s e o for social media boot camp rockford 200907

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION:Put your web site to work!

@averycohen#socialmediabc

Presented by: Avery Cohen - Metrist Partners

July 24, 2009

Is Your Web Site a Slacker?

Does Your Web Site Produce?

Direct Product SalesGenerate Qualified Leads

Requests for informationPhone calls or contact formsEmail opt-ins

Set the stage for warmer sales callsKnowledgeable customers

Support complex sales That have multiple touch points

Build Word-of-Mouth

Elements of a Search Strategy

Set Goals Optimize the Site

Optimize for “conversions” Optimize for search

“Pull” Traffic Linking strategy & PR Advertising, including paid search Email

Measure and Adapt Constantly changing environment

Why SEO?

Provides a better customer experienceDrives brand consistencyMakes you more connectedBrings in more customers

Pursuing the “Holy Grail”

What are your goals?What do you want to be known for?

What do your customers want?

Google Knows People

Estimated at 40 billion searches per month

Primary income source ispay-per-click advertising

2002 Revenue $ 439 Million2007 Revenue $ 16.5 Billion2008 Revenue $ 21.8 Billion

Google Knows What People Want

People tell Google what they want.

dog walkers

Google Knows What People Want

People link to good content.

How Do Sites Get on Google?

The “Spider” or “Googlebot” Follows links on the Internet Catalogs Keywords and Key Phrases Calculates Relevance You can talk to the spider

Robots.txt & Sitemap.xml Submit on webmaster.google.com

The Search Engine Presents relevant pages to searchers Profiles items people select Assigns and updates relevance:

“Page Rank”

Care and Feeding of the Google Spider

High quality inbound links Relevant to keywords

Internal linking Strong internal linking on keywords High quality external links

Keyword density Early and often Between 5% and 8%

Likes fresh content

Two Sides to SEO: Marketing & IT

Marketer’s Roadmap

Keyword selection Writing for SEO Linking strategy Fresh content strategy

Developer’s Roadmap

Site structure Page structure Search Vendor

Relationship Analytics Infrastructure

Marketers: Keyword Selection

Be specific “dog walkers” --

“Chicago dog walkers”“Rockford dog walkers”

Be consistent Choose your jargon

carefully Add pages for

“Long Tail” searches Specific Products

Keyword Selection: Be Specific

Keyword Selection: Be Specific

Marketers: Tools for Marketers

Tools (examples): Finding Keywords:

Wordtracker, Keyword Spy Google AdWords Budgeting,

Google Trends Submit to Google Maps

www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter

Feedburner

Who is talking about your keywords Blogsearch.google.com Icerocket.com

Marketers: Writing for SEO

5 – 8% Keyword Density 500 words of content per page

Early and often Use section headings Avoid synonyms, euphemisms and

implied usage Use your other keywords to create

linking opportunities

How Does Stuff Get on Google?

The “Spider” or “Googlebot” Follows links on the Internet Catalogs keywords and key phrases Calculates relevance You can talk to the spider

Robots.txt & Sitemap.xml Submit on webmaster.google.com

The Search Engine Profiles items people select Assigns and updates relevance:

“Page Rank”

The Googlebot Finds Content for Google

The “Googlebot” is a spider-like program Googlebot follows links on the world-

wide web Googlebot catalogs keywords and key

phrases Googlebot calculates keyword relevance You can talk to the Googlebot

Robots.txt & Sitemap.xml Submit on webmaster.google.com

The Search Engine works with Googlebot data Profiles items people select Assigns and updates relevance:

“Page Rank”

The Googlebot Finds Content for Google

The “Googlebot” is a spider-like program Googlebot follows links on the world-

wide web Googlebot catalogs keywords and key

phrases Googlebot calculates keyword relevance You can talk to the Googlebot

Robots.txt & Sitemap.xml Submit on webmaster.google.com

The Search Engine works with Googlebot data Profiles items people select Assigns and updates relevance:

“Google Page Rank”

Page Titles and Descriptions

Unique Page Title and Description 80 Characters, 160 Characters Keyword Rich Used by Google as the “listing”

Marketers: Linking Strategy

High quality inbound links Solicit links

Who would want to link to you?How will linking to you help their

audience (your customers)? PR campaigns Stunts: Link bait and stupid Internet

tricks High quality outbound links

Link to authoritative sources Link to helpful sites

Marketers: Fresh Content Strategy

RSS on Feedburner Syndicate on Social

Media Get People Talking

About YOU!

Marketers: Social Networks

Developers: Site Structure

Clear text, keyword-based navigation

Human-readable URLs Dogs/Dogwalkers.html Dogs/Dog-walkers.html

Avoid duplicate content Forward obsolete pages

Developers: Page Structure

You get points for keywords in these elements Page titles Headings – H1, H2 Meta tags

Description Keywords

ALT tags for non-text content Use CSS and DIV, External JS files

Text-to-code ratio Keywords at top of page

Search Engine Relations

Google Webmaster Tools https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

Yahoo Site Submission http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

Robots.txt Sitemap.xml

Implement Web Analytics

Google Analytics It’s free Tracks goals and conversion rates Segments groups of users Poor visit and path analysis

Buying Position with Paid Search

When to Use Paid Search

Buy position on a keyword or phrase

Drive traffic directly to a service offering

Test new marketing messages

Creating and Managing SEM

25-35-35 + urlAuto-adjusts for best variation

Measuring SEM

Impressions Clicks

Click-through rate Cost-per-click

Bounce rate Conversions

Conversion rate Cost-per-lead

Measuring Your Results

All SEO can be measured SEOChat.com (and others)

SEO has a cumulative measurable result Contributing to your goals

Financial results CRM or SalesForce.com Google Analytics (and others)

Site Optimization

Focus on conversions Views more than one page Reaches specific “value-add” content Opts in for email Fills out a “contact” form Makes a phone call Makes a purchase

Segment and test

Tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPIJan Goal

Jan Actual ±%

Total Visits

% Paid Visits

Email List Opt-In

Opt in %

Email Unsubscribes

Email List Size

Whitepaper Downloads

Download % Visits

Contact Us form start

Contact Us complete %

Additional Benefits of SEO

SEO makes the whole world-wide web better People read like the spider program People navigate through content links as

much as through navigation options Your message will be more clear Measurement techniques lead from

Search Optimization to Outcomes Optimization

Better “conversion rate” from visits to customers

-Brief “to do” list for the marketing team-Tools you can use to evaluate your site site

Getting Started

Metrist Partners2525 N. Elston Ave.Suite D230Chicago, Illinois

60647847-926-8280

avery@metrist.comhttp://www.metristpartners.comTwitter: @averycohen

Make SEO Work for You

Set goals Audit site content

Consider an outsourced evaluation Pay attention to keyword use

Searchable, specific External links

Get influential sites to link back to you Alliances, sponsorships, news, blogs

Internal links Improve the viewing experience and point

search engines toward the most important pages

Apply intelligence from site statistics

Free Tools to Use

Wordtracker - Keyword suggestions and estimated daily search volume http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Keyword Spy – Paid Search and Organic Competition http://keywordspy.com/

Google - Tools for smaller businesses and free map listings http://www.google.com/services/

Google Trends - Historic search volume on Google to help you decide on keywords http://www.google.com/trends

Rank Checker - Reports rankings on key words http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker

SEO Chat Wide variety of tools for Search Optimization http://www.seochat.com/tools

W3C Accessibility Test http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/complete.html

Contact Information

Metrist Partners2525 N. Elston Ave.Suite D230Chicago, Illinois

60647847-926-8280

avery@metrist.comhttp://www.metristpartners.comTwitter: @averycohen