search engine optimization fundamentals
DESCRIPTION
SEO lecture on the fundamentals, presented internally at Up2Technology (http://www.up2technology.com)TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Search Engine Optimization
The eye-opening presentation for beginners
Author: Kalin ChernevDate: 1st Nov 2012
![Page 2: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Agenda
● Background information
● Preparations: research and analysis
● On-page and off-page optimizations
● Monitoring and maintenance
![Page 3: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Agenda
● Background information
● Preparations: research and analysis
● On-page and off-page optimizations
● Monitoring and maintenance
![Page 4: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results.
What is SEO actually?
![Page 5: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
How effective is SEO?
![Page 6: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
How search engines work?
1. User makes a query
2. User location information is taken for better targeting and search personalization
3. Index server searches for the query information
4. Search results are returned
5. Results are sorted and filtered
6. Results are shown
![Page 7: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Starting on solid grounds ...
![Page 8: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Facts on online/offline shopping
![Page 9: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Paid vs organic results statistics
![Page 10: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Why do we optimize for Google?
Information source: http://www.statowl.com/search_engine_market_share.php
![Page 11: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Click-through rates by site position
![Page 12: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Mind! Delicious pie charts coming!
![Page 13: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
SEO factors
![Page 14: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
SEO factors - a bit more general
![Page 15: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
SEO factors - even more general
![Page 16: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Remember: focus on the big picture
● Effective keywords● Website technology● Links● Competition● Trends● Content● Control and maintenance
![Page 17: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Types of optimization - overview
On-page (on-site) optimization
● Unique content
● Accessibility (bots can access the website and crawl it)
● URL structure (domain)
● Internal linking structure
● Sitemap
● Title, Meta tags, Heading Tags, Internal Anchor Text
● Images, Maps, Video
Off-page (off-site) optimization
● Link Building
● Social networks
● Forums and other viral marketing
![Page 18: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
How you start? Bottom-up approach.
![Page 19: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
The SEO process
![Page 20: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
The SEO business story
![Page 21: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Agenda
● Background information
● Preparations: research and analysis
● On-page and off-page optimizations
● Monitoring and maintenance
![Page 22: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
Step 1: Select effective keywords
![Page 23: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
Long-tail analysis
![Page 24: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
Keyword phrase length conversion
![Page 25: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
SEO Master Toolbox
● Keywords research and analysis
○ Google AdWords Keyword Tool
○ Google Search-Based Keyword Tool
○ SEO Book Keyword Tool
○ Wordstream Keyword Tool
● Checking the trends
○ Google trends
○ Google Insights for Search
● Software tools
○ SEO Powersuite
○ SEOMoz
![Page 26: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
Agenda
● Background information
● Preparations: research and analysis
● On-page and off-page optimizations
● Monitoring and maintenance
![Page 27: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
Step 2: Prepare your site
![Page 28: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
The perfectly optimized page
● Web page content as text
● Title, Meta tags, Heading Tags
● URL, anchor links, meta
descriptions, etc
● Alt tags and descriptions for images
and videos
![Page 29: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/29.jpg)
On-site factors for better results
![Page 30: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/30.jpg)
On-page factors
● in the page meta description tag - this is the advertisement of the page;
● in the page title tag, especially in the beginning;
● in H1 tag, especially in the beginning;
● in the first 50-100 words of the HTML of the page;
● in the other headings <h2> to <h6>;
● in the alt text of images;
● file name of the image file;
● <b> is for styling, <strong> is for semantic representation;
● Keyword Density Formula - Google it, simple rule => don't overdo optimizations;
● in list items <li> of the page;
![Page 31: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/31.jpg)
H1 and H2
● Always with text, not cufon or images;
● H1 should be 1 per page, not more;
● H1 tag length should be about 3-5 words;
● h2 is like sub-headings;
● Target keywords are placed in the beginning;
● Don't forget to use synonyms;
![Page 32: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/32.jpg)
Title and description
About titles
○ The title should be between 65 and 70 in length;
○ Use pipe | for separations, for example title of page | title of website;
○ Target keywords are placed in the beginning for more weight;
○ Maximum 2 target keywords are used at the same time per page;
About descriptions
○ Description should be about 150 and 167 symbols in length;
○ This is your advertising message seen in the search results;
○ Should be unique, catching and meaningful;
○ Target keywords are placed in the beginning for more weight;
![Page 33: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/33.jpg)
Titles and descriptions lengths
![Page 34: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/34.jpg)
Domain
Domains and extensions factors on the optimization
● Domain name - important, should contain the keywords
● Domain extension - avoid spammy .cc, .info, etc
● Subdomain - ok, if a lot of traffic and content
● Domain names in cyrillic - sometimes help
![Page 35: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/35.jpg)
Keywords in the domain influence
![Page 36: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/36.jpg)
Website accessibility
● Spider / Bot
● initial crawling
● robots.txt
● .htaccess
● Robots meta tag
● Index / noindex
● Follow / nofollow
![Page 37: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/37.jpg)
Sitemaps
● HTML sitemaps - for website visitors and users, better navigation
● XML sitemaps - for SEO purposes, for Google Webmaster Tools
Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site we might not otherwise discover. In its simplest terms, a XML Sitemap — usually called Sitemap, with a capital S — is a list of the pages on your website. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google's normal crawling process.
