Today I added the finishing touches to my Viva Voce Presentation which is exploring Search Engine Optimization.
I had a practice presentation on Thursday 8th May in front of my tutor and classmates; it was a good experience and I received some useful feedback to make some improvements.
The actual presentation, which is scheduled for this coming Wednesday, will cover my research enquiry, purpose, design, artefacts, conclusions, SEO strategy design, future implementation and further research. I hope nerves don't get the better of me and I am able to confidently present my work.
It's been an interesting project for me and hopefully one that will help forge my specialism within the web industry.
Saturday 10 May 2014
Wednesday 19 February 2014
Negotiated Client Project: Website Complete
Today I finished the final stages of SEO and testing. The website is now live at this location:
Phoenix Driver Training
Here is a screenshot of the home page:
Following registering the site with Google's Webmaster Tools and Analytics I am waiting for the Google search engine to crawl and index the site; once this happens I will be able to test the site's ranking for a set of keywords relevant to this business and location.
I have tested the site on a range of browsers and devices; here are my results:
Chrome on Windows Vista: perfect
Firefox on Windows Vista: perfect
Opera on Windows Vista: perfect
Safari on Windows Vista: perfect
Internet Explorer 8 on Windows Vista: full screen is almost perfect with graceful degradation (background image is replaced with a colour as IE8 cannot fully stretch background images). DIV alignment brakes down when screen size is reduced smaller than 961 pixels wide.
Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista: major alignment problems
Chrome on Windows 7: perfect
Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7: facebook like/share buttons are not perfectly vertically aligned (a few pixels too low).
Default browser on Android 2.3.6 smart phone: perfect
Firefox on Android 2.3.6 smart phone: perfect
As with any website it is almost impossible to get it perfect on every device and browser but I am happy with my test results so far.
My next step is to continue testing on browsers on university machines and finally write my project book and evaluation.
Phoenix Driver Training
Here is a screenshot of the home page:
Following registering the site with Google's Webmaster Tools and Analytics I am waiting for the Google search engine to crawl and index the site; once this happens I will be able to test the site's ranking for a set of keywords relevant to this business and location.
I have tested the site on a range of browsers and devices; here are my results:
Chrome on Windows Vista: perfect
Firefox on Windows Vista: perfect
Opera on Windows Vista: perfect
Safari on Windows Vista: perfect
Internet Explorer 8 on Windows Vista: full screen is almost perfect with graceful degradation (background image is replaced with a colour as IE8 cannot fully stretch background images). DIV alignment brakes down when screen size is reduced smaller than 961 pixels wide.
Internet Explorer 7 on Windows Vista: major alignment problems
Chrome on Windows 7: perfect
Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7: facebook like/share buttons are not perfectly vertically aligned (a few pixels too low).
Default browser on Android 2.3.6 smart phone: perfect
Firefox on Android 2.3.6 smart phone: perfect
As with any website it is almost impossible to get it perfect on every device and browser but I am happy with my test results so far.
My next step is to continue testing on browsers on university machines and finally write my project book and evaluation.
Wednesday 5 February 2014
Research Project: Fifth Artefact - Link Building
In my final artefact I will be looking at building back links to my test website and analysing how this affects the ranking for my chosen set of keywords.
Reputable back links can increase the PageRank of a website and this can make it look more important to search engines and thus increase the ranking in search results. According to this source back links can have a total weighting of 40.09% upon ranking factors on Google. It is also worth noting that the Google search algorithms have now learned to disregard spammy mass purchased back links in favour of quality reputable links from sources which are relevant to the subject matter of the website.
As well as the back links which already existed on this blog, facebook, twitter etc. I decided to add more links on places which I felt were relevant and would have the biggest impact; these were:
Buckin' Burrito Google + page.
Google Places - a facility for registering businesses on Google maps.
