2017 SEO/SEM Briefing by ymcacharlotte

SEO/SEM BRIEFING JASON L ANTONIC Association Director of Digital Strategy and User Experience May 8, 2017

FIRST OF ALL – WHAT IS IT? TERMS •

SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE

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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

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SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM)

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SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION (SMO)

NEW TO THIS? – watch this basic overview video! https://youtu.be/hF515-0Tduk

SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE (SERP) SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE (SERP) is the page displayed by a search engine in response to a query by a searcher. The main component of the SERP is the listing of results that are returned by the search engine in response to a keyword query, although the page may also contain other results such as advertisements. (WIKIPEDIA) The results are of two general types, organic (THINK SEO) (i.e., retrieved by the search engine's algorithm) and sponsored (THINK SEM)(i.e., advertisements). The results are normally ranked by relevance to the query. Each result displayed on the SERP normally includes a title, a link that points to the actual page on the Web and a short description showing where the keywords have matched content within the page for organic results. For sponsored results, the advertiser chooses what to display. Due to the huge number of items that are available or related to the query there usually are several SERPs in response to a single search query as the search engine or the user's preferences restrict viewing to a subset of results per page. Each succeeding page will tend to have lower ranking or lower relevancy results. Just like the world of traditional print media and its advertising, this enables competitive pricing for page real estate, but compounded by the dynamics of consumer expectations and intent— unlike static print media where the content and the advertising on every page is the same all of the time for all viewers, despite such hard copy being localized to some degree, usually geographic, like state, metro-area, city, or neighborhoods. | SEO Priorities | ©2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte – USER EXPERIENCE

SEO – SEM - SMO

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Search engine optimization (SEO), adjusts or rewrites website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages which, in turn provides the opportunity to enhance pay-per-click (PPC) listings (SEM) Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid resultsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;often referred to as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users; these visitors can then be converted into customers. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. SEO differs from local search engine optimization in that the latter is focused on optimizing a business' online presence so that its web pages will be displayed by search engines when a user enters a local search for its products or services. The former instead is more focused on national searches. SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML, and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. | SEO Priorities | ÂŠ2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte â&#x20AC;&#x201C; USER EXPERIENCE

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM) Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that supports the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising. Pay-per-click (PPC) is associated with first-tier search engines (such as Google AdWords and Microsoft Bing Ads). With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. In contrast, content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system. This is a form of media buying. Paid inclusion involves a search engine company charging fees for the inclusion of a website in their results pages. Also known as sponsored listings, paid inclusion products are provided by most search engine companies either in the main results area or as a separately identified advertising area. Referral Link Building: Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic. A large portion of the engines' algorithms are attributed to link-related. Through links, engines can not only analyze the popularity websites and pages based on the number and popularity of pages linking to them, but also metrics like trust, spam, and authority. Trustworthy sites tend to link to other trusted sites, while spammy sites receive very few links from trusted sources. Authority models, suggest that links are a very good way of identifying expert documents on a given subject. | SEO Priorities | ÂŠ2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte â&#x20AC;&#x201C; USER EXPERIENCE

SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION (SMO) Techniques and strategies for promoting awareness of a brand, publication, product, etc., on social media, especially by encouraging the sharing of content that attracts people to a particular website. "social media optimization is a tried and trusted technique to advertise a website's service. Social media optimization (SMO) is the use of a number of social media outlets and communities to generate publicity to increase the awareness of a product, service brand or event. Types of social media involved include RSS feeds, social news and bookmarking sites, as well as social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, video sharing websites and blogging sites. SMO is similar to search engine optimization, in that the goal is to generate web traffic and to a site and increase awareness for a website. In general, social media optimization refers to optimizing a website and its content to encourage more users to use and share links to the website across social media and networking sites. SMO also refers to software tools that automate this process, or to website experts who undertake this process for clients. The goal of SMO is to strategically create interesting online content, ranging from well-written text to eye-catching digital photos or video clips that encourages and entices people to engage with a website and then share this content, via its web link, with their social media contacts and friends. Common examples of social media engagement are "liking and commenting on posts, re-tweeting, embedding, sharing, and promoting content. Social media optimization is also an effective way of implementing online reputation management (ORM), meaning that if someone posts bad reviews of a business, a SMO strategy can ensure that the negative feedback is not the first link to come up in a list of search engine results.

