Introduction to SEO

Introduction to SEO

Introduction

This course is designed to cover non-technical areas in SEO where most marketers can fit in. IT is a course that will enable any marketer to become a popular blogger and online marketer. With this knowledge you can do many online businesses weather in normal websites, blog, directories, social media or any other online media.

To make it easy we use 3 pillars concept to deliver the required message to the audience

Our introductory part will constitute the following 3 pillars

  1. Website Audit
  2. SEO Concept
  3. Google Ranking Concept

Website Audit

Definition

Website audit is an analysis done by a website marketer in order to know the current SEO status-quo of the website. Analysis trying to relate the website with current SEO practices in the respective industry. The main objective of this audit is to find issues that affecting organic ranking of the website which can be included in the next SEO Project planning and implementation.

The questions below touch the critical aspects of SEO requirements:

When answered correctly, these answers can help develop a Website SEO Audit Report

  1. Does the website have a clear marketable brand or identity?
  2. Is the website language, font type and size, color scheme and other visual look match the niche market and audience?
  3. Is the website 99.9% uptime % per year?
  4. Is the website mobile friendly?
  5. Is the webpage fast in both mobile and desktop devices?
  6. Is the website compatible with popular browsers?
  7. Is the website calling protocol secured?
  8. Is the website free of errors?
  9. Is the website well hardened?
  • Are the website content rich enough to satisfy the needs of the visitors?
  • Is web content well-structured to offer a smooth logical flow to the readers?
  • Is website content well optimized?
  • Is a website navigation system well implemented to provide the visitors with smooth surfing and browsing experience?
  • Are website meta tags (meta tags include the <title> and <description> elements) well implemented?
  • Are website images well optimized and placed in the website with relevant alt text and sizes?
  • Are website anchor-links well implemented?
  • Are website functions and features well implemented?
  • Is website Sitemap and Robots.txt well placed?
  • Is the website code to text ration small (Recommended is between 25% to 70%)?
  • Are website Open Graph Meta Tags correctly set?
  • Is your website schema markup correctly set?
  • Is the website linked with social media?

The SEO Audit Report is a must have documents before planning and doing and SEO project.  The exercise can be done using AI tools or do it manually

Reference for Site SEO Audit

Some of the tools here are free and others are premium tool, you must pay to use the tool.

  1. SEO Checker | Test your website for free with Seobility
  2. Website Optimization and Digital Agency Sales Tools | WooRank
  3. Semrush – Online Marketing Can Be Easy
  4. Analyze Websites With Free SEO Audit & Reporting Tool – SEOptimer
  5. Free SEO Checker: Website SEO Analysis Tool & Audit Report (neilpatel.com)
  6. SEO Site Audit tool by Ahrefs
  7. SEO Tools, Software and Articles | SEO Site Checkup
  8. Audit your website for SEO and performance – Geekflare Tools
  9. Website SEO Checker & Audit Tool: Test Your Score for FREE ? (sitechecker.pro)
  10. Website Audit Tool – Automated Site Audit ?? 120+ Checks (seranking.com)
  11. Technical SEO Audit | Website Auditing Tool (serpstat.com)

Page speed tools

  1. https://pagespeed.web.dev/ from Google
  2. https://gtmetrix.com/
  3. Website Speed Test | Pingdom Tools

Schema markup common categories

9 Most Common Schema Markup Types – Overdrive Interactive (ovrdrv.com)

Math rank plugin is the best plugin to help you your assign relevant schema to your webpage

SEO Concept

How SEO Works?

To explain how this works, let me dip inside Search Engine Optimization with reference to Google

Why Search Engines?

Almost 90% of people who search information via the internet uses search engines

Why Google?

Almost 80% of people who search information via search engines uses Google Search Engine

SEO Concept

Domain name: The name must really represent corporate identity. Name must be short, easier to pronounce/remember and that represent your corporate brand name/identity to your customer base. This will make it easy for your visitors come back to your website without being lost.

Hosting: The webserver speed must enhance general webpage speed. The server must use a speedy internet connection, modern fast hardware and applications that work very fast. So, the server speed indicates how fast your host’s machine will process user requests and find the needed content as fast as possible. To test server speed just ping or tracert the nameserver or associated IP address from the command prompt. The fast server must be below 350-400ms and an average speed server up to 700-800ms. A slow server is above 700-800ms

Ping Hostname to test server speed

Design: When visitors visit your website, they expect to found a well branded website which is fast and if they found otherwise, they will be angry and most of them will leave your website without doing any activity.

