seo best practices: the low hanging fruit for immediate results - tnt5 #heweb10

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Maybe you don’t even know what search engine optimization (SEO) is? Search engines are the first place that nearly everyone goes when looking for something. Having your site displayed at the top of results for relevant searches is a powerful way to get visitors to your website. In a sense it’s a way to provide free traffic to your site. Also because when people search, they are usually looking for a specific thing and being able to provide it to them you are gaining a relevant visitor. Unfortunately, when people think about SEO immediately those emails of spammers who guarantee #1 results in search engines come to mind. SEO doesn’t have to be black magic, pixie dust, or snake oil. College websites already have the authority to rank well in search engines, but are you getting the most exposure and relevant traffic that you could be? This presentation will go through the fundamental and approved methods for on-page optimization, off-page optimization, and implementing these best practices into your marketing efforts going forward. These actionable steps will be practices that you can take home and begin implementing on your site right away. More Details: http://2010.highedweb.org/EventDetail.aspx?guid=3d25bd15-1661-4aaa-9d19-f6ca1c0673dc

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SEO Best PracticesHitting the Low Hanging Fruit

Kyle Jameskyle@nucloud.com

twitter.com/kylejameslinkedin.com/in/jameskm03

kyle-james.com

doteduguru.comnuCloud.comhubspot.com

No Need To Take Notes

doteduguru.comdoteduguru.com/seo

Why Am I Talking to You?

?

What I Do?

If a tree falls in a forest and noone is around to hear it, does it

make a sound?

If people can’t find it,does it matter?

What SEO is NOT

SEO is Usability and Accessibility

Search Engine Crawlers are your blindest users

GoogleYahoo Microsoft

By the Numbers (on one site)• 30% of traffic is delivered by Search

Engines

• 82% of that traffic is delivered by Google

• On a large school website w/ 1,000,000 visits per month that is 300,000 visitors

Search Engine Optimization

3,000 searches per second• Publish more content• Optimize your content• Promote your content

Are you optimized to get that traffic?

It All Starts With Keywords

• “It’s NOT about what you want or what you call it, it is about what people are actually looking for.”

• “Nobody cares about your products (except you)” – David Meerman Scott

The Long Tail

The Long Tail

Long Tail Keywords

• Best Biology College in Cincinnati Ohio• Biology College in Cincinnati Ohio• College in Cincinnati Ohio• College in Ohio• College

Search Trends

Ask = informational

Bing = transactional Yahoo = navigational

Google = commercial investigation

Keyword Research

Adwords Keyword Tool

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Insight

http://www.google.com/insights/search/

Thesaurus

http://thesaurus.reference.com/

Powerful Keyword Tools

reference/authorityon-page SEOhow people use your site

20%

15%65%

An SEO Breakdown

Two Parts of SEO

On-Page Off-Page

PageTitle

MetaDescription

MetaKeywords

URL

Headers

On-Page Optimization

Page Title

• Describe The Page• Include Keywords• 70 Character Limit

PageTitle

URL

• Describe The Page• Include Keywords• A Dynamic URL is hard to understand

• What are the following two pages about?• http://tomahawktake.com/2009/04/11/game-no-5-recap-braves-5-nation

als-3/• http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090411&content_id=42259

72&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

URL

Headers• Semantic Markup• Include Keywords• Describe sections of the Page

Headers

Example: UsingHeaders in Word

Meta Description & Keywords

• Unique for Each Page• Only Viewable in Source• Meta Description limit 150 characters• Meta Keyword limit 10 keywords max

MetaDescription

MetaKeywords

Off-Page Optimization

We’ve all heard Content is King, so Links must be the Queen?

Off-Page Optimization

1. Inbound Links2. Site Authority3. Anchor Text

Inbound Links

• Content Creation Strategy• “If You Build It, They Will Come”

Publish Content Worth Sharing

Videos & Slideshows

http://www.wofford.edu/sightsandsounds/

Audio

http://itunes.stanford.edu/

Student Blogs

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/campus_life/studentblogs

Interactive Campus Tours

http://uscupstate.edu/map/

Social News

http://engineering.tamu.edu/news/

RSS & Calendar

http://www.allegheny.edu/news/feeds.php http://www.utk.edu/events/events/

Site Authority

Anchor Text Count!

What are those buildings called?

What are people looking for?

What are people looking for?

Getting Ranked

Search Call To Actions

Page Title and Meta Description are all you get in search results. Make sure that they count.

Page Title

Meta Description

Navigation Helps SEO

• Usability• Cross Linking Content• Sitemap• Footer

Web Analytics Helps SEO

Internal Site Search

SEO also helps with your Internal Site Searchand good for Keyword Research

Visits By Keywords

Know what keywords you are already getting

search traffic from

Web Analytics Helps SEO

Quickly make sure your page titles are

optimized

Web Analytics Helps SEO

Scan referral sources to see where you are

getting links from

404 Pages

404 Reporting tells you where you are

failing to better optimize your site

301 Redirects

• (Almost) Always use 301 Redirects because they pass search authority

http://delicious.com/jameskm03/301redirects

URL Canonicalization

• Avoid “Double Vision”• Every page on your site becomes duplicate

Splash Screens

Flash Websites

• Flash should add not dominate• Search Engines aren’t very good at reading flash

SEO Tools

The Lynx Browser

http://bit.ly/lynx

SEOmoz Tools

http://www.seomoz.org/tools

SEO Book Toolbar

• The Only Firefox Toolbar you will need for SEO• Competitive Research• Keyword Research• Link Information• Rank Checker• Page X-Ray• More…

http://tools.seobook.com/seo-toolbar/

Free Website Grader Report

http://website.grader.com/

Create

Optimize

Link

Google Instant

Google Instant

How Fast Is Your Website?

Website Speed Tester

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

Final Thoughts

SEO is NOT a sprint… it’s a Marathon

Help People FindYour Buried Treasure

Additional Reading

• www.seomoz.org/blog

• sphinn.com• searchengineguide.com• searchengineland.com

SEO Best Practices: Hitting the Low Hanging Fruit

Kyle Jamesjameskm03@gmail.comtwitter.com/kylejames

linkedin.com/in/jameskm03

kyle-james.comdoteduguru.com

hubspot.comnuCloud.com

Questions?

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