University of Salford

Salford Business School

Bsc Business Information Systems
Second Year – Semester Two
2010

Search Engine Optimization

Ahmed Salah
@00209534
Search Engine Optimisation Report

Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3
SEO Research.........................................................................................................................................3
Key Word Plan...................................................................................................................................3
Competition.......................................................................................................................................5
Creating Pages.......................................................................................................................................7
File Names.........................................................................................................................................7
Optimising Tags.................................................................................................................................7
Title tags........................................................................................................................................7
Meta Description Tags...................................................................................................................7
Meta Keywords Tags......................................................................................................................8
Header Tags...................................................................................................................................8
Optimising Images.........................................................................................................................8
Text Modifier.....................................................................................................................................9
Anchor Text.......................................................................................................................................9
Validating HTML................................................................................................................................9
Advanced Features..............................................................................................................................10
Keyword Density..............................................................................................................................10
Sitemap............................................................................................................................................10
Robots.txt........................................................................................................................................10
404 Page..........................................................................................................................................10
Link Building....................................................................................................................................10
No follow Links................................................................................................................................10
Recommendation................................................................................................................................11
Domain Name..................................................................................................................................11
Add URL...........................................................................................................................................11
Social Networking............................................................................................................................11
RSS Feeds.........................................................................................................................................11
Feedback.........................................................................................................................................11
Revision & Maintenance..................................................................................................................11
References...........................................................................................................................................11
Appendix 1...........................................................................................................................................12
Appendix 2...........................................................................................................................................13

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Search Engine Optimisation Report

Appendix 3...........................................................................................................................................18

Introduction
In this report I will analyse the existing web pages and make appropriate recommendation according
to the requirements. I will select relevant keywords including primary and secondary by using the
keyword plan. After keyword selection the pages will be optimized by using appropriate tools i.e.
SEO Quake tool to get keyword density for each page. I will document and justify the improvements I
will make to the pages and recommend any techniques to increase the traffic to the website.

SEO Research
The following are my chosen primary key words:

 Diabetes Type 2 Symptoms

 Diabetes Treatment
 Diet for Diabetes

Key Word Plan

Primary
Secondary keywords
keyword

Diabetes
Type 2 Symptoms Diabetic Causes of Signs of Diabetes
Type 2
Diabetes of Diabetes Symptoms Diabetes Diabetes Symptoms
Symptoms

Google AdWords Tool

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Primary
Secondary keywords
keyword

Type 2
Diabetes Type 1 Diabetes Diabetes Diabetic Treatment for
Treatmen
Treatment Treatment Treatments Cure Treatment Diabetes
t

Google AdWords Tool

Primary
Secondary keywords
keyword

Diet for Type 2 Diet for Diabetes Diet Diabetes Diabetes and
Diabetes Diabetes Diet Diabetics Diet Diabetics Diet Plan Diet

Google AdWords Tool

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Justification for selection:

I have selected the above words because they have high search volumes and they are related to the
content of the page.

Competition
In this section I will analyse the competition for the chosen keywords. The main tool I have been
using is SEO Quake. Below I have created 3 tables analysing top 3 competitors for each primary key
word.

First Key word: Diabetes Type 2 Symptoms

External Links (no

Internal Links
Page Rank

follows)
Competitions Primary Secondary

diabetes
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/ Diabetes symptoms,
4 12 (0) 76
diabetes-symptoms.html Symptoms diabetic, type
1, type 2
diabetes, type
2, non-insulin,
insulin,
dependent,
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk pancreas,
/diseases/facts/diabetesnon Type 2 Diabetes blood, 4 11 (0) 118
insulindependent.htm glucose, sugar,
thirst, fatigue,
tiredness,
fatigue,
urination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki Diabetes mellitus
(None) 6 160 (137) 382
/Diabetes_mellitus_type_2 type 2

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Second Key word: Diabetes Treatment

External Links (no

Internal Links
Page Rank

follows)
Competitions Primary Secondary

diabetes,
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/ Treatment for treatment,
4 13 (0) 89
treatment.html Diabetes treatment for
diabetes
diabetes
treatment,
http://www.medicinenet.co treatments,
Diabetes
m/diabetes_treatment/articl insulin, pump, 5 24 (11) 97
Treatment
e.htm inhaled,
inhale, ...(and
many more)
National Health
Service
(NHS),Diabetes,
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditio insulin, insulin
Diabetes
ns/Diabetes/Pages/Treatme pump, glucose 4 27 (0) 131
Treatment
ntfinal.aspx levels, blood
glucose,
hypoglycaemia,
hyperglycaemia

