SEO FOR COMMUNICATORS

Jason Karpf, Master’s Candidate, University of Denver

INTRODUCING YOUR LECTURER

Jason Karpf, independent PR/marketing consultant from Southern California

3 courses and 1 Capstone away from M.P.S., Organizational and Professional Communication, PR/Marketing specialty

LLB student: Internet Marketing Communications with LLB, Winter 2010; Integrating Social Media, Summer 2010

THANKS TO OUR GUEST EXPERT

Michael Wylie, president, Abway Technology—SEO and Web development company

Michael’s special tips marked in red throughout presentation

CASE STUDY SITE: LIBORATED.COM

Financial site dedicated to LIBOR index

Jason Karpf is editor: Web copy, articles, press releases, news summaries, video scripts

WHEN KIRK TOLD BONES TO WORK ON SEO

Dammit, Jim…I’m a communicator not a Web-savvy, techno-droid!

(Actual Star Trek Communicator)

BOLDLY GO INTO SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a communications discipline

“Techno-droids” not mandatory, but… “Spocks” speak up!

WHAT IS SEO?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)• All programs to boost search

engine ranking: paid and organicSearch Engine Optimization (SEO)• The “organic” part of SEM

WHAT IS SEO?

Enhancement of Web site attributes known to boost search engine ranking Giving search engines “what they want”

On-Page Off-PageContent Link Popularity

URL Link Quality

Title

Tags

Anchor Text

HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK

Determine pages’ relevance to entered search terms (keywords)

Send out “spiders” to “crawl” sites Use algorithms (formulas) to gauge

relevance, establish ranking Higher the ranking, higher the

placement on search engine results page (SERP)

KEYWORDS

The root of SEO Mirroring how

people search Presence in

visible content and “behind the scenes” features

Learn them for your site and your competitors’

KEYWORD TOOLS

Show most used search terms within site’s existing content

Show frequency among prospective keywords

Suggests additional keywords Google Search-Based Keyword Tool

http://www.google.com/sktool/#

Google AdWords Keyword Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExt

ernal

ON-PAGE SEO Content

Keywords used in written material: Web page copy, product descriptions, articles, press releases captions, etc.

Special text—bold, underline, italics—gives more weight to keywords

Can measure keyword density; http://www.googlerankings.com/ultimate_seo_tool.ph

p http://www.gorank.com/seotools/

4%-8% is target range, keyword density Best advice:

Write aggressively but artfully Update frequently

ON-PAGE SEO URL

Good opportunity for keyword Can be “/(keyword)” after domain Separate words with dashes so Google can

read keywords Title

Phrase seen at top browser bar <120 characters; keywords twice

LIBORATED.COM: LIBOR rates news education tools and more

Site map Good for human beings and search engines

ON-PAGE SEO Tags

Meta description and keyword tags Extra opportunity to list keywords

"Liborated.com is the world’s foremost resource for current and historic LIBOR rates, LIBOR news, charts, calculators, and mortgage and loan information.“

"liborated, liborated.com, LIBOR, LIBOR rates, libor rate, LIBOR loans“

Alt tags Text descriptions for images when they don’t appear

Anchor tags Make the wording of the tag descriptive; keywords “CLICK HERE” is awful use of anchor tag

Bots need to know importance of next page Extensive links within site an SEO plus

HOW DO I KNOW WHAT IS IN THE TAGS? Right click on a background area of

your site Select “View Source” Small window will come up CTRL F for “Find” window Type in term; “img”

OFF-PAGE SEO

Links The more incoming links, the “more

desirable” Link popularity

Number of total inbound links Link quality

Relevancy of site linked to yours Traffic to sites linked to yours

Link popularity tool, Google searches help with research

www.linkpopularity.com

OFF-PAGE SEO

Creating inbound links Link to suitable sites in hopes they

reciprocate Directly soliciting reciprocal links may be

frowned upon “Link to us” feature on site with code Press releases Bylined content

Placement on other Web sites with back links in copy

SO, WHAT’S A COMMUNICATOR TO DO? Best SEO technique: quality, relevant,

evolving site Helpful content

Talk about keyword subject matter Regular updates

New articles News summaries Press releases Video Podcast Blog

Good navigation PR to foster off-page presence

LIBORATED.COM

News summaries with keywords in headlines, images

Ongoing informational articles

Video; keywords in tags, narration transcript

Licensed LIBOR rate feed

Press releases and PR

Social media

SOME RESOURCES

Jason Karpf: SEOCertification.org: http://seocertification.org/

Michael Wylie: Webconfs.com: http://www.webconfs.com/

Article: Top 10 SEO Mistakes The Happy Guy Marketing:

http://www.seo-writer.com/(note URL contains keyword, dashes) Article: The 52 Top SEO Tips - Here Are 10 of Them

StumbleUpon.com: http://www.stumbleupon.com/

SEO: THE FINAL FRONTIER

No tricks—in fact search engines punish

Not passive Work with

consultants/experts Worthy sites: traffic, links

and growth A job for communicators

SEO Officer,

Star Fleet

SEO FOR COMMUNICATORS

Jason Karpf, Master’s Candidate, University of Denver

Thank you to Lora Louise Broady and my fellow DU

students