search engine optimization (seo) for small business

Search Engine Optimization

FOR SMALL BUSINESS

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FREE STUFF!Bit.ly/10seotools Bit.ly/googlepenaltykit

10 tools I like to use every day If you have a Google penalty (for somethingyou or your agency did) this will solve it!

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• Director of SEO Services (3 years at VM)• 11 Years of SEO experience• Enjoys: Growth Hacking, Technical SEO,

Google Penalty Recovery, Analytics, Branding• Has worked with 350+ small businesses &

20+ fortune 500 companies• Responsible for exponential traffic growth

& positive ROI with organic traffic

Art Enke

VerticalMeasures.com Twitter.com/ArtEnke linkedin.com/in/ArtEnke

Here’s a great group of people at Vertical Measures, lead by Arnie Kuenn

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SEO is the focus of this presentation – it’s the “O” in our 8-step process

p What SEO isp What SEO is notp Small business & SEOp Content marketingp How Google works

VERY,VERYROUGHOUTLINE

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p History of Google updatesp Common pitfallsp How to do safe SEOp International SEO

VERY,VERYROUGHOUTLINE

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What is SEO?

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Lee Oden, Online Marketing Blog

“ SEO is fundamentally a set of methodologies that make it easier for

search engines to find, include, categorize and rank your web content.

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Some SEOs are doing crazy stuff in the back room

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Chinese restaurant hanging meat in the back of the building (Evansville, IN) Source

http://imgur.com/QUoom02

Some SEO strategies don’t finish the job

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Some SEO strategies don’t solve your real goals

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Some SEO strategists are too literal (can’t see the big picture)

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IP location of a U.S. site’s backlink profile (this is bad SEO)

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TRUE Statement, if there is no great supporting content

SEO is easy.Algorithms are constantly updated

You can set it and forget it.See the above

It’s not as important any more.Oh, yes it is but it has evolved

Let’s Dispel a Few Myths@artenke

60 Trillion Individual Pages IndexedWith more pages added every Day

Algorithms are constantly updatedIt’s never ending

Your competition is optimizingSearch engine rankings are not static

Why You Need SEO@artenke

SEO is NOT…

• A quick solution with guaranteed results• Unethical manipulation of search results to

rank inferior content• A short-term strategy• Dead*

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SEO IS…

• The process of establishing trust with relevant content• Ensuring Google indexes & ranks your content• Following webmaster best practices, minimizing content

errors• Ensuring relevant keywords are targeted within content• Sharing, promoting content to earn natural backlinks

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*SEO without GREAT content is dead@artenke

Huge Business (370k+ employees)

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Small Business (5 employees)

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This traffic increase is from an “ugly” site with GREAT content. Just needed some SEO to get this off the ground.

Small Business (72 employees)

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This traffic increase is from a beautiful site with GREAT content. Just needed some SEO to get this off the ground.

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This traffic is from a client that sells travel destination packages. Great content, but needed some SEO.

Since starting with VM, this client’s revenue is up $2.2 Million over last year

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This traffic is from a client that sells travel destination packages. Great content, but needed some SEO.

How Google Works• The Googlebot crawler explores web pages via LINKS• Google uses crawl data to build an index of pages it finds• Google assigns ranking (ordered priority) based on trust and

relevancy signals

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PenguinFocus on backlinks

PandaFocus on content (thin and duplicate)

Most Important Google Updates@artenke

Various Iterations and Updates

Courtesy of: Studio 5 Innovation

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LET’S TALK MORE ABOUT CONTENT

List All Content Ideas in a Spreadsheet

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Source: http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/keyword-stats.html

Longer Search String = More Clicks

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Are You SURE you want to rank for “shoes” in Google?

Instead, go for this keyword: “Asics Blue Running Shoes for Women”

• Easy to rank for• Long-tail query has HIGH user intent

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/keyword-stats.html

Erin Pritchard

Jumping titles from one slide to the next. make sure they are all in the same spot.

Arnie Kuenn

I think we should remove the date for the source, so it does not appear to be old data.

On-Page SEO Elements (critical but there’s much more)

Title TagURL

H1 Tag

H2 Tag

Content

"Interested in taking your internet marketing strategy to the next level but not sure where to start? Start with a Search, Social and Content Strategy now."

Meta Description

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Heat Map of a Backlink Profile

Links + SEO@artenke

Links + SEO@artenke

> Dollar Shave Club used to have an un-optimized site with very little content. However, they got hundreds of thousands of links from their viral launch video.> Instantly ranked in Google within days, because of their links.


Links + SEOMatt Cutts (2/2014) http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/02/19/search-without-links

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Google’s Matt Cutts said they have an in-house version of Google that sees how Google is when links are removed from their algorithm as a ranking factor.

