Search Engine Optimization

Abstract

The challenge of having a great website is bringing people to it. Why is this important? Whether the website is a business or just for recreation quite often no traffic means no sales. At the very least, no visibility. Having a high-ranking can be critical to the success of a business as it makes it easier for website to be found. The fact is, if a search engine cannot find a site or add a site’s content to the database, there is potentially a missed opportunity. But in order to get people to visit websites that are unknown to them, search engines rely on queries. These are words entered into a search field and produces a list of sites that are ranked on their relevance. A list of results that help the user find exactly what they are looking for is then generated. Yet there are no guarantees that a website will come out on top in a search or even have the traffic that can help to make this possible. So then what is the best way for getting traffic to a websites? While there is no conclusive answer to this question, by understanding and using search engine optimization (SEO), it is possible to achieve a higher ranking on search engine return pages (SERPs).

This project identifies SEO techniques used to optimize websites and evaluate the potential advantages. This project also analyzes two websites for style and word content and uses comparison tools to compare the performance. The findings in this project conclude that there are many ways to optimize a website and by doing so, it helps to increase traffic to the site. Although there are many ways to accomplish optimization, the most important aspect is content. Finding a way to make an impact and consolidating relationships with readers will help to make optimization easier and it is up to the website owner to dertermine what it can help increase the visibility and help boost rankings.


 

Download (PPT, 3.79MB)


Download (DOCX, 17KB)

 


Write Up

 

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Abstract

The challenge of having a great website is bringing people to it. Why is this important? Whether the website is a business or just for recreation quite often no traffic means no sales. At the very least, no visibility. Having a high-ranking can be critical to the success of a business as it makes it easier for website to be found. The fact is, if a search engine cannot find a site or add a site’s content to the database, there is potentially a missed opportunity. But in order to get people to visit websites that are unknown to them, search engines rely on queries. These are words entered into a search field and produces a list of sites that are ranked on their relevance. A list of results that help the user find exactly what they are looking for is then generated. Yet there are no guarantees that a website will come out on top in a search or even have the traffic that can help to make this possible. So then what is the best way for getting traffic to a websites? While there is no conclusive answer to this question, by understanding and using search engine optimization (SEO), it is possible to achieve a higher ranking on search engine return pages (SERPs).

This project identifies SEO techniques used to optimize websites and evaluate the potential advantages. This project also analyzes two websites for style and word content and uses comparison tools to compare the performance. The findings in this project conclude that optimizing a website can increase visibility and help boost rankings.

Download (PPT, 3.98MB)

 

 

Class Notes 12/10/15

  • Final Draft Presentations  due 12/15 by 2 pm
  • Final Draft Write up (25%) due 12/21 by 12 pm
  • Reflections (10%) due Mon 12/21 by 12 pm
  • Final course reflection due 12/17
  • Final Presentations (10%) : due Tu 12/15, 2pm 
    • post to our course site (categorize as “Final Project Presentations”)
    • in-class presentations on Tu 12/15 & Tu 12/17 (Those who are presenting on Thursday should not change their presentation after Tuesday)
    • If there is more you want to say in the presentation beyond the time limit, it may be mentioned afterward in the Q & A section.
    • Presentations should start with explaining what it is now and then the process.
    • Test if you are giving keynotes beforehand to make sure it works.
  • Final Course Reflection: due Th 12/17, start of class (must be done in a constructive and critical way. Extra credit will be given for those who complete the assignment according to the guidelines)
    • email file to Professor Belli before class
    • bring printed copy to class
  • Final Projects, final (graded) drafts: due M 12/21, 12pm
    • Create post on our Course Site (categorize as “Final Projects”) that includes an abstract of your project (~350 words), a link to the project write-up (& multimodal deliverables) on your ePortfolio site, a PDF of your write-up, the file (or link) to your presentation, and the file of your Project Reflection.

