SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) The practice of trying to help your site appear nearer the top of search engine results when people look for the topics that your website covers. Clicks: Load individual bullets

ON-PAGE TECHNIQUES Methods you can use on your web pages to improve their rating in search engines. Clicks: Load individual bullets

CREATING CONTENT Use a minimum of 250 words. Add a call to action on pages (forms). Speed of site. URL describes business Show location of business Unique pages, no repeating content. Keywords in paragraphs and headings. Photos and Videos to explain services. Freshness of website, how often updated.

KEYWORDS Keywords Words people are likely to enter into a search engine if they wanted to find your site. Include keywords in the first 50 words. Repeat keywords 2 or 3 times for short pages and 4 to 6 for long pages.

7 KEY PLACES WHERE KEYWORDS APPEAR 1. TITLE TAG Give a descriptive title with keywords no more than 70 characters. Include company name towards the end. 2. URL: Use keywords in the file name. Use hyphens to separate words. Use shorter URLs. 3. HEADING TAG Use keywords in a heading element so it is given greater weight.

7 KEY PLACES WHERE KEYWORDS APPEAR 4. TEXT TAG Repeat keywords in the main body of the text at least 2–3 times. 5. LINK TEXT Use descriptive link names and/or keywords versus “click here.” 6. IMAGE ALT TEXT Use keywords and accurate descriptions so the images show up in the image-based searches. 7. META TAGS Use keywords within the tag.

META TAG <meta name="keywords" content="keyword, keyword, keyword" /> <meta name="description" content="Description of Company"> Description Compelling description under 150 characters. Use keywords and include the contact number.

OPTIMIZED IMAGES Alt Tag Tells what the image is exactly. Geo Tag Adds a location to images and videos. www.geoimgr.com

CORNERSTONE PAGES Cornerstone content is the hub of your website. You need a hub to connect all your pages. It is in-depth content on a specific topic you want people to find. Create a page (cornerstone page) that focuses on a keyword you are trying to rank. Also create other posts that link internally to your cornerstone page.

CORNERSTONE PAGE EXAMPLE After completing your keyword research, you’ll find carrot, chocolate, and vanilla cake recipes are the most popular. You would create a page for each cake recipe and then create a single cornerstone page for “three best cake recipes.” Link the most crucial keywords to each page and link back to your cornerstone page using the keyword you want ranked.

CORNERSTONE PAGES INTERNAL LINKS. It is best to use variations of the keyword you are focusing your cornerstone content on, which all have the same meaning. Use the keyword your targeting as the anchor text for that link. Link from within the content, not in the sidebar or footer. It is good to have links that link to a page that the main navigation can’t get to.

OFF-PAGE TECHNIQUES Getting other sites to link to your site. Search engines rank your site by looking at the number of other sites that link to yours. Clicks: Load individual bullets

BACKLINKS Backlinks are hyperlinks that link from a Web page, back to your own Web page (Social Media Sites). Some search engines will consider Web sites with more backlinks more relevant in search results pages. Link Building is the process of exchanging links with other Web sites to increase your own site’s backlinks.

APPROPRIATE LINKS Search engines are only interested in sites that are related to your site. For example, a sports website would not want a link to a hairdresser website.

USING META TAGS TO MARKUP SOCIAL MEDIA Social meta tags are elements in your HTML that boost social exposure, increase social media traffic, and improve click- through rates. Clicks: Load individual bullets

MARKUP FOR GOOGLE PLUS, TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK <meta itemprop="description" content="This is the page description"> Description Description. <meta name="twitter:description" content="Description 200 characters"> <meta property="og:description" content="Description Here" />

SOCIAL MEDIA VALIDATION URLS Google Plus Testing Tool. https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/ Twitter Card Validator. https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator Facebook Debugger. https://www.facebook.com/login.php?next=https%3A%2F%2Fdevelopers.facebook.com%2Ftools%2Fdebug%2F

Paid results go above or to the right of the Organic Search results. ORGANIC VS. PAID SEARCH RESULTS Paid results go above or to the right of the Organic Search results. Clicks: Load individual bullets

ORGANIC SEARCH RESULTS Benefits •Trusted •Once you rank high it is easier to keep those rankings. Drawbacks •It may take months or years to get high rankings. •Using SEO tactics which can be time consuming and frustrating.

PAID SEARCH RESULTS Benefits •Results are placed at the top as soon as you pay for the ad. •Can be tailored to reach specific audiences. Drawbacks •It could cost from $300 to $3000 a month. •Ads disappear as soon as you stop paying. •Consumers don’t always trust the rankings

CITATIONS List of websites that link to your site or have a listing of your site. 1. Review Directories Yelp, Super Pages (Dex Media), Yellow Pages, White Pages (www.listyourself.net/listing.jsp), Social Media, Bing Places For Business, Google My Business (sign up to add site to Google Maps and to write Google Reviews).

CITATIONS 2. Specific Directories Search in Google for specific directories. 3. Regional or State Directories Tourist directories. 4. Unstructured Citations Blogs, Newspapers, Press Releases that cover the business in a story will also work.

SITEMAP A sitemap is a file where you can list the web pages of your site to tell Google and other search engines about the organization of your site content. Search engine web crawlers read this file to more intelligently crawl your site. xml-sitemaps.com Generates html and xml sitemaps that get placed in root folder.

SUBMIT WEBSITE TO SEARCH ENGINES Submit your website and your sitemap to search engines so they know to crawl your site and start ranking it. Google Search Console Submit site to Google. Bing—Webmaster Tools Submit site to Bing.

RANKING FACTORS On-Page Optimization and NAP (name, address, phone) matches on all citations and site. 20.3% Link building–number and quality. 20% Google My Business. 14.7% Citations. 13.6% Number of Clicks a site gets. 9.5% Reviews. 8.4% Social Media. 5%