SEO 101: The Fundamentals of Search Engine Optimization17.02.2016

What Does It Take to Pop Up in the Natural Search Results?A 2016 SIMPLE FOUNDATIONAL SEO GUIDE

OUTLINE FOR TODAY’S SEO 101 WORKSHOPGoal: Put the Massive Field of SEO into Manageable Perspective

• This session will not be exhaustive• Could very easily launch into hour-long

talks on all sorts of individual aspects of SEO

• Instead, the purpose of today’s talk is to provide a helpful road map

• Orientate you for further exploration• Provide resources to investigate on your own• Plan future sessions to dig deeper into more

specific subtopics and strategies

WHO PUT YOU IN CHARGE?SEO Resume for the Speaker

15 Years of Execution for Clients of Various Shapes & Sizes

Nikki Johnson

LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/nikkijohnsonhqo

> TIG Global - Vice President of Copywriting• SEO and content development for hotel / travel industry

> HQO SEO, LLC – President & CEO • SEO / copywriting for small and medium-sized business

> Plugin Group – Managing Partner• White-label marketing services for ad agencies

> Galileo Tech Media – President• SEO and data-driven marketing services for big

brands and enterprise companies> Binary.com – Marketing Director

• Recruitment and management of multilingual content marketing team for international financial trading platform

A FEW WORDS FROM OUR SPONSORSpecial Thanks to Binary.com for Hosting This SEO 101 Workshop

Now Hiring Like Gangbusters!> Careers Page:

• https://www.binary.com/careers?l=EN

> Open Positions:• https://www.binary.com/open-positions?l=EN

> To Apply: • hr@binary.com

A QUICK CASE STUDY: Search for “White Label Marketing Agency” • PluginGroup.com appears in the top spot /

on the first page?• This is the second company I started,

woohoo!• Delivered qualified new leads each week, for

free!

• Sample of finding the SEO sweet spot!• Search volume for the targeted keywords

was: • High enough to deliver steady, relevant traffic

to our website• Low enough to still be “winnable,” from a

realistic perspective

• So the process does work!• This workshop will walk you through a basic

framework• So you can start wrapping your head around

getting SEO to work for you

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)Definition: Process of Improving a Website’s Visibility in the Natural Search Results

WHY DOES SEO MATTER?Do The Math: • 93% of online visits begin with a search

engine• Search Engine Journal

• 64% of website visitors come from organic search

• Conductor

• 50% of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone visited a store within a day

• Search Engine Land

• 18% of local mobile searches lead to a sale within a day

• Search Engine Land

WHY DOES SEO WORK SO WELL?It’s All About Creating Win-Win Scenarios • Ultimately, it’s a

matter of connecting:

• Search engine customers actively looking for certain things

• Suppliers who can fulfill those specified needs

• Everybody wins!

• Businesses can thus connect with receptive customers, all for “free”

THEN WHY IS SEO SO DIFFICULT?The Bottom Line: It’s Super-Competitive

• Everybody wants to rank!• Millions of websites,

all vying for attention

• Can’t all appear on the first page• Need to be smart and

realistic in approach

WHAT ELSE MAKES SEO CHALLENGING?Involves Such a Broad Array of Specialties • Left-Brain Skills

• Keyword Research• Back-End Coding / Programming• Data Analysis

• Right-Brain Skills• Design / UX• Copywriting• Social Media

• Takes a Small Army to Execute All of These Things Really Well

ANYTHING ELSE THAT MAKES SEO TOUGH?Further Complications • Add the Dimension of Time!

• Constant evolution• Undergoes continuous tweaking, for the purposes of:

• Continual quality enhancement of search results• Preventing “gaming of the system” by spam artists

• Throw in Increasing Personalization of Results! • Search results are now customized to each user,

depending on his/her:• Location• Personal search / site-visitation history• Social connections• Etc.

