SEO & MISCELLENYNOVEMBER 3, 2015

SOME THOUGHTS ON WRITING FOR THIS COURSE.

THREE TIPS FOR IMPROVED WRITING

• Support your claims.

• Hint: your supporting arguments are more interesting than your conclusions.

• Use details and examples to support your points.

• Hint: details and examples can work well as supporting arguments

• Outlines are your friend.

• Use outlines to help you visualize the structure of your paper.

SUPPORT YOUR CLAIMS.

THE AUDIENCE FOR WWW.FLEETFEETPDX.COM/

IS MADE UP OF TWO GROUPS: EXPERIENCED

RUNNERS AND NEW RUNNERS.

SUPPORTING ARGUMENTS:

• Even if you’re right: you need to explain why. A good rule of thumb: show don’t tell.

• Looking at photos on the training site, there are multiple beginner groups with nearly as many athletes as the training groups for advanced distances.

• I’ve recently read a study that shows many new runners or exercisers are chased out of the sport by snobby and mean experienced athletes who treat them poorly and look down on them.

• The manager let me know that they do much more business between Christmas and the new year than any other time of the year. He says it has to do with new years’ resolutions.

USE DETAILS AND EXAMPLES

DETAILS

• When I ask y’all to use details, this is what I mean:

• be specific about the item you are describing, focus in clearly and identify key aspects of the item.

• avoid “you know what I mean” cases as much as possible. Your job as an author is to TELL us what you mean.

EXAMPLES

• Remember: show, don’t tell.

• “Sites need a good meta=“description” tag for SEO

• This site should write a meta=“description tag so that the snippet on Google’s SERP will show the text the designers choose. Controlling the snippet is important because it is text that potential customers will read when deciding whether or not to click on your link. I suggest a meta=“description” tag of “Fleet Feet PDX has shops in Portland, Vancouver, and Lake Oswego catering to new and experienced runners and walkers.

THE SITE IS DOING AN OKAY JOB OF SEO SO

FAR.

”

“

— This is added detail.

THE SITE’S ATTENTION TO DETAIL, INCLUDING THE META=“DESCRIPTION”

TAG AND THE <H> HEADING TAGS, SHOWS ADHERENCE TO CURRENT SEO

BEST PRACTICES.

IF YOU LOOK AT THE META DESCRIPTION TAG’ TEXT, “SERVING PORTLAND AND LAKE OSWEGO,

OR AND VANCOUVER, WA, FLEET FEET SPORTS PDX IS LOCALLY OWNED AND OPERATED AND

COMMITTED TO ENHANCING AND GROWING OUR LOCAL RUNNING AND WALKING

COMMUNITIES BY OFFERING SPECIALTY PRODUCTS, EVENTS, AND TRAINING PROGRAMS.”

YOU’LL SEE ADHERENCE TO CURRENT SEO BEST PRACTICES.

OUTLINES ARE YOUR FRIENDS.

DONEC QUIS NUNC

OUTLINE

Analysis

• site

• audience

• content

Analysis

• keywords

• searches

SEO Plan

OUTLINE

Analysis

• site

• details

• examples

• links to reading

• audience

• examples

• content

• links to reading

Analysis

• keywords

• links to reading

• searches

• examples

SEO Plan

• details

• examples

• links to reading

BREAK

SEO 60:24CHAPTER 3

ROBOTS DELIVER

• Spiders (or bots) crawl links. Linked pages are easier to for search engines to find.

• Spiders copy the code (HTML, JS, etc.) and dump that into the search engine’s index.

• When people search Google, they are searching Google’s index, not the web itself.

MAKE SURE SEARCH ENGINES CAN ACCESS

AND READ TEXT ON YOUR SITE.

CRAFT WEBSITE CONTENT THAT FEATURES

KEYWORDS YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE WILL

BE SEARCHING FOR.

SERPS ARE BLENDED

BLENDED RESULTS MIX

Organic search results

• These are the search results we’ve been talking about

Advertisements

• These are PPC (pay-per-click) and other ads that people run on the same search terms your users are searching for.

• Ads are purchased at auction and ads must perform to remain visible.

Images, Video, News

• Competition for your users attention

ALGORITHMS CHANGE

ALGORITHMS CHANGE

• Example: Google changed it’s mobile ranking to make non-mobile optimized sites drop in searches done on mobile devices.

• Don’t “chase the algorithm.” It’s a waste of time.

• Instead, focus on core fundamentals: “Good HTML titles, good body copy, great content, ensuring that your site doesn’t have roadblocks to crawling—these have worked for nearly a decade.”

HUMANS ARE SMART. COMPUTERS ARE NOT.

TEXT MATTERS.

KEYWORD SELECTION MATTERS. CHECK AT

LEAST EVERY SIX MONTHS.

COMPELLING. CLEAR. FOCUSED. DIRECTED

AT YOU USERS.

TEXT MATTERS

THE TITLE TAG IS THE MOST IMPORTANT

PLACE FOR KEYWORDS ON YOUR ENTIRE SITE.

KEYWORDS IN THE HTML TITLE WON’T DO YOU MUCH GOOD IN RANKINGS IF THEY AREN’T ALSO

PRESENT IN THE TEXT ON THE PAGE, SO BE SURE THESE TWO ELEMENTS WORK AS A TEAM.

IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT RANK.

TAKE A WHOLISTIC APPROACH

• How many times do you use the “I’m feeling lucky” button?

• Pay attention to how many times you click on the first link on a SERP.

• Getting to page one is important, but don’t get obsessed.

• Social media marketing: there are avenues other than search to find customers.

SEARCH ENGINES DO NOT LIKE TRICKS.

BLACK HAT SEE

• Cloaking

• Duplicate content

• Machine generated text

• Keyword stuffing

• Invisible text

• Link schemes

DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT THE SEO EXPERT

WHO CROSSED THE ROAD, STREET, AVENUE,

BOULEVARD, HIGHWAY, CROSSWALK, HIGHWAY?

WHAT WORKS NOW.

HIERARCHY OF SEO FACTORS

1. Inbound links (quality and quantity)

2. Inbound link anchor text

3. Site authority

4. HTML page title

5. Visible HTML text on the page

6. Age of domain

7. Primacy (being the primary source/original publisher of content) and freshness (publishing new or updated content)

8. Site speed

9. Lesser factors

1. HAVE A SITE THAT ROBOTS CAN CRAWL WITHOUT BARRIERS.

1. HAVE SITE CONTENT THAT CLEARLY LEADS

VIEWERS TO CONVERSIONS.

BREAK.

SEO IS NOT BRAIN SURGERY.