I discovered about Paypal Philippines’ free seminars through Fitz’ blog and Fitz talk about Solopreneurship was the first talk I attended. Yesterday, I drove all the way to Alabang to attend Abe Olandres’ talk about blogging. His talk is all about Best Practices in Blogging to Reach an Effective SEO. I’m not good at SEO at all and I do not do anything on this blog to make my SEO better. I opted to attend to see what Abe could share about his expertise on the topic.
Here are my notes for the enlightening session:
SEO 101
- On-Page SEO
- Off-Page SEO
Other Factors
- Domain Authority
- Site Relevance
Why Blogs?
- Easy to setup
- Free to cheap investment
- Optimized platforms (WordPress)
- Fresh content
Picking the right domain
- Choosing the right domain can give you the initial advantage from an SEO perspective
- descriptive or relevant name
- keyword/s in domain
- TDL or ccTLD (.com or .ph)
Picking the CMS
- your CMS (content management system) is the backbone of your site/blog
- blogger (domain.blogspot.com)
- wordpress (custom domain)
- get your own custom domain and web hosting
Set canonical URL (domain)
- pick one URL for your domain
- option 1: http://www.domain.com
- option 2: http://domain.com
- redirect all other domain links to your canonical URL
Setting up Site Structure
- setting your site structure address the URL format
- set pera link structure (pretty URLs)
- Option 1: domain.com/article-title/
- Option 2: domain.com/category/article-title/
- Option 3: domain.com/category/article-title/number/
- Note: option 3 supports requirements for Google News
Pit Stop
Things you need to watch out while setting up your site
- do not over-stuff your domain with keywords
- example: cebupacificpromofaresphilippines2018.com
- do not use too many dashes in domain
- example: best-beaches-reviews-philippines.com.ph
- do not make your URL structure too long
- example: domain.com/category1/category2/brand/sub-brand/name/number
- avoid fancy Web 2.0 names
- example: koolkareviews.com, spnnr.ph
- avoid confusing domain names
- example: flowers express.com.ph
Picking the Site Design/Theme
- the right design for the right website
- function first, form second
- mobile first layout
- simplicity, speed, load time
Check the Code
- your blog’s design or coding might not be optimized
- check the backend
- look for proper markups (H1, H2, etc)
Run Some Tests
- Kingdom – tools.pingdom.com
- Google PageSpeed Tool – https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
- SEMRush – https://semrush.com/features/site-audit
Add Some Tools
- Webmaster Tools – https://google.com/webmasters/tools/
- Google Analytics – google.com/analytics
- StatCounter
How to Write for the Web
- Title
- Optimization factor: TITLE
- go straight to the point
- use common words
- use words as if you are searching
- URL
- Optimization factor; URL
- use pretty URLs (check!)
- re-write the default URL
- remove un-necessary words in the URL
- shorter, the better
- Content
- Optimization factor: BODY
- use your target keyword in the first paragraph
- optimise for one keyword/phrase per page
- don’t forget to backlink to and from other pages
- optimise images too
Check Your Work
- checking your work gives you feedback if you’re doing it right
- check ranking position
- check analytics for volume of traffic
- improve or optimize
- check again
How to get from ZERO to 5,000 in 6 months
- you have 3 main sources of traffic
- search
- social
- direct
- prioritise search first. use them for social. convert them to direct/repeat
Offer this as a Service
- Install, setup and optimise client’s website using WordPress
- $100-$250 and up per website
Thanks Paypal Philippines for sponsoring and arranging the talks. I’m really learning a lot and I get to see popular bloggers talk in a big crowd. Regarding this talk in particular, I intend to check out some of the tools Abe mentioned. Maybe I can improve search results for HeaRty.PH 😇
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