| SEO Priorities | ÂŠ2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte â&#x20AC;&#x201C; USER EXPERIENCE

YMCA TOP SEO PRIORITIES IMPLEMENT ORGANIC SEO FOR ALL PAGES –  This work is missing/incomplete from our site –  Thousands of pages are not indexed by Google –  Ongoing keyword monitoring is needed –  SEO sensitive copywriting is not being done INCREASE OUR ALEXA PAGERANK –  Increase domain authority and equity –  Measure’s site relative popularity –  Improves Google pagerank

CRITICAL SEO PRIORITIES INSTITUTE STRUCTURED DATA –  Enhances our localized search results –  Strategically positions our class/event/program data

ESTABLISH RICH CARD DATA FEEDS –  Curates structured data to Google Business listings –  Feeds class/event/program data to indexing

REFACTOR SITEMAP –  Ensure all pages get crawled by search engines –  Stop follows on tool-based pages

CRITICAL SEO PRIORITIES METACONTENT –  Many of our pages have zero page level metacontent –  Many of our pages have inherited/duplicate metas

INCREASE INBOUND LINK QUALITY –  Improves equity with search engines –  Improves Alexa Score –  Quality standards need to be established/followed

IMPROVE URL SEMANTICS –  Defines site structure and improves organic SEO –  Canonization helps Google understand how to index us for topical and local relevance

OPPORTUNITY– IMPROVED COORDINATION 1.  HOUSING SEO UNDER SINGLE GOVERNANCE MODEL ENSURES QUALITY, THROUGHPUT 2.  INCREASE TRANSPARENCY FOR ONLINE ADSPEND, KEYWORD MARKETING 3.  CREATE CAMPAIGNS TO SUPPORT TRAFFIC SHIFTS FOR NEW SITE DEPLOYMENT 4.  CONTENT WRITING WHICH INCLUDES SEO BEST PRACTICES IS MORE EFFECTIVE

CROSS-DISCIPLINARY IMPLICATIONS Determining responsibilities Because of the significant amount of skillset and information overlap, it makes the most sense to organize SEO responsibilities where the resource level skill sets are most present, defined, and able. The ecology of SEO is very tightly linked to the website technology. And performing any of the ancillary tasks(PPC, SMO, SEM, Email, etc…) in a silo, presents significant risks both operationally, and as to brand positioning and equity with the major search engines.

Resources who are unaware of these implications may unwittingly do harm to a domain’s SE equity and position, reducing traffic and business opportunity.

OPERATIONAL RISKS –SEO WORK SILOS Opportunity

Risks

When our keyword marketing and PPC adspend is optimized for actual on-site content we increase and expand our SEO equity and reach with the major search engines.

Marketing campaigns that are not socialized run the risk of including urls that might be in flux, changing, or being eliminated for development and SEO reasons.

We also stand to maximize conversions online by delivering targeted traffic to more meaningful content.

When separate teams work on SEO and PPC and the efforts are not synced, positive results of aligning their strategies, as well as significant amounts of money can be lost.

We have an opportunity through keyword study and research to learn better how to name our programs, how to write about our product offerings, and what searchers on the web are truly looking for. In this way, we can backfill to demand and gain traction in the market. Keyword insights derived from the organic side need to be shared with the paid side, and vice versa. Having a unified team in place allows much closer coordination of keyword-related research and implementation. http://searchengineland.com/seo-alwayscomplement-content-marketing-263199

The aim of both SEO and PPC is maximizing the visibility in search and thus, their actions to achieve it should be centrally coordinated. We risk spending considerable $$ on adspend campaigns that point users to content that could be useless, missed, overlooked, moot, or has no attributable workflow or conversion strategy. We will miss opportunities to define unique market segments for targeted campaigns, which relegates us to spread campaigns where reach is high, frequency is high, but conversion is still relatively low at 1-3%

SEO AUDIT 1.  ASSIGNED WORK –  Work identified as needed/missing/incomplete 2.  DESCOPED SEO WORK –  Work that did not meet acceptance criteria 3.  COMPLETED/CORRECTED WORK –  Work that was taken over and completed by Dev 4.  INCOMPLETE/INCORRECT WORK –  Work that was identified as needed/missing/ incomplete and has incomplete

