SEO 101 1 SEO 101
SEO 101 2 Today s Agenda: Introduction What to expect today How search engines work What is SEO? Foundational SEO On and off page basics
SEO 101 3 Today s Presenters Taylor Pettis Nate Plaunt Sr. Marketing Manager @tpettis linkd.in/1dszjaa Sr. SEO Strategist @NatePlaunt bit.ly/1loddwn
DOES SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION REALLY MATTER?
SEO 101 5 Organic Search is the #1 Driver of Website Traffic From a usage perspective, new studies have found that organic search drives 64% of all web traffic.
SEO 101 6 Search Engine Optimization FACT: 79% of search engine users say they always/frequently click on the natural search results.
SEO 101 7 A New Click Rate Study For Organic Results On average, 71.33% of searches resulted in a page one Google organic click. Page two and three get only 5.59% of the clicks. On the first page alone, the first 5 results account for 67.60% of all the clicks and the results from 6 to 10 account for only 3.73%. Page 1 = 71.33% http://marketingland.com/new-click-rate-study-google-organic-results-102149
SEO 101 8 A New Click Rate Study For Organic Results Ads / Shopping Results Local / Map Results 31% Click through Organic Results 14% Click through
SEO 101 9 Does SEO Really Matter? YES! If you are not optimizing for search you are already behind your competition.
SEO 101 10 What to Expect: A solid understanding of how search engines operate Learn how to beat out your competition in the search engine results Actionable tactics you can implement today Tools to implement SEO
WHAT DID YOU SEARCH TODAY?
SEO 101 12 What Did You Search Today?
SEO 101 13 What Did You Search Today?
SEO 101 14
SEO 101 15
SEO 101 16 How Search Engines Work
1 SEO 101 17 Search Engine Algorithm Key Components Over 200 ranking factors help to decide where your site ranks Roughly 10,000 sub-factors Fewer ranking factors in algorithm Heavy reliance on social factors
1 SEO 101 18 Google s Algorithm Key Components Top 4 Components 1. Trust / Authority of the Host Domain 2. Popularity of the Specific Page 3. Anchor Text of External Links to the Page 4. On Page Keyword Usage According to 72 SEO s Surveyed by Moz
SEO 101 19 U.S. Search Engine Market Share 64.2 % 20.2 % 12.7 % Everyone else 2.9 % http://www.statista.com/statistics/267161/market-share-of-search-engines-in-the-united-states/
SEO 101 20 Not all results are organic Organic
SEO 101 21 What is SEO? 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 unpaid ("organic") search results. Source: Wikipedia
SEO 101 22 What is SEO? (Simplified) SEO is two things: 1. The practice of making your website as accessible as possible to search engines. 2. Ensuring your website is as useful and relevant as possible to your current and prospective customers.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION 101 THE BASICS
SEO 101 24 SEO 201: Ensure your site is relevant and useful to your visitors. SEO 101: Ensure your site is accessible to search engines.
SEO 101 25 Technical and structural factors
SEO 101 26 Technical and structural factors Goal: Ensure accessibility for Search Engines & Users Foundation of your entire online presence, so it s important to get it right Search engines have very clear guidelines for webmasters to follow when building sites
SEO 101 27 What To Look For Can your entire website be crawled? Is your website indexed by the search engines? Does your website have any errors? Is your page load time too slow?
SEO 101 28 How You Can Do This XML sitemap Accurate robots.txt file Google Search Console Page speed optimization
SEO 101 29 What to Avoid Any unnecessary hurdle for the search engines Flash JavaScript URL Parameters
SEO 101 30 Here s What Humans See
SEO 101 31 Here s What Search Engines See (not a glitch)
SEO 101 32 XML Sitemap The XML sitemap is a map of your website that enables search engines to efficiently crawl and index your site.