Matt says the quality is bad. Links are still VERY important for the foreseeable future.

http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/02/19/search-without-links


Links + SEO@artenke

Note: PIE chart is from a previous year’s survey

Arnie Kuenn & Art Enke from Vertical Measures were part of the 20115 contributors listhttps://moz.com/search-ranking-factors/contributors

https://moz.com/search-ranking-factors/contributors

https://moz.com/search-ranking-factors/contributors

@artenkeScreaming Frog

Majestic

Alternatives: OpenSiteExplorer, Ahrefs

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SEMrush

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Search Console (Formerly called Webmaster Tools)

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Case Study

This ATTORNEY has beautiful content: A scholarships page!*Very link worthy if you want highly authoritative .EDU backlinks links from Schools

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Case Study

GREAT! I can contact the webmaster and suggest they add a link to this scholarships page, because I see a lot of schools have created RESOURCE PAGES with links to other sites.

http://www.phoenix.edu/tuition_and_financial_options/scholarships/external-scholarships.html

http://www.phoenix.edu/tuition_and_financial_options/scholarships/external-scholarships.html

But wait – I don’t care about ranking for “scholarships”.

How do these links help my attorney rank for “personal injury lawyer”?

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Case Study

Hmm… the attorney’s HOME PAGE is already ranking for “personal injury attorney” what can I do with that?

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Let’s visit the attorney’s scholarships page again, the pagethat has all those great .EDU links - big name schools linking to it.

Ctrl+F “personal injury lawyer”…PERFECT!! I see a place where I will link to the home page with that anchor text!!

Case Study@artenke

The attorney’s home page is now on page #1 of Google for “personal injury lawyer”

…all because of the link-worthy content:That scholarships page.

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Small Business OPPORTUNITY:International TrafficGoogle Analytics > Audience > Location

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International Traffic

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Sources: International Telecommunication Union (ITU), World Bank Group, CIA World Factbook

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Source: U.S. Census http://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.pdf

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International TrafficChinese E-Commerce

Grew 31% in 2014

Missed Opportunities

Google.com Ranking Keywords: 36,000+page 1 or 2 in Google

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Google.com Ranking Keywords: 36,000+Example: “How to use Excel”

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Google.co.uk Ranking Keywords: 4,300+page 1 or 2 in Google


Google.com Ranking Keywords: 6,500+

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Google.ca Ranking Keywords: 6

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International TrafficGoogle Analytics > Audience > Location

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International TrafficGoogle Analytics > Audience > Language

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International TrafficWhat to look for

- Low Conversions- High Bounce Rates- Low Session Duration

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• Introduced by Google in 2011• Identifies and Locates your international

content• Immunizes from duplicate content

penalties• Displays content in your target country• Added to Search Console (Webmaster Tools) in

2014

Hreflang Tags@artenke

Hreflang TagsWhat it Looks Like

<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ca" hreflang="en-ca" /><link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-au" hreflang="en-au" /><link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en" hreflang="en" />

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Hreflang TagsWhat it Looks Like

Canada: ENGLISH page for CANADIAN visitors<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ca" hreflang="en-ca" />

Australia ENGLISH page for AUSTRALIAN visitors<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-au" hreflang="en-au" />

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Hreflang TagsGives You Virtually Unlimited Flexibility

example.com/en-ca (Subdirectory)canada.example.com (Subdomain)example.ca (Domain)

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Hreflang TagsCustomized URLs are omitted from

search results

Website expands content internationally and it doesn’t get indexed

Search results display two nearly

identical URLs from the same site

1

2 3

Common Issues withInternational SEO

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Hreflang TagsTwo Use Cases:A) Geo specific variations of the same page

http://www.example.com/ http://en-gb.example.com/

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Hreflang TagsTwo Use Cases:B) Fully translated variations of the same page

http://www.example.com/ http://es.example.com/

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Hreflang Tagsgoogle.de (Germany)

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Hreflang Tagsgoogle.com (USA)

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B2B


B2B

Hreflang Tags

NO hreflang!

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Hreflang TagsHave ccTLDs? NO PROBLEM!.de, .is, .co.uk, .com.au, .br, .ca, .es

- Any domain- Any subdomain- Any subdirectory

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Hreflang TagsWhat it Looks Like: Code on Page

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Hreflang TagsWhat it Looks Like: XML Sitemap

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Want HIGH Conversions? Do This:


Tracking in Search Console


SEMrush: Competitor Insights Tools

http://www.semrush.comSee competitor rankings, traffic trends, shared keywords, PPC campaigns & more


http://www.semrush.com/

SEMrush: Compare Your Domain to Competitors


Case Study@artenke

Case Study

Added Hreflang in 2014 (XML)

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Case Study

394% Increase in Traffic (16 months)

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Case StudyWHY? Google.ccTLD*- Dutch, Spanish, Russian,

Portuguese, English- getabstract.com/en/ Google.com- getabstract.com/de/ Google.de- getabstract.com/es/ Google.es- getabstract.com/ru/ Google.ru- getabstract.com/pt/ Google.pt- getabstract.com/fr/ Google.fr

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Summary• Identify international traffic (by region and language)• Your international traffic may be English speaking only• Implement hreflang tags to avoid ALL google penalties• Deploy content on a high converting domain: ccTLD• Research more opportunities & measure results

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Get more GREAT tips atwww.VerticalMeasures.com