Google will also be angry and will allocate your website with a big Bounce rate which consequently lead to low ranking

Content: When a visitor visits your webpage, he/she expect also to find well arranged, structured and logically written quality content that satisfy his/her needs. If he/she find no quality content again he/she will become angry and leave without doing any activity in the page. We expect the same outcome from Google

Marketing: It will now make sense if everything with your website is OK to publicizes so that targeted people will know that website exists and offering service that they want. Use any means so that your website is exposed to as many people as possible. The best way is to use social media with many followers, likes and lots of people engagement

Google Ranking Concept

How Google Ranking Works?

Google uses its algorithm to rank collected keywords by its bots in relation to the webpage URL. The algorithm contains several criteria and signals that assign points to your keywords attached to your webpage URL. If your keyword and its URL receive enough points over the other keywords from competitors webpages then your webpage will be ranked higher in Google search results page.

If the points are the highest one, your keyword will be ranked no. 1

If your keyword assigned points is the second highest then it will be placed no. 2 in the results page and likewise to the other keywords. Point to note

Every ranked keyword goes with the following aspects

  1. Webpage URL
  2. Webpage Title
  3. Webpage description

Elaboration from Google cited results page for the Keyword “Tanzania Budget Safari, 5 days”

Webpage title, URL and Description on Google Search Result Page

How are these points allocated to the keywords?

I will not give the 100% answer because that one is not available, but I will provide a big picture of what actually happen in keyword ranking with Google

Of all thousand rules included in the Google algorithm, only one rule prevails

“Love your web visitors as you love yourself”

Google want web designer, developer, content creators and marketers to put the website in such a way people will love it and stay longer in the website.

The questions above under Website Audit will ensure that your visitor will love your website

How Google understand that your web visitors love your website?

Google can collect some signals via Googlebot’s, those signals are:

  1. Bounce rate
  2. Time spends in the page
  3. Trusted by other trustworthy websites thru quality inbound links

Google never dare to bring visitors to the website which is not loved by other visitors, WHY? Because in order for a person to visit your website, he/she first become Google customer. Google care a lot its customers and they are not ready to let them down by taking them to the bad website

Bounce rate is defined as a number of visitors who visited your website and left immediately without engaging to any part of your website.

To understand better a bounce rate and its impact let check this table and the recommendations

Bounce rate People preference Impact
<=10% Excellent Google will rank keywords from this webpage very high with very minimal competition.
20%-30% Very good Google will rank keywords from this webpage with minimal competition.
40%-50% Good Keyword ranking from the webpage like this will face a moderate competition from competitors.
60%-70% Average Keyword ranking from the webpage like this will face a high competition from competitors.
70%-80% Bad Google will tend to suppress ranking keywords from urls of this standard.
80%-90% Very bad Google will tend to avoid ranking keywords from urls of this standard.
>=90% Unacceptable Google will impose several bans on ranking keywords from urls of this standard.

Google Ranking ConceptSpeed: When visitors visit your webpage, they expect to found a website which is fast and if they found otherwise, they will be angry and most of them will leave your website without doing any activity.

Google will also be angry and will allocate your website with a big Bounce rate which consequently lead to low ranking

Content: When a visitor visits your webpage, he/she expect also to find well arranged, structured and logically written quality content that satisfy his/her needs. If he/she find no quality content again he/she will become angry and leave without doing any activity in the page. We expect the same outcome from Google

Service: After surfing your fast webpage and finish reading your quality content, a visitor expects good quality service from your webpage. This service includes any support, quote application and or product or service booking function. If no service, the visitor won’t do any enough activity that will send good signals to Google.

If all above are implemented very well then Google will like your webpage and will rank your keywords from that webpage so that more visitors will come and benefit from your quality content.

Google is doing all these because Google believe that all visitors who visit your website become Google customers first and Google is not ready to let down their customers by sending them to bad webpages

12 Easy Steps to Improve WordPress Site Security – Simple and Clear

12 Easy Steps to Improve WordPress Site Security – Simple and Clear

12 Steps to follow in order to Mitigate, Restore and Monitor a WordPress Site Under Phishing or Hacking

Deceptive Site AheadWhat is phishing?

Phishing is the attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details, often for malicious reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

What is Hacking?

Simply hacking is a general terms explaining the website that is accessed by a none legitimate person and take control of it either physically or by remote means. Phishing can be the type of hacking. A hacker can do anything when he/she have control of your website.

