am workshop workbook - digital...

Jake Finkelstein | CEO, Method Savvy

AM WORKSHOP WORKBOOK

THE PATH TO POSITION #1:

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION IN A USER-FIRST WORLD

© Conversion Sciences LLC. Used with permission.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Redefining SEO for a User-First World

Adapting User-Centered Design to Supercharge SEO Performance

The Search Engine Landscape

Recent Search Algorithm Updates

Exercise #1 - Building Better Personas Through Nailing the What and the Why

Potential Data Sources

Tools

Mastering the Persona Process

Audience Data

Audience Story

Example Personas

Exercise #2 – Mastering Keyword Research

Mapping Customer Understanding

Competitive Keyword Research

Create a Seed Keyword List

Create a List Of Related Terms

Prioritize Keywords and Themes

Keyword Research Tools

Exercise #3 – Creating Strategic and Comprehensive Content

Checklist Questions

Content Tools

Exercise #4 – Mastering User Experience for Improved SEO Performance

User Experience Audit Checklist

User Experience Analysis Tools

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Exercise #5 – Winning Smarter Brand Citations

Audit Brand Mentions & Reputation

Audit Backlink Portfolio

Create the Strategy to Grow Your Brand Mentions

Exercise #6 – Tackling the Technical

Tools

Getting a Lay of the Land

Technical Audit

Uncovering On-Page Issues

About Jake Finkelstein

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INTRODUCTION

nline customers' expectations have changed dramatically over the years and with it so too have search Oengines' approach to fulling their needs. As customers become ever more sophisticated in how they search –

from natural language queries and voice search to greater smartphone usage and less patience – search

engines have deployed hundreds of algorithm updates to reward brands that put their users first; and demote

those that don't.

This SEO workbook will provide you with the strategies, tactics, tools and processes you need to boost your

online visibility and increase customer loyalty. Throughout the sections, you will also find exercises that you

can use to customize the approach to your specific business needs and competitive environment.

44© Conversion Sciences LLC. Used with permission.

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REDEFINING SEO FOR A USER-FIRST WORLD

Search engines exist for a simple purpose: to quickly connect people with relevant information so that they can fulfill

their desired intent. While Google's famous mission statement is “to organize the world's information and make it

universally accessible and useful;” fundamentally what search engines seek to achieve is the same as all businesses –

to deliver an experience so outstanding that customers return for more time and again. By helping search engines

achieve this goal, you can rocket to the top of the rankings.

Unfortunately, too many marketers continue to view SEO as primarily an exercise in content development, technical

optimization and citation building. While these are certainly valuable components of a search engine optimization

program, the best performing companies break out of the SEO silo to deploy an integrated framework of processes

that put their customers at the heart of their strategy.


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User-Centered Design is a multidisciplinary methodology that focuses on explicitly understanding users, their intent

and the environment in which they are interacting in order to dramatically improve outcomes. Codified under the

standard ISO 9241-210, when correctly deployed user-centered design reduces customer frustration, increases

delight and builds brand loyalty. Whatever the allocation of resources and roles applied to the process, the user-

centered approach follows six core principles:

1. The experience to be created is based upon an explicit understanding of users, their intended tasks and the

environment in which they are interacting.

2. Users are involved throughout the design and creation process.

3. The experience is driven and refined by user-centered evaluation.

4. The process is iterative.

5. The whole user experience is addressed.

6. Multidisciplinary skills and perspectives are utilized.

As applied to search engine optimization, being user-centered requires that you deeply understand the whole

customer. Not only what they are searching for and why, but also how their journey to fulfilling their intent is shaped

and felt as they interact with your competitors, your company and your content. When these lessons are

appropriately applied to your search engine optimization program, your rankings improve because there becomes

clear alignment between the needs of the user, the search engine and your business.

