Quick & Dirty SEO 1.Intro / Overview 2.SEO Example 3.Market Research 4.Keyword Research 5.PageRank 6.On Page Optimization 7.Site Structure 8.Link Building 9.Conclusion – Success Cycle

Intro / Overview What is SEO? –Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of publishing and marketing information that ranks well for valuable keywords in search engines like Google, Yahoo! Search, and Microsoft Live Search.

Intro / Overview What is SEO? –Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of publishing and marketing information that ranks well for valuable keywords in search engines like Google, Yahoo! Search, and Microsoft Live Search. Main benefits of SEO –Low cost, targeted traffic –Traffic scale can be very large –With a high volume of targeted traffic, comes substantial revenue

Intro / Overview What is SEO? –Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of publishing and marketing information that ranks well for valuable keywords in search engines like Google, Yahoo! Search, and Microsoft Live Search. Main benefits of SEO –Low cost, targeted traffic –Traffic scale can be very large –With a high volume of targeted traffic, comes substantial revenue Ranking on “Page One” of Google –What it takes… –An interesting success story

Intro / Overview What is SEO? –Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of publishing and marketing information that ranks well for valuable keywords in search engines like Google, Yahoo! Search, and Microsoft Live Search. Main benefits of SEO –Low cost, targeted traffic –Traffic scale can be very large –With a high volume of targeted traffic, comes substantial revenue Ranking on “Page One” of Google –What it takes… –An interesting success story Market Research –Identify keywords your competitors are optimizing for –Identify the “On Page” SEO strategy that is working for your competitors –Identify the Linking Strategy that your competitors are utilizing –You can learn what is necessary for you to rank above your competitors, from your competitors

Intro / Overview Keyword Research –In what ways are searchers looking for you? –What is the breadth of your niche? –Where do you want to enter the market? –Using Adwords to identify your top “Money Terms”

Intro / Overview Keyword Research –In what ways are searchers looking for you? –What is the breadth of your niche? –Where do you want to enter the market? –Using Adwords to identify your top “Money Terms” PageRank –What is PageRank and how does it effect your rankings? –How do you use PageRank to “Rank On Page One of Google”?

Intro / Overview Keyword Research –In what ways are searchers looking for you? –What is the breadth of your niche? –Where do you want to enter the market? –Using Adwords to identify your top “Money Terms” PageRank –What is PageRank and how does it effect your rankings? –How do you use PageRank to “Rank On Page One of Google”? On page SEO –Title Tag –The text on your page –Your domain name –Internal Links

Intro / Overview Keyword Research –In what ways are searchers looking for you? –What is the breadth of your niche? –Where do you want to enter the market? –Using Adwords to identify your top “Money Terms” PageRank –What is PageRank and how does it effect your rankings? –How do you use PageRank to “Rank On Page One of Google”? On page SEO –Title Tag –The text on your page –Your domain name –Internal Links Off page SEO –Links, links and more links (the higher quality the better) –Authority sites –Link reputation (the text on the links coming to your site)

Success Story Matt started this site three years ago as an “Adsense Experiment”

Success Story Matt started this site three years ago as an “Adsense Experiment” He did the right things out of the gate and the site got some good traction

Success Story Matt started this site three years ago as an “Adsense Experiment” He did the right things out of the gate and the site got some good traction He got some good backlinks to the site

Success Story Matt started this site three years ago as an “Adsense Experiment” He did the right things out of the gate and the site got some good traction He got some good backlinks to the site I joined him on the project six months ago and we’ve since quadrupled the traffic and the revenue

Success Story Matt started this site three years ago as an “Adsense Experiment” He did the right things out of the gate and the site got some good traction He got some good backlinks to the site I joined him on the project six months ago and we’ve since quadrupled the traffic and the revenue Lets take a look at this Adsense Experiment…Adsense Experiment

