SEO Strategy for WordPress Websites & Blogs
WordCamp Raleigh 2014
Jake Aull | ZenFires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding
404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | [email protected] | @jakeaull
SEO Strategy for WordPress Websites & Blogs
Find the following presentation & others referenced here on www.slideshare.net/jakeaull
Jake Aull has written WordPress SEO Success for Pearson Prentice-Hall – their first book of its kind (http://bit.ly/1fxIQzu). He has also been GSU’s first Social Media Marketing and SEO course writer and instructor since 2010, directing students to create new social channels driving measurable traffic to major brands. He was a reviewer of, and wrote the instructor’s manual for, Pearson-Prentice Hall’s first social media marketing text book.
! T.O.C. ! Digital Marketing & SEO Objectives
! SEO Strategy & Plan ! Architecture & Linking
! Social Media ! SEO Stages of Execution ! SEO Details – Breakdown of Stages
! Review
Intro…
Questions & Planning
Jake Aull
! One big happy/dysfunctional family? ! Digital research
! Technical/code integrations ! Content planning/writing
! Off-site implementations (i.e., backlinks) ! Social media integrations ! Location directories and profiles
! “Making Google Happy”
What’s SEO & How Does it Apply to You?
! Goals? ! SEO ! Marketing/digital ! Content/social
! Strategy ! Tactical
implementations ! Content channels
integrations
! Analytics ! Proving goals results
Driving Questions
! Nature of WordPress site ! Brochureware
! eCommerce ! Blog/magazine
! Forum/social site ! Mobile ! **(Note: Plenty more website types in the book WordPress SEO Success)
Driving Questions
Digital Marketing & SEO Objectives
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding
404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | [email protected] | @jakeaull
- Page rank
- Top/first page results goals
- PPC and first-page real estate
- Competitive
- Suppress bad reviews
- Local SEO
- First-time search or new site
- Social Media Optimization
SEO (& PPC) Objectives
SEO Stages of Execution
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding
404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | [email protected] | @jakeaull
! Strategy & Discovery ! Keyword Analysis & discovery ! Marketing strategic alignment ! SEO plan ! Keyword/copywriting plan
! Implementation & Programming ! Coding keywords & tags ! Robot.txt file ! Search engine integrations ! Analytics integrations & auto-reporting ! Geo-local integrations ! Google Images, video, etc.
The Stages of SEO
! Off-site Activities ! Local directories set-up
! Submission to social sites & social search engines ! Articles & PR publishing
! Obtaining links
! Ongoing Maintainance ! SEO new content ! Reviewing analytics
The Stages of SEO
SEO Strategy & Plan
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding
404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | [email protected] | @jakeaull
! PROBLEMS TO SOLVE:
! BENEFITS:
! Why should customers visit our site or buy our product?
! WHAT IS THE BRAND PERSONALITY WE WANT TO PROJECT? ! Tone of copy:
! MARKETING/DIGITAL STRATEGY: ! Existing:
! Proposed:
! POSITIONING STATEMENT OR USP:
Keyword Discovery & Content Strategy
! TARGET AUDIENCE: ! CURRENT TARGET CUSTOMER BELIEF ! CURRENT TARGET CUSTOMER CLICKING/BUYING BEHAVIOR ! DESIRED FUTURE CUSTOMER BELIEF ! DESIRED FUTURE CUSTOMER CLICKING/BUYING BEHAVIOR
! WHY SHOULD CUSTOMER BEHAVE THIS WAY?
! TARGET CUSTOMER INSIGHT:
! KEYWORDS: ! Previous website & competitor keywords
! Client list
! Post-analysis recommendations
Customer Targeting & Journey
SEO & Site Architecture
WordCamp Raleigh 2014
Jake Aull | ZenFires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding
404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | [email protected] | @jakeaull
SEO Sitemap guide for 20-‐25pg website Home
|
| | | | | | |
main naviga,on Floor Services Success Stories Who We Serve About Acme Floor Floorwork Photos Contact News & Blog
| | | | | | |
Hardwood Floor Case Studies Commercial Floors Hardwood Experts Hardwood Photos Direc,ons Press
| | | | | |
Home Carpet Tes,monials Home Flooring Carpet Experts Carpet Images Decor Blog
| | | |
Office Floors Decor Partners Mission/vision Business Floors
(footer menu): Home
-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐
-‐-‐ Legal?