ADAPTING USER-CENTERED DESIGN TO SUPERCHARGE SEO PERFORMANCE

REDEFINING SEO FOR A USER-FIRST WORLD


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THE SEARCH ENGINE LANDSCAPE

Google is the 800lbs gorilla of the search engine industry. Commanding more than 60% of the search engine market

share in the United States, Google sets the bar for the industry – and one that other search engines follow. Like a

casino in Las Vegas, Google has the power to set the rules of the game. Closely examining the algorithm updates

Google has and continues to deploy will provide you with insight into their understanding of how users utilize their

search engine and how you can align your site to their perception of best practices.

While Google regularly makes over 500 algorithm updates per year, in the last decade there have been eight

changes that have had major impact on rankings. More information on these updates is available at

https://www.link-assistant.com/news/google-algorithm-updates.html.

#1 – Panda (February 24, 2011)

Focused on demoting plagiarized, duplicate or “thin” content, the Panda update created a stronger incentive for

webmasters to publish high quality, substantive and original information. As of January 2016 Panda was officially

incorporated into the core search algorithm, rather than remaining a filter, allowing for more frequent updates,

penalties and recoveries.

Opportunity: regularly check the site for content duplication, thin content and keyword stuffing.

#2 – Penguin (April 24, 2012)

The Penguin update targeted and demoted websites whose inbound links appeared spammy, irrelevant or featured

over-optimized anchor text. Incorporated into Google's core algorithm as of late-2016, Penguin works in real-time

to punish sites with an unnatural backlink portfolio.

Opportunity: actively monitor your website's backlink portfolio and audit links for toxicity.


https://www.link-assistant.com/news/google-algorithm-updates.html

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#3 – Hummingbird (August 22, 2013)

Hummingbird enables Google to improve their understanding and interpretation of search queries to deliver results

that better match the searcher's intent. This is particularly impactful in the interpretation of a user's natural language

and long-tail queries as it relies less on the individual terms within the query itself.

Opportunity: expand your approach to keyword research to focus on concepts and topics instead of specific

keywords. In particular, research related searches, synonyms and co-occurring terms.

#4 - Pigeon (July 24, 2014)

The Pigeon update impacts location-based searches both on the SERP and within Google Maps. It punishes websites

with poor on and off page optimization and rewards sites with clear location signals and close proximity to the

searcher.

Opportunity: optimize website and directory listings with consistent location information (e.g. address, phone

number, etc.) and attach them to a strong and authoritative domain with high quality content.

#5 – Mobile (April 21, 2015)

The update demoted or removed from mobile SERPs entirely websites that had poor mobile usability or no

responsive website.

Opportunity: deploy a responsible user experience for your website that focuses on speed and mobile usability.


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#6 – RankBrain (October 26, 2015)

RankBrain is a machine learning system that enables Google to better understand the meaning behind search

queries and deliver to users better matching results.

Opportunity: optimize content for relevance and comprehensiveness to a topic.

#7 – Possum (September 1, 2016)

The Possum update improved matching of local SERP results to a searcher's physical location. Meaning, the closer

you are to the location of a business address, the more likely you are to see it listed in local search results.

Opportunity: expand your keyword list, update location citations and signals as well as monitor location-specific

rank tracking.

#8 – Fred (March 8, 2017)

The jokingly named “Fred” update targets websites that violate Google's webmaster guidelines. In particular,

websites that feature low quality content but are optimized for advertising revenue were most affected.

Opportunity: align your on-site practices to the Google Search Quality Guidelines

(https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqu

alityevaluatorguidelines.pdf), remove low quality content and invest in publishing comprehensive and deep content

that is valuable to your target audience.

While not all algorithm updates will have a substantial impact on your website, staying abreast of changes will help

you shape your SEO strategy and website experience for optimal results. For a full and updated list of algorithm

updates, please visit: https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change.


https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//insidesearch/howsearchworks/assets/searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change

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OTHER RECENT GOOGLE ALGORITHM UPDATES

January 10, 2017 – Intrusive Interstitial Penalty

Algorithm update that punishes aggressive pop-ups and interstitials that potentially damage the mobile user

experience. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-intrusive-interstitials-mobile-penalty-now-rolling-out-

