Seven Steps to Becoming an SEO Superhero

Transcription

1 Seven Steps to Becoming an SEO Superhero Stephan Spencer Co-Author of The Art of SEO; Author of Google Power Search; Founder of Netconcepts

2 First Off... Who Am I? Author of Google Power Search & Co-author of The Art of SEO Founder of SEO agency Netconcepts Sold Netconcepts to Covario in 2010 Lived in NZ for 8 yrs, returned to US in 2007 Invented an SEO technology called GravityStream Launching an SEO training/coaching program at ScienceofSEO.com

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5 A Blog is an Asset SEO: So simple even a child can do it! My daughter, blogger & SEO. $5 - $30 / day passive income. Started when she was 14.

6 Want this PowerPoint in Extended Edition? With copious notes, already taken for you? Text your name and to (630)

7 The Three Pillars of SEO Content Architecture Links

8 What Are Searchers Looking For? Keyword Research Target the wrong keywords & all your efforts will be in vain. The right keywords are Relevant to your business Popular with searchers Attainable for you to rank for

9 Keyword Research Tools for brainstorming a seed list Google Suggest Yahoo Search Assist Soovle Tools to check popularity of keyword searches KeywordDiscovery.com Google Keyword Planner Google Trends

10 Google Suggest

11 Yahoo Search Assist

12 Soovle

13 Soovle.com Soovle.com

14 Soovle.com

15 Keyword Discovery

16 Google Keyword Planner adwords.google.com/ko/keywordplanner/home 16

17 Google Keyword Planner

18 Google Trends

19 Seven Steps to High Rankings 1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed 2) Get Your Pages Visible 3) Build Links & PageRank 4) Leverage Your PageRank 5) Encourage Clickthrough 6) Track the Right Metrics 7) Follow Best Practices

20 The Organic Conversion Funnel

21 1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed Better PageRank = deeper & more frequent crawling Check your indexed pages with GWT & site: queries Indexation challenges from: Overly-complex URLs Content duplication Cannibalization Non-canonicalization

22 Complexities Can Kill the Crawl Search engines are wary of dynamic pages they fear spider traps. Avoid: stop characters (?, &, =), cgi-bin session IDs, user IDs unnecessary variables, tracking parameters chains of redirects pop-ups navigation in Flash/JavaScript/pulldowns Returning 200 status on error pages Tips: - Pass parameters via cookies or append after # in URL - Use CSS for dropdown menus - Use hyphens

23 Avoid Complex URLs One click in and cached: Two clicks, not cached:

24 Canonicalization One source one destination Example: qvc.com Content duplication Canonical tag

25 Robots.txt Tip: This will block all bots from your entire site User-agent: * Disallow: / Are you sure that s what you want?

26 Infinite URL Bloat /N/ /link/ref/Ns/accm_num_unts_sld 1/link/ref/rpem/ccd/categorylist.do /N/ /link/ref/Ns/accm_num_unts_sld 1/link/ref/rpem/ccd/categorylist.do

27 XML Sitemaps

28 2) Get Your Pages Visible Hundreds of signals Title tag most important on page signal Home page most important page Every page has a song Keyword prominence Meta tags? Text navigation Flash & AJAX?

29 Meaningful Titles Digital Camera Reviews and News: Digital Photography Review: Forums, Glossary, FAQ

30 Not So Meaningful Titles site: intitle: Untitled Document

31 Duplicate Title Tags site: intitle:"office Supplies: Office Products and Office Furniture: Office Depot"

32 Visually Appealing to Humans

33 Textually Appealing to Bots (& humans)

34 Meta Tags No Magic Bullet

35 Beware the Whizz Bang This Nokia page may still be loading I didn t wait to find out.

36 3) Build Links & PageRank Link popularity PageRank = weighted link popularity A window into your PageRank: Google Toolbar Alternative to PageRank score: mozrank (Open Site Explorer)

37 PageRank 101 Sampling of Homepage PageRank Ratings 9 10 Google Amazon E F F O R T ebay Disney Gap Relative number of pages with PR rating Culligan Boston Store

38 Logarithmic Nature of PageRank

39 Google Toolbar

40 Building High Quality Links Great content Business partners Link bait Social media Blogging Syndicate

41 Leveraging Social Media Seed linkbait into social networks Each has its own quirks Have something viral to spread (such as a meme).

42 Time To Get Creative! Give awards / recognition (badges) Allow webmasters to republish your articles Publish unique content, such as Microsites Infographics Quizzes/Personality Tests Widgets Above all: Be remarkable!

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51 4) Leverage Your PageRank Your internal linking structure Anchor text rel= nofollow? Don t hoard your PageRank Don t link to bad neighborhoods

52 Avoid PageRank Dilution Many of the structural issues that impact indexation, can impact PageRank. Canonicalization Duplicate pages In general, search engines are cautious of dynamic URLs (with?, &, and = characters)

53 Even You Know Who Struggles

54 5) Encourage Clickthrough #1 ranking = implied endorsement Synergistic effect Compelling call-to-action & value prop Title tag Snippet built automatically, but influenceable.

55 Power of Position

56 Do You Sing in Search?

57 6) Track the Right Metrics Indexation Link popularity Rankings Keyword popularity Cost/ROI Alternative trust & authority metrics Long Tail metrics

58 SEO Metrics Page yield Keyword yield Brand-to-nonbrand ratio Unique pages Visitors per keyword Index-to-crawl ratio Engine yield More at Metrics-That-Matter/

59 SEO Metrics for my 60 min webinar recording on SEO Metrics

60 7) Avoid Worst Practices Low quality links (link farms, directories, etc.) Tiny text Keyword stuffing Irrelevant keywords Duplicate content Machine generated spam Doorway pages Cloaking Scraping Splogging

61 Doorway Page Example

62 Doorway Page Example

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66 Hidden link in the All of All Rights Reserved leads to a hallway page

67 Link Detox toxic links report

68 In Summary The right keywords Optimized site architecture Killer content Link building Spend your PageRank wisely Measure Test

69 Q&A To contact me: Follow me on for a heavily ANNOTATED copy of this PowerPoint my SEO Metrics webinar recording my SEO Best & Worst Practices checklist