 

 

 

Revised Abstract – SEO

The challenge of having a great website is bringing people to it. Why is this important? Whether the website is a business or just for recreation quite often no traffic means no sales. At the very least, no visibility. Having a high-ranking can be critical to the success of a business as it makes it easier for website to be found. The fact is, if a search engine cannot find a site or add a site’s content to the database, there is potentially a missed opportunity. But in order to get people to visit websites that are unknown to them, search engines rely on queries. These are words entered into a search field and produces a list of sites that are ranked on their relevance. A list of results that help the user find exactly what they are looking for is then generated. Yet there are no guarantees that a website will come out on top in a search or even have the traffic that can help to make this possible. So then what is the best way for getting traffic to a websites? While there is no conclusive answer to this question, by understanding and using search engine optimization (SEO), it is possible to achieve a higher ranking on search engine return pages (SERPs).

This project identifies SEO techniques used to optimize websites and evaluate the potential advantages. This project also analyzes two websites for style and word content and uses comparison tools to compare the performance. The findings in this project conclude that optimizing a website can increase visibility and help boost rankings.

 

 

 

Final Project Draft – SEO

Final Project Draft

Abstract

The challenge of having a great website is bringing people to it.  When someone submits a query to a search engine, the search engine produces of lists of sites that are ranked on their relevance and you get a list of ranked results that help you find exactly what you were looking for. Yet there is no guarantee that a site will come out on top in a search.The primary goal of this project is to identify techniques used to optimize websites and evaluate the potential advantages.The secondary goal of this project is to analyze various websites for style and word content examine how the site’s optimization compare to each other.

Write Up

Project Reflection

 

Project Progress 2

So far my project is coming along slowly but surely.

The person whose website I will be checking for the ranking is out until later this week so I decided to focus on my comparison report. In my effort to understand more about SEO, I decided instead of comparing the two mapping websites, I will compare City Tech and BMCC. It makes sense to use a site that I know rather than a random site. First of all, after opening up both websites, I will say that BMCC definitely looks more inviting. When trying to create traffic to a website, it is important to look nice. You really don’t need to spend a lot of money, just having intrinsic appeal matters as much if not more. And in reality, SEO is an ongoing effort that the more you do the better you become at it.

I decided to use the Side-by-Side SEO Comparison Tool by Internet Marketing Ninjas. This is a site that checks all links and images on a page and it compares two sites in a side-by-side report. At a glance, you can see how your page and a competitor’s page use keywords, how much text is on the page, and which keywords are used. This is invaluable competitive intelligence for SEOs.  Below is a breakdown of the components:

  • On-page analysis: Shows the number of words used on the page, including linked and unlinked text, as well as the number of links and page size.
  • Metadata tool: Displays text in the title tag, meta description and meta keywords tags
  • Headings: Displays text used in <h1> and <h2> tags
  • Keyword density tool: Reveals statistics for non-linked content
  • Link structure tool: Displays the number and types of links used for internal, subdomain, and external links
  • Page text tool: Shows both the total text and specific, non-linked text found on the pages
  • Source code tool: Provides quick access to on-page HTML code

The first comparison I ran was an on-page analysis. By entering the two URLs, I saw that CityTech had 163 words on the page and BMCC had 607. My take on this is that the more words on a page, the more chance of that page being found. Therefore, the more content on a page, the better the ranking. The more links a web page has, the higher it will typically rank on search engines. City Tech has 63 link words compared to BMCC which has 401. The biggest difference I noticed was that City Tech’s page size is 16,205 and BMCC’s page size is 54,156. However, I am not sure if the page size really matters although BMCC uses more of their page and it looks better.

So then I compared the head tag elements. The head tag contains the title tag and it’s important to the spiders or web crawlers. These are programs run by search engines to build a summary of a website’s content. They take web page content and create key search words for online users to use. In comparison, they are pretty similar so not much to discuss there.

The most interesting comparisons I found was the different in the amount to keywords used. I noticed that BMCC more than doubled the amount of keywords used than City Tech. It is good to use keywords but over stuffing too many keywords is not good either because it could send an alert which can negatively affect a ranking. I also noticed that City Tech has links to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkdIn, Instagram, and BMCC has links to all of them but they also a blog page that is linked to their first page.

So Monday, I logged onto dot.tk and attempted to create a free web page. I was directed to go the 2freehosting to create a domain and will find out tomorrow, Tuesday, to see if it worked.

