© 2008 chris silver smith netconcepts [email protected] seo 101 presented by chris silver...

© 2008 Chris Silver Smith Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]

SEO 101

presented by Chris Silver Smith,

Lead Strategist, Netconcepts


Today’s Agenda

What is SEO? The Seven Steps to Higher Rankings

– Get Your Site Fully Indexed

– Get Your Pages Visible

– Build Links & PageRank

– Leverage Your PageRank

– Encourage Clickthrough

– Track the Right Metrics

– Avoid Worst Practices


Part 1: What Is SEO?


Everything Revolves Around Search


Search Engine Optimization

6 times more effective than a banner ad Delivers qualified leads 80% of Internet user sessions begin at the

search engines (Source: Internetstats.com)

55% of online purchases are made on sites found through search engine listings (Source: Internetstats.com)


SEO is NOT Paid Advertising

SEO – “Search Engine Optimization” – seeks to influence rankings in the “natural” (a.k.a. “organic”, a.k.a. “algorithmic”) search results

PPC – paid search advertising on a pay-per-click basis. The more you pay, the higher your placement. Stop paying = stop receiving traffic.

SEM – encompasses both SEO and PPC


Natural

Paid

Paid


Google Listings – Your Virtual Sales Force

Savvy retailers making 6-7 figures a month from natural listings

Savvy MFA (Made for AdSense) site owners making 5-6 figures per month

Most sites are not SE-friendly Google friendliness = friendly to other engines First calculate your missed opportunities


Not doing SEO? You’re Leaving Money on the Table

Calculate the missed opportunity cost of not ranking well for products and services that you offer?

# of people searching for your keywords

x

engine share (Google = 60%)

xexpected click-through rate

average conversion rate

average transaction amount

x x

E.g.10,000/day x 60% x 10% x 5% x $100 = $3,000/day


Most Important Search Engines

Google (also powers AOL Search, Netscape.com, iWon, etc.) – 60.29% market share (Source: Hitwise)

Yahoo! (also powers Alltheweb, AltaVista, Hotbot, Lycos, CNN, A9) – 22.58%

Live Search (formerly MSN Search) – 11.56% Ask – 3.63%


People Are Googling… Are You There?


What Are Searchers Looking For?

Keyword Research– “Target the wrong keywords and all your efforts

will be in vain.”

The “right” keywords are…– relevant to your business– popular with searchers


Keyword Research

Tools to check popularity of keyword searches– WordTracker.com– Trellian’s KeywordDiscovery.com– Google’s Keyword Tool– Google Trends– Google Suggest


WordTracker.com Pros

– Based on last 60 days worth of searches– Singular vs plural, misspellings, verb tenses all separated out– Advanced functionality: keyword “projects”, import data into Excel,

synonyms, … Cons

– Requires subscription fee ($260/year)– Data is from a small sample of Internet searches (from the minor

search engines Dogpile and MetaCrawler)– Contains bogus data from automated searches– No historical archives


Keyword Popularity –According to WordTracker


Trellian’s KeywordDiscovery.com Pros

– Full year of historical archives– Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (9 billion searches

compiled from 37 engines)– Singular vs plural, misspellings, verb tenses all separated out– Can segment by country– Advanced functionality: keyword “projects”, import data into Excel,

synonyms, … Cons

– Access to the historical data requires subscription fee (~$30/month)– Contains bogus data from automated searches


Keyword Popularity –According to KeywordDiscovery


Google AdWords Keyword Tool Pros

– Free! (Must have an AdWords account though)– Data is from a large sample of Internet searches (from Google)– Singular vs plural, misspellings, verb tenses all separated out– Can segment by country– Synonyms

Cons– No hard numbers

Augment this tool with other free Google tools: – Google Suggest (labs.google.com/suggest) – Google Trends (www.google.com/trends)


Keyword Popularity –According to

Google AdWords

Keyword Tool


Keyword Popularity –According to

Google Trends


Keyword Popularity –According to Google Suggest


Keyword Research

Competition for that keyword should also be considered– Calculate KEI Score (Keyword Effectiveness

Indicator) = ratio of searches over number of pages in search results

– The higher the KEI Score, the more attractive the keyword is to target (assuming it’s relevant to your business)


SEO. A Moving Target. A lot is changing…

– Personalization & customization– Vertical search services (Images, Video, News, Maps, etc.)– “Blended Search” – aka “Universal Search”

Fortunately, the tried-and-true tactics still work…– Topically relevant links from important sites– Anchor text– Keyword-rich title tags– Keyword-rich content– Internal hierarchical linking structure– The whole is greater than the sum of the parts


The Search Engines Are Your Friend Sitemaps.org Webmaster tools (e.g. Google Webmaster Central,

Live Search Webmaster Center, Yahoo Site Explorer) Rel=“nofollow” tag Meta NOODP tag Speaking at search engine conferences Publishing blogs dedicated to helping webmasters Participating on SEO forums “Weather reports”


SEO Can Dramatically Improve Traffic/Sales

Non-optimal site with few pages indexed

Optimized site with many pages indexed

Few visits/sales per day Many visits/sales per day!

