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Search Optimization – Demystified

SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

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Presentation given at C2's $5 Friday Event on September 18th, 2009. Presented by Andrew Wintheiser as a introduction for search optimization, link building and the factors that are generally associated with search engine rankings

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Page 1: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

Search Optimization – Demystified

Page 2: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified - Introduction

Co-Founder: Lightburn

• Interactive Agency focused on helping client

drive revenue via the web

www.lightburndesigns.com

Founder: Cooper Safety Supply

• Online ecommerce company that sells safety equipment

• Started in late 2006 as an experiment within Lightburn to sharpen our skills in

ecommerce, search marketing and search optimization

• Multi-million dollar business

www.coopersafety.com

Page 3: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified - Introduction

• What is SEO? Why is it so darn important anyways?

• Getting Started with SEO

• Improving your SERP (Search Engine Results Page) Rankings

• Factors• Tactics• Tools• Examples

• Setting Expectations and Measuring Your Results

Page 4: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

What is SEO?

Why is it important?

Page 5: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

What is it?

SEO simply refers to the techniques and strategies that help your

website rank higher within the search engines.

Why is it important?

Higher rankings = more site traffic = more potential to sell your products

or services

Page 6: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

A few facts and figures:

• Americans conducted 13.6 BILLION searches in July 2009

Google - 8.9 Billion

Yahoo! - 2.6 Billion

Bing - 1.2 Billion

• Google dominates with 65% market share, but….

• Bing is emerging as a search challenger and is the fastest growing

search engine in the US

Page 7: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

What are people clicking?

Page 8: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Page 9: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Page 10: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Enough already…

How do I get better rankings?

Page 11: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

The key things you need to understand and do for better rankings

• Understand the factors

• Keyword research and selection

• Knowing where you stand and start with the basics

• Content Development

• Link Building

Page 12: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Understanding the factors used for rankings

On Page Factors (35%):

• Content & Meta Data

• Friendly URLs

• Linking Structure

• Freshness of Content

• Broken Links & Redirects

Off Page Factors (65%):

• Links

Off Page Factors65%

On Page Factors35%

Page 13: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

On Page Factors

Page 14: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Off Page Factors65%

On Page Factors35%

Unique Page Titles

Text Based Navigation

HTML H1 Tags

HTML Text

Page 15: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Off Page Factors65%

On Page Factors35%

Page Title

Meta Description

Page 16: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Detecting Duplicate Page Titles & Content

Use the search engines to help you determine if you have duplicate

content and page title.

Page 17: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

On Page Factors35%

Duplicate Page Titles and Meta Descriptions for different pages.

Technique is also good for finding content that is available via more the one unique URL.

Page 18: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Know your domain(s)

• Is your site available on both non-www and www URLs? Regardless of

what a user types, they should always end up on one or the other via

a 301 redirect.

http://www.coopersafety.com

http://coopersafety.com

• Do you own multiple domain names? Do these domains serve up the

same content or redirect? (misspellings, etc.)

Page 19: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Know your CMS

• Make sure you understand how your CMS handles it’s content.

If your page URLs are based off of the title of the content, what

happens if you change that title. Does the old URL still server up

content or does it redirect? It needs to 301 redirect.

• Does your CMS show friendly URLs, but then use parameter based

URLs for internal linking? Resulting in a non-301 redirect?

Page 20: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Friendly URLs

Keep your key URL’s free of parameters as much as possible

Good

www.coopersafety.com/hardhats.aspx

Not So Good

www.coopersafety.com/category/page.aspx?topic=hard%hats

Page 21: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Friendly URLs

Keep your site structure as flat as possible

Good

www.coopersafety.com/hardhats.aspx

Ok, but not great

www.coopersafety.com/category/hardhats/hardhats.aspx

Bad

www.coopersafety.com/cat/124/125/hardhats/hardhats.aspx

Page 22: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Search engines like

clear directions to your

content

Page 23: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Funnel similar links to a single source

• Don’t point links that say the same

thing to different pages on your site

• Identify pages that are similar and consolidate

if possible

Single Hard Hat Content Page

Hard Hats

Hard Hats

Hard Hats

Page 24: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Off Page Factors65%

On Page Factors35%

Don’t lock away your content in graphics.

