How to Think Like a Search Engine Optimizing Your Content, Marketing, and Communications for SEO May 14, 2015

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May 14, 2015 How to Think Like a Search Engine Optimizing Your Content, Marketing, and Communications for SEO

Presenters 5 Assisting with chat: Ale Bezdikian, TechSoup Becky Wiegand Webinar Program Manager TechSoup Global James Metzger Online Marketing and Analytics Manager TechSoup Global

Where Are You? We Are Here 6

Agenda Introduction to TechSoup Participant Polls ─ Existing experience and search results? What Is SEO and Why Does It Matter? How Search Engines Read Web Pages What Specifics Relate to Copy Live Site Examples SEO Style Guide Q&A 7

About TechSoup Global We are a global network of 63 partner NGOs that provide the best technology resources to over a half-million organizations in 121 countries. 8 We connect organizations and people with the resources, support, and technology they need to change the world. Learn more from our 2014 Year in Review.2014 Year in Review

9 We are working toward a time when every social benefit organization on the planet has the technology, resources, and knowledge it needs to operate at its full potential. 121 countries served 63 partner NGOs 41 Net2 local groups 615k NGOs reached Our Reach

Our Impact 10 Together, we build a stronger, more resilient civil society. $4.8B in technology products and grants employed by NGOs for the greater good 35 languages used to provide education and support 100+ corporate and foundation partners connected with the causes and communities they care about 5.9M annual visits to our websites 600,000 newsletter subscribers empowered with actionable knowledge 79% of NGOs have improved organizational efficiency with TechSoup Global's resource offering* *Source: = survey conducted among TechSoup members in 2013.

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Participant Poll Have you: Purchased a domain name Built a site using that domain name Been the content writer/creator Web the developer All of the above None of the above 12

Participant Poll How well does your site perform when you search for it: My site shows up on the first page in Google My site shows up in top 3 pages My site shows up in search results not related to my org’s actual name/brand Don’t have a clue Other (comment in chat) 13

Think Like a Search Engine Optimizing content, communications and marketing for search engine optimization (SEO) James Metzger Online Marketing & Analytics Mngr.

How Smart Are Search Engines? “Computers Are Useless. They Can Only Give You Answers” – Pablo Picasso Can the Search Engine figure anything out for itself? Not really – It only knows what you tell it, in the language it speaks. What languages/codes do SEs speak? Text (and variations), HTML, XML; not much else. Not many “file formats” or other languages- Not.jpg, not javascript or ajax, not php, not.gif, not.avi, etc…but it can read the file properties of many of these file types.

What Do Search Engines Do? 1.Crawl – reads what it finds to read on a site’s code 2.Index – organizes what it reads in a biiiiig database 3.Present SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) – compares a user’s search terms to the biiiiig database and returns what it hopes is the closest match to what the user intends to find (based on what the sites say about themselves)

What Does the Crawl Result In ? Some web page info as seen by a search bot…

What Specifics Relate to Copy for SEO? 18

What On-Page Specifics Relate to Copy for SEO? 1.URL – This is what you see in the address bar of a browser. ( 2.Page Titles – Seen in the top of a browser window or tab, and the contents of the title tag will usually appear in the first line of the SERP 1.In html is seen as the text between and 3.Meta Description – Seen in SERPs presentation after the Title 1.In html seen as <meta name="description" content=“…” 4.Headline tags (H1, H2…) = The #1 Headline of a page – not seen in SERPs but a big factor in rankings 5.Images and other “rich” content

Where Specific Areas Affect SERPs? 2- Page Title 1 - URL H-1 H-2 But, where is the meta-description?

Where Specific Areas Affect SERPs? Here is meta-description

Details on Specifics for “On-Page ” Optimization URL – This is what you see in the address bar of a browser. ─max 115 characters ─Use of relevant keywords in URLs is a plus but has been diminishing in importance Page Titles – Seen in the top of a browser window or tab ─max 65 Characters (482 px - Mobile) ─min 30 Characters (200 Px - Mobile) ─High keyword to text ratio is good ─Same as H1 – no duplicates Meta Description – Seen in search results presentation ─max 155 Char (928 Px - Mobile) ─min 70 Char (400 Px - Mobile) ─High keyword to text ratio is good, keywords up front is best, branding follows. ─Include welcome and call to action with offer H-1 = Blog, Article “Titles” Appropriate keyword usage in read aloud phrasing, not snippets Helps if fulfilling ‘intent’ of searcher > Headline that pose Q’s(?) that the article answers Max 70 Characters (482 px - Mobile) Min 45 H-2 = Max 70 Characters (482 px - Mobile) Images Size - Over 100Kb Add ‘Alt Text’ No Alt Text Over 100 Characters Focus on what you can affect, CMS depending!

Live demo Npo and library websites Source code Compared to Screaming Frog results 23

How to Write a Search-Optimized Copy Choose a title that effectively communicates the topic of the page's content Use common, straight-forward, 3 rd grade level English Put the keywords related to the article first Write in simple subject/predicate form, or a simple question for variety Write to address the intent of the searcher – give the answer to the problem they are trying to solve in the headline Do not choose a title that has no relation to the content on the page, or use vague, “cute” or puny titles

Don’t Other Factors Affect SERPs? Lots of other factors affect SERPS, but content producers can only reach a limited number of those touch points, so just worry about per-page excellence in the areas discussed

Additional Copy Writing Q & A Effective/proper use of H1 and H2 (use them for SEO juice, not for formatting) Title and URL (length, should they be the same, does it matter?) Inline link recommendations (for example, don’t link generic things like “click here,” instead link intent, and have these links be obvious, not backhanded. Have anchor text match landing point)

More Information 27 SEO Starter Guide (PDF) Google’s Webmaster Guidelines for SEO How Google Search Works Beginner’s Guide to SEO

Think Like a Search Engine Optimizing content, communications and marketing for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Presented by: James Metzger Online Marketing & Analytics Mngr.

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