$=


Part 2: Seven Steps to High Rankings


Begin The 7 Steps

1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed

2) Get Your Pages Visible

3) Build Links & PageRank

4) Leverage Your PageRank

4) Encourage Clickthrough

6) Track the Right Metrics

7) Avoid Worst Practices


1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed Search engines are wary of “dynamic” pages - they fear “spider

traps”

Avoid stop characters (?, &, =) ‘cgi-bin’, session IDs and unnecessary variables in your URLs; frames; redirects; pop-ups; navigation in Flash/Java/Javascript/pulldown boxes – If not feasible due to platform constraints, can be easily

handled through proxy technology (e.g. GravityStream)

The better your PageRank, the deeper and more often your site will be spidered


Lack of links down into all content pages;

Common Barriers to Spidering:

!Non-textlink sitewide navigation;• Search-form-only;

• Javascript/Java-only (ie: dynamic menus);

• Flash apps / Splash pages;

Non-optimal URL formats of pages;

http://www.example.com/app.jsp?sid=abc123xyz

URL Framed Content


1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed (cont’d) Page # estimates are wildly inaccurate, and include non-

indexed pages (e.g. ones with no title or snippet) Misconfigurations (in robots.txt, in the type of redirects used,

requiring cookies, etc.) can kill indexation Keep your error pages out of the index by returning 404 status

code Keep duplicate pages out of the index by standardizing your

URLs, eliminating unnecessary variables, using 301 redirects when needed


Results in “Supplemental Hell”


Example of Non-Optimal Site Design:

PR 8 site has META refresh redirect on homepage – spiders not redirected to destination page:

Also, indexed “shell” page doesn’t contain any text content!


Not Spider-Friendly

GET http://www.bananarepublic.com --> 302 Moved Temporarily

GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do --> 302 Moved Temporarily

GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do?targetURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bananarepublic.com%2Fbrowse%2Fhome.do&CookieSet=Set --> 302 Moved Temporarily

GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/cookieFailure.do --> 200 OK


2) Get Your Pages Visible 100+ “signals” that influence ranking “Title tag” is the most important copy on the page Home page is the most important page of a site Every page of your site has a “song” (keyword theme) Incorporate keywords into title tags, hyperlink text,

headings (H1 & H2 tags), alt tags, and high up in the page (where they’re given more “weight”)

Eliminate extraneous HTML code “Meta tags” are not a magic bullet Have text for navigation, not graphics


Pretty good title


Not so good title – where’s the phrase “credit card”?


Dynamic Site Leaves Session IDs in URLs:

Titles not specific to page (“jewelry”)

Main text on page just nav labels –Little text/keyword content


Good link text and body copy


No link text or body copy


Take a peek under the hood


The “meta tags”


Unnecessarily bloated HTML


3) Build Links and PageRank “Link popularity” affects search engine rankings PageRank™ - Links from “important” sites have more impact

on your Google rankings (weighted link popularity) Google offers a window into your PageRank

– PageRank meter in the Google Toolbar (toolbar.google.com)– Google Directory (directory.google.com) category pages– 3rd party tools like SEOChat.com’s “PageRank Lookup” & “PageRank

Search”

Scores range from 0-10 on a logarithmic scale Live Search and Yahoo have similar measures to

PageRank™


Google’s Toolbar – with handy PageRank Meter


Google Directory – listings are organized by PageRank


Conduct any Google query and get results organized by PageRank



Your home page’s PageRank gets distributed to your deep pages by virtue of your hierarchical internal linking structure (e.g. breadcrumb nav)

Pay attention to the text used within the hyperlink (“Google bombing”)

Don’t hoard your PageRank Don’t link to “bad neighborhoods”


Ideal internal site linking hierarchies:

Homepages often will be highest-ranking site pages since they typically have

most inbound links.

Good link trees inform search engines about which

site pages are most important.