23237.html

October 17, 2017 – Chrome HTTPS Warnings

For users of Chrome 62 and above, Google has begun warning visitors to websites with unsecured forms. While not

technically an algorithm update, this is a continuation in Google's move toward HTTPS and may materially impact

onsite behavior. https://searchengineland.com/google-emails-warnings-webmasters-chrome-will-mark-http-

pages-forms-not-secure-280907

October 27, 2017 – Featured Snippet Drop

Google substantially reduces the use of Featured Snippets but increases the use of Knowledge Panels.

https://moz.com/blog/knowledge-graph-eats-featured-snippets

November 30, 2017 – Snippet Length Increase

Google officially increases snippet length in search, allowing for meta descriptions up to 300 characters including

spaces. https://searchengineland.com/google-officially-increases-length-snippets-search-results-287596


https://www.seroundtable.com/google-intrusive-interstitials-mobile-penalty-now-rolling-out-23237.html

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-intrusive-interstitials-mobile-penalty-now-rolling-out-23237.html

https://searchengineland.com/google-emails-warnings-webmasters-chrome-will-mark-http-pages-forms-not-secure-280907

https://searchengineland.com/google-emails-warnings-webmasters-chrome-will-mark-http-pages-forms-not-secure-280907

https://moz.com/blog/knowledge-graph-eats-featured-snippets

https://searchengineland.com/google-officially-increases-length-snippets-search-results-287596

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EXERCISE #1 - BUILDING BETTER PERSONAS THROUGH NAILING THE WHAT AND THE WHY

First and foremost, search engine optimization is about people. It doesn't matter how good you are at technical

optimizations and link building; if you don't deliver a delightful and engaging experience to your users you'll never

rise to the top of the search engine rankings.

Yet before you can help your users achieve their goals, you first need to understand what makes them… well… them.

The demographics, behaviors, attitudes and motivations that drive them forward in their search. Through the

codification as a persona – that is a detailed portrait of their characteristics, needs and intents – you will have a firm

grasp of the audience segments that are important to your business as well as the what and the why behind their

actions.

One critical note: personas can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. The more in-depth the fuller your

understanding of the audience. However even at their most robust, personas are only hypotheses; that is a proposed

explanation rather than fact; that will be tested and shaped over time.


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POTENTIAL DATA SOURCES

Ÿ Customer Data: Transaction data or historical relationship with company.

Ÿ Company (Internal) Data: Customer service interactions, sales team engagement.

Ÿ Website Analytics: Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics or similar platforms.

Ÿ Product Usage Data: Pendo.io, Kissmetrics or similar platforms.

Ÿ Customer Interviews: Customer development conversations, focus groups or camera studies.

Ÿ Desktop Research: Third party data sources that provide aggregate information on audiences or industries.


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TOOLS

Ÿ DataUSA.io: A website that allows you to search, map and compare data related to geography, industries and

job functions.

Ÿ Social Media: Facebook, LinkedIn, DemographicsPro.com.

Ÿ Third Party Databases & Reports: Licensed databases such as eMarketer (emarketer.com), Mintel Reports

( ) and Forrester Research http://www.mintel.com/mintel-reports

( )https://www.forrester.com/search?N=10001&range=504005&sort=3&searchRefinement=reports

Ÿ Customer Insights: conduct in-person focus groups, phone-based customer interviews or use a web-based

tool like User Testing ( ) to conduct virtual camera studies.https://www.usertesting.com/


http://www.mintel.com/mintel-reports

https://www.forrester.com/search?N=10001&range=504005&sort=3&searchRefinement=reports

https://www.usertesting.com/

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MASTERING THE PERSONA PROCESS

1. Gather data on how your customers and prospects behave when interacting with your company. This can include,

but is not limited to: product usage, how buyers behave prior to and after purchase, the way in which prospects

engage with your marketing communications and how your customers communicate with customer support or the

sales departments at your organization.

2. Gather demographic, psychographic and survey data.

3. Break your prospects and customers into cohorts; that is groups with common attributes; to segment high value

from low value customers.