SEO 101 33 XML Sitemap Various tools can help you generate an accurate and up-to-date sitemap: Screaming Frog Spider CMS plugins like Yoast Other web-based sitemap generators - www.xml-sitemaps.com
SEO 101 34 Robots.txt file The robots.txt file is a directive for all bots visiting your site. It tells them what URLs to crawl or not crawl Simple text file can be created with notepad
SEO 101 35 Robots.txt file *Pro Tip Use the Robots.txt testing tool in Google Search Console to troubleshoot errors in you file and to test individual URLs
SEO 101 36 Google Search Console Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) is a free resource with tons of valuable information available to all website owners. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home
SEO 101 37 Why Does Speed Matter? Last year, mobile search overtook desktop search. The gap between mobile and desktop will widen Fast page load speed is critical to optimizing for mobile Mobile-geddon
SEO 101 38 Google PageSpeed Insights PageSpeed Insights is another free tool from Google that gives you a prioritized roadmap on how to fix speed issues on your site. https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights
SEO 101 39 On and Off Page Factors
SEO 101 40 On and Off Page Factors Goal: Demonstrate Relevance and Authority Search engines want to provide users with search results that are relevant to their query and authoritative in nature. Building upon a sound technical structure, we make sure that search engines and users are able to fully understand what various pages on your website are about.
SEO 101 41 On-Page vs. Off-Page SEO On-page SEO refers to factors that you can control directly on your website Off-page SEO refers to factors out of your control on other websites Examples of on-page factors are: Metadata Internal links Content Technical / Structural Examples of off-page factors are: Inbound links Social Media Mentions Local Directories
SEO 101 42 What To Look For Are your on page elements optimized? What keywords are you ranking for? Who is linking to you? Who is linking to your competitors?
SEO 101 43 On Page SEO Elements URL Page Title H1 heading H2 headings Meta Description Page Copy Alternative image text
SEO 101 44 On Page SEO Elements Page Title: Unique and descriptive URL: Descriptive and readable by both humans and search engines H1 Heading: Unique and descriptive Alt Image Text: Descriptive and keyword rich H2 Headings: Subtopics of the page Page Copy: Descriptive, unique, and keyword rich
SEO 101 45 Page Title Good: Organic Result #1 Bad: Organic Result #245
SEO 101 46 URL structure Good: Organic Result #1 Bad: Organic Result #260
SEO 101 47 On Page SEO Elements Meta Descriptions
SEO 101 48 A Tale of Two Devices
SEO 101 49 A Tale of Two Devices
SEO 101 50 What Keywords Do You Rank For? Ground Rules: 1. Don t Google yourself 2. Use a keyword tracking tool - SEM Rush (freemium) - Bright Local (paid)
SEO 101 51 What Keywords Do You Rank For?
SEO 101 52 Off Page SEO Elements Backlinks Link anchor text Citations or Mentions
SEO 101 53 Internal vs. External Links (Backlinks) Two types of links: Internal and External. Internal links refer to links within your site, such as navigation links. External links refer to links outside of your site, such as a link from Wikipedia. Both are very useful, but for different reasons.
SEO 101 54 How do Backlinks Help? Backlinks act as votes for pages on your site. NewsSite.com ProductSite.com Generally speaking, the more links you have from authoritative sources, the more your site is trusted, and the better your pages will rank. YourWebsite.com IndustryBlog.com ShadySite.com
SEO 101 55 Link Anchor Text The words used in the anchor text of a link to your site helps search engines understand what that page is about. So, if your site is about Cats the anchor text cats would be preferable over click here.
SEO 101 56 Who is linking to you? Conduct a backlink audit: Open your Google Search Console Navigate to the Links to Your Site section Check out who links the most and to what content *Pro Tip: this will help inform future content!
SEO 101 57 Who is linking to your competitors? Conduct a competitive link analysis: 1. Use Open Site Explorer - https://moz.com/researchtools/ose 2. Enter your competitor s site into the search bar 3. Dig through their backlink profile 4. *Pro Tip: Identify where you can acquire some of the same links!
SEO 101 58 Citations Citations are essentially a mention of your brand on another site like a listing directory. Yelp Yellow Pages City Search
SEO 101 59 Citations It is important that these listings maintain consistency and accuracy. Name Address Phone Number *Check up on your listings using Moz Local - moz.com/local
REVIEW
SEO 101 61 Review 1. If done right, SEO is a distinct competitive advantage 2. Get the foundation right 3. Optimize your pages 4. Optimize your off page presence 5. Move up the pyramid
SEO 101 62 SEO 201: Ensure your site is relevant and useful to your visitors. SEO 101: Ensure your site is accessible to search engines.
SEO 101 63 Measurement and Improvement
SEO 101 64 Questions?
SEO 101 65 Appendix Tools Mentioned 1. Google Search Console 2. Google PageSpeed Insights 3. Screaming Frog SEO Spider 4. Yoast plugin for WordPress 5. XML Sitemap Generator 6. SEM Rush 7. Bright Local 8. Open Site Explorer 9. Moz Local