• No two users see exactly the same search results

GAH! SEO SOUNDS LIKE SHEER MADNESS!Where Do You Even Start? • Just Breathe

• No Need to Lose Your Head

• Take It Nice and Easy• Prioritization of Efforts• “HQO Ripple Effect”:

• Start with a Certain Set of Activities• Increasingly Expand Over Time,

to Rank for:• More Competitive Keywords• Additional Phrases

ONE HELPFUL CONSIDERATIONSome Basic Factors Will Always Signal Strong Relevance EXAMPLE: If a given page is relevant to a particular keyword, it probably:

• Appears in certain places on the page• Title?• Heading?• Paragraph text?• Images / multimedia?

• Is repeated a few times in the midst of the page• Amid the rich description

• Is surrounded by synonyms and related words• Used in the process of describing the given keyword topic• “Semantic search”

REACHING ACROSS SEARCH ENGINESMany Common Factors to All Search Engines• Each search engine has its own unique

formula for determining rankings• Google dominates the field by far,

in terms of market share

• However, there are common factors to the basic characteristics that tend to signal relevance across the board

• Similar to keyword usage on the previous page

• Stay focused on these constants first and foremost, to keep things manageable

• Cover the basics first• Then move on to the elements that involve:

• Greater complexity• Increased frequency

Google: 70.80%Bing: 9.83%Yahoo!: 9.57%Baidu: 7.52%

AOL: 0.59%Ask: 0.23%Excite: 0.01%Lycos: 0.01%

Data from China Internet Watch: June 2015

ANOTHER HELPFUL SEO FRAMEWORKConsider the Primary Objective of the Search Engines • Search Engine Objective:

• Provide solid, highly relevant content to satisfy users actively searching for info related to particular keywords

• Therefore, Your Objective Should Be: • Demonstrating to the search

engines that you have solid content with genuine relevance to actively searched keywords

APPLYING REALISMThe Most Critical Element to SEO Success in 2016 • The Key Question:

• Realistically, how likely am I to appear on the first page for this keyword?• How does my site stack up against all of the other websites that could be considered relevant to

this term?• Do I legitimately belong on the first page for this keyword, based on the full range of info

available to users related to this phrase?

• This Humble Approach Helps You Stay Focused on:• Geographically based terms

• Hyperlocal• Niche terms, geared toward particular:

• Customer segments / audiences• Certain types of products / services• Specific attributes / modifiers• Other characteristics that help to:

• Limit the competition• Increase likelihood of conversion,

through targeted focus

EVOLUTION OF THE SEO WORLDToday, SEO Best Practices Are Digital Marketing Best Practices Past:

• When I started 15 years ago, the “Venn Diagrams” for SEO and overall marketing practices were not nearly as well-aligned

• Many SEO practices existed solely to appeal to the search engines• Such tactics left much to be desired for human users

• Keyword stuffing• Useless directories and a whole cottage industry of “link farms”• Mountains of pages with weak, mostly duplicated content,

exclusively designed for the purpose of ranking• Etc.

• Google and the other major search engines have been stamping out these malpractices with a vengeance, with each successive update

Present:• Search engines have become increasingly more sophisticated

• Getting closer and closer to being able to assess web content just as a human would

GREY SCALE OF SEOFull Spectrum of SEO Tactics • White-Hat SEO

• Entirely pure and well-intentioned best practices

• The best route for long-term success

• Black-Hat SEO• Dark and sinister tactics• Tend to work only for a short time, until

they are discovered and rooted out

• Grey-Hat SEO• The shady ground in the middle of these

two extremes

SEO MECHANICSExactly How Are Rankings Determined? • Algorithm

• Complex mathematical equation that incorporates hundreds of different factors

• Indexing• Believe it or not, Google does not actually

search the Web itself whenever a user inputs a set of keywords

• Instead, Google maintains its own copy of the Web, which it can navigate a lot more quickly to process queries

• This copy is known as the “Google Index”

• In order for Google to include your site in its ranked results, it must be “crawled” and included in its index

