Nova Scotia Web Media Consultants Supernova Studios Presents SEO 101. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

1. Supernova Media Presents:
101

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We are a full service web company. We provide our
customers with a uniform custom branded web
presence.
At Supernova Media we specialize in the speedy setup
of WordPress websites & blogs. All our websites are
mobile friendly, have onsite search engine optimization
and social media integration.

4. What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization is the process of
optimizing (or simply improving) your website
content so that it can be indexed by search engines
and found more quickly by those that are already
looking for your services. When your website is
poorly optimized, you are making it difficult for
potential customers and clients to find your website
on the Internet. By optimizing your company
website, you greatly improve your chances of being
found on the Internet and capturing those that are
most likely to buy your services because they are
already looking for you.

5. What is Search Engine Optimization?
The process of Search Engine Optimization can seem overwhelming at first, but
it is actually a very simple process. The techniques, changes, and
improvements that will be discussed throughout this manual are referred to as
Organic Search Engine Optimization. Organic Search Engine Optimization may
sound like a highly technical word, but the simplest way to explain it is that it is
a process of including content rich information on your website using key
words, descriptions, and links to other websites to tell search engines what your
website is about, what services you offer, and in turn allow potential clients and
customers to find you more quickly on the Internet.
Everything that will be discussed throughout this presentation will be broken
down and simplified to make the process of Search Engine Optimization easier
for you.

6. What are Robots?
Referred to as many different names (including Web
Crawler, Web spider, Bots, or Web robot), robots are
programs and automated scripts that browse the
Internet to provide up-to-date information to search
engines and improve search results for end-users.
When a robot visits your site, it not only compares your
keywords, description, and content, but it also follows
links that you include in your website. While we will get
to the importance of links later, this is an important
factor in your website optimization.

7. What are Robots?
The robot, being an automated script, then makes a decision about the importance of your page
and relevant content. This information is then used by search engines to index your site and
rank it. While all websites are indexed, it is the ranking part of the process that you should be
most concerned about. Getting indexed by a robot is simply a matter of having a website, while
being ranked highly is a matter of how you optimize your website and how easy it is for robots to
crawl and index your website in comparison with your competition’s websites.
For the purposes of this manual, we will be concentrating on
optimizing your website for robots, Web Crawlers, Web Spiders
and other programs. While these same techniques can be used
for any type of website, the specifics of this manual will enable
you to quickly and easily optimize your website as a small
business owner in your local area.

8. What are SERPs?
When using a search engine, SERPs are simply the Search
Engine Results Pages. These are the pages that appear
with listings when searching for something on the Internet.
When you enter the term ‘virtual tour company’ in a search
engine such as Google, several results will appear. If you
were to perform the search right now you would notice that
‘Real Tour Vision’ holds the number one spot on Google as a
result of your search for ‘virtual tour company’. While
reading this manual, keep in mind that you are not trying to
compete with national companies, but you ARE trying to
compete with your local competition. Your goal in optimizing
your website is to hold the number one spot for your
business type in YOUR area.

9. What is Page Rank?
There are many factors that determine the ranking of your
website. Google uses page rank to display a numerical rating that
is basically a measure of the importance of your website
compared to other websites. While the term Page Rank is a
trademark of Google, a similar process is used by all search
engines in deciding which websites to display at the top of search
engine result pages (SERPs).
The higher your page rank; the better the chances your website
has in appearing first when someone is looking for your business
type in your area. While improving your page rank may take some
time and effort on your part, once done correctly it is a free form of
advertising that works for you time and time again.

10. What are Meta Tags?
Robots need more than just website content to correctly
categorize a worldwide network of websites. Meta tags
help search engines understand the information that a
given website is presenting. We will be focusing on two
specific type of Meta tags; keywords and description.
In order to see the Meta tags of a certain webpage, all
you have to do is right-click and select ‘view source’.
Here is a screenshot highlighting specific Meta tags that
we will be discussing, categorised in the search engines
for the words that you choose to put in your Meta data.

11. Meta Tag Keywords
The keywords you choose must also
appear on the Web page where you
insert the key words. Over the
years, robots have become much more
sophisticated due, in part, to something
called ‘keyword spamming’, unless
there is content on the page that
relates to the keywords, your keywords
may be ignored.

12. Meta Tag Keywords
Finding your Keywords
Using an internet tool named Word Tracker; I found the following most frequently used
keywords when searching for a virtual tour provider. They are as follows:
• Real estate virtual tours
• Virtual tour provider
• Virtual home tours
• Virtual tour service provider
• Virtual tours for realtors
• 360 tours
• Virtual tours real estate
• 360° virtual tour hotels
• Virtual tours of million-dollar homes
• 360 virtual home tours
• Virtual 360 home tours
• Virtual tour company
• 360 virtual tour
• Home tour 360 virtual tour providers
• 360 virtual tours
• 360 panorama, virtual tour

13. Meta Tag Keywords
If you were a virtual tour provider, then all of these would
be extremely good keywords to have on your
website, however you must keep in mind that using these
generic keywords would put you in direct competition with
ALL virtual tour companies. Remember, you are only
competing with companies in areas that YOU service.
So, when you use keywords, be sure to use the name of
towns, cities, or counties that you service. For example, the
first keyword you may want to use if you were in the
Adelaide, SA area is ‘Adelaide real estate virtual tours.’ If
you were in the Melbourne area, you may want to use a
keyword such as ‘Melbourne 360 tours’. Note: Keywords
are NEVER full sentences.

