SEO Tips, Tactics & Strategies for Outdoor Writers

Northwest Outdoor Writers Association May 2, 2015

Who is Paul Krupin?

• Retired & rewired environmental specialist & former attorney • 27 years state & federal government (OR DEQ, BLM, NFS, USDOE)

• Author, publisher, publicist & inventor

Creator of Search Word Pro

• Interactive eBooks with multi-search engine capability built in.

• No typing. Just pick it and click it. Always current. Totally mobile.

Should you optimize your website for SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

Yes! Most definitely. And it’s not that hard to do at all.

Search engines help people find information

If it is valuable enough to them, they want it.

If they want it enough, they buy it.

To sell online, people need to be able to find you.

Can you simply describe the SEO process?

Yes – Search - Find - Match and take Action People Search, They Find, and when it is a Match,

they take Action to acquire what they want. You want to be what they find and want.

What are the key web site elements?

Your Site & Your Technology

Your Content & Your Connections

What’s the bottom line on SEO?

Your content has to dazzle, enchant, & delight your audience.

Balsamorhiza rosea

What are the most important issues ?

Concepts and themes rather than keywords and code. Relationships with people, rather than transactions.

Erigeron pumilis

Is your domain name important?

Yes. Pick a name that people will remember

and make it easy to type, say, find, and share.

Why should you care about keywords?

People search. You need to figure out why people search and

what they search on in your niche.

Crepis atrabarbra

Your goal is to rank high in your niche

Use “keyword research” to figure out the magic search words.

Words matter to the search engines

Use “keyword targeting” to figure out the best ways to use those words on your pages so people find you.

Erigeron piperianus

Do you need to use metatags?

Metatags are not as important as they used to be. Be accurate in titles, use facts in descriptions, and no more than three long word phrase keyword tags on each page.

Don’t go overboard.

What are the keyword rules of the road?

Slice: Keywords you enter into a text box at a search engine that instructs the search engine to bring back just those web pages containing what you told it to look for. The more words you enter, the narrower the slice becomes. Snippets: Brief descriptions the search engine delivers to you. The search engines use algorithms to decide what you see. Settings allow you to control how much of what you see and how it is organized. Blinks: A blink is what you think you know after reading the snippet.

Slice

Snippets Blink

Tweets: Tweets are the short snappy headlines which summarize and describe the content of the results or the snippet.

Dicing: Occurs when you click one of the specialized search tools or media source categories at the search engine to narrow the results to a certain type of content.

Key “need to know” concepts explain the landscape and define the structures of the content you see.

Dicing

Tweets

How important is writing for SEO?

Very important. It’s critical. But if you write to please your audience, it’s easy.

Phlox longifolia

Quality content is #1

Google & Bing reward sites that are: • Accessible – Relevant – Have a Great Reputation

• Offer an Outstanding User Experience • Exude Trust

Lupinus sericeus

What content is best for SEO?

User friendly, useful, relevant, timely & shareable.

Avoid writing keyword-rich content.

It does not help your rankings any more.

Delphinium nuttallii

How do you find out your best keywords?

Identify your primary niche. Define the long word phrases that people care about the most.

Create content that is even better than what is already out there.

Do You Need Lots of Web Pages?

No, not anymore. You can rank high with a small number of pages that have very high quality.

Quality is more important than quantity.

What is the best way to get the best links?

Create content with value worth sharing. Google & Bing reward content that is shared.

Phacelia linearis

Good content pays off

The best links are “editorial votes” given by choice and popularity among users.

Mt. Adams!

What is the best link strategy ?

Quality content placement in your niche. Google & Bing reward earned links.

What links are the best links?

• Your internal links

• Mainstream news sites

• Related industry sites in your niche

• High PR from age-trusted sites in your niche

• Non-abusive sites in your niche

• Popular & influential blog sites in your niche

• Popular social media sites in your niche

• Useful links page in your niche

Mt. Stuart! Mt. Rainier!

Links to avoid – Penalty links

• News release – “no follow” sites.

