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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)FOR VISIBILITY, ACTION & CONVERSION

April 19, 2011

OBJECTIVES FOR TODAY

Understand the elements critical to having a successful SEO program in place for your company

Learn about the tools and tactics necessary to ensure your website is found for targeted keywords

Understand more about how search engines view your website

Decide if your efforts can accomplish the goals you have established

Slides will be made available to you after the event.

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SEO for Visibility, Action & Conversion // Kevin Mullett

kevinmullett.comtwitter.com/kmullettfacebook.com/kevinmullettlinkedin.com/in/kevinmullettjust google “kevin mullett”

director of product development

SEO // WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

search engine optimization is*:developing a website utilizing best

practices and in such a manor that there are no encumbrances to the search engines ability to crawl a site and properly understand the subject of the site, find the sites pages, links, and documents, so that it might be included in the search engines organic or natural index appropriately.

* but it depends on who you ask and

search engine marketing is an open debate.

paid search vs organic

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // HIGHLY VISIBLE IS HIGHLY DESIRABLE

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

photo by David Evers: http://flic.kr/p/5XwMZC

you have to be where your ideal demographic can see you in front of competitors if necessary obey the rules or have your sign removed tell a better story

SEO // WINNING REQUIRES KNOWLEDGE

what are the rules how can i optimize within the rules which races can i win while staying within my budget am i dedicated to the winning strategy how much is winning worth

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // VISIBILITY IS ONLINE CURRENCY

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

no visibility = no clicks unattractive or spammy titles & descriptions (snippets) = no clicks clicks for incorrect terms = no conversion poorly planned landing pages with no CTA = no conversion

SEO // WHERE WILL I SPEND OUR MARKETING $

but where are you going to spend your marketing budget?

A. traditional advertising (off-line; radio, tv, print, listings)

B. social media (organic)

C. social media (advertising, facebook, sponsored tweets, etc)

D. paid search

E. all of the above

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // IS IT THE INTENT WINNER?

social dm tv radio tradeshows newspaper yellow pages search Marketing SEO

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // THINK YOU CAN IGNORE SOCIAL MEDIA?

business who are still trying to avoid social media or who are being overly selective may not be getting the entire picture. less discussed are the SEO, visibility, and traffic value that social media can provide.

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // SOCIAL IS NOW IN SERPS

how will it change social participation? how will it change where we click on a SERP page?

- flickr, friendfeed, gmail, facebook, buzz, reader, google

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ARCHITECTURE MATTERS

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

i’ve never seen a perfect launch, i.e. one where I got todo everything I wanted

projects are always limited by: time, money, effort, resources, knowledge, buy in (from HIPPOs or clients)

test conversions, measure results

SEO // TECHNICAL, ONSITE & OFFSITE FACTORS

There are technical, onsite (page), & offsite (page)

factors that contribute to your sites SERP performance.

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ARE YOU IN TROUBLE?

if your site is… trapped by flash looking good but can’t

be found built in a way that

prevents you fromchanging or adding content

if you can’t change page titles, and meta descriptions

you’re in trouble.

ask for a free lame duck site evaluation

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // SEARCH ENGINES CHANGE

google alone uses over 200 criteria/signals for ranking site pages, performs over 6000 tests and subsequently changes over 400 algorithms per year. who will be watching for changes at your company or organization?

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // MAYDAY, FARMER/PANDA, WHAT?

google mayday (April 28th – May 3rd 2010)

looking for signals of QUALITY deep page content crawling looking for best sites for long-tailed queries

google panda (late Feb, tweaked in April)

• content farms & article marketing• low quality sites• aggregated or duplicate content

google’s looking for “original” content

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // WHAT IS GOOGLE +1?

google +1 (date) not rolled out to all yet in search results and adds on sites ala “like” button google experimental search

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // BING + YAHOO = BINGHOO

are you too focused on google? yahoo switched to bing SERP results

(started in July, completed Aug 24th)

according to nielsen company that puts binghoo at 26% (Aug 2010)

experian hitwise now reports bing search is 30% of share (Mar 2011)

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // GOOGLE INSTANT

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

how has google instant changed SEO? long tail, short tail, keyword phrases, traffic, adsense impressions…

SEO // ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL

there are over 200 criteria so you must do competitive

analysis to maximize your return on efforts.

