Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Introduction

Definition

• Improving and promoting processes for a website in order to increase the number of visitors the site receives from search engines (moz.com, 2014).

• SEO includes different types of skills, that targets image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines (Beel, Jöran and Gipp, Bela and Wilde, Erik, 2010).

• SEO is not just about “engines”, it’s about making a site better for people, in a way that search engines understand, or simply to build links and marketing the unique value of the site’s offering.

Do we need that?

• The answer is Yes!

– We are providing content, services, products, information or anything else via Internet

– Opportunities to show, or lead specific target customers to look at what we offer via search

– Chance to achieve reputation, revenue, exposure in the cheapest way of marketing and high ROI

Without SEO, what’s happen?

• Search engine (SE) is a form of technology which helps users find the information they need on Internet. SE is not a flawless, there is a limit.

• SEO is a way or a “guidebook” that helps content available to SE, boost rankings and create a competitive advantage against competitors via Internet.

How can I learn SEO for myself?

• SEO is flexible, complex, free and available on the web.

• SEO may be broad and general approach, sometime it has a highly specialized focus.

• 3 elements that you need to learn SEO:

– Time commitment

– Willingness to learn (from others)

– Marketing strategy creativity

10 core concepts of SEO

1. How Search Engine operate2. How people interact with Search Engine3. Why Search Engine Marketing is necessary4. The basic of Search Engine friendly design &

development5. Keyword Research6. How usability, experience & content affect Rankings7. Growing popularity and Links8. Search Engine tools and services9. Myths & Misconceptions about Search Engines10. Measuring and Tracking success

1st core: How SE operate

Crawling &

Indexing

Providing Answers

SEO

Crawling & Indexing

• Internet is a spider web with lots of point (usually a website, sometime a PDF, JPG or others), the SE need to “crawl” the entire web and find all the points along the patterns, so we have “links”.

• Through links, SE’s automated robots, called “Crawlers”, or “spiders” can reach any points on the web.

• Once “Spiders” find these pages, they next decipher the code from them and store selected pieces in massive hard drives, to be recalled later when needed for a search query.

Providing Answers

• SE are Answer Machines.

• It search and provide the most “relevance” and “importance” results to the searchers.

• “Important” factor is decided by the popularity

• In the search marketing field, the “ranking factors” decides level of popularity of information

• SE Ranking Factors 2013:

http://moz.com/search-ranking-factors

SEO advices from Google Webmaster Guidelines

1. Pages for users, not for SEs (display what you got)

2. Clear hierarchy and text links (every page should be reachable from at least one static text link)

3. Useful and information-rich site, write pages clearly and accurately describe your content. (<title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate)

4. Use keywords to create descriptive, human friendly URLs, using 301 redirects or the rel=“canonical” element to address duplicate content

SEO Advices from Bing webmaster guidelines

1. Clean, keyword rich URL structure

2. Content clearly from rich media (Adobe Flash Player, JavaScript, Ajax), verify rich media doesn’t hide links from crawlers

3. Keyword-rich content based on research, match what user searching for, fresh content regularly

4. Don’t put text that you want indexed inside images, eg: company name or address (which I want to be indexed) should not displayed inside a company logo (image)

2nd core: How people interact with SE

• Search processes:

Need for answer/solution

Query (words and phrases)

Enter the query in SE

Browse through the results for a

match

Click on a result

Scan for a solution or a link

Satisfied, done

Return to the search results and browse for another link

New search with refinement to query

3 types of search queries

• “DO” transactional queries

• “KNOW” Informational queries

• “GO” Navigation queries

References

1. Beel, Jöran and Gipp, Bela and Wilde, Erik (2010). "Academic Search Engine Optimization (ASEO): Optimizing Scholarly Literature for Google Scholar and Co.". Journal of Scholarly Publishing. pp. 176–190. Retrieved April 18, 2010.

2. Moz.com (2014). The beginners guide to SEO.