Third key word: Diet for Diabetes

External Links (no

Internal Links
Page Rank

follows)

Competitions Primary Secondary

diabetes,
cardiovascular
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk risk, heart
/diabetes/managing/diet_an Managing your diet disease, statins, 4 11 (0) 98
d_diabetes_000686.htm tests, statens,
causes, diet,
food
Dietary, Advice,
Patients,
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/
Dietary Advice Diabetes, 3 16 (0) 71
diet-basics.html
Management,
UK
http://medweb.bham.ac.uk/ Diet and Diabetes avastin, 3 91 (0) 127

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triamcinolone,
easdec/prevention/diet testing glucose,
%20and%20diabetes.htm Diabetes,
cataracts,

Creating Pages
“Creating search-engine-optimised Web pages is the core effort of a successful Internet marketing
campaign”. (Jones 2007) In this section, I will go through the implementation of basic SEO practices
when creating web pages. This is important because it allows search-engine spiders to determine the
relevance of the content on the website.

File Names
If the file names are not relevant to the content contained on that page, the search engines can
algorithmically detect a disconnect.

Example:

Google highlights the file name if it is the same as the key word that has been searched for.

Optimising Tags
Title tags
Title tags have an influence in search-engine ranking factor. When the website is listed in a search
result, the first thing a user would notice is the title page.

Meta Description Tags

The Meta description tag is used to summarise the content of a particular web page.

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Meta Keywords Tags

Meta keyword tags are used to indicate the relevant keywords to the content of the page.

Header Tags
Using the header tags helps with structure of the page. These headers will be picked up by search-
engine spiders as they can distinguish between the different levels.

As you can see from the screen shot, the different levels of headers have been picked up by SEO
XRay. This will also make it easier for the users to scan through to see which section is most relevant
to them.

Optimising Images
The images can be optimised by using the ALT tags. The ALT tags are used to describe image briefly.
It’s good SEO practice because search-engine spiders can’t read images. Below is an example

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Text Modifier
Test modifier is a way of emphasising the importance of a keyword or block of keywords. It is also
picked up by the search-engine spiders. Keywords can be emphasised by making them bold, italic or
underlined. Example used below:

Anchor Text
Creating internal links structure makes navigation for users easy but importantly it is taken into
consideration by the ranking algorithms. I have used internal linking in my content when I used a
keyword that was part of another topic in a different page. An example is when I was referring to the
other topics in my index page.

Validating HTML
Validating the pages is not only useful for people who have accessibility issues but it is also allows
search engines to read the content easily. I have validated all my pages with XHTML Strict 1.0. Below
is an example of one of the pages.

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Advanced Features
Keyword Density
Keyword density is a measurement of the number of times that the keywords appear on the page
versus the number of words on a page. According to what I have learnt from the lectures, the
keyword density should be around %7. Refer to appendix 1 to see the keyword density for each page
that I have created.

Sitemap
Using sitemaps helps users find the information they are looking for without getting lost. It consists
of text based links to show an overview of the website.

Another type of sitemap is the XML sitemap which differs from the normal sitemap. It’s a file that
lists all the links of the website and can’t be seen by the visitors but only by the crawlers.

Robots.txt
Robots.txt is a text file that is created to control which pages the crawlers should index.
Alternatively, meta robots can be used but this can be time consuming if you have more than 20
pages on your website.

404 Page
404 page is used to keep the visitors within the website if they mistype the name of the page in the
URL. Instead of having to see a default 404 error page, the visitor will be directed to the custom one.
The custom 404 page should look like the other pages of the website to maintain consistency and
should have a link to the sitemap and homepage.

Link Building
Having other website linking to your page can increase the page rank. The higher the credibility of
the inbound link the more important is your website considered. Credibility of the website is
normally measured by looking at the importance of it. For example, government and educational
website are considered very important. Having inbound links from them will increase the page rank
of your page. Other factors of measuring the importance of the site taken into account include the
age of the website, relevance of content, etc.

No follow Links
In order to have other websites link to your website will require you to link
back to them most of the time. Giving away links will decrease the page
rank. So if I link to a website from mine and they link to mine, none of us
gain from it. If I use the “no follow” on the external links, I may be giving
away a link but I will not lose credibility. It’s a good practice to contact
other webmasters to “swap” links. I have created a draft of what I would
write to them, refer to appendix 2.

