seo isn't just for web geeks

SEO Isn’t Just for Web Geeks

Intelligent Content Conference 2013

PG Bartlett

Today’s Discussion

Impact of your search rankings Factors that affect your search rankings Simple process to:

– Improve your content’s ranking in search engines– Increase your click-through rate

What Do You Write?

Pre-Sales Information Post-Sales Information

Why Improve Findability?

Pre-Sales Information Post-Sales Information

Increase Revenue Improve Support

Google Isn’t Everything

Google; 66.9%

Bing; 16.0%

Yahoo; 12.2%

Ask; 3.2% AOL; 1.8%

US Search Market Share

Google Isn’t Everything

Baidu; 73.0%

Qihoo; 9.6%

Sogou; 7.8%

Google*; 4.7%Soso; 3.7% Bing; 0.5%

China Search Market Share * Google left China in 2010

Google Isn’t Everything

Alfresco says 75% of queries on their support knowledgebase come via Google

SEO Goal: Visibility

Organic search results

Google AdWords (Paid advertisements)

SERPs = Search Engine Result Pages

HP

Fujitsu

IBM

IBM

HP

CTR

Higher Rank = Higher Click-Through Rate

“Heat map” shows where users’ eyes spend time

Average Click-Through Rates (Google)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100%2%4%6%8%

10%12%14%16%18%20%C

lick-

Thr

ough

Rat

e

SERP PositionData from Slingshot SEO

1st position 4x better than 4th

2nd position 2x better than 4th

3rd position 1.5x better than 4th

HP

Fujitsu

IBM

IBM

HP

IBMCTR 10% (= 810 qualified visits)

FujitsuCTR 5% (= 405 qualified visits)

Conversion rate on website: 0.3% 2.4 transactions, new customers 1.2 transactions, new customers

Avg. Transaction $8000 Revenue+ $19,200 / month Revenue+ $9,600 / month

8100 searches / month“unix servers”:

What’s the Value of a Higher Ranking?

Pre-Sales Information

What’s the Value of a Higher Ranking?

Optimized support articles:

Impact on customer satisfaction & retention?

Post-Sales Information

100%

Hits

30%

Calls

Important Factors for Search Rankings

Keeping Up With

Search engines want to deliver relevant results 2011: Panda – focused on “quality” content

– Original (unique)– Authoritative– Substantial– Linguistically correct– Few ads

2012: Penguin – focused on spam– Keyword stuffing– Link stuffing

On-Page Optimization – Under Your Control

Content quality Keyword placement

– Title– Headings (H1, H2)– Links– Description (meta tag)– Most important keywords first– Maximum number of keywords: 2 to

20 Keyword density?

– Don’t overdo it Title

– Unique– 140 characters

But My Authoring Tool Has No Title Tag!

Then you’re not authoring in HTML So you must learn how your content transforms to HTML Specifically, how do you generate:

– Title– H1 & H2 headings– Meta description

Off-Page Optimization – Under Others’ Control

Links from other high-quality sites to yours

Social links

Server location & performance

Your SEO ProcessImprove Rank & CTR

Improve Rank

SEO Process

Keyword Research

KeywordManagement

KeywordMapping

On-pageOptimization

Off-pageOptimization

SEOMetrics

Pre- &

• What do your customers search for?

• What are profitable keywords to optimize for?

• What are my competitors doing?

You think of keywords

Google suggests others…

Google AdWords account/Tools & Analysis/Contextual Targeting Tool

SEO Process

Keyword Research

KeywordManagement

KeywordMapping

On-pageOptimization

Off-pageOptimization

SEOMetrics

Pre- &

• Determine target keyword list

• Group keywords (for example: product-related keywords)

• Group for language and region

SEO Process

Keyword Research

KeywordManagement

KeywordMapping

On-pageOptimization

Off-pageOptimization

SEOMetrics

Pre- &

• Select 1-3 keywords for each page

• Do NOT optimize multiple pages for the same keywords

SEO Process

Keyword Research

KeywordManagement

KeywordMapping

On-pageOptimization

Off-pageOptimization

SEOMetrics

Pre- &

• High-quality content

• Keyword placement (title, headings, links, description, most important first)

• No keyword stuffing!

• Unique title, 140 characters

SEO Process

Keyword Research

KeywordManagement

KeywordMapping

On-pageOptimization

Off-pageOptimization

SEOMetrics

Pre- &

• Get social

SEO Process

Keyword Research

KeywordManagement

KeywordMapping

On-pageOptimization

Off-pageOptimization

SEOMetrics

Pre- &

• KPIs (time on page, visitors, etc.)

• Analyze keyword performance

• Monitor site performance

Improve CTR

• Compelling & SEO friendly title

• Trustworthy and “readable” URL• Compelling description

• Great style, no grammar and spelling errors

How to Improve CTR

Pre-Sales Information

CTR Not Always Relative to Rank

Pre-Sales Information

“Rich snippets” change the math:

30% to 150% increase in CTR!

(Or not…)

What about this?

Rich Snippets

Types– People– Products– Businesses– Reviews– Events– Videos– Others (recipes & music)

Encoding options– Microdata (recommended)– Microformats– RDFa

Thank You!PG.Bartlett@acrolinx.com