terms of Service (Google Likes! ) Blog Infographics Outbound Links Images

Structuring Content Use Yoast (Free WP Plugin) to monitor Title Tag & Meta Description as well as page content.

Content Include a clear Value Proposition and Call to Action (CTA). Humans are selfish and fickle when we are online! 

Content Use power words in your CTA (buttons & page meta) Get Started, Sign Up Free, Create Account, View Demo/Book a Demo, Learn More, Join Free, Shop Now, Get X% Off, Add to Bag/Add to Cart, Schedule/Book a _______, Include a number in your CTA

Content https://authoritywebsiteincome.com/build-site/

Content https://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/linking-structures.htm

Content Use H1’s and H2’s to segment your on-page content into subheadings!

Off-Page SEO Backlinks, Social Media Marketing, Guest Blogging, Linked Brand Mentions, Directory Listings

Create an Entity/ Brand!

Off-Page SEO Backlinks: an incoming hyperlink from one web page to another website.

Links Paid Tools: SEM Rush, Ahrefs, SerpStat, MOZ Free & Paid: Screaming Frog Hierarchy of links: .gov, .gc.ca, .edu. Ect… Paid Versus Earned Links

Directories Use Bing, Google My Business, Yelp & Yellow Pages to leverage your brand List your company & website on Industry Canada’s site for a free .gc.ca link

Buzz Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, FB, E-mail Campaigns Integrate with IFTTT or Hootsuite

SerpWorx ($10.00/ Month)

Use Google Analytics to Monitor Flow through your Sales Funnel

Questions