Internal SQ Digital

For internal use by SQ Digital

SEO – How To – SEO Induction for New Starters

SEO – How To – SEO Induction for New Starters

Purpose of this How To Guide: To familiarise a new starter with what SEO does, why it’s important, what platforms we use to perform our tasks and clarify some of the technical language we use.

Applicable to: All new starters, especially non-SEO department staff

Customers: All

Timescale: The SEO Induction should take around 1 hour

 

Introduction

SEO guides what a website wants to rank for, so our work affects all other aspects of the digital marketing campaign. As an SEO, our role is to spot patterns, ask questions and investigate not only things that are amiss or could be improved, but also opportunities we could take advantage of to improve the overall performance of the website we are working for.

 

What is SEO?

 

SEO Language – common terms

  • Keyword Plan – the list of terms a website wants to rank for. We research a client’s website, product, and competitors to determine what terms/keywords they need to rank for, so they appear as an answer to searchers’ questions online.
  • Health Check – The analysis we do to determine the technical work that needs to be done to a website in order to improve its rankings.
  • Rankings or positions – where a client ranks on Google searches for a particular keyword. This is the ultimate KPI for SEO and mostly refers to how a website ranks organically (discuss paid and organic positions).
  • URL – the address of a web page, ex: sqdigital.co.uk
  • Title Tags – the title or first line of a Google listing (usually appears in lighter blue)
  • Meta Description – the description of a Google listing (appears in black below the Tittle Tag). It describes what the page is about.
  • Page Title or H1 – the title of the page once you open it.
  • Content – the actual written information on the page.
  • Redirects – when a website loses a page for whatever reason, we set a “forwarding address” signal, so the site doesn’t lose the visitor. He or she is instead automatically redirected to a new page with, hopefully, relevant information to their online query.

 

SEO Tools We Use

  • Google Analytics (GA) – tracks the people accessing your site. Who they are (audience), where they are coming from (acquisition), how they are getting to your site and what are they buying (behaviour).
  • Google Search Console (GSC, previously known as Webmaster Tools) – tracks how your site appears in search results. Helps you find the right keywords, let Google know of changes or new pages to your site, and allows you to investigate how your site is performing.
  • SEMRush – our comprehensive analytic tool of choice. It keeps track of everything to do with your site, keywords, competitors, ideas for content, how well sites are performing.
  • Google My Business (GMB) – Google’s directory listings. Ties your business to a physical address on a map and gives practical information such as opening hours, phone numbers, address, etc.
  • Screaming Frog, TopVisor, Majestic and others

 

Main Services We Provide

  • Monthly contracts – we check the health of a website and make improvements on a monthly basis. The amount of improvements we make depends on what level the customer is at, rather they are bronze, silver, gold, or platinum. This includes onsite work, such as keyword plans and constant analysis, position tracking, competitor watching, link profiling, as well as offsite work such as link building, social media, and bookmarking. Monthly contracts also involve other departments such as content and social media.
  • SSL Installation – An SSL Certificate means a website uses encryption to move data around the web securely. You will have seen it when doing online banking, for instance, and the website URL has a padlock and uses HTTPS rather than HTTP at the beginning of its address. When a website goes from unsecure (http) to secure (https), we make sure all the pages are working as they should and Google recognises the website as the same one, rather than a new website.
  • URL Transfer – When a website changes its address, SEOs make sure the content is still optimised for search engines and that Google recognises this new address as an address change rather than a new website, so the site doesn’t lose the rankings you worked so hard to achieve.
  • SEO Transfer – when a new site is build and you want to transfer all the hard work you have put into the old site. We make sure the new site is optimised and benefitting from the work done on a previous site.
  • On-Site Work – sometimes clients are not regulars, but every so often they ask us to have a look at their site health and perform improvements. This is mostly related to SEO and doesn’t involve other departments.

 

The Customer Journey

The individual delivering the SEO induction should take the Inductee through The Customer Journey, paying particular attention to the services the SEO team deliver for EMC Advertising Gifts.

 

 

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