Search Engine Optimization:Understanding the Engines & Building Successful Sites

Rand Fishkin – August 2010

Travel Industry: Client 1

• Client came to us with no on-site optimisation on website• We optimised website• Within 2 months of optimisation, website traffic began to increase• After 4 months, search engine traffic increased 300%

Travel Industry: Client 2

• Client came to us for on-site optimisation consultation and link building research• We optimised website• Within 2 months of optimisation, website traffic began to increase• After 6 months, search engine traffic increased 1000%

Online Dating IndustryOrganic Traffic

• Client came to us with no on-site optimisation on website or link building• We optimised website and implemented a link building strategy• Within 5 months, traffic increased by 300% and 360% over 11 months

Online Dating IndustryPaid Traffic

• Client managed a high cost Google Adwords campaign and was not seeing return on investment• Once #1 positions were achieved in Google Organic Search there was no need to use Google Adwords anymore• Client stopped Google Adwords campaign after 4 months

Online Dating IndustryBounce rate

• Bounce rate was high (23%)on website when we began optimisation process• We implemented a design change and immediately the bounce rate dropped to 11%

Home Improvement Industry

• Client came to us to assist in getting their website more targeted traffic• Website had no on-site optimisation done to it• We optimised the entire website and within 5 months traffic began to increase• After 9 months traffic had increased 500%

Home Improvement Industry

• Client came to us to assist in getting their website more targeted traffic• We marketed products on various online shopping platforms• After 7 months referral traffic had increased 500%

Website value

• www.ubuntudeal.co.za• www.immigrationsouthafrica.org

Content in this Presentation

• The Search Landscape• How Search Engines Work• Case Studies• Building Accessible Sites• Conducting Keyword Research• Link Building Strategies• Social Media & the Web’s Influencers

The Search Marketing Landscape

100 Billion SearchesEach Month!

Organic vs. Paid Search

Organic

Paid

Organic vs. Paid Search

90% of Clicks

10% of Clicks

Click-Through Rates

Vertical Search

Local Results

Probably doesn’t get traffic like most “#1” results

Completely different ranking algorithm than standard search

results

Image Results

Video Results

News & Blog Results

Shopping Results

Instant Answers

News Results

Real Time Results

Local Results

Image Results

Q & A

How Search Engines Work

Crawling & Indexing

Without links, the engines might never

find this page

Many Domains vs. One Domain

VS.

Domain Authority

PageRank

The Flow of PageRank

PageRank is Split Evenly Between theLinks on a Page

Google Says they use PageRank to Crawl

Algorithmic Ranking Factors

Algorithmic Ranking Factors

Q & A

Building Accessible Sites

Crawlability / Link Architecture

Duplicate Content & Canonicalization

Duplicate Content & Canonicalization

Search Friendly URLs

www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/african-elephants

Single domain

Shallow folder structurewith relevant words

Keywords in page name,separated by hyphen

Search UN-Friendly URLs

Xyz3.nationalgeographic.com/a/?q=31z&mg=vv7z&sd=8

UnnecessarySubdomain Dynamic URLs don’t perform as well as

static and engines recommend against more than two parameters

No keywords in the URL string

Blocking Robots

Blocking Robots

Important Tags & Signals

Title Tags

Meta Descriptions

Tag Length Recommendations

Anchor Text

Page Copy

Image Alt AttributesGood keyword usage

in the alt tag

Q & A

Keyword Research + Targeting

The Goals of Keyword Research

Choose the “Best”Words/Phrases to Target

The Keyword Demand Landscape

The Long Tail of Keyword Demand

Tools & Tactics for Brainstorming& Refining Your Seed List

Google AdWords Tool

Be Wary ofMatch Type

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

Google Trends

Not Very Accurate

Sign In for Y-Axis Numbers

Competitive Keyword Research

Restrict queryto competitor’s

domain

Link Building Strategies

What Goals Can Link BuildingHelp Us Achieve?

Bolster Individual Rankings

Drive Traffic & Branding Awareness

Send Converting Traffic

The 8 Basic Kinds of Link Building

#1 - Manual Link Submissions/Requests

#2 - Competitive Link Research/Acquisition

#3 - Links via Embedded Content

#4 - Linkbait & Viral Campaigns

#5 - Content, Technology & API Licensing

#6 - Partnerships, Exchanges & Trades

#7 - Paid Links

#8 - Link Reclamation

Using Tools & Processes to Ease theChallenges of Link Building

Tools for Competitive Link Research

• Project SEO •Open Site Explorer• SEOmoz toolbar for Chrome and Firefox•Majestic SEO• Top Pages•Google Blog Search•Brand name -site:brand.com

Project SEO

Open Site Explorer

Open Site Explorer

Highly Correlation w/ RankingsData updates monthly from the Linkscape

web index (approx. 60% the size of Yahoo!/Google/Bing)

Open Site Explorer

Poor Anchor Text Spells Opportunity

Top Pages

Find which pages are earning links (your own

& competitors)

404s? Reclaim them!

Brand name -site:brand.com

Brand name -site:brand.com

Social Media & the Web’s Influencers

Influencers on the Web

The Power of the “Linkerati”

Content that Appeals to Influencers

Incenting/Rewarding Link Behaviors

Cannibalization of the Link Graph

MMM… LINK GRAPHS ARE DELICIOUS!

Tweets can seemingly overpower links

Page A646 links from 36 root domains

2 tweets

Page B1 link from 1 root domain

522 tweets

Page B – the tweeted version

– ranks #1!

Algorithmic Ranking Factors

You have to do these right, before you can do

these right