Search Engine OptimizationSeptember, 22 2014Dave Veldt – Interactually

What’s the Point? “Free” Traffic Extremely qualified leads

Completely trackable You don’t need a huge budget to find success

What we’ll be covering

Built On SEO

• Keyword Research

• Keyword Mapping

• On-page Optimization

• A Note About Off-Page Optimization

Built In SEO

• URL Structure

• Common out-of-the-box problems

• Redirects & Canonicalization

The basics, what to build into your sites, & getting tracking in place…

Analytics

• Google Analytics

• Google Tag Manager

Ranking FactorsGoogle is said to have somewhere around 200-300 ranking factors and makes around 500-600 changes to their search algorithm per year.

Keyword Research: The Backbone (free) Tools of the trade:

Google Keyword Planner - adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner

Google Trends - www.google.com/trends/

Bing Ads Intelligence - advertise.bingads.microsoft.com/en-us/bing-ads-intelligence

MozBar – moz.com/tools/seo-toolbar

Keyword Research: The Backbone Ideal keywords should be:

1. High in search volume

2. Relatively low in competition

3. Relevant to your offering

4. Indicative of your ideal phase of the buying cycle

A note on long tail keywords: You should only expect to optimize a single page for 1-2 primary keywords. However, through your natural writing and variations, your page could rank for a number of long tail variations of those keywords. These long tail keywords often don’t have high search volume, but do have high conversion rates.

Keyword MappingPage Primary Keyword Secondary Keyword

/ digital marketing consultant internet marketing expert

/digital-marketing-consultant/ seo consulting internet marketing consultant

/seo-search-engine-optimization/ seo expert search engine optimization

specialist

/ppc-pay-per-click ppc expert pay per click specialist

/ppc-pay-per-click/search-advertising/

search engine marketing consultant sem services

/seo-search-engine-optimization/local/ local seo services local search engine

optimization consultant

Built On SEO

On-Page Optimization Basic Elements:

• Title tag

• Meta description

• Headings

• URL

• Images

• Body copy

• Semantic markup

Title Tag• 50-60 characters in length (512 pixels)• Primary keyword should be as close to the

beginning as possible• Should appear natural and be enticing to attract

clicks• What NOT to do:Keyword, Keywords, Best Keyword | Example.com

Meta description• 155 characters in length (~920 pixels)• Keyword should be present, but will NOT directly

help rankings through inclusion alone• Should appear natural and be enticing to attract

clicks. This is your sales pitch.

On-Page Optimization Headings• Include keywords and keyword

variations in your H1, H2s, H3s, etc. where it makes sense

• Not as helpful as in the past, but still has a correlation with rankings URLs

• Avoid messy, nonsensical parameters wherever possible

• Include primary keywords

• Hyphens – not spaces or underscores

• Example.com/this-url-is• Example.com/way_better?

than_this=one45

Images• The alt text is your friend, DO NOT

leave it blank

• This is your chance to describe your image to search engines and an easy way to get a keyword occurrence on the page

• The alt text should still describe the picture accurately

• Include keyword in image filename where possible.

Body Copy• Write. For. Humans.

On-Page Optimization Semantic Markup• Schema.org

• Semantic markup gives a machines a human-like understanding of content

• This is how Google is building their Knowledge Graph

• There are hundreds of available schemas; chances are there is one specific to your company, product, or service

A Note About Off-Page Optimization Off-page optimization (i.e. link building, social metrics, brand mentions) accounts for roughly 56% of your page’s ability to rank well in search engines. This is the Achilles’ heel of SEO. To keep out of trouble and resist temptation, follow these rules of thumb:

• If you have to open your wallet for a link, forget it.• If a link required little to no effort to manually obtain, it is a useless – and

potentially dangerous – link. Exception: People naturally linking to you.• Don’t try to get cute with anchor text. When you have a choice, just go with

your brand name or domain name.• If you get any unsolicited communication about adding links or trading links,

trash ‘em. • Seek out reputable sources – publications writing about you, local Chamber of

Commerce, anything with a .edu or .gov – just one of those links can be more beneficial than 50 crappy ones

Built In SEO

Site Architecture, Navigation, & URL Structure• Keyword research should be completed before designs are even finalized, so that keywords can be built into the primary navigation, menus and site hierarchy.

• Its this internal linking and anchor text that gives search engines the biggest indication that your site is all-in on that keyword; rather than burying it into an optimized orphan page.

• Its at this point that you and/or the client need to decide whether you’re OK with using that terminology throughout the site, or whether variations need to be used for user experience considerations.

• Navigation and site architecture must be easy for both users and search engines to understand

• When done right, a good site architecture will form an optimized URL

Common Out-Of-The-Box SEO Issues• www vs. non-wwwexample.com and www.example.com

• http vs. httpshttp://www.example.com and https://www.example.com

• Case insensitiveexample.com/hello and example.com/HeLLo

• Trailing slashes

example.com/hello/ and example.com/hello

• 404 pages

Either not returning a 404 status response or not offering a custom 404 page with navigation and common destinations

• Site speed

Leverage browser caching, optimize image sizes, export JS and CSS

• /index.html, /default.aspx

Homepage defaults to one of these; commonly found in the logo image link

Redirects & Canonicalization• If a page goes through a 301 permanent redirect, search engines will transfer almost all of the accumulated authority and relevance of the new page to the new page

• A 302 temporary redirect is telling a search engine “Its gone for now, but its coming back, so sit still”

• If a page is gone and not coming back, 301 that s**t.

• If you launched a new site and the URLs changed, 301 that s**t. This is the quickest and most common reason I’ve seen when new clients ask where their traffic went.

• A canonical tag accomplishes the same transfer of authority and relevance, but without the actual redirect

• If you have an unavoidable circumstance where you have to have two pages rendering the same content (such as when using parameters or certain navigation), you can use a canonical tag to put preference on one of them. Example: www.interactually.com/sEo-seARch-ENGine-optiMIZatiON/

Analytics

Google AnalyticsFree, incredibly comprehensive & flexible, amazing community = Why pay for another solution?

• Basic Tracking

• Goals & Conversions

• Event tracking

• Filters

• Ecommerce tracking

• Site Search tracking

• Custom Segments

• Custom Reports

• Custom Dashboards

Google Tag Manager• One tracking code to rule them all

• Once installed, all additional conversion, event, remarketing, pageview tracking, etc. can be set up within the GTM user interface

• Account – Highest level of access; typically associated with a single brand

• Container – A set of tags, rules, and macros specific to a single website

• Tags – A snippet of information sent to Google Analytics

• Rules – Govern when a tag is fired or not fired

• Macros - Name-value pairs for which the value is populated during runtime. For example, the pre-defined macro named "url" has been defined such that its value is the current page URL.

Useful Links• www.slideshare.net/interactually/search-engine-optimiz-39392833

• The Beginner’s Guide to SEO

• Moz 2013 Search Engine Ranking Factors

• A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page SEO

david@interactually.com