SEO AUDIT – ASSIGNED WORK Work Item

Duplicate content Duplicate/Ineffective Title Tags Meta Descriptions Heading Structure Missing Alt Attributes Absence of Structured Data Low text to HTML Ratio Mobile Display Issues Use of App Interstitials on Mobile Missing Language Attributes URL Structure Hindering Event Pages Faceted Navigation (No Follow) Unnatural Incoming Links Broken Internal Links Broken Links External Unaddressed Site Errors URL Errors hindering crawlability Temporary 302 Redirects Metarobots blocking SEO Traffic Disorganized XML Site Map Preferred Domain Unspecified Http version hindering advanatages of SSL Case Sensitive Subdirectories Missing Canonical Tags Cloaking HTTP2 Critical Rendering Path Inefficiencies Preconnect Initiating Prefetch/Prerender for priority pages Lack of CDN slows content loading speed | SEO Priorities | ©2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte – USER EXPERIENCE

Assigned to Marketing Marketing Marketing Dev Marketing Dev Marketing Dev/UX All Dev Dev Dev Marketing Marketing Marketing Dev Marketing Dev Marketing Marketing Dev Dev Dev Marketing/Dev Dev Dev Dev Dev Marketing Dev

Completed? No No No Pending No in progress No Yes No descoped Yes Yes No No No descoped No descoped No No Yes descoped Yes No Yes descoped descoped descoped No descoped

DESCOPED SEO WORK Work Item

Assigned

Findings

Missing Language Attributes Unaddressed Site Errors Temporary 302 Redirects Http version hindering advantages of SSL HTTP2 Critical Rendering Path Inefficiencies Preconnect Lack of CDN slows content loading speed

Dev Dev Dev Dev Dev Dev Dev Dev

Kentico has Transl Ability – Disabled audit produced no errors not a priority– moot legacy issue descoped after research cannot do limited to Win10 or Ser16 Events Page issues – Needs redesign solved by HTTP2 Events Page issues – Needs redesign

COMPLETED/CORRECTED WORK Work Item

Assigned to

Heading Structure Absence of Structured Data Mobile Display Issues URL Structure Hindering Event Pages Faceted Navigation (No Follow) Preferred Domain Unspecified Case Sensitive Subdirectories Cloaking

Dev Dev Dev/UX Dev Dev Dev Dev Dev

Findings Pending in progress Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

INCOMPLETE/INCORRECT WORK Work Item

Assigned to

Findings

Duplicate content Duplicate/Ineffective Title Tags Meta Descriptions Missing Alt Attributes Low text to HTML Ratio Use of App Interstitials on Mobile Unnatural Incoming Links Broken Internal Links Broken Links External URL Errors hindering crawlability Metarobots blocking SEO Traffic Disorganized XML Site Map Missing Canonical Tags Initiating Prefetch/Prerender for priority pages

Marketing Marketing Marketing Marketing Marketing All Marketing Marketing Marketing Marketing Marketing Marketing Marketing/Dev Marketing

Built incorrectly Built incorrectly Never Done Never Done Built incorrectly Built incorrectly Built incorrectly Built incorrectly Built incorrectly Built incorrectly Built incorrectly Built incorrectly Built incorrectly Built incorrectly

| SEO Priorities | ÂŠ2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte â&#x20AC;&#x201C; USER EXPERIENCE

INCOMPLETE/INCORRECT SEO - EXAMPLES 1.  2.  3.  4.  5.  6.  7.

DUPLICATE CONTENT, TITLE, METAS MISSING ALT ATTRIBUTES LOW TEXT TO HTML RATIO USE OF APP INTERSTITIALS ON HOME PAGE UNNATURAL INCOMING LINKS BROKEN INTERNAL/EXTERNAL LINKS MISSING CANONICAL TAGS

DUPLICATE CONTENT, TITLE, METAS We have thousands of instances where unique pages have both duplicated content and duplicated meta title and description tags. Duplicate content is content that appears on the internet more than one place. That “one place” is defined as a location with a unique website address (url). Doing this can impact SE rankings

This is because: a)  The work has not been done to create/input this content, and b)  Content and metas have been syndicated and set to inherit.

MISSING ALT ATTRIBUTES The required alt attribute specifies an alternate text for an image, if the image cannot be displayed. The alt attribute provides alternative information for an image if a user for some reason cannot view it (because of slow connection, an error in the src attribute, or if the user uses a screen reader). Google places a relatively high value on alt texts not only to determine what is on the image but also to determine the TOPIC of the surrounding text. Alt tags should contain meaningful keywords. NONE of our images are properly ALT Tagged. | SEO Priorities | ÂŠ2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte â&#x20AC;&#x201C; USER EXPERIENCE

LOW TEXT TO HTML RATIO A good text to HTML ratio is from 25-70%. This refers to the visible text ratio as opposed to HTML elements, image tags, and other non visible information. Many high ranking websites in search results have meaningful, visible, text.