4. Craft an Audience Story and associated persona to codify your hypothesis of your audience segments.


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AUDIENCE DATA

Demographics

Gender

Age

Education

Occupation

Annual Household Income

Marital Status

Family Status (Has Children?)

Religion

Psychographics

Areas of Interest

Expressed Values

Habits

Opinions

Activities or Hobbies


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AUDIENCE DATA

Observed Behavior

Frequency of Interaction

Recency of Interaction

Average Time On-Site

Frequency of Purchase

Recency of Purchase

Average Transaction Value

Lifetime as Customer

Lifetime Value


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AUDIENCE STORY

Observed Behavior

Person Describe who the customer is in a few sentences.

Their Purpose What are their goals?

How do they define themselves?

What are they trying to accomplish professionally, personally or socially?

Objective of Interaction What are they trying to achieve by dealing with your company?

What does success look like in the interaction for them and for your company?

Customer Journey Describe the customer journey. What steps are they taking, what distractions do they encounter, on their way to fulfilling their intended goal?


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Starting Point What is their current understanding of, or sophistication about, their problem and/or intended goal?


AUDIENCE STORY

Observed Behavior

Audience Rationale Describe how the person is thinking at each step of their journey.

Emotional Struggles and Frustrations What are the emotional dynamics? Ex: strongly felt needs, pressure from others, trust. What are they frustrated by in their journey?

Key Decisions Outline the key decisions that a customer has to make in order to complete their quest.

Anti-Goals What concerns or anxieties does the audience have? What pains or outcomes are they trying to avoid?

Alternative Options What alternatives does the customer have? What would an experience with a competitor look and feel like?

Constraints Any additional constraints or limitations that the customer has to consider?


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EXAMPLE PERSONAS


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EXAMPLE PERSONAS


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EXAMPLE PERSONAS


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EXERCISE #2 - MASTERING KEYWORD RESEARCH

Successful keyword research requires empathy. That you to put yourself into the shoes of your audience and to think

like they think. By deeply exploring their current understanding of their problems, based on where they are in their

journey to their intended destination, you can better identify the topics and answers that will prove meaningful in

response to their search query.

As a seasoned SEO you likely already have an understanding of many of the tools and processes of the keyword

research trade. While technology is undoubtedly an important part of keyword research, it should not be the place

that we start. Rather, below is a proposed roadmap that if followed will lead you to more meaningful and effective

keyword research.

Begin by interviewing or reflecting on your conversations with your sales team, customer service representatives and

other customer-facing departments.

MAPPING CUSTOMER UNDERSTANDING


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MAPPING CUSTOMER UNDERSTANDING

How does your company introduce itself to an individual that hasn't heard of you before?

What are the questions that your sales and/or customer service team most commonly receive when speaking with prospects/customers?

Who do your customers view as competitors to your company?

What do you wish a prospect knew or understood before engaging with your company?

What are the most common challenges or complaints your company receives from customers?

What do you believe makes a customer a “poor fit” for your company?

What do you believe makes a customer a “good fit” for your company?


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Using a software tools such as Spyfu.com and SEMRush.com, research the keywords and phrases for which your

competitors highly rank.

COMPETITIVE KEYWORD RESEARCH


Ranking Keyword Estimated Search VolumeCompetitor


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Take a moment and think of all the words you or a customer could use to describe your product or company. As you

brainstorm on the common language assign the keywords a theme to help categorize the terms based on

commonalities such as informational, navigational, brand or transactional. Hint: if you're struggling to identify seed

keywords visit https://www.seedkeywords.com/ as a starting point.

CREATE A SEED KEYWORD LIST


Keyword Theme


https://www.seedkeywords.com/

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Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is a mathematical method used to determine the relationship between terms and

concepts in content. An increasingly significant influence on search rankings, LSI keywords help to indicate natural

language through the use of synonyms and helps to expand keyword visibility through keyword variation. Building

on the competitive research and seed keyword list, visit to research LSI variants. Additional https://lsigraph.com/

ideas for variants are available at https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/.

