SEO DEMYSTIFIEDPART II

Why SEO Should be Less Like Rocket Science and More

Like 3rd Grade Math

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PART I REVIEWKeyword Analysis

Content Development

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CUSTOMER

KEYWORDS

CONTENT

PART II PREVIEWOn-Site OptimizationOff-Site Optimization

GOALS• Build on lessons learned in Part I• Clear understanding of SEO fundamentals• Give specific examples, tips and tricks• Encourage you to give SEO a try• Show how ExpertBase can help

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ON-SITEOPTIMIZATION

You’ve got great content, now what?

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ACCESSIBILITY

INTERNAL LINKING

ON-PAGE

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ACCESSIBILITY • Helpful Hint

– Don’t worry about your PR!– Focus on crawl rate, crawl depth and

indexation rate

ACCESSIBILITY • Site Architecture

– Allows content to be crawled/indexed– Organized categorically, logically – Static link to every page on your site

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ACCESSIBILITY • Best Practice

– No matter how large or small your site, you NEED to be using sitemaps.

ACCESSIBILITY • Site Maps

– Site Map Page• www.google.com/sitemap.html

– XML Site Map• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sitemaps#File_

format

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ACCESSIBILITY • Site Maps

– Site Map Page• www.google.com/sitemap.html

– XML Site Map• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sitemaps#File_

format

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ACCESSIBILITY • Rules of Thumb

– Include your XML sitemap location in your robots.txt file

– Use both types of site maps whenever possible

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ACCESSIBILITY • Robots.txt

– www.sitename.com/robots.txt• Noindex Tag

– <meta name=“robots” content=“noindex” />

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ACCESSIBILITY • Robots.txt

– www.sitename.com/robots.txt• Noindex Tag

– <meta name=“robots” content=“noindex” />

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ACCESSIBILITY • Why Block Pages?

– Privacy Concerns– Low Value Pages– Duplicate Pages– Etc.

ACCESSIBILITY • Helpful Tip

– Use BOTH robots.txt AND noindex to block content, when possible.

– Especially important information

ACCESSIBILITY • Images, Flash, JavaScript and AJAX

– Does not execute JS files or AJAX calls– Cannot read images or flash– Content using these methods is NOT indexed

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ACCESSIBILITY • Images, Flash, JavaScript and AJAX

– Does not execute JS files or AJAX calls– Cannot read images or flash– Content using these methods is NOT indexed

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INTERNAL LINKING• Google Webmaster Guidelines

– “Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.”

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INTERNAL LINKING• Types of Links

– Navigational Links– Cross-Links

INTERNAL LINKING• Types of Links

– Navigational Links– Cross-Links

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INTERNAL LINKING• Linking Strategy

– Link location matters– Link only to relevant content– Control the # of links on your pages

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INTERNAL LINKING• Rules of Thumb

– The further down the page the link, the less chance that a spider will crawl it

– The more links on a page, the more diluted the link juice or link flow

INTERNAL LINKING• Anchor Text

– Hyperlinked text– Utilize keywords– Provide context

INTERNAL LINKING• Anchor Text

– Examples• Click Here sucks• Experts Exchange is better• Microsoft Help is better yet• [Question Title] is the best

INTERNAL LINKING• When in Doubt

– Use the title of the page you are linking to as your default strategy.

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ON-PAGE ELEMENTS• URL Structure Ground Rules

– Subdomain vs. Subdirectory• subdomain.domain.com/subdirectory/

– Use keyword-rich nomenclature– Separate with dashes (-)

• /microsoft-excel/– Avoid database parameters, queries

• index.php?product=1234&sort=price&print=1

ON-PAGE ELEMENTS• URL Structure

– www.expertbase.com/drive-traffic/search-engine-optimization/seo-demystified.html

ON-PAGE ELEMENTS• Header Tags

– Title Tag (< 70 Characters)• <title>title of page</title>

– H1, H2, H3 Tags• <h1>h1 content here</h1>

– Description Tag (< 155 Characters)• <meta name="description" content=“description here” />