ANATOMY OF A SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS PAGE

Dissecting the “SERPs” • Organic Results

• Ten “natural” search listings per page

• Paid Results• Sponsored listings, fueled by AdWords

• Local Results• Tied to the map

• Knowledge Graph• Google’s data warehouse about people,

places, animals, events, history, and topics• Compiled from authoritative sites such as:

• Wikipedia• CIA World Factbook• Freebase

PAID RESULTS

LOCAL RESULTS

ORGANIC RESULTS

SOME OF GOOGLE’S MAJOR UPDATESA Veritable Zoo of Evolutionary Changes to Its Algorithm • Panda

• Low-quality content cleanup

• Penguin• Linking malpractice crackdown

• Hummingbird• Semantic search updates

• Pigeon• Local search updates

RANKBRAINThe Latest Mind-Blowing Enhancement to Google’s Algorithm

• Launched at the end of October 2015• Now all the rage in the SEO world!

• Machine-learning artificial intelligence system• Processes huge volume of queries• Uses AI mechanisms to provide

increasingly better answers

RANKING FACTORSBasic Dichotomy: Onsite and Offsite • Onsite SEO Factors

• Enhancements made to the website itself

• Offsite SEO Factors• Best practices applied to the way the site

engages with the rest of the World Web Web

• Proverbial Metaphor in Effect Here• Analogous to a tree falling in the forest with

no one to hear it• Not just about adjusting the website itself, in its

isolated state• Half of SEO also deals with its interactions with

the larger ecosystem• Need to treat both as equally important

to make an impact

ONSITE RANKING FACTORS• Keyword Research

• Short-tail / long-tail phrases with:• Relevance to your offering• Active search demand

• Google AdWords Keyword Planner• Possibly paired with an SEM campaign

• On-Page Optimization• Title Tag• Meta Description• Header Tags• Descriptive Text• Alt / Image Tags, as Appropriate

• Technical Factors• XML Sitemap• Robots.txt• Google Webmaster Tools & Analytics Setup• Canonicalization / Redirects• Schema & Markup

OFFSITE RANKING FACTORS• Content Marketing & Link Building

• Creation of “Shareworthy” Content• Focus on Content Promotion through

High-Quality, Trusted, Authoritative Sources

• Engaging Prospects with Interesting Content

• Social Media• Interacting with target audiences as real

people• Measures of active engagement and

“likeability”

• Local Directories & Review Sites• Play a particularly important role in the

Local Search section

SOLID SEO RESOURCES TO EXPLOREDeeper-Dive Sites • Guides

• Moz• Beginner’s Guide to SEO

• https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

• Google• Search Engine Optimization Guide

• http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

• Blogs• Use an RSS reader to track news from:

• Search Engine Land• Search Engine Journal• Search Engine Watch• SEO Book• Marketing Land

Take the Plunge intoSEO

HANDFUL OF SEO EXPERTSJust a Few Kings of Content in this Realm • Matt Cutts

• Former Head of Web Spam for Google

• John Mueller• Webmaster Trends Analyst for Google

• Rand Fishkin• Founder, Former CEO, and “Wizard” of Moz

• Danny Sullivan• Co-Founder of Search Engine Land

• Neil Patel• Founder of CrazyEgg, Kiss Metrics, QuickSprout

• Josh Bachynski• Self-Made SEO Consultant & Documentarian

SEO 101 CONCLUSIONSWhat Have We Learned Here Today? • Before getting bogged down in the details, take a step back

• Cover the basic low-hanging fruit first• Then move onto the tougher stuff

• Use a realistic approach• To start, focus on keywords that are:

• Geographically based• Niche-centered

• Then expand your focus to incorporate:• More competitive keywords• Additional phrases

• Above all, relax, knowing that:• Following “white-hat” SEO best practices will help you succeed with

digital marketing as a whole

• Questions?

Thanks for AttendingToday’s SEO 101 Workshop!See You Again Soon! Bring Your Friends!