CREATE A LIST OF RELATED TERMS


Root Keyword Variants


https://lsigraph.com/

https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

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Based on your keyword research, gather search volume and competitiveness data so that you can prioritize the

themes that will have the most impact for your search engine optimization goals. You may utilize the free tool

https://searchvolume.io/ https://ahrefs.com/keywords-explorer, or a paid platform such as

https://www.semrush.com/ https://www.spyfu.com/. or

PRIORITIZE KEYWORDS AND THEMES


Root Keyword Variants


https://searchvolume.io/

https://ahrefs.com/keywords-explorer

https://www.semrush.com/

https://www.spyfu.com/

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Ÿ https://www.seedkeywords.com/

Ÿ https://www.semrush.com/

Ÿ https://www.spyfu.com/

Ÿ https://ahrefs.com/keywords-explorer

Ÿ https://lsigraph.com/

Ÿ https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS



https://www.seedkeywords.com/

https://www.semrush.com/

https://www.spyfu.com/

https://ahrefs.com/keywords-explorer


https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

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EXERCISE #3 - CREATING STRATEGIC AND COMPREHENSIVE CONTENT

Checklist Question Yes / No

Search engines reward websites with higher rankings when they feature valuable content that is comprehensive to a

topic and is relevant to the intended audience. Too often marketers wait until the end of the content creation

process to take into consideration SEO factors. By following the below checklist, you can both evaluate the SEO

value of your website's content as well as set a strategic path forward for your content creation efforts.

Is your content based on an understanding of your audience, their interests, needs and intent?

Is the content written to meet the intended audience where they are in their journey? Does it avoid using industry jargon or overly simple language?

Does your content use audience language; rather than company-focused language; as well as LSI variants?

Is the content significantly differentiated in type, scope and detail that other content serving the same user intent?

Does the content solve a problem, answer a question or create an emotional response?

Is the content remarkable in that it provides comprehensive, accurate or exceptional information?

Is the on-page content long format (1,000+ words) and oriented to helping the user complete one specific task?

Does the page feature a clear and concise call-to-action or obvious next step in the user path?

Is the content so compelling that it is shareable? Do you make it easy on the page for your audience to share the content using social sharing buttons?

Can the content be scanned easily? Does it use features like short paragraphs, bold text, bullet points, quotes and/or numbered lists to make it easy for readers to consume the on-page content?

Target URL:


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Checklist Question Yes / No

Does the content utilize clear formatting such as H1 tags or strong titles for at-a-glance reading?

Compared to other page 1 SERP ranking pages for the topic, does the on-page content feature more useful, more in-depth or easier to consume information?

Is the content free of spelling, grammatical and formatting errors?

Is the content accurate and free of factual errors?

Does the content link out to useful and reputable sources?

Does the page avoid over-optimization of language, such as keyword stuffing, and instead features natural language usage and term variation?

Is the on-page content organized into thematic sections based on primary related keywords; that is words and phrases that related to the main keyword phrase of the page?

Do on-page images feature image titles, alt text and captions that naturally use the target keyword and variants?

Does the page use the target keyword or related variant in the URL?

EXERCISE #3 - CREATING STRATEGIC AND COMPREHENSIVE CONTENT

Ÿ https://www.link-assistant.com/news/tf-idf-tool.html

Ÿ https://lsigraph.com/

Ÿ https://www.grammarly.com/

CONTENT TOOLS


https://www.link-assistant.com/news/tf-idf-tool.html


https://www.grammarly.com/

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EXERCISE #4 - MASTERING USER EXPERIENCE FOR IMPROVED SEO PERFORMANCE

Great user experience is about more than beautiful design. It is about helping audiences quickly and easily

understand their surroundings, find what they're looking for and take appropriate action once they do. Every click

should take the user closer to their goal while eliminating as much of the non-destination as possible.

As applied to ranking on search engines, whose core purpose is quickly connect people with relevant content so that

they can complete their indented task, a delightful user experience isn't an option, it is a requirement. While user

experience design and human-centered design are enormously deep topics, there are four core principles that when

applied to a website improve the on-page experience and support SEO performance.