FreeForeclosureDatabase.com Website

Free Foreclosure Database.com Analytics

FreeForeclosureDatabase.com Adsense Revenue Last Month

Market Research So, what did I do when Matt called me up and asked me to take a look at his Adsense Experiment? I went to Google… and looked for opportunity I then reported back to him that we had a huge upside Let’s go to Google and see what we can find out about our competitors –Who’s ranking on page one? –Why are they there? Success leaves clues… –What is their PageRank? –What does their “On Page” optimization look like? –Who’s got all the “content”? –If there’s little content… they must have PageRank (PageRank sometimes trumps content) –How many links, and what quality are the links, they have going to their page? –What does Yahoo Site Explorer have to say? –Let’s dig in… we’re off to GoogleGoogle

Market Research Continued… What is the easiest way to discover this important information about your competition? –Install Google ToolbarGoogle Toolbar –Install SEO for FireFoxSEO for FireFox –Get PPC Web SpyPPC Web Spy Who are you competing against? –We’re also going to see what other keywords these competitors are trying to rank for –We’re going to see what Google thinks their site is about by putting their URL in their Keyword Tool –We’re going to start building a list for the next step in the process

Keyword Research First things first… In the market you are competing in, what are the top keyword phrases you should be optimizing your site for? Lets take a look: Google External Keyword Tool Google External Keyword Tool –Start with your main keywords and drill down –List them in order of search volume –Build a list of related terms –Look at both search volume and PPC bidding (add PPC bidding to the report) –Look at Microsoft’s Commercial Intention ToolCommercial Intention Tool

Keyword Research If Content is “King”… then Keywords are the “Queen” You have to select your keywords carefully because you are going to be using your precious “link juice” (page rank capitol) to get the pages that you are optimizing for, to rank (more on that later) –Guinea pig example (guinea pig vs. guinea pigs, vs. guinea pig care (totally different people – searchers) Using keyword research tools, you can identify several ways that searchers are looking for you as a solution Use WordTracker for more keyword ideasWordTracker Prioritizing your keyword list (based on search volume and advertiser competition Creating your keyword “tiers” for your site structure There’s “Gold” in the “Long Tail Phrases”

PageRank Explained B has tons of incoming links and only links out to C C has only 1 incoming link, but it comes from B which has a lot of incoming links and C only links back to B. E has a lot of incoming links and only two outgoing (one which is reciprocal), but doesn’t have a lot of “important” links A has “juice” that it receives from D, but retains it all because it doesn’t link out to any other sites Wikipedia definition

How Do You Get Page Rank? You “buy it”… –You create content (write it or have it written) to “attract” PageRank (links). This is sometimes known as “Link Bait” –You pay someone to attract links for you (by contacting important sites that would be interested in linking to your site (see who is linking to your competitors ideas) –You “spend” your time getting involved in your “community” online (talking to website owners, posting on Blogs, getting involved in forums, etc.) –Using “Article Trading” strategies, you can post content on other people’s sites (mainly Blogs) to link to your most important pages on your site –You use social media to build links to your site (by creating pages on “Authority Sites” and linking back to your site, you can generate both traffic and PageRank

PageRank “Sculpting” If you only have so much PageRank (link juice “capitol”) how do you use it to your advantage? It starts with knowing what your “Money Terms” are, so you know what pages to “point” your PageRank to “No Follow” and stopping all PageRank “leaks” Using “link attracting” pages on your site to get your “Money Pages” to rank Using proper “Site Structure” to maximize our PageRank

Optimization On Page: Title Tags Text On Your Page HTML Design Elements Your URLS Your Domain Name Off Page: Incoming Links PageRank of the Sites Linking to Yours Authority Sites Anchor Text Links