How is phishing implemented?

Phishing is implemented in numerous ways or methods one of them is website content injections. Foreign contents with decisive WebPages that trick web visitors to leave their valuable information in exchange of bonuses or other reasons like pay fee for expiring online services etc. When a victim visit the URL and fill the information, the attacker will use those details to do the actual crime like entering to PayPal account and draw money from the victim account etc

What to do in Order to Mitigate, Restore and Monitor a WordPress Site Under Phishing or Hacked?

Mitigating the Site

Step #1: Make sure you always use a clean and protected computer to login to the server (malicious cookies, keylodgers, spayware and viruses can snick to the server and feed vital information to the attacker )

Step #2: Backup the database

Step #3: Regular cleaning and optimizing wordpress database, use cpanel or install WP-Optimize By David Anderson, Ruhani Rabin, Team Updraft

Step #4: Change the password to stronger passwords both for database, cpanel and CMS

Step #5: Update all plugins and theme and deleted unwanted ones or the scripts with no updated over six months

Step #6: Secure and prevent editing of php script, web directories and important files like htaccess and wp-config.php files

Step #7: Change login URLs, administrator usernames, database names and usernames to access database plus changing the table prefix to the harder ones

Restoring the site

Step #8: Deleted manually all foreign folders, files suspected for phishing, any useless scripts plus old site backups as those may create loophole to attack the website

Step #9: Remove wp-admin and wp-includes core folders and related wordpress core files in root folder except wp-config.php and htaccess

Step #10: Upload fresh and current copy of the deleted wordpress folder and files wp-admin and wp-includes core folders and wp-config.php and htaccess

Monitoring the Site

Step #11: Install security monitoring and notification systems for file change within your server – recommended plugin for this is Wordfence Security – Firewall & Malware Scan by wordfence, there are other very effective script for wordpress to use. Google Search console (formerly known as Webmaster Tools) is another wonderful tool for security and Google blacklist removal

Step #12: Make sure your website is visited and scanned regularly for malware (at least once per week) using https://sitecheck.sucuri.net and other effective systems like wordfence, sucuri

Conclusion and Recommendations

CMS are the most affected by cyber attack because of the backend and database where  attacker can deploy the security hole found in poorly coded scripts and those which are outdated but still in use by issuing malicious command to the server.

On the other hand, CMS offer robust and professional features, look and feel of the website that match the current market and user demands. The only way to benefit from these advantages is to secure and monitor closely your website.

The website owners are strongly advised to use the experience professional in terms of cyber security and the related phenomena in order to ensure that the issue is correctly mitigated and monitored. Leaving the website to the hands of the inexperienced and novice webmasters may lead to more problems and costs instead of alleviating them.

We at InfoCom Center Limited posses enough experience of more than 10 years dealing with cyber security on CMS websites specifically securing and optimizing WordPress sites.  The tips in the article above is the result of such experience and expertise.

We highly urge you to entrust us your website for maintenance and security day to day duties. When the website is on our hand, you will stay victoriously at peace channeling your valuable time and skills to other profitable strategies and activities instead worrying about website of and on everyday. Leave all the hassle work of maintaining and restoring hacked websites to us.

Visit SEO and Website Maintenance Page to learn more about our website maintenance packages

WordPress Expert in Tanzania

We are experts in WordPress system in Tanzania and we happily deal with these areas:

  1. WordPress installation, configuration and troubleshooting
  2. Theme design, installation and configuration
  3. Web content creation, design to achieve customer branding and easy user experience
  4. Web content optimization for high speed and good SEO
  5. SEO configuration using SEO by Yoast and All in one SEO plugins
  6. WordPress automated task like auto blogging, auto sharing, auto posting, etc
  7. WordPress site speed optimization using WP Total Cache and CloudFlare integration
  8. Security configuration and hardening to avoid website failure, phishing and any any other attack
  9. WordPress site audit (analysis) and consultation plus free advice
Search Engine Optimization Tanzania

Search Engine Optimization Tanzania

Webmaster Tanzania do search engine optimization with Google or internet marketing services for your website through all possible white hat means and make sure that it is ranked higher in Google for optimal website traffics. The services included:  Onsite Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Link Marketing, Pay Per Click Advertising, Directory Listing Marketing, Video Marketing with Youtube, Photo sharing and article marketing. We also do Press Release using most popular and visited release directories etc. and assuring you to get in touch with the targeted customers continuously.