USE OF APP INTERSTITIALS ON HOME PAGE Mobile-friendly web pages using app banners Tuesday, September 01, 2015 https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2015/09/mobilefriendly-web-pages-using-app.html “When it comes to search on mobile devices, users should get the most relevant answers, no matter if the answer lives in an app or a web page. We’ve recently made it easier for users to find and discover apps and mobile-friendly web pages. However, sometimes a user may tap on a search result on a mobile device and see an app install interstitial that hides a significant amount of content and prompts the user to install an app. Our analysis shows that it is not a good search experience and can be frustrating for users because they are expecting to see the content of the web page. Starting today, we’ll be updating the Mobile-Friendly Test to indicate that sites should avoid showing app install interstitials that hide a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page. The Mobile Usability report in Search Console will show webmasters the number of pages across their site that have this issue. After November 1, mobile web pages that show an app install interstitial that hides a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page will no longer be considered mobile-friendly. This does not affect other types of interstitials. As an alternative to app install interstitials, browsers provide ways to promote an app that are more user-friendly.” | SEO Priorities | ©2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte – USER EXPERIENCE

UNNATURAL INCOMING LINKS Google launched the Penguin Update in April 2012 to better catch sites deemed to be spamming its search results, in particular those doing so by buying links or obtaining them through link networks designed primarily to boost Google rankings. When a new Penguin Update is released, sites that have taken action to remove bad links (such as through the Google disavow links tool or to remove spam may regain rankings. New sites not previously caught might get trapped by Penguin. “False positives,” sites that were caught by mistake, may escape. In Sept 2016, Google announced that Google Penguin was part of the core algorithm and it updates itself in real time. A GOOGLE PENALTY is the negative impact on a website’s search engine rankings based on updates to Google’s algorithms and/or manual review. The penalty can be an unfortunate byproduct of an algorithm update or intentional penalization

BROKEN INTERNAL/EXTERNAL LINKS Our website has well over 6,290 searchable URLS – far too many for our lack of proper indexing

Of 2k scanned, 10 yielded 404 errors – largely to missing favicons (a design miss)

MISSING CANONICAL TAGS Canonical URL allows you to tell search engines that certain similar URLs are actually one and the same. Sometimes you have products or content that is accessible under multiple URLs, or even on multiple websites. Using a canonical URL (an HTML link tag with attribute rel=canonical) these can exist without harming your rankings. Choosing a proper canonical URL for every set of similar URLs improves the SEO of your site. Because the search engine knows which version is canonical, it can count all the links towards all the different versions, as links to that single version. Setting a canonical is similar to doing a 301 redirect, but without actually redirecting. Let’s assume you have two versions of the same page. Exactly, 100% the same content. They differ in that they’re in separate sections of your site and because of that the background color and the active menu item differ. That’s it. Both versions have been linked from other sites, the content itself is clearly valuable. Which version should a search engine show? Nobody knows. For example’s sake, these are their URLs: http://example.com/wordpress/seo-plugin/ http://example.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/ This is what rel=canonical was invented for. Especially in a lot of e-commerce systems, this (unfortunately) happens fairly often. A product has several different URLs depending on how you got there. | SEO Priorities | ©2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte – USER EXPERIENCE

OPPORTUNITIES- STRUCTURED DATA

HOW STRUCTURED HELPS ORGANIC SEO

STRUCTURED DATA – HOW IT WORKS

Rich cards https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2016/05/ introducing-rich-cards.html

STRUCTURED DATA – HOW IT WORKS

When we feed properly structured data to Google in the format it wants, our localized listings can be augmented to include accurate branch times, events, classes, etc. This means we can deliver content to people even before they enter our website and ahead of our competitors! And it’s totally free! (unpaid indexing) No adspend needed! | SEO Priorities | ©2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte – USER EXPERIENCE

CASE STUDY ONE

HOW APPLICATION ARCHITECTURE AND UX BEST PRACTICES IMPACT SEO AND WEB TRAFFIC

OVERCOMING SLOPPY IMPLEMENTATION Sometimes, it doesn’t take all that much work to achieve strong results. In this example, the website had a quick link for “Class Schedule” Problems with this link were: -  -  -  -  -  -