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Recommendation
Domain Name
It is important to choose the appropriate domain name to increase the likelihood of search engines
to rank the website for related keywords. The domain should consist of keywords or phrases related
to the theme of the website.

Add URL
It is important to have the website indexed in order for it to be recognised by
search engines. The website can be submitted to directories such Google, Yahoo
and DMOZ. There are also some that can be paid for that offer more services
than just listing the website in their directory.

Social Networking
Social networking is simple way of promoting the website for free. For example a group or a fan
page can be created for the website on Facebook. It is also a good way of generating new traffic.
Using Twitter and YouTube is good practice.

RSS Feeds
RSS feed is a good way of keeping the website updated on a regular basis because it
uses JavaScript to update the news automatically. Due to the JavaScript, the RSS feed
will not have affect in generating traffic or increase ranking on search engine.

Feedback
It is important to listen to your visitors and encourage their views. Kampyle is
feedback tool that can be embedded to the website to allow users to leave
feedback. (http://www.kampyle.com/)

Revision & Maintenance

Once the basic and advanced features of SEO are implemented, it is important to review the website
regularly. For example, content should be kept up to date and keywords should be applied according
to the current trends. In appendix 3 I will recommend which tools to use to apply the SEO techniques
that I mentioned as well as the tools to that will be needed to maintain the campaign.

References
Kent, P (2009). Search Engine Optimization for dummies. 3rd ed. London: Wiley Publishing Inc.

Kristopher B. Jones (2009). Search Engine Optimization Your visual blueprint for effective internet
marketing. 3rd ed. London: Wiley Publishing Inc.

Business Information Systems - S.E.O. Lecture Notes 2010 (University of Salford) by Aleksej Heinze

Grappone J, Couzin G (2008). Search Engine Optimization: An Hour A Day. 2nd ed. New Jersey: Wiley.

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Appendix 1
Keyword Density

First Keyword

Second Keyword

Third Keyword

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Appendix 2
SEO Tools

I have decided to separate the tools into four different categories: keyword suggestion, toolbars, link
directory and web analytics.

Keyword Suggestion

Keyword Discovery:

Website: http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/keywords.html

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Wordtracker

Website: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

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Google Adwords Keyword Tool

If I want more ideas from one of

the following suggest keywords, I
can click on Google Insights for
Search to get more ideas.

Website: https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/KeywordToolExternal

Website: http://www.google.com/insights/search

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Toolbars

SEO Book Toolbar

SEO Book toolbar is useful tool that can be used to analyse your website as well as your competitors’
websites. It provides you with functions such as keyword density measure, rank checker, SEO XRay,
no follow link checker, etc. It is plug-in for Firefox that is available to download for free.

Website: http://tools.seobook.com/seo-toolbar/

SEO Quake

SeoQuake is a programme, which allows user to view a large number

of SE parameters on the fly. SeoQuake for Mozilla Firefox consists of
three functional parts: SeoToolbar (requested parameters are shown
in a separate toolbar in the browser), Seobar (requested parameters
are shown in a separate, fully customizable with CSS, HTML block)
and output of requested parameters on Search Engine Result Pages
(SERPs).

Website: http://www.seoquake.com/

Link Directories

Google Add URL

Website: http://www.google.com/addurl/

Submit Express

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Website: http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.html

DMOZ

Website: http://www.dmoz.org/

Web Analytics

Google Analytics

Google analytics allows you to see where visitors come from, how long the stay on the website or a
particular page, how many of them are there, etc.

Google Webmaster Tool

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Google Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed reports about your pages' visibility on Google.
First you have to submit your URL to Google and verify it.

Features:

Appendix 3
Draft Letter

Dear Sir/Madam,

As a webmaster of My Diabetes website, I have noticed that you and I share the same themed topic.
However, I have noticed that I have some information that you don’t cover on your website, and you
have some information that I don’t cover on mine.

I would like to close the information gap for our visitors in this topic by exchanging links with you.
This will be great for our visitors because we both have good quality content and it will also increase
our positions in the search engines results.

If you are interested, please use the following details:

Title: My Diabetes

Link: http://bzm327.teaching.mysalford.biz/mydiabetes

Description: Providing quality information to anyone who has concerns about Diabetes.

If would like us to put your link on our website, please send your details. I will be looking forward to
hearing from you. Thank you.

Regards,

Ahmed Salah

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