LEGEND:
Box item = menu/sub menu item
Do.ed box = possible, future menu item?
Green &/or italic text = Descripter text not going on website
Site architecture planning
• Plan your website upfront for keyword-driven pages
• The power of the Footer navigation
• Linking throughout the site: • It sounds cumbersome, but plan links through
every page and blog post of your site if possible. When you write up your sitemap, plan which pages you want to link to the next, and so on and so on.
• Link planning doesn’t require a long list of links on your website’s pages! • Target a primary link (maybe 2 or 3)
to show, and push web users continually through your site.
Site architecture planning
• Blog/news: • This can especially work for the
blog section of your site – you can continually link to/from those posts to distribute link juice.
• Mobile sites • Nav/architecture
• Most important content (keyword-focused)
! Link Building: ! Quality and relevance over quantity ! Press release/white paper placement ! Local SEO ! (Never buy links!!!
And note that too much, or bad, link building will hurt you! Be careful)
! Brand-side SEO simplified ! Copywriters who know your industry best ! Keyword evaluation ! Monitoring ! Sharing/link building
Off-Site Links & Brand-Owned
! Inbound web links (a.k.a. backlinks and referrals) are helpful. Here's why: ! They increase paths to the target – more ways and
places for visitors to find the site.
! They create alternative entry paths for crawlers to specific web pages (even when the target site is not optimized for search engines).
! Good ones do help search rankings.
Inbound & Social Links for SEO
! Inbound links represent a solid, alternative (to in-site) web metric. They gauge the content value and referral traffic of a site in the online marketplace (especially valuable if there are issues with existing in-site SEO or analytics).
! They also can be alternate drivers to lead-gen pages.
! They get shared among web users and multiplicity of network effects occurs.
Inbound & Social Links for SEO
Relational Relevant Links
• What Google looks for: • Do the sites and links relate
to each other?
• Are the directories relevant?
• Vertical (industry nice) vs. locational relevance • Local channels are very beneficial. • Even if you are an eCommerce, if you have a location
I would still consider optimizing location-based profiles. Because Google loves Google+Local. And Bing loves Bing Local and Yahoo!Local.
• And have you ever searched for any businesses or products, only to see Yelp and YP listings on first page of results? They’re there – use them if you can.
*Link Addendum ! *Want to know more about Link Strategies? Did you
know what Anchor Text is? Did you know to no longer make anchor text keyword rich? If you want more, see my recent webinar hosted by SEMrush on SEO Link Strategies & Anchor Text, or see my sources: ow.ly/DK7oq
SEO Plan Inputs
WordCamp Raleigh 2014
Jake Aull | ZenFires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding
404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | [email protected] | @jakeaull
! Resources ! Personnel
! Roles ! Content sources
! Sites/Technology in-place
! Keyword Research
Plan Inputs
! Depth for Execution ! Amount of pages/content
! Non-Text Opportunities ! Image
! Video
! Audio
! Social integrations
! Plugins ! Mobile
Plan Inputs
! How much do you actually know?
! How much time do you have?
! How many people are helping?
! Will you break the site &/or Google?
Know Your Limits
! Technology: ! Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool (best data) ! Bing Webmaster Tools ! Other keyword/SEO research tools such as SEMrush
(good spy data) and KeywordSpy (easy, but less accurate data)
! Competitive analysis/keywords ! Competitors ! Industry thought-leaders/bloggers ! Comparable industry digital marketing leaders ! Organic, PPC and social
Keyword Research Inputs
! Your website historical analytics ! Past organic keywords
! Favorite pages of your site ! Blog categories/tags
! Your past PPC performance ! (even if flawed)
! Your social media top clicks/likes/shares
Keyword Research Inputs
Content Strategy & SEO Process
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding
404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | [email protected] | @jakeaull
The importance of good Keyword drivers
• Good copywriting is vital – and can be used in conjunction with good keywords! • Copywriting can be built on primary keywords for a
page/post. • Find the junction of readability, SEO, copy hooks and
website usability
• Link bait: • Good writing intrigues readers
to read on and share your link
• CTAs: • You need good calls-to-action –
ensure your reader takes the next step and links to where you drive them!* *(for more see the aforementioned webinar)
! Web page titles and relevant copy (semantic content) ! You can search for your blog phrase in search engine…
! Web writing with keywords ! Writing for audience or writing for search engines? ! Tone and positiveness ! No stealth blogging
! Clickstream and customer journey ! Why Blog?