Why Search Engines Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization is a must if the purpose of web establishment is to attracting more customers to buy your products or services. A website by itself can not promote your products/services, unless massive and strategic marketing campaigns are designed, well planned and implemented, is when your website will start bringing massive customers to buy your products/services. Webmaster Tanzania an InfoCom Center website can help you to promote the website on top of first page of Google. Please send us an email or call us for details

Project Timeframe:

A SEO project is a lifetime project which end when the business on question come to an end. The packages mentioned here are just offers with limited duration assuming that the client will continue in his/her own project when ours came to an end.

SEO Project Packages

The packages include One time full SEO project for 90 days while the Annual Contract SEO Project takes one year to be completed with renewal options.

  1. If the intention is to keep the website alive with regular quarterly website update, hardening and speed optimization for good SEO, please choose Quarterly Basic SEO Website Management and Maintenance Plan
  2. If you intend to have a serious live website and online presence with monthly website update, hardening and speed optimization for good SEO, please choose Monthly Premium SEO Website Management and Maintenance Plan
  3. If you are planning to have a constant weekly website update, hardening and speed optimization for good SEO, please choose our Weekly Business SEO Website Management and Maintenance Plan
  4. If you plan to have a serious daily website update, hardening and speed optimization for good SEO, Daily Enterprise SEO Website Management and Maintenance Plan is your choice
  5. If the intention is to optimize the website once and the owner continue with day to day marketing then Onetime Full SEO Website Management and Maintenance Plan or Onetime Basic SEO Website Management and Maintenance Plan

WordPress Theme Design

Wordpress Theme Design Sample

We do WordPress theme design for business, schools, nonprofit, government institutions and corporate websites/blogs branding. The fee below does not include setup or installation. The work is categorized under a certain plan after customer need analysis meeting.

Basic theme/template design which is associated with web design is not charged but will be charged if done separately.

We have 3 plans as described below

Plan I:  Basic WordPress Theme Design:

The basic websites/blogs template/theme design is implemented basing on the limited information gathered from the client. It is a bit monotonous to the designer.

A client must provide the following:

  1. Main color and associated colors (send a sample of graphic item that carries the colors of the website
  2. Logo and banners
  3. Motto, slogan, and any promotional texts

This plan is good for simple and general open ended websites/blogs with no complexity in designs

A customer has little or no influence on how the template would look like

Design fee/price: TZS. 95,000/=

Plan II: Premium WordPress Theme Design:

The premium Websites/Blogs template/theme design is implemented basing on the information gathered from the client which include specific brand information and text like

  1. Main color and associated colors and instruction where the colors should appear
  2. Graphics like background images, logo, banners, adverts etc and instructions where these backgrounds should appear
  3. Motto, slogan, and any promotional texts
  4. Textual content for the following pages, home page, about us, contact us, and at list two different products/services to be offered.
  5. Photos for home page slider, portfolio etc (size must be equal or greater than 1600px
  6. At least 3 preferential websites that carry the idea of what you want

This plan is good for moderate demanding web designs

A customer has moderate influence on how the template would look like

Design fee/price: TZS. 195,000/=

Plan III: Corporate WordPress Theme Design:

The corporate websites/blogs template/theme design is implemented focusing on corporate branding and market identification requirements which include colors, graphics, texts and their corresponding font etc.

  1. Main color and associated colors and instruction where the colors should appear
  2. Graphics like background images, logo, banners, adverts etc and instructions where these backgrounds should appear
  3. Motto, slogan, and any promotional texts
  4. All graphics and special texts are decorated by chosen effects by the clients
  5. Textual contents for the following pages, home page, about us, contact us, and at list two different products/services to be offered.
  6. Photos for home page slider, portfolio etc (size must be equal or greater than 1600px
  7. Name, color and size of the font for Header text, slogan text, H1-H6 text, links, main body and footer texts.
  8. At least one website that carry the idea of what you want

This plan is good for more demanding and complex designs

A customer has maximum influence on how the template would look like

Design fee/price: TZS. 395,000/=

WordPress Theme Installation and Configuration

For any theme installation add TZS. 50,000

Installation with contact form and Gallery add TZS. 50,000

Installation and configuring SEO tools add TZS. 50,000

Installation and configuring Security tools add TZS. 50,000

WordPress installation please WordPress Installation Plans

Add contents and optimization please see Web Design Plans

WordPress Theme Samples:

Google Optimized Itinerary Structure for a Tour Operator Website

Google Optimized Itinerary Structure for a Tour Operator Website

A good google optimized and user friendly itinerary must follow the following structure and flow

  1. It must contain a title that summarize the whole itinerary in less than 60 characters with spaces. The title must contain at least three parts which are 1) duration, 2) activity and 3) destination/location for the attraction
  2. Associate with Featured image or gallery or slideshow of image size between 1366px to 1920px width fine texture and most relevant to the itinerary on question
  3. Put the  itinerary summary, briefing or highlights in one, two or three words
  4. It must also contain an itinerary summary or highlights, pinpointing the important parts of your itinerary to enable the reader understand the whole itinerary before continue to read the whole page
  5. Provide the subheading of all day activities descriptions
  6. Provide the subheading for day activities that summarize the whole day itinerary in less than 60 characters with spaces
  7. Provide also the day activities summary or highlights, pinpointing the important parts of your day program to enable the reader understand the whole day allabouts
  8. At the end you can optionally provide the itinerary indicative price or full price
  9. Associate with itinerary pricing terms highlighting what the price include and what not
  10. At the end provide the booking request form and or online payment link

Below is the attributes of the above mentioned sections:

1.) The title is the title meta tag in html format at the HEAD section and must also form the page main HEADING with H1 status

Example

7 Day Safari to Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda

2.) The featured image or gallery or slideshow of image size between 1366px to 1920px recommended and this depend on the layout of the website and targeted screens resolutions. This suggestions based on the fact that most resolution as on 18 Feb 2018 is between 1366px to 1920px. The image must be in png, gif or jpeg with alternative text well written with keyword that explain all about the image.

3.) The Summary, Highlight, Briefing subheading is the H2 heading that introduces the itinerary to the reader. it must be short, capturing the important parts of the whole itinerary. Normally this type of heading must be in H2 with fewer word at around one, two or three

Example

Program Summary

Itinerary Highlights

Itinerary Briefing

4.) Content description here in form of paragraph, table or bullets

Example

  • Itinerary duration: 7 days
  • Program timing: June to February each year
  • Destinations: Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda
  • Destination activities: Gamedrive, nature walk, Cultural tour, Gorila tracking
  • Enroute activities: shopping, historic site visit,
  • Max number of people: 6
  • Safari packlist: The luggages must be as light as possible, Camera (optional), Safari boots and clothes with light colors like khaki etc (2 trousers, 2 shorts, 2 tshirt and 5 underwears, pyjamas, swimming costume, flip-flops or sport sandals (public showers, airing feet), 5 pairs of socks, sunshine hat and glasses for dust prevention, binoculars (optional) and shoelaces. More items are found in the main page of Safari packlist

5.) Provide also the sub heading for all day activities and it must be short like one, two or three words

example

Detailed Itinerary Description

6.) Provide the sub heading in H3 for each day activity and it must be less than 60 characters with spaces

example

Day 1: Guest Arrival and Safari Briefing

7.) Provide each day details and other content description for day one here in form of paragraph, or bullets

example

  • Pickup guest at the Airport and transfer to the hotel in the starter point
  • Explain to guest the whole safari highlights and requirements
  • Overnight stay ready for the next day travel
  • Travel from starting point to destination 1

Repeat the same for the other days

8.) Indicative prices subheading in H2

Example

Indicative Price

9.) Indicative prices details in form of sentence or table

Example

The price are estimated based on the number of people travelling and the total duration taken to finish the safari

  • One person = US$ 1500
  • 2-3 persons = US$ 1400/person
  • 3-6- persons = US$ 1300/person
  • 7-10 persons = US$ 1200/person
  • Above 10 please contact us

10.) Pricing Terms subheading in H2

Example

Pricing Terms

11.) Pricing Include and Exclude Terms subheading in H3

Example

Price Include

12.) Pricing Include Terms content description for price include here in form of lists

Example

  • Pickup and transfer from and to the airport to the startup or ending point
  • Full board accommodation as per itinerary
  • All park fees
  • 4 Wheel Drive with a driver and first AID Kit
  • Safari lunch box and waters
  • Add to this list according to your policy

Price Exclude

  • Vaccination fee
  • International travel
  • VISA and related fees
  • Extra cost caused by itinerary change by client
  • Expenses of personal nature
  • Expenses not mentioned in include list
  • Add to this list according to your policy

13.) Booking and or online payment subheading in H2

Example

Request booking for this itinerary now

Pay online this itinerary to book now

Put here the Booking Form or link to online payment

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