• Blogrolls

• Article submission and syndication sites

• Directory links

• Forum signatures

• Widgets on your home page

• Unnatural links of any type (page codes)

• Reciprocal links from spam email or social media

• Paid links of any sort (FTC issues)

• Tracking codes on your home page

• Link bait & click bait

What’s more important?

1 link from a real website >>> 100 links on social media

High quality links >>>> low quality links

How do you find media in your niche?

Keyword searches to create custom targeted media lists • Prime & online media – Cision • Online media - search engines

How do you determine which media are most important?

Ask your customers. Focus on media in your niche.

Identify what your people read, watch and listen to especially when they are “in the right mood” to buy what you are selling.

What are the hot topics?

Core messages and themes designed to hit people’s hot buttons in your niche:

• Do interesting stuff! Go interesting places! • Superb organization and research • Problem solving & value-laden

Core messages & themes

• Interesting stuff!

• Interesting places!

• Superb organization and research

• Problem solving & value-laden

What are travel content possibilities?

• Useful & precise destination information • Absolutely galvanizing experiences • Expert tips, tactics, advice & actions • Roadmaps to success • Mouthwatering photos, descriptions, stories

Mt. Stuart!

• Useful destination information

• Galvanizing experiences

• Expert tips, tactics, advice & actions

• Roadmaps to success

• Mouthwatering photos, descriptions, stories

Hot Buttons

What is the formula to quality content?

DPAA + H

D = Dramatic

P = Personal

AA = Achievement in the Face of Adversity

H = Humor

What are the good SEO tactics?

• Really helpful, unique, problem solving content

• Great topics, great themes

• Thorough relevant research

• Value to your visitors so good they want to buy everything you have for sale & they share you freely

What are more good SEO tactics?

• Organized into bite size paragraphs

• Headlines, subheadings, title pages - that matter

• Share Buttons that send links to your pages!

• Leverage word of mouth in your niche

• Incoming links from authoritative sites in your niche

What are the bad SEO Tactics?

• Keyword stuffing and link stuffing

• Paid links from spammy fake sites.

• Submitting to article directories

• Free and even paid news release web sites.

What are the best SEO share methods?

Quality content, share buttons that generate links,

plus social media outreach

Can you use the same content on various media & communications platforms?

Yes! Build it once for publication on your site. Reformat it for each & every media technology.

Allium robinsonii

What are the most critical social media actions for effective SEO?

• Publish it – Your web site & other web sites with relevant backlinks • Tweet it at 140 characters plus a sniplink and one or two hashtags – Twitter • Post it with a photo, a snippet and a link and one or two hashtags – Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Pinterest …

Astragalus purshii

What’s a hashtag (#)?

A keyword # that you use to help people who care about that topic or word. You use it & they search on it and find you.

Post with hashtags

Hashtag Search

#1 on Facebook!

Are press releases still good for SEO?

Yes! But Google no longer ranks the links you can get from news release distribution sites.

News release was sent out 3 times. I bugged the Herald by phone. I uploaded the photos myself to the Herald website.

Case Study – PR for the Badger Mountain Challenge

Custom Targeted PR in Your Niche

Real PR - SEO is very, very, very good.

Herald circulation = 30,000

Herald articles triggered the TV interviews and stories

Radio and TV in Portland, Seattle, and Spokane.

Real Media Coverage SEO

• Articles, interviews and product reviews – prime media & online media

• Generates lots of fresh new traffic, links, brand value and name recognition and leads to additional coverage and content opportunities.

So does SEO work? This is the Search Word Pro blog post containing the search tool created to research this presentation http://searchwordpro.com/blog/article/seo-tips-tactics-and-strategies-for-authors-writers-bloggers.html

Does it really work?

#2

Yes it works!

#1 & #2

Ahhhh! Thank you!

Fidelitas rosa var. exquisite

Paul J. Krupin Search Word Pro

509-582-5174 Paul@SearchWordPro.com www.SearchWordPro.com www.DirectContactPR.com

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