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.