The following is a short report that analyzes the SEO of www.qmast.ca, the website of Queen’s Mostly Autonomous Sailboat Team (QMAST). I will be helping them implement these changes in the hopes of ranking their website for some more competitive keywords.
Search Volume for Related Keywords (According to Google Keyword Tool)
“autonomous sailboat” – Searched around 30 times a month globally
“robotic sailboat” – Searched around 10 times a month globally
“robotic boat” – Searched around 30 times a month globally
“automatic sailboat” – Searched around 20 times a month globally
About Google Keyword Tool
The keyword tool allows you to type in any combination of keywords and will return how many times that phrase is searched in Google every month. Just search “google keyword tool” in Google to find it. The search volumes above are not exact, but are usually pretty accurate. If you have any other ideas for related keywords just type them in and see how much traffic you could generate (approximately) by targeting those keywords.
As you can see, the searches are quite low so putting a lot of work into SEO might not be worth your time (unless you have a higher traffic phrase you would like to optimize for). However, some simple modifications to the website’s on-site SEO will definitely help it rank better and capture some of the traffic.
On-Site SEO
The keyword(s) you are trying to optimize for should be in the title of each page of your website. This is done by modifying the <title> html tag. None of the website’s pages have anything in their <title> tag right now, so that is the first thing that should be done. It also important to make sure they read well because Google uses them as the link to that particular page in the search results.
Two structures for titles that are both Google and user friendly are as follows:
Primary Keyword – Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
Brand Name | Primary Keyword and Secondary Keyword
Ex. Queen’s MAST | Robotic Sailboat Team
The maximum number of characters that should be used for a <title> tag is 70.
As shown above, the META description is used by Google to describe your website to searchers. Placing your target keyword once in the description is also important. META keywords should also be used to help Google recognize the primary topics of the website.
Example HTML: The code can be placed anywhere within the <head> tags
<head>
….
<title>Queen’s University</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”Queen’s is one of Canada’s leading universities with an international reputation for scholarship, social purpose and spirit.” />
<meta name=”keywords” content=”University, Education, Research, Libraries, Queen’s University, Queen’s, Kingston, Ontario, Academics, Students, Researchers, Alumni” />
….
</head>
More content should be added to the website, especially the main page. If possible, add more content (400+ words) to the front page about what the team does, what your goals are, what the World Robotic Sailing Championships are, etc. This will make it a more relevant, valuable resource in the eyes of the search engines. Be sure to mention the keyword(s) you are trying to optimize for a few times within the content, but don’t stuff them in there or it will be penalized for being spammy. It is also helpful to bold your primary keyword(s) once inside the body of the content using the <strong> tag.
<H1>, <H2> and <H3> Tags
Header tags are a great way to improve the organization and readability of your content as well as making it look more relevant in Google’s eyes. Use <h1> for the main header of each page. It can be the same as the title of the page, but it doesn’t have to be. It should describe the content of that page and include the keyword(s) you are optimizing for. Each subsection of content on that page should start with a sub header <h2>. If it makes sense to do so, these should also contain similar or related keywords to those you are optimizing for, but should not be exactly the same as the <h1> tag. Change it up a bit.
Example:
<h1>Queen’s Mostly Autonomous Sailboat Team</h1>
[Content]
<h2>History of Robotic Sailboats</h2>
[Content]
<h2>World Robotic Sailing Championships</h2>
[content]
Off-Site SEO
Google’s ranking algorithm relies primarily on backlinks. Backlinks are links on other websites that are pointing to your website. Each backlink is essentially a “vote up” for your website. The more links back to your website, the higher it will rank on Google. However, not all backlinks provide the same amount of power or “juice” to push your site up in the rankings.
Three main factors determine the power of a backlink:
1) The relevance of the website linking to yours.
2) The authority that website has in Google. The older and more popular a website is, as well as how many backlinks it has determines the authority of a website.
3) Anchor text – the words that make up a text link.
Example: Robotic Sailboat – The anchor text is “robotic sailboat”.
Backlinks that link to your site using the keyword phrase you are trying to rank for are much stronger than links like this: click here! Both links still help, but the anchor text is extremely important.
One way you could get some high quality backlinks would be to ask team sponsors/university reps to link back to the site. If they are willing to, ask them to use the keywords you are trying to rank for as the anchor text. If anyone on the team has a blog or access to a website where they could post a link back to the site that would help too. And again, make sure they know to use anchor text that includes a keyword or two.
Another way of getting strong links is to write related articles to post on article directories. Most directories will accept short articles (400+ words) on any topic and allow you to leave a link back to your website within the body of the article. This method does require more work, but it is a guaranteed way to get a strong link using the anchor text of your choice. Here are some good article directories:
EzineArticles
Infobarrel
Squidoo
GoArticles
Conclusion
I highly suggest making the on-site SEO changes as they will make your website much stronger in Google. However, I don’t think the term “robotic sailboat” is worth spending too much time on as the search volume is quite low and won’t help increase visitors/publicity. If you want to get to the top of Google for it regardless, just follow my suggestions.