*Sitemaps can also be used to tell SEs about pages, & to define relative priority.



Avoid PageRank dilution– Canonicalization (www.domain.com vs. domain.com)– Duplicate pages: (session IDs, tracking codes,

superfluous parameters)– In general, search engines are cautious of dynamic

URLs (with ?, &, and = characters) because of “spider traps”

• Rewrite your URLs (using a server module/plug-in) or use a hosted proxy service (e.g. GravityStream)

• See http://catalogagemag.com/mag/marketing_right_page_web/


Duplicate pages


Googlebot got caught in a “spider trap”


Search engine spiders turn their noses up at such URLs


Thus, important content doesn’t make it into the search engine indices


Zipf’s Law applies - you need to be at the top of page 1 of the search results. It’s an implied endorsement.

Synergistic effect of being at the top of the natural results & paid results

Entice the user with a compelling call-to-action and value proposition in your descriptions

Your title tag is critical Snippet gets built automatically, but you CAN influence

what’s displayed here

5) Encourage Clickthrough


Where do searchers look? (Enquiro, Did-it, Eyetools Study)


Search listings – 1 good,1 lousy


6) Track the Right Metrics

Indexation: # of pages indexed, % of site indexed, % of product inventory indexed, # of “fresh pages”

Link popularity: # of links, PageRank score (0 - 10)

Rankings: by keyword, “filtered” (penalized) rankings

Keyword popularity: # of searches, competition, KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Indicator) scores

Cost/ROI: sales by keyword & by engine, cost per lead


Indexation tool –www.netconcepts.com/urlcheck


Link popularity tool –www.netconcepts.com/linkcheck


Avoid Worst Practices Target relevant keywords Don’t stuff keywords or replicate pages Create deep, useful content Don't conceal, manipulate, or over-optimize

content Links should be relevant (no scheming!) Observe copyright/trademark law & Google’s

guidelines


Spamming in Its Many Forms… Hidden or small text Keyword stuffing Targeted to obviously irrelevant keywords Automated submitting, resubmitting, deep

submitting Competitor names in meta tags Duplicate pages with minimal or no changes Spamglish Machine generated content


Spamming in Its Many Forms…

Pagejacking Doorway pages Cloaking Submitting to FFA (“Free For All”) sites & link farms Buying up expired domains with high PageRanks Scraping Splogging (spam blogging)


BMW.de hosted many

“doorway pages” like

this one


“Sneaky redirect” sent searchers to

this page


Not Spam, But Bad for Rankings Splash pages, content-less home page, Flash intros Title tags the same across the site Error pages in the search results (eg “Session expired”) "Click here" links Superfluous text like “Welcome to” at beginning of titles Spreading site across multiple domains (usually for load

balancing) Content too many levels deep


What Next? Conduct an SEO Audit!

Is your site fully indexed? Are your pages fully optimized? Could you be acquiring more PageRank? Are you spending your PageRank wisely? Are you maximizing your clickthrough rates? Are you measuring the right things? Are you applying “best practices” in SEO and

avoiding all the “worst practices”?


Review Errors/Messages in Webmaster Tools


Content Opt Opportunities via Webmaster Tools


Check Robots.txt Exclusions in Webmaster Tools


Case Study: Homestead.com

What worked– Comprehensive SEO & usability audit – Intensive on-site training sessions with their IT and

marketing teams– 6 months of support

What didn’t work– No significant changes to the look of the home

page were allowed for political reasons, significantly reducing the options available


Case Study: Homestead.com

Results– Within 8 weeks of launch of some preliminary

optimization work, on page 1 for “website hosting” in Google

– With our audit as a blueprint, later that year launched an internally built site redesign which landed them the #1 Google position for “website hosting”

– Consistently held #1 position for 2 years


In Summary Focus on the right keywords Have great keyword-rich content Build links, and thus your PageRank™ Spend that PageRank™ wisely within your site Measure the right things Continually monitor and benchmark


Further Reading blogs.cnet.com/seosearchlight google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769 www.google.com/webmasters/ www.mattcutts.com/blog googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com blog.outer-court.com www.searchengineland.com www.seroundtable.com www.naturalsearchblog.com www.stephanspencer.com


Q&A!

Special White Papers Available:

Image Search Optimization

Local Search Optimization Tactics

New Link Building Paradigms

Online Marketing Tips for Universities

Tips & Tricks for Local Search Ads

Email: [email protected]

© 2008 chris silver smith netconcepts [email protected] seo 101 presented by chris silver...

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