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Few of the team asked for a link for looking under the cover of websites to see what technology they are built on. So here it is :

Very useful for research of competitors http://builtwith.com/

Summary of current findings of www.dassh.org.uk   

Page rank with Google tool bar = 0/10  

Website grader http://websitegrader.com - 3/100 with 1 link – no blog found -  very poor SEO health with indexed pages =12

Term extractor http://www.seomoz.org/term-extractor produced no terms that appear to be targeted at search engines . 

The only incoming link of any value appeared to be http://lsbu.ac.uk found by using http://www.linkpopularity.com   

Competitor Websites

http://www.dassh.edu.au/ google page rank 5/10  

Website grader http://websitegrader.com - 78/100 with 24 links – blog found – generally good SEO health 

   http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/  google page rank 6/10  

 Website grader http://websitegrader.com - 92/100 with 429 links – blog found -  good SEO health with indexed pages =5490

Keyword strategy  

Using competitor sites the following keywords have been found to occur in quantity  so any plan should include them in the  title , meta description etc

Research needs to be done on what individuals search for to get to the current site – would be recommend to get google analytics placed on DASSH site if possible. Ony data availble from alexa.com for dassh.org.uk is as follows:

top search query = lsbu address

Note: The location details shoudl be included  in keyword list.

  Hit list for SEO plan 

1. Keywords – need good solid list of good keywords to include the keywords found above . Need to add additional terms that resarch will highlight that will drive traffic to site. Keywrods with low competition and high searches– place in title and H1 – H5 – first two paragraphs and then create a page for any really important keywords that are being searched upon (e.g. funding  which will drive traffic)
2. Arrange inbound links from ranked websites that are relevant – all university sites (education sites get heavy weighting for being educational and therfore seen as higher quality websites) and professional bodies that are associated with the org (particularly government
3. Consider addition of blog
4. Label all images correctly with alt tag and keyword relevant names

Started looking at inspiration and ideas for new logo for DASSH – I think it need more colour and excitement and activity

Here is first go – other ideas forming

Suggested logo DASSH

Select 3 websites and analyse their SEO/SEM. Can you find their key phrases? What is their Google search rank for those phrases (how high in the listings)? What is their page rank? Can you work out what their traffic is? Suggest any improvements that you think could be made. Post your findings in a blog post.

Selected three websites to investigate SEO/SEM

1. http://gatlininternational.co.uk/
2. http://www.elearnuk.co.uk/ 
3. http://www.medterminologyforcare.co.uk/medical/

Tools used for research

1. Firefox – ctrl F – finds same word on page – good visual guide
2. SEO Moz term extractor http://www.seomoz.org/term-extractor *
3. Popuri tool –page rank and alexa rank http://www.popuri.us/
4. Alexa – http://www.alexa.com web information company
5. Google ranking tool http://googlerankings.com/index.php
6. Google keyword tool  https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=7616924530&__u=3223880890&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS#search.none
7. Google traffic estimator https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=7616924530&__u=3223880890&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_STATS#search.none
8. Link popularity http://www.linkpopularity.com/
9. DMOZ  – Open directory project http://www.dmoz.org/
10. SEO Book tools – keyword density checker etc  http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/

Gatlin International  e-learning specialist

This website was selected as it is competitor for my thesis and useful to examine how it is performing in the area of SEO.

Can you find their key phrases?

Using seomoz tool we can examine 1 – 3 words being used top level findings are as follows:

• Note the importance relative to other terms is calculated from extracted terms along with the HTML tags they were found in the rating above relates to where the keywords are found within the html related to other terms (a links are not included)

 Manual review – Certificate – 26 times /Online = 40 times/Courses – 2118 times(**)/Gatlin 2941 times (**high due to appearing in links) in all content of home page

What is Google search rank for those phrases (how high in the listings)?

*** Competition

Gatlin is an online training company so these results show that that many of their primary keyword phrases  are highly searched (online /courses)which is excelllent for driving customers to their site.

What is their page rank?

6 (google)

 Can you work out what their traffic is?

Statistics from  Alexa.com show the global traffic rank is 976,266 averaged over 3 months(no figures for UK). Approximately 33% of visits to Gatlininternational.co.uk are referred by search engines. Based on internet averages, this site is visited more frequently by females who are in the age range 45-54, are graduate school educated with children. 

Suggest any improvements that you think could be made.
Observation from the top search queries results for gatlin from alexa.com is that many of the searches do not match the main core business of this website (no1. Search query was description natural gas plant – the 3^rdsearch query was online bookkeeping). The correlation to search queries being matched to their core business would improve the quality of visitors so some keyword tidy up in the content wouldbe useful. There are 27 links on the site, good quality links from well ranked websites would improve the overall placing of this website in the search engine ratings. Using the link popularity tool it is clear that many of the linking sites could be improved, there is a  link from other learning organisations but many incoing links are not highly ranked and relevant websites. An entry to DMOZ would be useful to gain quality incoming link, currently there is no listing.

 Elearn UK – specialist online training provider

This website was selected as it is the best in class in the UK for selling online education and it is a website that I would hope to emulate /improve on some of the design and style at it is as excellent competitor example for my thesis project website.

Manual review –courses 37 times/learning 31 times/distance – 31 times/study – 19 times/home – 19 times

 What is Google search rank for those phrases (how high in the listings)?

 The main keyword phrases have high search volume with the primary keyword having the highest  which is good considering this website is a leader in selling online training.

 What is their page rank?

 4 (google)

Can you work out what their traffic is?

Elearnuk.co.uk has a three-month global Alexa traffic rank of 546,127. The time spent in a typical visit to it is approximately four minutes, with 60 seconds spent on each pageview. This site has been online for at least eight years. The site has a relatively good traffic rank in the city of Hatfield (#124). Roughly 67% of visitors to Elearnuk.co.uk come from the UK, where it has attained a traffic rank of 31,935.Based on internet averages, elearnuk.co.uk is visited more frequently by females who are in the age range 45-54, have children and are graduate school educated.

Suggest any improvements that you think could be made

The high impact search queries are elearn, online learning, study online and distance learning courses which are good matches for the core business and what would be envisaged for potential customers searching to purchase online training. This site has 38 sites linking to it and under examination many of these incoming links are from individuals on school webs and low ranking elearning information sites internationally. More good quality relevant links would assist driving traffic. Site has a listing on dmoz which is good for producing a good quality link in.

 Medical Terminology for Care – specialist medical online training provider

This website is the main competitor to my thesis project website so it is valuable to look at their detailed SEO activity.

Manual review –Medical – 70 times/terminology – 66 times/online -18 times/ interactive  – 27 times/ exercises – 15 times

What is Google search rank for those phrases (how high in the listings)?

What is their page rank?

2 (google)

Can you work out what their traffic is?

Medterminologyforcare.co.uk has a three-month global Alexa traffic rank of 11,815,917. There is no demographic information available from Alexa. 

Suggest any improvements that you think could be made.
Top search query for the site is “medical terminology” with 41.34% of search traffic. This is the main topic of the websites so this is a good match with core business , but it could be improved by ensuring “training” keyword appears in the phrases as the traniing element is absolutley how the website makes profit. Currently 73 searches a month are completed for “medical terminology training” phrase, although small ,it would still be good to add as a keyword phrase to include this more specific search. The keyword “training” should be added to the content as there are 4,090,000 local searches a month and this is the core of the business offering on this site and it does not appear in any strength. There are only 7 links to this website and investigation highlighted that the links were poor and not from related to highly ranked sites so this could be dramatically improved. An entry to DMOZ would be useful to gain quality incoming link, currently no listing.