1. Be contextual – when opening a book to any given page, you are met with the title, the chapter name, page number

and words. These pieces of information share important context to the reader to help her understand her surroundings

and the point at which she is joining the story. Like the reader of the book, when a user visits your page she is taking a

step forward in her search. Ensure that there are appropriate signals that allow her to be contextually aware of where

she is within her journey.

2. Be human – human interaction needs to always trump machine-like interactions. By designing the page to be

approachable, authentic, trustworthy and transparent your user can quickly learn your website's interaction models and

more easily move forward toward their goal.

3. Be easy – reduce the user's cognitive workload by reducing choice and on-page busyness. Be consistent and clear in

your visual hierarchy.

4. Be simple – avoid distractions, jargon and long loading times. Make the on-page experience delightful by creating

moments of surprise or wonder.

While wide-ranging in concept, there is a three-step process that you can use to audit your website's user

experience.


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Begin the exercise by reviewing Google Analytics and priority pages for user experience signals. You may also use

the free Pagezii UX Grader Tool ( ) to guide your analysis.https://pagezii.com/snapshot/ux

USER EXPERIENCE AUDIT CHECKLIST

Metric Findings

Visitor Engagement

Bounce Rate

Average Across Website

Page Outliers

Time On-Page

Average Across Website

Page Outliers

Average Pages Per User Session

Common User Flow / Paths

Most Popular Landing Pages

Most Popular Exit Pages


https://pagezii.com/snapshot/ux

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Metric Findings

Communication Style

Ease of Reading

Content Complexity

Page Content Length

Human readable Title Tag

Human readable Meta Description

Meaningful Header

Clear Calls-to-Action

Natural Language / Text

Navigation

Link to Home Easily Identifiable

Internal Linking / Content Discovery

Clear Navigational Elements


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Metric Findings

Usability

Digestible Content

Concise Points

Visual breaks

Image Descriptions

Video Usage

Lead Capture Form

Modal Boxes / Pop Ups

Responsible Design

Page Load Speed


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Metric Findings

Credibility

Secure, HTTPs Connection

Social Profiles

Brand Building Language

On-page Trust Signals

Privacy Text

Copyright

Bonus Tips

Ÿ Install inspectlet.com (free up to 100 visitors per month), Hotjar.com or a similar user experience analysis tool

to record user sessions, uncover click behavior and scrolling depth.

Ÿ Conduct customer / user interviews or camera studies (UserTesting.com) to hear directly from users their

perspectives on the website, their though process and decision-making process.


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USER EXPERIENCE ANALYSIS TOOLS

Ÿ Pagezii UX Grader Tool: https://pagezii.com/snapshot/ux

Ÿ Google Analytics: https://analytics.google.com

Ÿ User Testing: https://www.usertesting.com/

Ÿ Hotjar: https://www.hotjar.com/

Ÿ Inspectlet: https://www.inspectlet.com/


https://pagezii.com/snapshot/ux

https://analytics.google.com

https://www.usertesting.com/

https://www.hotjar.com/

https://www.hotjar.com/

https://www.inspectlet.com/

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EXERCISE #5 - WINNING SMARTER BRAND CITATIONS

Since Google first established itself as the preeminent player in the search engine industry links have been the trust

signal for SERPs. As a result, SEOs have spent countless hours optimizing links in the pursuit of top rankings,

sometimes even pushing to manipulate them. In response, Google and other search engines have sought methods

to penalize the misuse or over-optimization of links and have expanded their algorithms to also look to unlinked

mentions as well as online reputation as a signal of relevance and value.

In order to be successful at increasing the SERP rankings for your website you need high quality links coupled with a

comprehensive approach that attracts trust signals through reputation management and brand citations. Below is a

methodology to audit your current status and identify opportunities for improvement.


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Brand Mention Note

Ex: www.company.com/reviews Ex: features customer service complaint that has not yet been addressed by our team. Flag for follow up.

AUDIT BRAND MENTIONS & REPUTATION

Ÿ Visit and sign up for the 14-day free trial.https://awario.com/signup

Ÿ Create alerts for your brand name and website URL.

