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

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&#39; 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&#39; 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 

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 

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.

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.

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.

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.

Research Project: First Artefact - Organic vs Sponsored search results

Throughout my five artefacts I have decided to follow an internet marketing campaign for a test website with the aim of increasing the website ranking in search results.

Through my first artefact I wish to discover the most effective strategy for marketing a site for search engines.

There are two types of search results; these are organic results i.e. websites which achieve their ranking through search engine optimization and those which are sponsored results i.e. websites which pay for the listing through services such as Google Ad Words. Through surveying members of the public I wish to enquire which type of search result people actually pay attention to so I can start my campaign in the right direction.

Using the image below I have asked people:

When you do a search on Google do you first click on the links in the red area or the links in the blue area? 

I have not indicated this on the survey but the red area is sponsored results and the blue area is organic results.

So far I have had 19 responses to my survey; here are the results:

I have spoken to Google to enquire about the price of Ad Words and found out that paying for a sponsored result for just one keyword would cost at least £5 per day. From the result of my survey it is clear to me that sponsored search results are generally ignored by the public so paying for this expensive method of marketing would be a waste of money.

Organic search engine optimization is clearly the best way forward for my campaign. I now need to learn how to effectively optimize a web page for a selected set of keywords. In my second artefact I will look at keyword placement in page titles/headings and how this impacts a page ranking in organic search results.

Client Project: Second Draft Website

After showing my design to my tutor and some friends I received some feedback about the look of the home page; I was told the brown textured background wasn't a suitable colour to represent the urban grunge look, it was also suggested that I could make it look more interesting by changing the position of the logo to the left and overlapping it with the navigation. My tutor advised me that it was not clear for the user what they should do on this page as there were images and links but no clear order to things; I resolved this issue by adding steps 1 to 3 to guide the prospective student to first find a place to study, then apply for a place through UCAS and finally apply for student finance. Again I used the red, amber and green to make the order more obvious. I also removed the footer as I didn't feel this was needed and it didn't look good on my new background. Below you will find a screenshot of the amended home page.

I achieved the overlapping of the logo using the following styles:

position:absolute;
z-index:2;
left:10%;
top:10px;

Client Project: First draft coded design

study/home page (desktop view):

Based on the idea of traffic lights I have created three states for the colour of the navigation; the inactive page is red, the hovered link is amber and the active page is green. There is also a 0.2second delay in the colour change from red to amber, I did this by adding a css transition:

nav a {
text-decoration:none;
color:#d20000;
line-height:100%;
-webkit-transition:color 0.2s ease-in;  
-moz-transition:color 0.2s ease-in;  
-o-transition:color 0.2s ease-in;  
transition:color 0.2s ease-in; 
}

nav a:hover {
color:#eeb70e;
}

The page is responsive; here is the tablet view:

and here is the mobile view:

I also added the content for the second (work) page:

This page includes a rss feed from two sources:

http://www.jobsite.co.uk/cgi-bin/advsearch?rss_feed=1&job_title_atleast=Part-time,ttttt&location_include=Nottingham&search_currency_code=GBP&search_single_currency_flag=N&search_salary_type=A&daysback=7&scc=UK&compare_resolved=TO_NG1_NOTTINGHAM&compare_search=Nottingham&channel_code_include=PARF&channel_page_code=PART

and

http://www.mynottinghamjobs.co.uk/rss

The two feeds are combined using feed informer. (see http://feed.informer.com)

I will seek some feedback from my tutor over the next couple of days so I can make changes and finish the website within the next week.