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ACTION 1

create a list of competitors sites run competitive analysis with majestic SEO: 

majesticseo.com/bulk-backlink-checker.php develop a plan to win or call in reinforcements

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // LOCALIZATION IS ON THE RISE

mobile device “local searches” on the rise local search (7 pack) instills high confidence with searchers social applications like foursquare, gowalla, etc

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ACTION 2

grab your local listings:getlisted.org

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

be consistent with citation: name, address, phone number

SEO // THE NEW BING BUSINESS PORTAL

highly customizable with mobile and qr codes new fields for facebook pages and twitter profiles

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ACTION 3

review your local analyticsgoogle.com/places

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ACTION 4

setup google profiles for you & your businessgoogle.com/profiles

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // WE ALL WANT TO BE #1

when dealing with SEO we need to have reasonable expectations for KW (keyword) and KWP (keyword phrases). We also need to understand that the higher the competition for KW/KWP terms the longer it is likely to take to move up unless more effort is brought to bear.

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // SELECT THE RIGHT KEYWORDS

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

We've taken clients to number one on Google

based on keywords they insisted had to be there, only to find out

that a slight derivation would have yielded exponential traffic.

SEO // ACTION 5

poll your customer facing employees; ask who are your clients

write down what you really do & who you are competing against

take the keywords & keyword phrases you think are important and verify volume with adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal 

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // I’VE NOTHING TO WRITE

a common complaint is not

knowing what to write & what

keywords to target

fresh content is crucial newest articles win

all else being equal

increases site depth increases crawl rate

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

CONTENT IDEA STARTERS

What questions do you repeatedly get from your prospects during the sales process?

Customer stories, testimonials and case studies

What is your passion for what you do and the customers you serve?

Product or service updates/ changes

How are current events having an impact on your business and the resulting impact on your customers

Provide a window into the human side of your company – use Video!

Product or service tips you can offer your clients

Promote new clients Tradeshows, event

marketing – pre/during/post

SEO // TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS

when writing page titles keep the title to 70 characters when possible use localization and keywords/keyphrases early in the title think about attractiveness + bolded words (will it get clicked?)

when writing meta descriptions(these usually become snippet)

keep the description to 156 characters when possible think about attractiveness + bolded words

consider the impact on your CTR and visibility

words included in your titles and descriptions should also appear on the page

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // MISSED OR SKIPPED TECHNICAL TASKS

header tags: H1-H6

alt tags: often missed

(don't say picture or image of, google already knows its an image)

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ACTION 6

for each page of your site run & reviewtools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/(don't try so hard to get a certain saturation that you lose good long tail connecting words or relevance! Don’t stress about duplicate content.)

change title tags & descriptions first because they are valuable & clarify thinking

start with keywords & keyword phrases you already rank for

make sure there is a call to action on every page

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // INTERNAL LINKING; DON’T CLICK HERE

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

formulating your internal linking structure search engines want to know what’s on the other end keyword use where it is highly valuable

example: click here for our Search Engine Optimization Services.

SEO // ALL BACKLINKS; AREN’T EQUAL

why do we want backlinks? visibility / brand recognition traffic generation / linkbait

(to pages or our site) to encourage page or site indexing increase page rank / authority to impact

SERPs because someone told you to get them

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ACTION 7

ask Suppliers for backlinks ask Customers (mutually beneficial btw) create new, subject matter expert, articles on your site

and tell the world link to the page with content, not always home look for places to post your site or site RSS feed comment on blogs, but add value/don’t spam

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SMO // ACTION 8

grab your brand mass id check with namechk.com

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

own your brand clog the SERPs push competition off proactive not reactive sentiment aware alerts/lists are crucial

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ACTION 9

article awareness, distributing RSS social visibility

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

tell potential visitors

and the search

engines you have

new content

SEO // ACTION 10

network your brand join some groups on ning.com & linkedin.com

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // DID IT WORK? DO IT AGAIN

check google analytics or server logs for:bounce rates, time on site, pages visited, conversion pages, confirmation pages (setup advanced filters & funnels)

monitor contacts, calls, lead sources google a/b testing

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // ACTION 11

get: Rank Checker

a Firefox browser add-on measure baseline measure changes measure competition check in private browsing

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

SEO // BONUS ACTION

video! differentiate from your competition easy and inexpensive increased visibility

@kmullett // #SEOIndy

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