Yelp.co.uk - a directory for restaurants
Urbanspoon.com - a directory for restaurants
Ufindus.com - a general directory for businesses
Yell.com - a general directory for businesses
I waited a week after placing all the links and tested on Google for my chosen set of keywords. Here are my results:
before (on 29/01/2014):
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 1
burrito sheffield - page 3, position 2
buckin' burrito - page 1, position 6
after (on 5/02/2014):
mexican food in sheffield - page 8, position 10
burrito bar sheffield - page 1, position 9
burrito sheffield - page 1, position 5
buckin' burrito - page 1, position 4
I am pleased that my first and most general keyword (mexican food in sheffield) has now for the first time featured my website in Google search. I believe this is due to the fact that in some of the directories I listed Buckin' Burrito as a Mexican restaurant and not just a burrito bar.
Overall there has been positive movement for all my keywords so it is clear that quality back links can have a significant positive impact on a website's ranking.
Next I will look at plotting all my test results from all my artefacts in a graph so I can tell which method of optimization has been most successful.
Reputable back links can increase the PageRank of a website and this can make it look more important to search engines and thus increase the ranking in search results. According to this source back links can have a total weighting of 40.09% upon ranking factors on Google. It is also worth noting that the Google search algorithms have now learned to disregard spammy mass purchased back links in favour of quality reputable links from sources which are relevant to the subject matter of the website.
As well as the back links which already existed on this blog, facebook, twitter etc. I decided to add more links on places which I felt were relevant and would have the biggest impact; these were:
Buckin' Burrito Google + page.
Google Places - a facility for registering businesses on Google maps.
Yelp.co.uk - a directory for restaurants
Urbanspoon.com - a directory for restaurants
Ufindus.com - a general directory for businesses
Yell.com - a general directory for businesses
I waited a week after placing all the links and tested on Google for my chosen set of keywords. Here are my results:
before (on 29/01/2014):
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 1
burrito sheffield - page 3, position 2
buckin' burrito - page 1, position 6
after (on 5/02/2014):
mexican food in sheffield - page 8, position 10
burrito bar sheffield - page 1, position 9
burrito sheffield - page 1, position 5
buckin' burrito - page 1, position 4
I am pleased that my first and most general keyword (mexican food in sheffield) has now for the first time featured my website in Google search. I believe this is due to the fact that in some of the directories I listed Buckin' Burrito as a Mexican restaurant and not just a burrito bar.
Overall there has been positive movement for all my keywords so it is clear that quality back links can have a significant positive impact on a website's ranking.
Next I will look at plotting all my test results from all my artefacts in a graph so I can tell which method of optimization has been most successful.
Wednesday 29 January 2014
Research Project: Fourth Artefact - Metadata
I will now look at the impact a webpage's metadata has on it's ranking in the Google search engine.
You may be wondering 'what is metadata?' - according to this source metadata is:
'Simply put, metadata is data about data. It is descriptive information about a particular data set, object, or resource, including how it is formatted, and when and by whom it was collected. Although metadata most commonly refers to web resources, it can be about either physical or electronic resources. It may be created automatically using software or entered by hand.'
I have come across a very useful article online which points out the most effective meta tags for SEO. See here for more information
You may be wondering 'what is metadata?' - according to this source metadata is:
'Simply put, metadata is data about data. It is descriptive information about a particular data set, object, or resource, including how it is formatted, and when and by whom it was collected. Although metadata most commonly refers to web resources, it can be about either physical or electronic resources. It may be created automatically using software or entered by hand.'
