SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing...

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seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 1

Transcript of SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing...

Page 1: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 1

Page 2: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 2

seo seo website development Drupal

Presenter: Greg Hill

July 13, 2011

Page 3: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 3

panda monium just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean nobody’s out to get you

named after the Google engineer, not the bear

mostly affecting:

content farms

scraper sites

ecommerce

what sites it’s not affecting:

most

Page 4: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 4

before you do anything,

you must understand how to connect with your audience

this is the single greatest mistake made by most

websites

breadth and depth of your audience

their interests and syntax

Page 5: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 5

start with keyword targeting

big picture

vet concepts

seo market research

online competition analysis

content

align your site with the terms your audience actually uses (jargon killer)

content strategy /mapping

on-page optimization

off-page optimization

Page 6: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 6

keyword tools tools are making it more difficult to target keywords. here

are some that may help:

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolEx

ternal

Google Suggest

~tilde search operator – synonyms

Microsoft Advertising Intelligence

http://bit.ly/iUCIVR (requires MS Excel 2007/2010)

sever logs, AWStats, etc.

Webmaster Tools

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

Analytics

Wordstream $

Keyword Discovery $

Wordtracker $

PPC – test your keywords

use exact match for queries

Page 7: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 7

produce good content – concept not new, but always works

“clarity trumps persuasion” -- Flint McLaughlin, Ph.D.

foundation for all online marketing

optimize content for web & social pages

what content would attract, engage, and retain visitors? must be useful and unique. here’s where keyword research kicks in

define objective of site, content strategy, page, landing pages before starting

define action and path you wish visitors to take

focus should be on message

use language your audience would use – anoter benefit of keyword research

eliminate elements that don’t support objective

calls to action & not just in one place

align landing page content with query

images & video help if they support objective

Page 8: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 8

working targeted keyword phrase into content

1. <title>keyword in start of title element </title>

2. Compelling title text followed by site name

3. Navigation – html and css makes sense from seo

perspective

4. N/A

5. headlines (h1-h6)

6. html text rather than embedding in images or flash.

Include keyword a few times. use alternative forms

as well.

7. images – see separate slide

8. <a href=”http://example.com”>

keyword in anchor text on internal links </a>

Page 9: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 9

additional keyword placement opportunities

9. Add video – see separate panel

10. <strong>keyword in strong element</strong>

11. <em>keyword in italics</em>

12. Keyword in file names and URI

a. http://example.com/keyword-phrase

b. http://example.com/keyword-phrase.pdf

c. http://example.com/keyword-phrase.jpg

d. use dashes as spacers in file names and URLs

remember: everything in moderation. be descriptive but don’t go overboard. read your copy out loud. if your content sounds

like seo gibberish, well, it is seo gibberish. and who wants that?

Page 10: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 10

social media

social media drives audience engagement, buzz, direct

traffic and it is a big influencer of search

as its becoming more difficult to find trustworthy backlinks,

social has become the new backlink

ranking signals

1. number of followers

2. ratio of number of followers to following

3. who you are connected to

4. authority of those who follow you

5. authority of those that retweet you

6. retweets, likes, +1

7. the big platforms are where it’s at (FB, Twitter,

LinkedIn (to some degree), and now Google+, +1)

8. interaction between you and your audience

Page 11: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 11

best approach

1. create an audience, engage them

2. connect with your community

3. don’t be too commercial – authenticity wins

4. cross promote your content - are your tweets ending

up on Facebook and vice versa

5. optimize your profiles

6. use conversational tone

7. engage with your followers

facebook

open graph http://bit.ly/924XLA combined with like

twitter

1. are you getting retweeted?

2. ratio of followers to following

Page 12: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 12

youtube

1. 2nd largest search engine!