Ÿ Evaluate mentions and positive/negative sentiment.

Ÿ Note reputation management or customer service issues that need response.


https://awario.com/signup

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AUDIT BACKLINK PORTFOLIO

Ÿ Visit SEMRush.com and sign up for a free account or log into your paid account.

Ÿ Create a “project” for your domain.

Ÿ Run an automated “backlink audit” for your domain.

Ÿ Connect Google Search Console to SEMRush for improved backlink audit results.

Ÿ Review audit report, identifying toxicity of links based on domain authority, page authority, the quality of the

content and design on the linking page as well as diversity of anchor text.

Ÿ Create a prioritized list of links to request removal from the site’s webmasters or of which to request a link

disavowal from Google

Link Toxicity Score

Ex: http://add-page.org/the_worlds_most_visited_web_pages_52.html 88


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CREATE THE STRATEGY TO GROW YOUR BRAND MENTIONS

Ÿ Reviews: monitor customer reviews and respond to customer service inquires.

Ÿ Social Media: consistently share high value content and engagement with your online community on the

social networks frequented by your audience.

Ÿ Competitor monitoring: set up brand name tracking on Awario or a similar tool to track brand citations for

your key competitors. Learn from watching where they succeed and struggle as well as identify common

influencers.

Ÿ Create Astounding Content: review the page one rankings for your priority keywords. Note what content ranks

and identify creative ways to build content that not only deserves to ranking #1 but is so astoundingly good

that your audience will love it. Keep in mind that when deploying the content on-page to include images as

well as easy social sharing capabilities.

Keyword Top Ranking Content Astounding Ideas


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EXERCISE #6 - TACKLING THE TECHNICAL

As an experienced SEO you already understand the critical technical factors that influence SERP. With that said,

nothing will inhibit the impact of a great user experience and superior content faster than technical issues that make

it difficult, if not impossible, for a search engine to correctly index your website.

To ensure that your website doesn't miss a beat use the following tool and audit checklist to identify website issues

that need attention.

TOOLS

Ÿ Bing Webmaster Tools: https://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

Ÿ Google Analytics: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/

Ÿ Google Mobile Testing Tool: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

Ÿ Screaming Frog SEO Spider: (or your preferred crawler)https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/

Ÿ Siteliner: http://www.siteliner.com/


https://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/

https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/

http://www.siteliner.com/

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Using Screaming Frog SEO Spider, select Configuration from the main menu followed by Custom >> Search. You

may then add the following parameters:

1. Add “analytics\.js” (without the quotes) to the blank field of your next available filter and change the

dropdown to “Does Not Contain” to check for missing Google Analytics code.

2. Add “<iframe src-“//www.googletagmanager.com/” (without the quotes) to the blank field of your next

available filter and change the dropdown to “Does Not Contain” to check for missing Google Tag Manager

code.

3. Add “itemtype= (without the quotes) to the blank field of your next available filter and http://schema.\.org/

change the dropdown to “Contains” to check for missing schema markup.

GETTING A LAY OF THE LAND


http://schema.\\.org/

43




44



Next, log into Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools in your browser and check the following:

1. Are there any new messages regarding the health of your website?

2. Check the Index Status in Search Console and look for any sharp or sudden changes in the number of pages

indexed. Also compare the number of indexed pages reported in Search Console to what Screaming Frog SEO

Spider or your preferred crawl tool reports.

3. Confirm that you have specified a Preferred domain under Site Settings in Search Console.


45


TECHNICAL AUDIT

SSL Usage

Using Screaming Frog SEO Spider, migrate to the “Protocol” tab to view and change the Filter to HTTP is show all of

the insecure pages on the website. You can also export the list of pages by selecting “Reports” from the dropdown

menu and then “Insecure Content”

Sitemaps

Confirm that your website has a properly formatted XML sitemap to help search engines understand how your

website is organized.

1. Check that sitemaps have been submitted via the Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools as well

as the last crawl date.