I have come across a very useful article online which points out the most effective meta tags for SEO. See here for more information
Based on the reading I had done on this subject I decided to update the metadata on the home page of my test website as follows:
home page before:
<!--meta-->
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="description" content="Try our freshly made burritos, fajitas, tacos, burrito bowls, nachos, salads and much more.">
home page after:
<!--standard meta-->
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="description" content="Try our freshly made burritos, fajitas, tacos, burrito bowls, nachos, salads and much more.">
<!-- Google + -->
<meta itemprop="name" content="Mexican Burrito bar in Sheffield - Buckin' Burrito">
<meta itemprop="description" content="Try our freshly made burritos, fajitas, tacos, burrito bowls, nachos, salads and much more.">
<meta itemprop="image" content="http://buckinburrito.co.uk/images/logo.png">
<!--Facebook-->
<meta property=”og:title” content=”Mexican Burrito bar in Sheffield - Buckin#39; Burrito”/>
<meta property="og:type" content="website"/>
<meta property="og:image" content="http://buckinburrito.co.uk/images/logo.png"/>
<meta property="og:url" content="www.buckinburrito.co.uk"/>
<meta property="og:description" content="Try our freshly made burritos, fajitas, tacos, burrito bowls, nachos, salads and much more."/>
<!--Twitter-->
<meta name=”twitter:card” content=”summary”>
<meta name=”twitter:url” content=”http://buckinburrito.co.uk”>
<meta name=”twitter:title” content=”Mexican Burrito bar in Sheffield - Buckin' Burrito”>
<meta name=”twitter:description” content=”Try our freshly made burritos, fajitas, tacos, burrito bowls, nachos, salads and much more.”>
<meta name=”twitter:image” content=”http://buckinburrito.co.uk/images/logo.png”>
<!--Publisher-->
<link rel=”publisher” href=”https://plus.google.com/106871109621071697363“/>
As you can see many of the new meta tags provide information for social networks which improves search visibility through those platforms. This builds on my previous artefact which initially linked the site to social media by now providing more detailed data specifically for social networks. I have also added a 'publisher' tag which links the site's ownership to a registered business on Google +.
As in previous tests I wished to find out how the new update would affect the ranking on Google for my chosen set of keywords. Here are my results:
before (on 21/01/2014):
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 5
burrito sheffield - page 4, position 8
buckin' burrito - page 2, position 3
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 5
burrito sheffield - page 4, position 8
buckin' burrito - page 2, position 3
after (on 29/01/2014):
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 1
burrito sheffield - page 3, position 2
buckin' burrito - page 1, position 6
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 1
burrito sheffield - page 3, position 2
buckin' burrito - page 1, position 6
As you can see from the data above there has been a significant increase in ranking for three of my keywords. From this result I can conclude that correct use of meta data has a positive impact on Google ranking. I believe this is due to the fact that the website is now linked to a Google registered business and has increased visibility on social platforms.
In my next and final artefact I will be looking at the impact of back links on search engine ranking.
Wednesday 22 January 2014
Research Project: Third Artefact - Social Media Integration
In my 3rd artefact I will be looking at the impact of social media integration on Google search results. By social media integration I mean individual Facebook, Twitter and Google + pages as well as buttons on the website which allow sharing of the site on these three platforms. I have also created a Twitter feed on the home page of the test site. Below you will see an image of the bottom of the home page which includes social media page links, Facebook share/like buttons, Tweet button and Google plus one button; the twitter feed is on the right of the image.
I have read that building links through social media in the form of likes, shares, tweets etc can increase the visibility of a website and therefore raise the position in search results. According to this source social metrics have a 7.24% impact on ranking factors in Google.
I wanted to put this to the test so I checked the position in Google for my selected keywords before and after the social media integration. Here are my results:
before (on 12/01/2014):
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 6
burrito sheffield - page 4, position 3
buckin' burrito - page 2, position 3
after (on 21/01/2014):
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 5
burrito sheffield - page 4, position 8
buckin' burrito - page 2, position 3
As you can see there was very little positive movement in Google and in fact one of my keywords had gone down 5 positions. During my test period there were 42 likes on Facebook but only one share through each social platform; if there had been a bigger social engagement and over a longer period I believe the Google positions would have changed more. Social networking is one of the never-ending factors in SEO so I would encourage my client to continue promoting the business this way to see higher rankings in Google.
I have read that the social networks have their own meta tags such as open graph and Twitter cards. In my fourth artefact I will look at how implementing the new meta tags will help build visibility on social networks and if this will affect the ranking in Google.