2. source for direct traffic

3. optimize your profile

Google

1. Google+ - not certain where it will go but if social influences rankings, where should you be?

2. Google profile https://profiles.google.com/

linkedin

1. less seo value

2. more self-contained

3. if your audience is there, then you should be there

a. connections

b. direct traffic

Page 13: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 13

you’ve got to have butttons

why? they’re use is a ranking signal and it’s a method for leveraging content

across your network

Google +1: http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/+1/button/index.html

tweet button: http://twitter.com/about/resources/tweetbutton

linkedin share button: http://www.linkedin.com/publishers

facebook: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/

Page 14: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 14

mobile & more mobile

according to Google about 40% of places search is mobile

how does your site look on mobile devices including smart phones including iPhone, Android etc. how about tablets?

people find you via mobile devices

get local

almost every search can be local

mobile device technology fuels search growth-drives this, guarantees it

look to Google properties as well as yelp, and others

Google Places (Local) http:// www.google.com/placesforbusiness

Bing Local http://www.bing.com/local/

Yahoo Local http://local.yahoo.com/

Page 15: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 15

web fonts - welcome to the 2010s

web font libraries provide design flexibility and are SEO friendly. they avoid questionable image replacement techniques

@font-face or api

http://code.google.com/webfonts

http://www.kernest.com/

http://typekit.com/

Page 16: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 16

add sitemaps supported by Google and others

xml sitemaps help search engines index difficult-to-find pages/resources

video (specify a thumbnail!)

pages and images

news

mobile

geo-data (for location-based

content)

Google Code

Resource: Google About Sitemaps http://bit.ly/bOymkF

Page 17: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 17

page load is a ranking signal

why?

impact of universal and real-time search?

user experience, page quality signals

o when users click away, that speaks negatively

resources

webmaster tools

YSlow for FF/Firebug/Chrome http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/

web tool kit http://code.google.com/webtoolkit

Page 18: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 18

webmaster tools

they’re improving all the time.

use them – they will reveal interesting data about your site

Google: http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Bing: http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster/

Yahoo: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ (RIP, we’ll miss you)

Page 19: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 19

Google webmaster

tools dashboard

showing errors 1. diagnose issues

2. add sitemaps

3. choose “Preferred domain”

4. see what people are searching for

5. now Google +1 Metrics

Page 20: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 20

images

match image to topic

alt text describes image

o include keyword but don’t stuff

o use alt=”” for spacers and design elements

title: include for when users mouse/hover over image

words and caption around image matter

href – provide good but brief description

o include keyword phrase

title has little to no SEO value but hover text does have value to users

user keyword and dashes in file name open-end-wrench.jpg

specify width x heigh

Page 21: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 21

where Google gets it’s data (but not all the time)

Page 22: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 22

Useful meta elements

If you do one thing right, write a good title element

The title and meta description elements are direct-response advertising opportunities within the search engine results pages.

Write compelling copy, get more clicks.

<title>Keyword, Top on-page ranking factor with Google? | example.com</title>

Google: 65 to 66 Characters and spaces unless last word ends at between 67 and 70. Possibly as much as 200 considered in

rankings.

Usability: less than 70 characters and spaces is better.

Must be unique

Page 23: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 23

write a good meta desription

<meta name=”description” content=”a good meta description won’t likely improve your rankings but it can have a dramatic

effect on clickthroughs. />

Google has been showing much longer meta descriptions on some terms however, keep the length to 145 (Yahoo!) or 150

(Google) characters and spaces.

should be unique

meta keywords

<meta name="keywords" content="Probably a waste of time unless you get a lot of traffic from low-tier search engines or

enjoy exposing competitive intelligence." />

not worth the effort

Page 24: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 24

navigation

if you can view HREFs in the source, all is good

build it with HTML, CSS, JQuery, JS

it doesn’t have to suck

avoid Flash

avoid frame/iframe (seriously, it’s not 1995)

if site is large, point to categories

categories can point to pages or subcategories

try not to go too many levels deep

(shoot for no more than 3 levels)

Page 25: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 25

h elements

one h1 per page, but more than 1 of h2-h6 is

observe hierarchy

work your keyword into h1 (not magic bullet)

<h1>page headline</h2>

<h2> sub heading/topic 1</h2>

<h3>topic 1 section</h3>

<h4>topic 1 subsection</4>

…<h6>follow this structure for h2-h6</h6>

<h2>topic 2</h2>

<h3>topic 2 section 1</h3>

<h3>topic 2 section 2</h3>

<h4>relates to h3 above</h4>

Page 26: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 26

robots.txt

every site should have one http://www.robotstxt.org/

search engines look for them

it’s a request, not a command – pages can still be indexed – meta robots might be a better alternative

WARNING: THIS WILL KILL YOUR SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS: User-agent: * Disallow: / This will disallow a development or staging directory: User-agent: * Disallow: /dev/ Disallow: /staging/ Disallow: file-name.html ever hear of shooting yourself in the foot?: IF YOU DISALLOW SEARCH ENGINES FROM A DEV SITE, MAKE CERTAIN YOU REMOVE THE STATEMENT WHEN YOU DEPLOY THE LIVE SITE!! WHY AM I YELLING?