After trying unsuccessfully to complete the free web page via dot.tk, I decided to create a WordPress account.

Wish me luck!

Download (PPTX, 1.55MB)

My next step will be to continue to develop my WordPress blog using keywords and headings to optimize the site and also a larger comparison of CUNY sites.

Project Progress – SEO

After brainstorming ideas, I finally decided on focusing my project on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). My objective is to explore the factors that make one website more visible than another.

Despite the setback of not feeling well, I spent some time last week looking into the strategies, techniques and tactics that are applied by SEOs. This included white and black hat philosophies and the use of online keyword tools that can be accessed to find out how often certain words have been used in searches. I have also looked into the algorithms process of formulating answers in response to search questions and the search engine return pages (SERPs) process of listing results returned in response to a query or search word. I have also described the role that a target audience plays in determining types of searches.

After checking out several websites, I selected two travel map webpages to formulate an analysis (Citymapper and Moovit) and commenced a comparison report using a side-by-side SEO comparison tool. The report consists of an on-page analysis which includes the number of words, the number of link and unlinked words, the number of links on the page and the page size.

For the interactive component of my project, I will focus on Cleonmaye.com, a company founded to develop smarter ways of using existing technologies. The goal is to investigate the site and ultimately, increase its search engine ranking through optimization. I will first install and activate the Google Analytic plugin and create an account. I will use Google Analytics to monitor your website’s traffic to detect any significant statistical variation.

Looking into next week, I will continue researching white hat and black hat approaches and also update the comparison report and the interactive report.

 

Class Notes 11/17/15

 

Focus on the following:

Research

Reflection

It is more than just saying what you did or liked. It is critical engagement. It should say what you did and what you tried to do and what the outcome was. This is a small project and a time to learn and reflect.

Responsibility

It is our responsibility to seek out resources.

 Resources

If necessary, Professor Belli can also help us to connect with resources.

Recursiveness

Let future work inform past work – a feedback of what we learn

Progress Reports

  1. You must critically engage
  2. This report will is not centered on the rubric (only on time/not on time)
  3. Scaffolding recommended for time management

 E-Portfolio

Final projects will be posted in the e-Portfolios.

E-Portfolio Presentations

Samantha

Mariah

Jodie

Ashley

Pam

Fola

Collective Feedback

Customize menus allow multiple menus and make content more accessible.

Change headers, change themes, add widgets and plugins,

  • Help page on OpenLab
  • e-portfolio help in G600
  • Email professor Belli

 

Research Presentations

(For Thursday)

Mariah

Fola

Jodie

Ashley

Pam

Samantha

Progress Report Check in (Tuesday)

Final Project Due

December 15th

 

Draft Presentations

December 8th and 10th

Must have a complete draft to get substantial feedback

Check in weekly

E-Portfolio Revamping

While it is still a work in progress, my attempt to revamp my ePortfolio was successful. I like having the ability to control the aspects of the ePortfolio specifically what to share and how to organize it, and with help from the lab, I was able to change the theme and customize some of the headings. I wanted to have a welcome address as the first thing seen so I created a welcome message on the home page. I also created a mission statement, reflecting my ethics and personality, which I added as a tab. Other tabs I added are a blog tab and a course tab. Under the course tab heading, I added two my two writing courses.

The theme I chose is Twenty Eleven: 2.1. I like that it comes with a showcase page template that I intend to upload my own images to in the future. Under courses I have added ENG 2700 and ENG 2720, each having assignments tags. I intend to post selected assignments under the headings. Under the career heading I have added blogs resume and accomplishments. I intend to add my professional accomplishments in this section. I also changed the color of the welcome address text to blue and intend to experiment more with color. Unfortunately, I found out that I cannot change the font style or size.

Although I gained a lot of helpful tips to make my ePortfolio more interesting and look more professional, I am still far from satisfied with the content and appearance. Part of the problem is that I do not have a full concept at this time. It will take time to explore design, develop concepts, and that added that, the learning curve.

Nevertheless, I am looking forward to spending time working on my ePortfolio because I know the importance of having a quick representation ready to go if there is a job potential. Also, through commenting and blogging, it’s another way for to communicate with others through discourse and writing interaction.