14. Meta Tag Descriptions
The description of your website is Meta data that allows you, as a website owner,
to provide a custom description of your website for search engines to display.
This allows you to give a more meaningful description for your listing, instead of
allowing search engines to create their own descriptions based on page content.
Your description should be short and concise as most search engines only
display one or two lines of text below the title of your website. It’s also important
that you create different descriptions for each of your pages. You will want the
description of your ‘about us’ webpage to be different than your ‘contact us’ page,
and your ‘services’ webpage to be different from your ‘pricing’ page. This will
improve the chances that your target customers and clients will find the
information that they need more quickly. Once a prospective customer or client
does find your website in a search engine result page, you’ll want your
description to draw them to click on your link.

15. Meta Tag Descriptions
Your descriptions should accurately describe the information presented on a particular webpage. You
can also use a description to tell potential customers and clients why they should click on your link
instead of any other link displayed in the Search Engine Result Pages. An example of this would be to
put something such as ‘10% off your first order’ or ‘multi-location packages available.’
When using the description as suggested above with a coupon or multi-
package offering, be sure to include information on that webpage that
describes the offer or the description may be ignored or disregarded. If
the description does not accurately describe the information that is
presented on the webpage, you will also immediately lose the interest of
the potential client or customer when they are disappointed to find out
that the webpage contains absolutely no information about the
description that they saw on the Search Engine Results Page.

16. The Importance of Site Content
Your website content consists of everything that is
displayed when someone visits your website. This
includes the text that they read, the visuals that they
see, and the audio that they hear. For the purposes of
this manual when I refer to content I will be referring
to the textual part of your website as this is what is
indexed by robots. Quick side note: flash websites
cannot be indexed by robots for the simple reason
that robots cannot read flash. If you choose to have a
flash website you will have to spend extra time
entering HTML links and content to your website in
order to get indexed and categorised correctly.

17. The Importance of Site Content
Your website content has several different purposes. While it is important that your website
content relate to your keywords and description, it is equally, if not more, important that the
content entices and engages visitors so that they stay on your website. Your content should be
up to date, easily readable, and exude a sense of expertise in your industry.
While preparing the content of your website, create each page individually. Creating one page at
a time allows you to concentrate on the information that will be presented on that page without
overlapping information from other pages. Start out by choosing your keywords and deciding
what the description of that particular page will be.

18. The Importance of Site Content
Once you’ve decided what your webpage will be about, start a rough draft and
include as much information on that webpage as possible. Talking about the
industry, your equipment, your services, and including information on your
unique way of doing business. Speak to your visitors on a more personal level
rather than just listing ‘the facts’. This will help to keep visitors interested in
your website and get them one step closer to contacting you.
Once you have your first rough draft, go back and make sure that you have
included your keywords throughout the text. You want to make sure that your
keywords are in several places throughout your draft. If you have several
keywords in the beginning, none in the middle, and then a lot at the end you
will want to try to insert sentences that include your keywords and keep your
keyword content even throughout the page.

19. The Importance of Site Content
Now that you’ve checked for keyword
consistency, you’ll now have your second rough draft.
Take a look at the description that you originally
decided would describe your webpage. Make sure the
description is included somewhere in your webpage. It
should not be word for word and the description should
be easily interpreted by both human and robot alike.
Basically, this means that if a robot were to search your
webpage it would find the content to match the
description and keywords. Likewise, a human visitor
would easily be able to see that the description of your
site matches the information that is presented on your
webpage.

20. The Importance of Site Content
Once you are happy with the changes that you have
made to your second rough draft, you will now have
your third rough draft. Now it’s time to sit down, and
read your content out loud. Anything that does not
make sense will need to be changed for readability and
understandability. It may even help at this point to have
someone else read your content out loud to you, before
finally adding the content to your site.
With Organic Search Engine Optimization, content is King. Your content can mean the difference
between being indexed and highly ranked as the number one spot for your business in your area
OR being completely disregarded by robots and never seen by potential clients and customers.

21. Avoiding The Mirror Site Dilemma
If you purchased a ‘ready-made’ website, you basically have a
template. This means that everything that is included with the
website including a copy is essentially ‘canned’. The copy, or
textual, part of your website will be the same as the copy on
every other business owner’s website that purchased a template
similar to yours. This presents a problem when trying to get
indexed and categorized by robots. When robots see similar
copy on several different websites, the websites are classified
as ‘mirror sites’ or essentially the same site over and over again.
The robot then makes a decision that all of these websites are
the same exact website, regardless if there is different contact
information on each, and this will do nothing to improve your
ranking on search engines.

