Introduction to SEO

Search Engine Optimisation

A quick & dirty intro guide to playing tag with search engines

Barry AdamsSenior Digital Marketer for SearchPierce Communications

Barry Adams credentials

Senior Digital Marketer for Search at Pierce Communications

Previous:SEO & PPC consultant for the Independent News & Media

(Belfast Telegraph, nijobfinder, nicarfinder, Property News)Web Consultant to SMEs in the Netherlands In-house webmaster and digital marketer for Honeywell &

Philips

Search blogger on State of Search (www.stateofsearch.com) and Search News Central (www.searchnewscentral.com)

Prolific twitterer (@badams)

Who is this guy and why is he teaching SEO?

http://www.stateofsearch.com/

http://www.searchnewscentral.com/

Agenda

What is SEO?

How do you do SEO?

1

2

3

Why is SEO important?

What is SEO?1

Wikipedia: Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

Getting more relevant traffic to websites via search engines' organic results.

Search Engine Optimisation

Definition of SEO

2 Why is SEO important?

Search Engines

UK Search Engine Market Shares

Google Bing Yahoo! AOL Ask Other

SE Market Share 2010

Google 92.03% Bing 3.17%

Yahoo! 2.95% AOL 0.91% Ask 0.85% Other 0.09%.

Some Relevant Statistics

Search Engine Usage 89% of all online purchases in the UK begin with a search 92% of all UK Internet users choose Google as their preferred search engine Organic search results receive over 75% of all clicks 91% of users do not look past the first page of search results

Worldwide Internet Usage 2 billion users online Dec 2009: 131 billion searches (that’s more than 49,000 searches/second)

51.4 milion users (82.5% of the population) In April 2010, Google received 4.1 billion search page views in the UK The UK internet economy is worth £100 billion = 7.2% of UK gross domestic

product

UK Internet Usage

Google

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

Organic (natural) Results

Paid Advertising (PPC: Google Adwords)

Google Instant & Google Suggest

Verticals & Search Refinements

Universal Search

News Results

Image Results

Video Results

Local Results (Google Maps)

How do you do SEO?3

Generic SEO Tools

Slide 22

Google Analytics- Free world-class web analytics- Know what is happening on your website- SEO purposes: discover which keywords drive the most traffic & sales- Will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses- http://google.com/analytics/

Rankchecker (Firefox plugin)- Free tool to check where your website ranks in Google for a given set of

keywords- Not 100% accurate: rankings are fluid (personalised results, local results, etc.)- http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

http://google.com/analytics/

http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

SEO is about two things:

Keywords Links Keywords match a search query to

a webpage. Links determine which webpage

ranks highest.

The SEO process

Slide 24

KeywordResearch

On-Page Optimisation

Linkbuilding

Find the right keywords to optimise for

Implement those keywords on the website Make the website search-engine friendly

Build links to the website to increase its authority

KeywordResearch

Find the right keywords to optimise for.

Keyword Research

Start with a basic set of keywords related to the website and the industry it operates in- engagement ring, diamond engagement ring, gold engagement ring

Use a keyword tool to expand the list and research competitive info- wedding ring, wedding band, platinum bands, white gold engagement rings,

cheap engagement rings, custom engagement rings, hand-made wedding rings, design your own wedding ring, celtic wedding rings, ...

Refine the list to a set of target keywords- diamond engagement rings, celtic wedding rings, gold wedding rings, platinum

wedding bands, white gold engagement rings

The Long Tail

Keyword Research ToolsGoogle Adwords Keyword Tool – http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Advanced options: country & language settings

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Match Types: Broad / [Exact] / “Phrase”

Keyword Research Tools

Wordtracker - http://wordtracker.com/

http://wordtracker.com/


Google Trends – google.com/trends


Google Suggest

Keyword Research

Slide 34

Tips and advice:

Make sure your target keywords are relevant to the website’s business

Go for keywords that you can actually rank for (hint: ‘car insurance’ is probably out of your league)

Try to mix generic keywords (‘wedding ring’) with long-tail keywords (‘white gold engagement ring’)

Don‘t rely too much on keyword tools, their data isn‘t 100% accurate – use common sense

Monitor your SEO results to find out which keywords perform the best, and focus your efforts there

Re-do your keyword research for ongoing clients regularly

The SEO process

Slide 35


Implement those keywords on the website Make the website search-engine friendly


Slide 36

Search Engines rank webpages – not websites

Build a page around a theme and stick with it:

One page about wedding rings

One page about engagement rings

One sub-page about white gold engagement rings

Don’t stuff a webpage full of keywords – moderation is key

Always keep the end user in mind – don’t write for search engines, write for users!