2. Compare how many URLs were submitted to how many were indexed, then look for any warnings.

3. If the sitemap is incorrect, generate a new one using Screaming Frog SEO Spider and submit it to Google

Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.


46


TECHNICAL AUDIT

Robots.txt

Review the robots.txt file for your site by visit yourcompany.com/robots.txt. Confirm that:

Website Load Speed

Using Google's web speed tool ( ) and Pingdom https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

( ) benchmark overall site speed and the load speed of critical pages on the site. Any page https://tools.pingdom.com/

that takes longer than 3 seconds on average to load requires optimizations for improvement.

Mobile-Friendliness

Utilize Google's mobile friendly test tool ( ) to audit key pages on your https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

website for their appearance and usability on mobile devices.

1. The robots.txt file is all lowercase (as some user-agents only recognize lowercase filenames).

2. The file is placed in the main directory of your website or subdomain.

3. The file properly uses the disallow directive to hide or block the following types of pages: pages with

duplicate content, pagination pages, admin pages, shopping carts, chats and/or thank you pages.

4. The file includes a link to your XML sitemap.


https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

https://tools.pingdom.com/

https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly

47


TECHNICAL AUDIT

Crawl Errors

Using Screaming Frog SEO Spider identify all of the pages on the website that exhibit crawl errors.

Fix Incorrectly Set Up Redirects

Using Screaming Frog SEO Spider, navigate to “Reports” in the main menu and then select “Redirect Chains” to reveal

URLs that feature more than one 301 or 302 Redirect or have a redirect loop.

1. Select Bulk Export>>Response Codes from the main menu to export reports for both Client Error (4xx)

Inlinks and Server Error (5xx) Inlinks.

2. Sort by status code with a particular focus on 4XX and 5XX server errors.

3. Work with your development team to identify the cause of the errors and correct.

4. If any of the pages with error codes were intentionally removed from the website, set up 301 permanent

redirects to a live corresponding page with applicable content.


48


UNCOVERING ON-PAGE ISSUES

Duplicate Content

Use Siteliner ( ) to crawl your website and identify instances of internal duplicate or http://www.siteliner.com/

substantially similar content. Audit resulting pages and identify if the pages with duplicate content should be

deindexed in the robots.txt file, use a rel=”canonical” link tag or updated with original content.


http://www.siteliner.com/

49


UNCOVERING ON-PAGE ISSUES

Content Length

While not a complete measure of quality, there is data to indicate that pages with more than 1,500 words are more

frequently featured on page 1 SERP results than shorter pages. You can use Screaming Frog SEO Spider to identify

pages for further review.

1. Select the Internal tab from the main Screaming Frog panel. Change the Filter to HTML, and then export the

report as a CSV file.

2. Open the file in Excel and hide or delete any rows with a non-200 response code as well as pages using the

noindex directive.

3. Sort the file using the Word Count column.

4. Flag any pages with word counts lower than 500. These pages should be reviewed to evaluate if the on-

page content has enough depth and, if not, if there are opportunities for expansion.


50

ABOUT JAKE FINKELSTEIN

Jake Finkelstein is the CEO of Method Savvy, a full-service marketing agency based in

Durham, NC. As an integrated marketer Jake as worked with world-class brands such

as Olympus, US Cellular, Starwood Hotels, Dollar Tree, Virgin and Avalara to build and

deploy evidence-based marketing programs that deliver scalable revenue growth.

Jake began his career in the music industry, most notably at Sony Music

Entertainment, where he helped to launch and expand the careers of such artists as

Incubus, Modest Mouse, System of a Down and Ben Folds Five. Prior to founding

Method Savvy, Jake spent 8 years as the Vice President of Strategy for the Manhattan-

based experiential and digital marketing firm Universal Buzz Intelligence where he led

campaigns for such well-known artists as The White Stripes, Switchfoot, Iggy Pop and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts

and brands such as Disney, MTV, Diageo and Starbucks.

More information on Jake Finkelstein and Method Savvy is available at and www.methodsavvy.com

www.linkedin.com/in/JakeFinkelstein.


http://www.methodsavvy.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/JakeFinkelstein

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