How to do your own Search Engine Optimization

If you had to know every aspect of SEO, you would soon become overwhelmed with information overload. SEO can be a minefield when you delve into it. Google suggests there are over 200 ranking factors that make up their algorithm and if you had to stay on top of all of them you would surely give up. The good news for you is that by focusing on a few main criteria, you can implement a successful SEO campaign without having to tare you’re hair out.

Here are four important aspects of a basic SEO campaign:

1. Before beginning any SEO campaign, I always look at the current state of a business online. There is no point putting in hours and hours of work if you are doomed from day one. The first thing I do is a complete site analysis to identify if there are any issues with your current business website. For instance, if you have been slapped with a Google penalty, the first thing that needs to be accomplished is to remove the penalty. There are various ways and means of doing this but if you don’t firstly shake remove this from your site your future efforts may all be in vain.

2. Social media properties – This step is often overlooked, but Google puts a lot of trust in high domain authority social media websites. Some of the more obvious sites include Twitter, Facebook, and LinkenIn but some of the not so common sites are LiveJournal, Behance, and Imgur. Setup as many of these social profiles as possible. By creating a fortress of these social media properties around your business website goes a long way towards establishing trust in the eyes of Google.

3. On page SEO – To me, this is one of the easiest parts of SEO. There are a few different aspects that come into it, but you’d be amazed at how many local business websites don’t even have the main components of on-page SEO setup correctly. When I say the main components, I’m referring to the title tag, meta description and alt tags for any images you have on your website. Beyond these basic components, you could also look at H1, H2 and H3 tags, the title of your images before you upload them to your website, menu heading labels on your site and your keyword density ratios.

4. Citations – Citations are another key ingredient to any local business website. They help to solidify the location of your business. Some good properties to focus on here are getting a Google My Business page together, creating a Golden Pages profile for your business and making sure Yelp is setup correctly. When setting up Yelp, don’t forget to include some important photos of your business. Another good tactic to employ can be to geotag your images. It can be very effective, especially when you’re trying to get into the Google map pack.

There comes a point for most business owners where their time is worth more than money but for now, if you don’t have the money to hire an SEO consultant, follow these four steps to set a good foundation for your business website.

The post How to do your own Search Engine Optimization appeared first on SEO Ireland Agency - Red Rain SEO.

from
http://www.redrainseo.ie/how-to-do-your-own-search-engine-optiimization/

How does Structured Data Relate to Google Rich Snippets?

Structured Data influences when rich snippets show up in the Google SERP but just how much influence does schema data have? Before we get into the meat of the question, it’s worth firstly exploring each concept on its own.

What is Structured or Schema Data?

Structured data and schema data are both used interchangeably but effectively mean the same thing. Structured data is a way for the search engines to better understand the world wide web. Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex have all come together to support this project. There are many different forms of structured data, and the detail behind each can be found at schema.org A full hierarchy of schema data can be found here. The core vocabulary of structured data all fits within one overarching vocabulary type, and that’s known as a thing. Every other type of schema fits under a thing.

What is a Rich Snippet?

A rich snippet is a valuable piece of real estate found on the Google search results page. It’s often a table of information answering a specific question that a user has asked within the Google search box? The beauty of a rich snippet is that the question is answered directly within the SERP. Most of the time the user doesn’t even need to visit an external website as the answer is presented on the search results page. The best thing about a rich snippet is that your click-through rate to the actual website goes through the roof. A user is much more likely to click on a rich snippet due to the massive amount of real estate they take up on the page.

Only specific schema content types qualify for a rich snippet. CreativeWork is a schema.org type definition that is capable of generating a rich snippet. Some qualifying content types include articles, local businesses, music, recipes, reviews, TV and movies, and videos.

How Do You Mark Up Your Web Content?

The Google Structured Data testing tool is a great place to start. You can run your website through this tool to check whether the structured data you are using on your site is working correctly. But realistically, before you start using this tool, it helps to understand the basics of schema data. Google is one of the best places to learn more about rich snippets and structured data. They are now saying that J-SON LD is their preferred choice for Structured Data. There are a few options available. Another popular choice is Microdata. Try this website learn the basics of structured data from Google.

Structured data is a necessary element to include in the coding of your website if you want to generate a rich snippet in the Google SERP. It’s often not the only aspect but is an important ingredient needed to generate a rich snippet for your website. Make sure you use the appropriate schema.org type definition as only certain types of scheme data quality for a rich snippet. To learn more, you can take a look at the basics of structured data link above.

The post How does Structured Data Relate to Google Rich Snippets? appeared first on SEO Ireland Agency - Red Rain SEO.

from
http://www.redrainseo.ie/structured-data-rich-snippets/