Page 27: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 27

meta robots

<meta name="robots" content="index, follow" />

or

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, follow" />

rel canonical

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com/web-page-name"/>

good resource: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=139394

Page 28: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 28

404 pages are an opportunity

when a page is no longer available, and there are no appropriate pages to redirect the user to, present a 404 page.

however, you should work to retain your visitor:

add appropriate calls to action directing the user to popular pages and products

present optional navigation

don’t redirect to home page

search 404 page

Page 29: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 29

domain canonicalization

all of the following URLs are perceived by search engines to be the same page:

http://www.example.com PR 3

http://example.com PR 4

http://www.example.com/index.html PR 1

http://example.com/index.html PR 0

result: split PageRank, incorrect pages indexed

Lately we've been using non www on new sites (eg http://example.com vs http://www.example.com) .

Why? Twitter. We save 4 characters.

On mature domains? A number of considerations before domain canonicalization:

print collateral

pageRank and link profile considerations previous practice

Page 30: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 30

mod_rewrite

Boston PHP’s Matt Murphy gave a presentation on mod_rewrite http://bit.ly/nWjFGd

examples in .htaccess file:

# 301 Redirect from www to non-www: RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [L,R=301] # 301 Redirect from non-www to www: RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example.com [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Page 31: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 31

canonical URLs

eCommerce example: multiple URLs, same product:

http://example.com/product-one (canonical)

http://example.com/product-one?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=campaign1

http://example.com/category1/product-one

http://example.com/category2/product-one

http://example.com/search/product-one

http://example.com/product-one?session_id=3886998698jf8983983

http://example.com/PRODUCT-ONE

Canonical Link element (a "very strong hint" or suggestion, not a command. 301 redirects are more authoritative)

In <head> add the link tag on the duplicate page(s) and point it to the canonical page:

<head> <link rel="canonical" href="http://example.com/product-one" />

</head>

rel canonical supported cross-domain since 2009

read more http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

Page 32: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 32

AJAX

when you have multiple buckets of content, what state do you want indexed?

dilution of context occurs with all data visible to search engines. can change the intent and meaning of a page

Google doesn’t prefer user agent sniffer

worth looking at: Making AJAX Crawlable http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dc75gmks_120cjkt2chf

Page 33: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 33

checking rankings

it’s more difficult now – personalized and customized

search skew search results

new SERP elements compete for space

use anonymous browsing mode to query

sign out of Google account

Page 34: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 34

100% valid

markup is

required to rank

well

well,

that’s not true

there are a lot of good reasons to

validate your markeup. however,

unless there is a serious issue, validation typically won’t affect rankings. if it did, the search results pages would be empty

Page 35: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 35

PageRank doesn’t flow like it used to For the most part, PR sculpting is no longer a benefit

tactics to avoid

1. burying the lead – instead be very clear about what you and your page is about – you only have a few seconds 2. stop trying to fool Google and instead focus on impressing your visitors 3. if you know a little, don’t over use it- it’s usually wrong 4. much of the solid tactics that worked 5 years ago still work (OK, so social isn’t a small change) 5. avoid hyperactive use of keywords – everything in moderation 6. don’t stretch resources over multiple domains 7. avoid using the same title or meta description on more than one page 8. don’t hide text 9. no link networks 10. don’t spam forums and blogs 11. avoid linking out to shady sites 12. don’t obsess over PageRank or rankings, do watch your analytics

Page 36: SEO Tactics For a Rapidly Changing Webfiles.meetup.com/120818/excellira-seo-bostonphp-2011-07-13.pdf · seo tactics for a rapidly changing web excellira - qualified search targeting

seo tactics for a rapidly changing web

excellira - qualified search targeting http://www.excellira.com 30 Great Road, Suite 5, Acton, MA 01720 USA 978.287.0010 @excellira

presentation available at http://bit.ly/qT9NQz 36

questions? contact? connect?

Greg Hill

Excellira

30 Great Road, Suite 5

Acton, MA 01720 USA

978.287.0010

seo2 AT excellira.com

excellira.com

twitter @excellira

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