Which class schedule? Where? The button is off-brand The icon is hard to read There’s poor contrast with the bg. The bold banner ads drew focus away from this utility -  It was seldom used -  It dropped you into an empty tool -  The destination link was confusing

GIVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY EXPECT The destination link for the original “Class Schedule” button, drives you to this page. It’s a tool to help you find classes. However… -  The link told me I was going to be given a class schedule (a schedule of all classes) -  This page is not a schedule, it is a “search for classes” tool to find particular scheduled classes -  The tool is only the current week and it is not clear that the right arrow (black) means you can go to the next week -  The results are initially blank, forcing the user to add input, directions for which are unclear -  The page has no keywords, no content, and is basically a black hole

COMMUNICATE CLEARLY WHAT YOU OFFER

The new “Find Classes” button tells you exactly what you are going to do on the destination link. The link in the masthead “Class Schedule” has since been changed to “Find Classes” The link has been remade properly to look like an actual jumplink button. The behavior of the button reflects styling changes on-hover and on-click so affordance for click is there, unlike the banner above. | SEO Priorities | ©2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte – USER EXPERIENCE

ADDED PROMINENT FIND CLASSES BUTTON

The new destination page has a title that tells you that you are looking at exactly what you expected – a listing of group exercise classes. All of the classes have been surfaced from the tool so there are keywords galore linked to relevant meaningful content. The user is not made to do the heavy lifting using a complex filter tool. The tool is still made available through a direct link “class finder tool” This page, aside from pending meta content, is Search Engine Optimized. The images have alt tags, are named with keywords, etc. and more… | SEO Priorities | ©2017 YMCA of Greater Charlotte – USER EXPERIENCE

ONLY 60 DAYS TO MEASURABLE RESULTS!

A B

CASE STUDY 2

HOW COMPETITORS ARE BEATING US IN SEO WITH MINIMAL EFFORT

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION So, how do we stack up against our competition? Alexa scores are NOT GOOD compared with competitors and other YMCA

AND WE HAVE SIGNIFICANT COMPETITION! Lake Norman YMCA Local Fitness Centers Yoga/Pilates Studios Individual/Community Pools

WELL OVER 500 COMPETING OPTIONS!

GETTING DESTROYED BY LOCAL COMPETITION In many, if not all, of our local markets (because of our lack of SEO and properly made landing pages) we are losing to even the most minor competitors on keyword rank for activities, programs, and classes with which we have market share dominance. This leads to significant loss in perceived value when it comes to participants who know what activity they are looking for and where. In this case “Vinyasa Yoga Lake Norman” was the search and there was NO ACTUAL PAGE that could be indexed for this term on our site, BUT the branch page (which does not mention yoga anywhere) comes up on page 4. Vinyasaartslkn.com also has sub pages showing in their #1 listing. Also Google local. Page 4 is a non-starter!

GETTING DESTROYED BY OURSELVES A search for “cycle classes lake norman”, like the yoga search, yields nothing meaningful for the YMCA . The results that DO SHOW are the DOWD branch (page 2 and irrelevant), and ROBINHOOD ROAD FAMILY YMCA (67 miles away) IS BEATING US IN SEO ON PAGE 4 FOR “CYCLING CLASSES LAKE NORMAN”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOCAL SEO RESULTS So, how do we stack up against our competition? For a localized search* on the term “group exercise”, we came up #1 in the charlotte BUT… •

No description!

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Not listed in Google Places

•

A Single branch comes up ONLY because their page talks about “Group Exercise” in the page content.

UNCLAIMED GOOGLE BUSINESS LISTINGS In a local search for “pilates lake norman” in the google business listing we come up but NOT as an official page. Another unclaimed listing “Lake Norman Y” Is showing up with missing information and incorrect information.

COMPETITOR COMPARISON – 1 OF 3

COMPETITOR COMPARISON – 2 OF 3

COMPETITOR COMPARISON – 3 OF 3

WE DON’T NEED THIS…

WE NEED THIS…

THANK YOU JASON L. ANTONIC â&#x20AC;&#x201C; DIRECTOR OF USER EXPERIENCE YMCA OF GREATER CHARLOTTE jason.antonic@ymcacharlotte.org