22. Avoiding The Mirror Site Dilemma
Should you decide to purchase, or if you have
purchased, a ‘ready-made’ website, the most
important thing that you need to do is to
customize the website to your unique business.
I cannot stress the importance of this enough.
You must go through each and every one of
your pages and customize the copy (text) for
your company

23. Linking To Other Sites
Your website may contain a ‘links’ page. You’ll need to add
relevant links to this page. Some links to consider are as follows:
Your local Chamber of Commerce
Your local business association
National industry associations
Other relevant websites
Try to link to pages that have a Page Rank of 5 or above.
Some other links to consider are other local associations, county
websites, township websites, and other websites that would be of
interest to your clients and customers.

24. Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal links are simply links that you
receive back from other websites while
displaying links to their websites on yours.
You can do this by becoming a member of
the Chamber of Commerce and having your
site listed on their website and then listing a
link to their website on yours. You can do this
with various businesses by becoming an
affiliate, listing your website on their website
and then listing their website on yours. Doing
this over and over again tells search engines
that your website has content relevant to your
estate industry.

25. Getting Listed In DMOZ.org
Once your website is up & running, has been customized to your liking, and
has been search engine optimized, take the time to get your site listed in
www.DMOZ.org.
DMOZ is the single largest open directory project for categorizing and
indexing the Internet. The difference between DMOZ and all other types of
sites that categorize and index the Internet is that DMOZ is human edited by
volunteers. Many major search engines use DMOZ as a basis for their
categorizing and indexing. While not officially stated by search engines, you
generally receive a higher ranking for your website when you are listed in
DMOZ. The reasoning behind this is that the companies that own the search
engines know that if you have been listed in DMOZ, then a human has
actually verified your website, verified your description, and categorized you
manually.

26. Getting Listed In DMOZ.org
Once your website is ready, go to DMOZ.org and find the most relevant
category for your business and click on suggest URL at the top left hand
corner. Be sure to follow all of the instructions carefully. Being a
volunteer, human edited, open directory Project, the editors have little patience
for those that refuse to follow instructions carefully. It may take you several
months to actually get listed in DMOZ, but be patient, because it is worth it.
Another point to consider when listing your site with DMOZ is to refrain from
submitting your site more than once. It has been more than four months since
you submitted your website; it’s probably safe to try to resubmit your
website, because you may have done something wrong in your initial
submission. However, submitting your site over and over again will simply get
you banned from ever being listed in DMOZ.

27. Blogging
Blogging, while relatively new on the Internet, has become an essential part of
Search Engine Optimization. When writing blogs, be sure to include links to
relevant content related to the subject matter of your blog. Also, be sure to
place a link back to your website with each and every blog submission you
make.
Get in the habit of sending a short blog once a week to the blog of your choice.
Choose a blog that has a relatively high ranking, is updated regularly and is
frequently indexed by Google. Doing this means that your blog will have a high
chance of showing as a top 10 results in your area. Be sure to include the
service area that you service somewhere in the copy of your blog so that if
someone in your area is looking for your company type, Google will see the
search terms in your blog and direct that person to you.

28. Blogging
As with websites, avoid creating blog
‘mirrors’. If you submit a blog to one
website, do not place the same blog in
another community. Instead, use the same
title as your original blog and then include
the first few lines of your blog with a link
back to your original blog. This will prevent
search engines from seeing your blog as
duplicate content and disregarding them
as blog spam.

29. Summary
While it may take you a little time, Search Engine Optimization is an important part of marketing
your business. By optimizing your website you are improving the chances of being found by
potential clients and customers that are already looking for you on the Internet.
Although, the process of Search Engine Optimization can
seem a bit daunting at first, it is actually a very simple
process that takes a little time and effort on your part. The
techniques, changes, and improvements that have been
discussed throughout this manual will help you greatly
increase your chances of capturing those clients that are
most likely to do business with you. Remember, they are
already out there looking for your services and if you are not
there to be found, you’re only helping your competition.

30. Summary
If you have any questions about Search
Engine Optimization, please feel free to
contact me. While we welcome your
phone calls regarding SEO, sending us
an email allows us to give you a much
more detailed answer and allows you the
opportunity to go back to that email at
anytime in the future.

31. Our Services
Being Passionate comes easy when you
genuinely enjoy what you do. We offer an
array of services at Supernova Media but
here’s what we do best:
• Web Design & Hosting
• Consulting
• Branding
• Virtual Tours
We know that your success is our success.
Contact Us

32. About Nancy Bain
Nancy is a business owner, educator, and business strategist
with more than 20 years experience. When she is not advising
and teaching people about social media, Nancy spends a lot of
her own time using social media.
Find Nancy online:
Google+ : Nancy Bain Like Supernova Media on
Follow Nancy on Twitter Facebook
Visit her Website Find her on LinkedIn
Follow her Blog And visit her YouTube Channel