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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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>
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?
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
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
open graph http://bit.ly/924XLA combined with like
1. are you getting retweeted?
2. ratio of followers to following
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
1. Google+ - not certain where it will go but if social influences rankings, where should you be?
2. Google profile https://profiles.google.com/
1. less seo value
2. more self-contained
3. if your audience is there, then you should be there
a. connections
b. direct traffic
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/
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/
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/
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
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
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)
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
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
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)
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
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
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)
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>
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?
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
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
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
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]
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
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
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
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
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
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
G+
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