![Page 38: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/38.jpg)
Performance
Good performance is growing to be more and more important.
Build your website well from the start.
Google guidelines on best practices
Tools:
Google PageSpeed Tools - checklist of website components to optimize
Speed Tracer - identifying performance problems
YSlow - just another performance tool from Yahoo!
![Page 39: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/39.jpg)
Step 3: Competition and trends
![Page 40: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/40.jpg)
Competition
Approach: research what and how your competitors are achieving their current results, and do the same with a bit more
To start with: find out which are their target keywords?
● Research paid search prices to define level of difficulty● Make the homework checks:
○ the number and quality of their inbound links○ their social networks presence○ the number of indexed pages they have in Google○ the age of the domain
● Analyze your competitors code and learn from the good practices
![Page 41: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/41.jpg)
Trends
Idea: Be careful with the trends. Some campaigns include season-dependant target keywords, which are not effective throughout all parts of the year. For example, all kinds of winter sports and hotels should be optimized during winter.
![Page 42: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/42.jpg)
Step 4: Content and links
![Page 43: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/43.jpg)
Content and links should be inter-related focus categories.
If you build good content, other websites will link to you.
If you have many links to your website, search engines give you credits for being important, and give you better positions.
With better positions in search results, your website gets more traffic.
And the more traffic you receive, the more important your website is accepted to be, which brings you even better positions and more traffic
Content and links
![Page 44: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/44.jpg)
Link baiting is the process of getting links to your website.
You can stimulate inbound links by many ways● listing your website directories such as the open directory and Yahoo!● participating in social networks as facebook.com, linkedin.com, etc● participating in twitter.com● participating in website competitions, such as "best website of"● viral marketing in video sharing websites as youtube.com● sharing presentations on slideshare.net and related● sharing documents into document sharing websites● participating in forums with target audience
Remember: focus on the value of the content, and links will come naturally.
Link baiting
![Page 45: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/45.jpg)
Agenda
● Background information
● Preparations: research and analysis
● On-page and off-page optimizations
● Monitoring and maintenance
![Page 46: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/46.jpg)
Step 5: Monitoring and control
![Page 47: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/47.jpg)
Monitoring metrics
● Website position by target keywords
● Traffic to the website by target keywords
● Users' time spent on the website
● Conversions of visitors to buyers
![Page 48: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/48.jpg)
Monitoring tools
● Google Analytics
● Google Webmaster Tools
● link-assistant.com tools
● SEO Book Tools
● Chrome and Firefox Extensions
● Many, many others
![Page 49: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/49.jpg)
Thanks and final words
Conclusions are that SEO is not that hard. But you need strategy
and clear vision. And you need patience and consistent work.
Focus on:
1) effective target keywords
2) your website (the things you say to the world)
3) competition and trends (your environment)
4) the value of your content (to make the world talking)
5) monitoring and maintenance (to keep your good results)
![Page 50: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals](https://reader033.vdocuments.site/reader033/viewer/2022051514/54b5f5c94a7959bb7e8b45d1/html5/thumbnails/50.jpg)
Questions and comments