Page 25: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Keep your content fresh & updated

• The more often content is

added, tweaked and revised

the more often the bots will

visit your site.

• More frequent visits provide more opportunity

for improved ranks.

Page 26: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Gauging Visit Frequency

View the cache version of your page/site

Page 27: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Shows ~ date of last index of the page/site.

This date should be within the last 24/36 hours ideally for your home page and key landing pages.

Page 28: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Avoid, Detect and Repair ALL broken and redirected links

• Your site should NOT have any broken links. Use a link checker

to see how you stand. You might be surprised!

Web Link Validator detects broken links and on page redirects

www.relsoftware.com/wlv/

• Make sure your site does not have any redirected links within it.

Page 29: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Most site owners don’t realize that something is broken or redirecting,

because it usually doesn’t affect the experience of human visitors.

Check your site for broken or non-301 redirected links at least one per

month.

Page 30: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Off Page Factors

Page 31: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Off Page Factors (65%)

Site

Links

LinksLinks

Links

Links

Page 32: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Inbound links from credible 3rd

party sites are a critical factor in

determining your ranking

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SEO Demystified

What those links “say” and

where they point IS important

Page 34: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Which link from a 3rd party website

would be better for C2?

www.c2gps.com

Adobe TrainingWhen possible, try to suggest link text when getting sites to link to you

Page 35: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Link Building

Page 36: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Building Good Links

• Make sure your site is listed with the top paid directories

• Business.com

• BBB

• Yahoo! Directory

• Vendors and Business Partner Websites

• Press Releases

• Answers, Forums, Blogs (Yahoo! Answers, Linked In)

• Associations & Community Sites (i.e. Third Ward Association)

Page 37: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Building Good Links

• Develop unique, useful and compelling content

• Calculators

• Tools

• Humor

• Sponsor events and charitable organization and ask for links!

• Focus on one-way links. It’s ok to be selfish in this case

• Understand where your competition is getting it’s links.

Page 38: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

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SEO Demystified

Link Building Examples: BlendTec / WillItBlend.com

29000+ Inbound Links

http://www.willitblend.com

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SEO Demystified

Link Building Examples: Astuteo / Project Estimator

3500+ Inbound Links

http://estimator.astuteo.com

Page 41: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Bad, Bad Links…

• Avoid buying links on blogs. Commercial directories are ok

• Avoid services like www.Text-Link-Ads.com

• Avoid trading links with non-relevant sites

• Link farms are bad

Page 42: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Keyword Research

Page 43: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Types of KeywordsLong-tail Search TermsLow Volume / High Conversion Rate“Copper Bird Feeder”

Mid-tail KeywordsAverage Volume / Average Conversion Rate“ Cardinal Bird Feeder”

Short-tail Search TermsHigh Volume / Low Conversion Rate“Bird Feeders”

Page 44: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Page 45: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Research and Test Keywords

• Use a tool such as Google Adwords for keyword ideas and search

volume “guess-timates”. (www.google.com/adwords)

• The highest volume keywords are NOT always the best.

• Low conversion rate (window shoppers)

• Highly competitive

• Test keywords using Pay-Per-Click is a great way to determine value

and more accurate search volumes.

• Determine the page on your site that can support those keywords

Page 46: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Additional Paid Keywords Tools

• Word Tracker (www.wordtracker.com)

• Keyword Spy (www.keywordspy.com)

• Compete.com (www.compete.com)

Page 47: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Setting Expectations

Page 48: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

Search Optimization

• Search optimization is a never-ending process.

• Link building takes time. Lots of time.

• Don’t expect #1 rankings for highly competitive keywords overnight.

• Plan on investing a minimum of 4-5 hours a week on search

optimization.

• Content Development

• Evaluation & Monitoring

• Link Building

Page 49: SEO 101 - C2 $5 Friday Event 9/18/09

SEO Demystified

You can’t rank for a keyword

that isn’t supported by content