Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Workshop

By Gabriel Goldenberg

Gab@seoroi.com

Where We’re Going Today

Where We’re Going Today

• Where does SEO fit in marketing?– Interruption vs permission marketing– Who finds ads annoying? Who ignores ads? – Why do SEO?

Where We’re Going Today

• Under The 600 HP Hoods of Modern Search Engines:

- Content discovery- Crawling - Indexing- Ranking- Filtering and Penalizing

Where We’re Going Today

• How do we do SEO?– Same as offline marketing campaign:

• Research • Plan • Execute • Measure• Optimize

Where We’re Going Today

• We will do group work to: – Research – Keyword ideas and value– Measure – Link building efforts

INTRO

Image: PropsUnlimited.com

Interruption Marketing

Via 10steps.sg

Via DimensionsGuide.com

Via Hongkiat.com

SearchEngineLand.com

An Experiment With Fonts & Font Size

• Group M, please visit seoroi.com/test-1

• Group R, please visit seoroi.com/test-2

Do Ads Annoy You?

Scam ads. Screenshot via BattelleMedia.com

Permission Marketing

Via B2HMarketing.com

Via Calgary-city-maps.com

Search: The New Yellow Pages

Why do SEO?

• Highly Effective - Permission

• 98% of clicks on page 1. When did you last click # 53?

Under Search Engines’ Hoods

How Search Engines Work

1. Finding out about content

2. Visit

3. Decide what it’s about

4. Store it

5. Rank it against other sites on the topic

6. Get the query and add query-based filters:

– Geo, personalized search, video, news etc

Finding Content

• There are over a dozen different ways that search engines will discover new content– Links– Chrome / toolbar visits– Searches– Tweets– Submissions– PPC– More ways: http://seoroi.com/shotland-index

IsMarkDavidsonReal.com

Full case study:

http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/how-i-got-16-links-in-20-minutes-with-9

Crawling Content

Q: How do search engines know what is on a webpage?

A: With spiders and robots.

Via Examiner.com

The Index• Where information on the web is stored.

Rankings

Rankings depend on Relevance and Importance.

Relevance

Relevance is the minimum threshold for a page to be considered to be shown.

Image via: StuartDuncan.name

Relevance Signals

Signals of a page’s relevance include

• Content on the page

• Clickable text (aka anchor text) in – internal links– external links

• The relevance of pages and sites that link to the page

Rankings • Rankings depend on

Relevance and

ImportanceVia Topspots003.blogspot.com

Rankings

• It’s not enough to have a relevant page…

• You need to be The. Most. Important. Page.

What’s The Most Important Page?

The most visitors?

Via VisualPhotos.com

The most known brand?

Good analysis here: http://www.seobook.com/potential-brand-signals

Via BrandXCulture.com

The one paying Google the most?

The hottest designed page?

Via Visual-Blast.com

Importance

Importance in rankings depends on what others say.

Links

Via Wasauna.com IPL.org

Factors In Link Building

• Amount

• Prominence and location

• Authority

• Relevance of linking site, page, person

Social Signals

Importance depends on social media signals like tweets and Facebook shares

Visitor Data

• Browsers and toolbars

Rankings Cat & Mouse

Penalties and Filters

• Penalties for guideline violations

• Filters for geo, language, news etc.

Via J-walkblog.com

How do we do SEO?

How do we do SEO?Step 1: Research

Research: Keyword Ideas

Tools1. Get 2-3 partners2. Pick 3 products you’ve all researched or

bought online (suggest: not CPG)3. Visit Google’s general keyword tool:

http://seoroi.com/google-kw-tool

4. Enable Cost Per Click columns, months, and brainstorm keywords for each product

Research: Keyword Ideas

People

• Switch products with the group sitting next to you

• Brainstorm & write down all keywords and modifers – 15 mins – note who came up with each keyword

• Good work gets candy!

Via layoutsparks.com

Research: Keyword Ideas

Competitors

1. Google some keywords

2. Visit sites

3. Read navigation / sitemaps

Research: Keyword Value

1. Individually: Write answers to these questions about your group’s products:

1. Have you bought this product/service before? If so, how many times?

2. How often do you buy this product/service?3. Are you a new or returning client to the last

place you bought from?

2. Put answers aside- we’ll return to them soon.

Research: Keyword Value

• Lego: Big mistake or PPC intricacies?

Research: Keyword Value

CPC data, Surveys and Competitor Review

1. Compare keyword ideas with keyword value info from surveys and G CPCs

Designing Sites for SEO

Keep It Simple

• Text links

• Avoid Flash & Frames

• Use keywords liberally

• Answer the query

• Organize for users

• When in doubt, delete.

Clinique Revolution

Full disclosure: They are a current client.

Link Building

‘Why would anyone link to me?’

That’s What They Do

• Directories of websites and resources:– General: Yahoo– Niche: Hockey-Community’s Hockey Blogs– Discounts for students

What is a “Hub”?It’s the center of a wheel.

What is a “Hub”?A wheel made up of pages and links.

Why Hubs Matter To SEO

• A Partial History of Google’s Algos

• PageRank: Absolute scores

• Offtopic pages can rank with high PR

• Hilltop: Relevance within a field

Hubs Link Within A FieldSo Hub Links And Relevance Correlate

Topical relevance can be measured using hub links

Larry King Bob Vila

PageRank:

General Fame

HillTop:

Niche Expertise

Tool: Competitive Link Finder

Tool: Competitive Link Finder

• Pros:

• See actual linking pages

• Sorted by SEOmoz’s mozRank and mozTrust• Saves time

• Cons:

• Starts at $99/mo > competitors

• Fewer results than competitors

And Sites With Other Purposes’ Motivation?

Sweeeeeeet content.

News

500K links, per OpenSiteExplorer.org

Tutorials

Studies

Compliments or Controversy

• Jason Cherniak from Liblogs

• Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc.

Via DigitalTechNews.comVia Liberal.ca

Practice: Link Analysis

• In groups, download these four CSV files and visit the URLs.

• Why did they get each link? What was remarkable?

• http://seoroi.com/links-oatmeal

• http://seoroi.com/links-wordpress

• http://seoroi.com/links-degrees

• http://seoroi.com/links-seomoz

And If You Don’t Create Content?

• Suppliers

• Customers

• Friends

Assumed: Initial Attention

Distribution doesn’t happen on its own. You have to ask. And for many of us,

that’s uncomfortable.

Why is it uncomfortable?

Why is it uncomfortable?Typically because we’re interrupting.

Via 10steps.sg

The solution? Permission.

– Relationships: BuzzStream, ConnectedHQ– Social Media & Reciprocity– Subscribers – RSS and Email