Lesson Materials Teachers
Situation at work
The online shop “ 1000 shapes of southtyrol” has been online for half a year now. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been able to come further to the front in the Google ranking, there were not enough hits and accordingly the expected number of sales hasn’t been reached.
In order to change that the website should be optimized and several SEO actions should be taken.
Task 1 (for the group)
Get well informed about how to optimize search engines and make a handout answering the following questions:
How does my client search the Net?
this is known as customer journey mapping
What is the difference between an organic and a generic search?
organic search: the part of search engine results which are displayed as unpaid results in a list of relevant search results (in contrast to paid search-engine advertising); as a shop owner your search engine placement is improved by unpaid organic measures on your site including e.g. use of keywords, backlinking and high-quality content (aka content marketing)
generic search: in this case customers search for a general term which does not lead to a specific product of one manufacturer or brand; e.g. a when a user searches for the term "book" or "mobile phone"
What are adwords, how do they work and where are they displayed?
adwords is Google's advertising service for placing ads on the search results page depending on the search terms entered
What do we understand by OnPage and Offpage optimization?
On-page SEO all measures optimising your website and all of its parts in order to improve your search engine ranking, e.g. high-quality content, correct semantic html structure of the page, page speed, responsive design
Off-page SEO focuses on how "relevant" your page is on the Internet; this mainly comes down to how often your website is linked by other sites; the more links you get from other (quality) sites the more authoritative your site is
Which Google ranking factors are the most important?
this question cannot be answered correctly as the ranking factors used by Google are not officially published; however there are reasoned guesses on which factors Google uses as were published in this paper by searchmetrics
Which analysis tools are available that might be interesting for a search engine optimization?
Potential tools include: keyword tools, tools for creations of robot.txt files, meta tag generators, link suggestion tools, etc - concrete tools can be found by searching the web, listing them here would make no sense as the list would be very soon be outdated…
How can you make a keyword analysis and what do you have to consider concerning a keyword strategy?
first think like your customer: what would a customer searching for your product enter into a search engine - also think of potential other uses of your product
identify how high the interest of search engine users is in the keywords you identified; using tools like Google Keyword Planer can help you with this task
try to optimise your keywords as specifically as possible; optimising for generic search terms like e.g. "book" will not lead you anywhere as the competition for these terms is huge
check your competition for the keywords you used - which other keywords do they mention on their website; also consider if it really makes sense to compete with these companies
Which aspects do you have to consider when performing a Snippet optimisation?
Snippet optimisation is a technique to optimise the headlines and short description texts which will be shown in the search results lists you should consider:
which intentions does your potential customer have with the product he is searching for? Try to optimise the snippets accordingly and highlight how you can fulfil these intentions
use online tools for snippet optimisation to get support with this task
How should a search engine optimized URL be structured?
ideally the URL should contain keywords
the structure of the URL should follow a systematic and logical approach and be human-readable, e.g. https://myshop.com/drinks/wine/cabernet.html instead of https://myshop.com/article/x85kldf
avoid superfluous parts and information in the URL
create an xml sitemap which helps search engines read the structure of your website and delivers more relevant results to customers
Which points are important concerning an optimized content?
the content of your site needs to use your customer's language (e.g. if you have a shop for skaters - rather use slang terms and everyday language); make use of relevant keywords in the text
make the content relevant to your users, i.e. show them how to solve the problem or need they have
if the content of your site is relevant to your target group they will stay on your website longer, click more links and will probably also buy on your site
the content of your site must be correct as incorrect content will turn users away from your site
also optimise the technical aspects of content like: page loading time, responsive design, use XML sitemaps, etc.
How can a Google indexation be done?
submit your website at the Google Search Console in order to be indexed
Task 2 (for the group)
Now your task is to optimize your online shop appropriately. Before getting started, you should plan thoroughly which methods you are going to use. Elaborate an action plan in which you list who of you will be responsible for which jobs and with which tools you will be able to reach your goals. Obviously, you will have to conduct various analyses right at the beginning.
What? For example: conducting a keyword analysis
Who? For example: Anna and Maria…
How? With which tools? For example: google analytics
Task 3 (for the group)
Your website has been optimized appropriately, your handout is ready. Now prepare yourselves for a presentation of your results in front of your classmates and your teachers.
Keep in mind: Everyone has to contribute to the presentation!
Good work!
Example result
Download one of the student presentations to see potential solution to the task.
Last updated