Title tag

Meta Description tag

Headlines and paragraph structure

Body text

Image alt attribute

+++++

URLs

Internal links

Sitemap (HTML and XML)

+++

Elements to be optimised:


<title>Digital Marketing Training Courses from the Digital Marketing Institute</title>

Start with your focus keyword, end with your brand name (you can use separators like – and | )

Keep it short – 65-70 characters Unique title for every page on your website Usually shown on SERPs (but not always)

Slide 38

Title tag+


Slide 40

Headlines and paragraph structure+

<H1> headline

<H2> subheader

<H3> subheaders

<p> paragraphs

Allows SEs to understand the content and its context


Write for users, not for search engines More content = better for search engines Less content = better for users Minimum 200 words (rough guideline) Include your focus keyword(s) and synonyms Write naturally and make it readable Don’t stuff it full of keywords

Slide 41

Body text+

Find the right balance


Make images relevant to the content Include a relevant alt attribute – preferably containing (part of) the

focus keyword Can you think of a better alt attribute than the one above?

Slide 42

Image alt attribute+

<img src="http://digitalmarketinginstitute.ie/files/2008/11/ireland-map.jpg" alt="Ireland Map with pins">


Bad URL:http://domain.com/default.aspx?p=43351&s=abx&ref=ps-2301-g&…

Good URL: http:// domain.com/wedding-rings/platinum-wedding-band.html

Don’t overdo it – no keyword stuffing Use a logical structure that makes sense to humans

Slide 43

URLs+


Link from top to bottom Link sideways & diagonally Use keywords in the link

Wrong:To read more about wedding rings, click here.

Right: Read more about wedding rings.

Use breadcrumb links

Slide 44

Internal links+


Slide 45

Sitemap (HTML and XML)+ HTML Sitemap:

- Webpage listing all (relevant) pages on the website- Allows users to quickly find the page they’re looking for- Allows search engines to index all pages on your website

XML Sitemap:- XML file containing all webpages on a website that you want to get indexed- Can also include images and videos- Gives more information to search engines: update frequency, importance,

preferred URL, date of last change.- Never a replacement for a good indexable website!


Slide 46

Hidden text (white text on a white background)- don’t use it, it doesn’t work and may get you penalised.

Meta Keywords tag- mostly useless but for completion’s sake you can fill it in.

Keyword Stuffing- doesn’t work and may get you penalised.

Shockwave Flash- invisible to search engines so don’t use it if you don’t have to

JavaScript- mostly invisible so be careful when using it

Lies, Myths, and Disinformation:

On-Page Optimisation Tools

Slide 47

XENU Link Sleuth- http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html- Indexes all pages of a website - data is exportable to Excel- Use to create XML sitemap & diagnose title tags, meta descriptions, internal

linking, and indexation issues

Firebug (Firefox plugin)- http://getfirebug.com/- Use to diagnose header tags, image alt attributes

Google Webmaster Tools- http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/- Representation of how Google sees your website- Great data!- Pay attention to the warnings

http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

http://getfirebug.com/

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

Google Webmaster Tools

Slide 48

The SEO process

Slide 49

Linkbuilding Build links to the website to increase its authority

Linkbuilding

Slide 50

Links determine a page’s authority Higher authority = higher ranking on SERPs More links = higher authority Not all links are equal

- 1 valuable link from a high authority website > 100 links from low-quality sites

Link text is very important- Branded link: Pierce Communications- Keyword-rich link: Web Design Belfast a website needs both

Linkbuilding

Slide 51

PageRank- A measure of how important Google believes the page is- Not an accurate measure but gives a general idea- 0 = bad, 10 = awesome

mozRank- Developed by SEOmoz and a little bit more accurate than PageRank

Not ‘nofollowed’- rel=nofollow attribute means a link will not pass any value

Common Sense- Spammy websites = low quality link- Popular site = high quality link- Relevant site = valuable link

How to see if a link is valuable or not?

Linkbuilding

Slide 52

Reciprocal links- Site A links to site B, and site B links back to site A- Not very valuable – avoid if you can

Link wheel- Site A links to site B, site B links to site C, site C links to site A- Not very valuable and a spam signal – avoid if you can

One-way link- Site A links to site B. The end.- Most valuable type of link – get lots of these!