I have read that building links through social media in the form of likes, shares, tweets etc can increase the visibility of a website and therefore raise the position in search results. According to this source social metrics have a 7.24% impact on ranking factors in Google.
I wanted to put this to the test so I checked the position in Google for my selected keywords before and after the social media integration. Here are my results:
before (on 12/01/2014):
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 6
burrito sheffield - page 4, position 3
buckin' burrito - page 2, position 3
after (on 21/01/2014):
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 5
burrito sheffield - page 4, position 8
buckin' burrito - page 2, position 3
As you can see there was very little positive movement in Google and in fact one of my keywords had gone down 5 positions. During my test period there were 42 likes on Facebook but only one share through each social platform; if there had been a bigger social engagement and over a longer period I believe the Google positions would have changed more. Social networking is one of the never-ending factors in SEO so I would encourage my client to continue promoting the business this way to see higher rankings in Google.
I have read that the social networks have their own meta tags such as open graph and Twitter cards. In my fourth artefact I will look at how implementing the new meta tags will help build visibility on social networks and if this will affect the ranking in Google.
Monday 20 January 2014
Negotiated Client Project: Prototypes
My client is Phoenix Driver Training, a driving instructor business based in Lichfield. After receiving basic website content such as text and images I created three prototypes:
The client liked the third prototype the most but also wanted to add the image of the instructor from the second prototype. I was happy that the 3rd design was fun and innovative but there were problems with the layout as indicated by my tutor; the layout didn't follow the classic f shape so the content didn't look right and was hard to follow. I was also concerned that some of the colours were a bit hard on the eye.
Considering all the feedback I received, I designed another prototype which the client was happy with; see below:
The domain and hosting have been purchased and I recently uploaded a holding page at http://phoenix-driver-training.co.uk
I hope to complete the website by the end of February 2014 so watch this space for further developments.
The client liked the third prototype the most but also wanted to add the image of the instructor from the second prototype. I was happy that the 3rd design was fun and innovative but there were problems with the layout as indicated by my tutor; the layout didn't follow the classic f shape so the content didn't look right and was hard to follow. I was also concerned that some of the colours were a bit hard on the eye.
Considering all the feedback I received, I designed another prototype which the client was happy with; see below:
The domain and hosting have been purchased and I recently uploaded a holding page at http://phoenix-driver-training.co.uk
I hope to complete the website by the end of February 2014 so watch this space for further developments.
Wednesday 15 January 2014
Research Project: Second Artefact - Keyword Placement
I will now look at keyword placement and how this impacts a website's position in search results.
My test website which I am building and optimizing for a client is http://buckinburrito.co.uk. This is a Mexican fast food restaurant located in Sheffield.
My search engine analysis will be done on http://google.co.uk and tested on Mozilla Firefox.
Initially after uploading the website to the server for the first time I linked the site to Google's Webmaster Tools and Analytics. Webmaster Tools enabled me to index the website on Google by submitting a sitemap. Analytics lets me track how often and where the website is visited.
The website started with very basic text and generic page titles. All the pages used the same title (Buckin' Burrito) and meta description (Quality Mexican Burrito Bar serving burritos, tacos, salads and more). There were no headings or body text.
I chose a set of keywords as a guide to my keyword optimization and tested on Google on 8/1/2014:
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - no listing
burrito sheffield - no listing
buckin' burrito - page 1, position 10*
* each page has ten websites listed.
I did some reading and found that the best places to put keywords into are in page title, headline, body text, URL, image alt attributes, internal/external links and meta description. See http://moz.com/blog/visual-guide-to-keyword-targeting-onpage-optimization
For the home page I optimized as follows:
page titles to Mexican Burrito bar in Sheffield - Buckin' Burrito
meta description to Try our freshly made burritos, fajitas, tacos, burrito bowls, nachos, salads and much more.
heading 1 (h1) to Delicious & Healthy, it 'Mex' sense
heading 2 (h2) to The home of healthy fresh Mexican food
body text to:
<p>Welcome to our website. We are passionate about Mexican cuisine, especially when it's quick and offered at the best price.</p>
<p>Our mission is to provide fast food that not only tastes delicious but also keeps you healthy. All our food is freshly made using authentic Mexican ingredients.</p>
<p>Explore our <a href="menu.html">menu</a> to find out what types of food and drink we have on offer and read <a href="about-us.html">about us</a> to discover the story behind Buckin' Burrito.</p>
The URL was already including the keyword buckin' burrito and descriptive alt attributes were used for images.
