SEO Week 4 Lecture Notes

Introduction

• Final session of SEO
• Recap of previous sessions:
  • Week 2: Technical SEO, On-age SEO, optimisations (page speed, canonical URLs, server response time)
  • Week 3: Off-age SEO (external optimisation, backlinks)
    • Importance of off-age SEO for ongoing activities
    • Backlinks (do-follow, no-follow, link juice)
    • Link building strategies (directory submission, FAQs, blog commenting, guest posting, press releases, social sharing)
    • Activity on blog commenting for backlink creation

Backlinks Review

• Types of backlinks: Do-follow, no-follow
• Anchor Text: Keywords in anchor text help both users and crawlers; enhances readability and SEO

Metrics to Measure Website Popularity

1. Domain Authority (DA by Moz)
   • Originally created by Moz, not officially by Google
   • Scale of 0 to 100
   • Categories:
     • 0-25: Low to Average
     • 25-50: Average to Good
     • 50-75: Good to Excellent
     • 75+: Best
2. Page Authority (PA, also by Moz)
   • Specific to each page rather than the domain
   • High PA indicates a page already has authority and backlinks
3. Spam Score (SS by Moz)
   • Indicates the percentage of spammy or toxic links
   • Categories: 1% to 100%
   • Importance: A high spam score requires addressing potential bad backlinks

Handling Bad Backlinks

• Manual outreach to website owners to remove backlinks
• Use Google Disavow Tool
  • Upload .txt file with spammy URLs/domains
  • Google stops associating those links with your website

Competitor Research

• Crucial for ongoing SEO effort
• Analyze competitors’ backlinks to identify potential opportunities
• Tools: SEMrush, etc.
  • Adding projects in SEMrush to track website
  • Organic research: Keywords, traffic, positions
  • Backlink analysis: Identify popular sources for competitors

Features and Tools in SEMrush

• Authority Score: Measures domain (similar to DA by Moz but proprietary to SEMrush)
• Backlink Audit: Analyzes backlink profile, toxicity score
• Position Tracking: Ranks for keywords, site audit
• Backlink Gap Analysis: Finds competitors' backlink sources
• Keyword Research: Identify high-performing keywords

Schema Markup (Rich Snippets)

• Purpose: Enhance how search results are displayed (e.g., adding ratings, images, preparation times for recipes)
• Implementation: Via Schema.org or plugins for WordPress
• Examples: Recipes, software applications, events

Local SEO

• Google Business Profile (GMB)
  • Essential for local businesses
  • Verifying via postcard, video verification, or Google satellite imagery
  • Importance of NAP (Name, Address, Phone) consistency

SEO Assignment Steps

1. Content Checks: Grammar, image copyright, plagiarism checks
2. HTML Checks: URL length, meta title & description, H1 tags
3. Technical SEO: Page speed, mobile-friendly tests, security checks
4. Backlink Audit: Using SEMrush for gap analysis and top backlink identification
5. Local SEO: Listing in Google My Business and local directories

Conclusion

• Stress on practical implementation, competitor research, continual SEO efforts
• Address questions, provide feedback, and close session