On Page Optimization It is hard to rank for keywords that do not appear in your page content, so each page should be organized around the goal of ranking for a specific keyword phrase, with some related phrases and related keywords mixed into the page copy (which Google looks for) It’s easier to rank for a keyword phrase on a page that is optimized for just one or two phases and has links coming directly to that page (with those phrases on the links) You want to maximize the opportunity to “tell” the search engines what your page is about. –The Title Tag and why it’s important –The H1 Tag and ways of incorporating it into your page –How you can “design” around content issues –Blogs – Google loves Blogs Let’s look at an example that’s simple… yet effectiveexample

Site Structure Make sure: –Your most important categories or pages are linked to site-wide –You link to every page on your site from at least one other page on your site –You use consistent anchor text in your navigation (you can’t just have images for your navigation and pass PageRank to your other pages) –You are looking to “push” PageRank to your most important pages that you want to rank on the first page of Google

Content Is “King” The most important thing to the search engines is “user experience”. Their goal is to serve visitors content that is most “relevant” to the search the visitor is doing (based on a search for a specific keyword phrase). If there are a lot if sites indexed that are “relevant” to a specific search, Google wants to show their visitor the “most important sites” in their index first (the ones with the most quality links) –Search engines also “love content”, the more (and the more unique), the better. Larger sites tend to rank better than smaller sites

Site Structure Continued… PageRank and what it means to your most important pages Knowing what your money terms are, what terms are more profitable for you to rank for? PageRank sculpting No follow and other strategies for PageRank leaks Let’s take a look at FFD.com againFFD.com

PPC For Testing Purposes Using PPC advertising, you can identify your "Money Terms" you want to optimize your site for SEO is a long term strategy that has a huge payoff for doing it correctly. This means optimizing for the right terms, your "Money Terms". By bidding on your top search phrases, you can find out almost immediately what your conversions are “by keyword” Once you identify the keywords that are most profitable for you in PPC, you can immediately go to work to create and optimize pages for “organic search”.

Link Building You need to get your pages “indexed” in Google in order for them to rank. The best way to get your pages indexed is to get links from important sites to your pages Having your page listed in an important directory is a valuable link (being listed in DMOZ and Yahoo are probably two of the most important) You need to get “links” to rank, the more quality links you acquire, the less links you need to rank above your competitors Search engines view links as “votes”, with some votes counting more than others. To get high quality links (that help your site rank better) you need to participate in the social aspects of your community and give away valuable unique content that people talk about and share with others (also known as “Link Bait”) How many sites are "voting for you" (by linking to you) and how many sites are linking to them (which determines how important they are)… this, in turn, determines how important your site is Not all links are the same… the “Logarithmic Scale” is alive and well.

The Logarithmic Scale The PageRank algorithm used to be a "Base 8" Logarithmic Scale... meaning that a PR2 is worth 8 PR1s and a PR3 is worth 8 PR2s, etc. Now it’s probably more like a Base 12 Logarithmic Scale… but let’s use 10 to make the numbers simple. So, if your competitor has a PR6 incoming link to their page, you would need: 10 PR5 links 100 PR4 links 1000 PR3 links 10,000 PR2 links 100,000 PR1 links to match their same “link juice”.

Link Building Continued… You also need to control your “link reputation” so that Google knows what your site is about. What other sites "say" about you when they link to you (in other words, the "anchor text"). –You need anchor text, on the links coming to your page, that uses the keyword phrase that you want to rank for… and have it link to a page that is about that keyword phrase. –You need to vary your anchor text so that it looks “natural” to the SE. Think about how people would do it naturally… they wouldn’t all use the same exact anchor text on a link to your page.

Measuring Results Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half. - John Wanamaker ( ) Retailer, Philadelphia You’ll want to measure everything on your site from front to back: –Keywords generating traffic –Ads or Titles/Descriptions creating clicks –Landing page conversions –Opt-in conversions –Sales conversions “Wash, rinse… and repeat”

Tools For Measuring Results: Google Analytics Google Website Optimizer Google Adwords Google’s Search Based Keyword Tool Google Trends UltraCart Shopping Cart 1ShoppingCart Aweber Systems iContact Systems