– Keyword Tag • <meta name="keywords" content=“insert, keywords” />

– Rel=”Canonical” Tag• <link rel="canonical" href=“URL” />

ON-PAGE ELEMENTS• Rel=Canonical

– Example • www.domain.com/page-a.html• www.domain.com/category-one/page-a.html • <link rel="canonical" href=“www.domain.com/page-

a.html” />– Best practice to use 301 redirect instead

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ON-PAGE ELEMENTS• Helpful Tip

– Start your Title Tags with keywords• Example:

– [Site Name] | Descriptive Keyword Stringvs.

– Descriptive Keyword String | [Site Name]• vs.

– Descriptive Keyword String

ON-PAGE ELEMENTS• Other Elements

– Keyword Repetition– Keyword Variations

• Microsoft Excel, Excel, Microsoft– Alt Attributes

• <img src=“URL" alt=“alt text" width="" height="" />– File Names

• keywords-here.jpg– Bold/strong and Italic/emphasized

ON-PAGE ELEMENTS• Key Takeaway

– Tags and keywords should be UNIQUE to each page on your site and provide context to what is on the page.

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OFF-SITEOPTIMIZATIONYou’re only as good as others

say you are!

OFF-SITE OPTIMIZATION• Trust/Authority of Domain

– With SEO, trust is not given, it is earned• Elements Impacting Domain Authority

– Quality of Domains Linking to Your Site– Number of Links to Your Site– Growth Rate of Site– Age of Site/Content– Site Usability Metrics

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OFF-SITE OPTIMIZATION• Link Popularity of Pages

– Links = votes– More links = higher perceived value/quality– Links from high authority, highly related sites– Links to specific pages, deep in your site– Quality > Quantity

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OFF-SITE OPTIMIZATION• Anchor Text!!!

– Encourage linkers to use relevant keywords– Links are good, links with optimized keywords

in the anchor text are better!

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OFF-SITE OPTIMIZATION• Social Queues

– Quality content leads to action– Action = shares, tweets, likes, blog posts– Shares = links

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OFF-SITE OPTIMIZATION• Article Stats

– Written on 4/26/2011– 533 Tweets– 114 Likes

• Results– #2 result for ‘great content’ by EOD

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KEYWORDS +GREAT CONTENT +OPTIMIZED SITE +

SOCIAL/LINKS =

SEO SUCCESS!

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STEP #1:KNOW YOUR KEYWORDS

KNOW YOUR KEYWORDS• Audience Analysis

– Needs– Demographics

• Keyword Analysis– Trending– Competition– Volume

STEP #2:OPTIMIZE YOUR

WEBSITE

OPTIMIZE YOUR SITE• Site Architecture

– Indexation– Linking strategy– Link juice

• On-Page– URL, Title Tag, H1 Tag– Keyword use in content body

STEP #3:SECURE YOUR SOCIAL SITES

SECURE SOCIAL SITES• Bare Minimum

– Twitter– Facebook– YouTube– LinkedIn

STEP #4:CREATE KICK-BUTT

CONTENT/TOOLS

KICK-BUTT CONTENT• Become an Expert

– Add value– Thought-leadership– Take a stance

• Content Types– Video– Whitepapers– Articles, Blogs, Podcasts, Answers

STEP #5:SHARE CONTENT,

BUILD LINKS

LINK BUILDING• Make Sharing Easy

– Automate URL shortening– Include social logos on pages– Ask for the share

• Join the Conversation– Engage customers on social sites– Promote content to followers

STEP #6:START A Q&A COMMUNITY

Q&A COMMUNITIES• Use ExpertBase to:

– Engage Customers– Build Online Community– Establish Expertise– Create Valuable Content– Build Links to Site– Drive Targeted, Relevant Traffic

CONTACT INFO

Jonathan Hoekman805.787.0603 x 202

jonathan@expertbase.com@jhoekman

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