I used slightly different page titles and meta descriptions for other pages on the website to avoid duplicating content on search engines.
I noticed the position in Google had changed on 12/1/2014 to the following:
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 6
burrito sheffield - page 4, position 3
buckin' burrito - page 2, position 3
I noticed that there had been a negative movement in search results for the search term buckin' burrito. This is due to the fact that the words buckin' burrito are at the end of the page title rather than at the start; it seems that the starting words of the page title are picked up as more relevant terms and rank higher in Google.
From this result I can see how important keyword placement is when done correctly. I could have fitted more keywords but this would have been picked up as spam and given a negative result in my test. I believe I have the right balance here and this first test has been a good start to my marketing campaign.
In the next artefact I will be looking at social media integration and again testing how this impacts search results.
My test website which I am building and optimizing for a client is http://buckinburrito.co.uk. This is a Mexican fast food restaurant located in Sheffield.
My search engine analysis will be done on http://google.co.uk and tested on Mozilla Firefox.
Initially after uploading the website to the server for the first time I linked the site to Google's Webmaster Tools and Analytics. Webmaster Tools enabled me to index the website on Google by submitting a sitemap. Analytics lets me track how often and where the website is visited.
The website started with very basic text and generic page titles. All the pages used the same title (Buckin' Burrito) and meta description (Quality Mexican Burrito Bar serving burritos, tacos, salads and more). There were no headings or body text.
I chose a set of keywords as a guide to my keyword optimization and tested on Google on 8/1/2014:
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - no listing
burrito sheffield - no listing
buckin' burrito - page 1, position 10*
* each page has ten websites listed.
I did some reading and found that the best places to put keywords into are in page title, headline, body text, URL, image alt attributes, internal/external links and meta description. See http://moz.com/blog/visual-guide-to-keyword-targeting-onpage-optimization
For the home page I optimized as follows:
page titles to Mexican Burrito bar in Sheffield - Buckin' Burrito
meta description to Try our freshly made burritos, fajitas, tacos, burrito bowls, nachos, salads and much more.
heading 1 (h1) to Delicious & Healthy, it 'Mex' sense
heading 2 (h2) to The home of healthy fresh Mexican food
body text to:
<p>Welcome to our website. We are passionate about Mexican cuisine, especially when it's quick and offered at the best price.</p>
<p>Our mission is to provide fast food that not only tastes delicious but also keeps you healthy. All our food is freshly made using authentic Mexican ingredients.</p>
<p>Explore our <a href="menu.html">menu</a> to find out what types of food and drink we have on offer and read <a href="about-us.html">about us</a> to discover the story behind Buckin' Burrito.</p>
The URL was already including the keyword buckin' burrito and descriptive alt attributes were used for images.
I used slightly different page titles and meta descriptions for other pages on the website to avoid duplicating content on search engines.
I noticed the position in Google had changed on 12/1/2014 to the following:
mexican food in sheffield - no listing
burrito bar sheffield - page 2, position 6
burrito sheffield - page 4, position 3
buckin' burrito - page 2, position 3
I noticed that there had been a negative movement in search results for the search term buckin' burrito. This is due to the fact that the words buckin' burrito are at the end of the page title rather than at the start; it seems that the starting words of the page title are picked up as more relevant terms and rank higher in Google.
From this result I can see how important keyword placement is when done correctly. I could have fitted more keywords but this would have been picked up as spam and given a negative result in my test. I believe I have the right balance here and this first test has been a good start to my marketing campaign.
In the next artefact I will be looking at social media integration and again testing how this impacts search results.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)