seo 101: obstacles, opportunities and the future

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SEOObstacles, Opportunities and the Future

2010

Richard Deederdeede@gmail.com

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What is SEO?

SEO is Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the process of improving how a website ranks in organic search results.

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What is SEO?

SEO is NOT Brain Surgery

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What is SEO?

Paid

Organic

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Why is SEO Important?

Position % of Clicks

1 42.10%

2 11.90%

3 8.50%

4 6.10%

5 4.90%

6 4.10%

7 3.40%

8 3.00%

9 2.80%

10 3.00%

Increasing organic rankings can have a tremendous impact on CTR to your site.

• Position matters

• Top 3 positions receive over 60% of user clicks

• Higher ranking improves both visibility and “crowds out” competitors and negative brand listings

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How Do Search Engines Work?

· Spider Crawling: Engines crawl the web using “search engine spiders” or “bots”

· Data Indexing: Engines take crawled data and store them into their databases

· Query Processing: All relevant URLs are retrieved from the index when a search is performed

· Ranking Results: A ranking algorithm is applied on the above to determine which are most relevant to the query terms

· Google’s Page Rank: Using its knowledge of the vast link structure on the web as an indicator of an individual page's value.

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How Do Search Engines Determine Rankings?

Search Engine Spiders look at dozens of different site characteristics:· Page Titles· Meta Tags· Content· Link Popularity· Site Coding· Technical Aspects· Domain Name & Age

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Anatomy of an Organic Search Result

Title Tag

Meta Description

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How Do We Improve Rankings?

SEO Rankings Can Improve by doing the following:

1) Technical Optimization – We want to make sure that spiders can find, index and crawl the site quickly and easily.

2) Content Optimization – Once the spiders are on the site, we need to present the content in a meaningful manner, focusing on the correct keywords.

3) Offsite Optimization – After all on-page factors have been optimized, we aim to point both users and spiders to the site using our targeted keywords.

Skipping any one of these areas can result in poor SEO performance

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Technical Factors

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Technical Factors

With a technical analysis, we want to ensure that search engines can access the site and all pages quickly and easily.

Looking for anything that could be a roadblock to discovering the site content.

- Flash- JavaScript- Image Usage- Improper Redirects- Duplicate Content- Navigation Structure- etc..

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Technical Roadblocks – Unreadable Content

This is the home page of Toyota.com. Looks nice!

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Technical Roadblocks – Unreadable Content

The homepage of Toyota.com is made up almost entirely of images. Text within images cannot be read which means that image heavy sites may look empty to search engines.

This page suffers from a lack of content in the eyes of the search engines. What information is this page trying to convey?

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Content Factors

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Content Optimization – Keyword Research

Content is KING!

Keyword research is the first step. We determine what terms users are searching.

Keywords are determined using the follow methods• Keyword Research Tools (Google Keyword Tool, WordTracker, Keyword Discovery)

• Analytics Data

• Competitor Websites

• Client Website

Keywords are chosen based on their search volume, competitiveness, and relevancy to the site.

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Content Issue – Unbranded Keywords

Targeting the proper unbranded keywords is crucial to capturing the audience that is looking for what you offer but do not have a brand preference.

This page for the Audi Q7 SUV is extremely minimal and void of any valuable unbranded keywords.

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Optimized Content – Unbranded Keywords

The simple use of a few properly placed unbranded keywords can make a large impact.

Note the use of the word Sedan in key areas throughout the page.

This page is ranking #4 on Google for the term Sedan making it the highest listing for any car manufacturer.

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Content Optimization

Keywords should be used in key areas on every page of the site in the following ways:

• Title Tags

• Meta Description & Meta Keyword Tags

• Page Headers

• Page Content

• Links

• Image Alt Attributes

• File Names (page & image)

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Link Development

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Offsite Optimization – Link Building

Once all on-site factors have been optimized, off-site optimization begins. This is the process of obtaining links from external sites pointing back to our web properties using the keywords we wish to target.

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Offsite Optimization – Link Building

Links are the foundation of the Google algorithm

Constantly evolving

Time Intensive

Hugely beneficial

Site A Site BLink

Vote

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The Future of Organic Search

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Real-Time Search

- Web users want information faster and faster- Google now incorporating “real-time” data in search results

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Mobile Search

- Handheld devices gaining more market share

- Smart Phones will soon replace the PC as the primary computing platform

- Mobile search algorithm differences- Location plays a larger role- Popularity of location based Social Sites

(Foursquare, Gowalla, Meetup, Facebook soon)

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Summary

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Key Take Aways

- SEO is a combination of “science and art”

- Neglect and Regret

- Patience is a virtue

- Stay Informed

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Thank You