Different types of links:

Linkbuilding

Slide 53

How to build links?

Directory Submissions

Press Releases

Article Marketing & Guest Blogging

Linkbait

1234

How to build links?

Slide 54

Online (business) directories such as:- Dmoz.org- Business.com- Best of the Web (botw.org.uk)

The best directories are usually paid Always check if a directory link is valuable

- What is the PageRank of where your link will end up?- Is that page/category even indexed by Google?- Is the link nofollowed?

Usually good for building a base of branded links Try to find vertical directories relevant to your industry

Directory Submissions1

How to build links?

Slide 55

Great way to build valuable links Make sure your press release…:

- Is newsworthy, relevant, and interesting enough to be worth reading- Contains a link back to your site (preferably with a keyword-rich link text)

Use professional PR distributors- PR Web: £40 to £200 per press release- PR Newswire UK: pricing per article- BusinessWire: pricing per article- MyNewsDesk: £0 to £590 per month

No guarantee it will be picked up by news outlets- But generally more money spent translates to more & better links

Press Releases2

How to build links?

Slide 56

Write relevant articles / blog posts (or hire a copywriter) Links in article & in author bio Article sites:

- www.ezinearticles.com- www.goarticles.com- www.articledashboard.com- www.articlecity.com- www.articlesbase.com

Guest blogging:- www.myblogguest.com- www.bloggerlinkup.com

Approach blogs & websites directly and offer content

Article Marketing & Guest Blogging3

How to build links?

Slide 57

Linkbait is:- Content (published on your website) that is so interesting / funny / newsworthy /

controversial that people will link to it without having to be asked

Types of linkbait:- Great articles with valuable insights- Infographics- Breaking news stories- Top 10 lists

Spread via social media- Share on Twitter & Facebook- Submit to social news sites such as Reddit

Linkbait4

Linkbuilding Tools

Slide 58

SearchStatus Firefox plugin- http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/- Shows a webpage’s PageRank & mozRank and highlights nofollowed links

SEOmoz Open Site Explorer- http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/- Free version shows you a good overview of links pointing to a site- Analyse your competitor’s links and see if you can get some of them as well- Don’t just copy, but let yourself be inspired

Google Webmaster Tools- See some of the links that Google actually counts

http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/

Barry Adams

[email protected]://twitter.com/badams

Questions?

What’s next?

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Reading Material & Advanced SEO

Reading Material

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Search Engine Land- http://www.searchengineland.com/

SEOmoz- http://www.seomoz.org/blog/

State of Search- http://www.stateofsearch.com/

Search News Central- http://www.searchnewscentral.com/

Search Engine Journal- http://www.searchenginejournal.com/

SEO is not static, so keeping up to date is crucial

http://www.searchengineland.com/

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/

http://www.stateofsearch.com/

http://www.searchnewscentral.com/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/



Advanced SEO

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Search Intent- Informational / Navigational / Transactional queries- Matching user intent to your SEO goals- http://www.seomoz.org/blog/segmenting-search-intent

Search Patents & Research Papers- Insight in to how search engines operate- Technically challenging so leave the interpretations to the experts!- http://www.seobythesea.com- http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Algorithm-Matters/SEO-Higher-learnin

g.html

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/segmenting-search-intent

http://www.seobythesea.com/

http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Algorithm-Matters/SEO-Higher-learning.html

http://www.huomah.com/Search-Engines/Algorithm-Matters/SEO-Higher-learning.html

Advanced SEO

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Information Retrieval (IR)- A discipline of Computer Science- IR is what search engines do: retrieve information from the web with the highest

possible levels of precision and recall- http://nlp.stanford.edu/IR-book/information-retrieval-book.html

Information Architecture (IA)- Making information accessible to humans- Websites built using good IA are nearly always SEO-friendly - http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527341

http://nlp.stanford.edu/IR-book/information-retrieval-book.html

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527341

Advanced SEO

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Microformats / Microdata / RDFa- Also known as ‘structured data’- Meta information – information about information- http://microformats.org/

HTML5- Next-generation HTML code containing new markup- Very SEO-proof, makes life for search engines much easier- http://diveintohtml5.org/

http://microformats.org/

http://diveintohtml5.org/

Introduction to SEO

Technology

Transcript of Introduction to SEO