! “Blogging” for both search engines and purchase decisions ! Social media content and relevance†
†(for more on this, see my WordCamp Atlanta 2014 presentation on Social Media Uses for WordPress Sites)
Writing & Keywords
SEO Web Page Plan
Strategic content managers
• The emphasis on content, and link, quality has helped drive the new generation of “content managers.”
• Whether using social media, copywriting, video or SEO technology, content to meet digital marketing goals is the strategy.
• And today, it’s a strategy more of quality than quantity – for Google and for social media engagement.
• So today we want “link engagement;” backlinks from social engagement strategies, relevant content and referral sites – everything we’ve discussed here.† †(for more on this, see my WordCamp Atlanta 2014 presentation on Social Media Uses for WordPress Sites)
SEO Details – Breakdown of Stages
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding
404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | [email protected] | @jakeaull
! Content/Inputs:
! Client measurement assessment
! SEO goals discovery
! Client-provided keywords assessed
! Content/keyword analysis of past client site
! Keyword research, analysis and comparison
! Tools:
! Pro SEO tools utilized: Google AdWords keyword tool, SEO Book Tools, iSpionage, Open Site Explorer
! .xls report downloads, aggregated spreadsheets
! Reports/Outputs:
! Competitor ranking report
! Backlinks
! Keyword effectiveness index/ranking reports
! Head and long-tail keyword weighting for optimal keywords/phrases
! KPIs and measurement plan
! SEO/keyword plans
Keyword Discovery & Optimization
! Site Integrations & Submissions: ! Search engine submissions and verifications (Google, Bing,
Yahoo!) ! Additional search engine tools implementations (e.g.,
Google Webmaster tools, Google Analytics)
! Analytics: ! KPI plan integration ! Keyword monitoring
set-up (e.g., Google Alerts, SocialMention)
! Google analytics set-up ! Website auto reports
set-up
Website Submissions & Analytics Implementations
! Robots.txt file creation/upload ! Sitemap.xml file created for search engines ! Maps/geo-local website tools integrations
! Website SEO implementation: ! title
! meta description
! meta keywords
! H1s/H2s (headlines)
! text editing
! Anchor links
! Image alt tags
SEO Website Development/Programming Aspects
Example: Does Meta Description matter?
Company 3 has a confusing meta description – your first intro to the website.
Zen Fires Digital Marketing | [email protected]
SEO Lead-Gen Funnel Analytics
Review & Questions?
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding
404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | [email protected] | @jakeaull
! Why is it important to identify and align marketing and SEO objectives?
! Importance of Architecture & Linking
! How to form SEO Strategy & Plan
! What are the major stages of SEO execution?
! Find this presentation & others referenced here on www.slideshare.net/jakeaull
Review of Topics
Questions? Find this presentation & others referenced here on www.slideshare.net/jakeaull
Jake Aull, Principal of Zen Fires Digital Marketing since 2010, has 20 years marketing, branding and digital experience in Atlanta. He takes a strategic digital marketing and usability approach to web analysis and search marketing. He has a Masters of Science degree in Marketing from Georgia State University where he did a thesis research project on social media marketing.
Jake has written WordPress SEO Success for Pearson Prentice-Hall - their first book of its kind (http://bit.ly/1fxIQzu). He has also been GSU’s first Social Media Marketing and SEO course writer and instructor since 2010, directing students to create new social channels driving measurable traffic to major brands. He was a reviewer of, and wrote the instructor’s manual for, Pearson-Prentice Hall’s first social media marketing text book.
Thank You!
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding
404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | [email protected] | @jakeaull