SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Search Engine Optimization: Understanding the Engines & Building Successful Sites Rand Fishkin – August 2010

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Content in this Presentation The Search Landscape How Search Engines Work Building Accessible Sites Conducting Keyword Research Link Building Strategies Social Media & the Web’s Influencers

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE The Search Marketing Landscape

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE 100 Billion Searches Each Month!

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Organic vs. Paid Search Organic Paid

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Organic vs. Paid Search 90% of Clicks 10% of Clicks

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Click-Through Rates

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Vertical Search

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Local Results Probably doesn’t get traffic like most “#1” results Completely different ranking algorithm than standard search results

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Image Results

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Video Results

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE News & Blog Results

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Shopping Results

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Instant Answers

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Instant Answers

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Instant Answers

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Instant Answers News Results Real Time Results Local Results Image Results

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE This Presentation Focuses on:

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE How Search Engines Work

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Crawling & Indexing Without links, the engines might never find this page

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Calculating Query-Independent Metrics Via

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Many Domains vs. One Domain VS.

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Domain Authority

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE PageRank

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE The Flow of PageRank

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE PageRank is Split Evenly Between the Links on a Page

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE PageRank is an Iterative Algorithm (mathematical / computational)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Technically, Every External Link “Leaks” PageRank

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Nofollowing or Removing Links Can Alter the Flow of PageRank

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Or, at least it used to...

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Google Says they use PageRank to Crawl

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Algorithmic Ranking Factors

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Query Deserves Freshness (QDF) QDF Normal Results

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Query Deserves Diversity (QDD)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Algorithmic Ranking Factors

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Building Accessible Sites (pick up here later)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Crawlability / Link Architecture

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Duplicate Content & Canonicalization

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Duplicate Content & Canonicalization

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Canonical URL Tag

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE 301 Redirects 302s

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Duplicate Titles & Meta Descriptions

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Search Friendly URLs Single domain Shallow folder structure with relevant words Keywords in page name, separated by hyphen

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Search UN-Friendly URLs Xyz3.nationalgeographic.com/a/?q=31z&mg=vv7z&sd=8 Unnecessary Subdomain Dynamic URLs don’t perform as well as static and engines recommend against more than two parameters No keywords in the URL string

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Fixing Broken Links & 404s

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Blocking Robots

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Blocking Robots

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE XML Sitemaps

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Webmaster Tools (Google)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Webmaster Tools (Bing)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Search Engine Guidelines

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Important Tags & Signals

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Title Tags

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Meta Descriptions

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Tag Length Recommendations

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Anchor Text

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Page Copy

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Image Alt Attributes Good keyword usage in the alt tag

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Not So Important

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Meta Keywords Tag

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE H1, H2, H(x) Tags

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Search Engine “Submission”

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Keyword Research + Targeting

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE The Goals of Keyword Research

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Determine Relative Volume Levels

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Identify High Value Keywords

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Predict the Effort Required to Rank Well

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Choose the “Best” Words/Phrases to Target

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE The Keyword Demand Landscape

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE The Long Tail of Keyword Demand

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE

Tools & Tactics for Brainstorming & Refining Your Seed List

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Salespeople & Customers

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Google AdWords Tool Be Wary of Match Type

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE MS AdCenter Excel Plug-In

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Google Trends Not Very Accurate Sign In for Y-Axis Numbers

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Internal Site Search Stats

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Competitive Keyword Research Restrict query to competitor’s domain

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE The Keyword Research Process

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Start with Your Seed List

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Create Spreadsheet w/ these Columns

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Get Google Search Demand Numbers

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Guesstimate Conversion Rate Numbers

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Or Use PPC Campaign Data

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Add Keyword Difficulty Data for Top Terms We like using a weighted average of the Page Authority metric

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Target High Volume, High Value, Low Difficulty Terms First

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Measuring Keyword Difficulty & Competition

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Run Queries for Desired Term + Engine Watch for vertical results, which can skew CTRs & visibility

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Conduct a Competitive Analysis of Metrics

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Tools Can Help Provide Scores

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Tools Can Help Provide Scores

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Link Building Strategies

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE What Goals Can Link Building Help Us Achieve?

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Bolster Individual Rankings

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Improve a Domain’s Ability to Rank Pages

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Achieve More Complete Indexation

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Drive Traffic & Branding Awareness

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Send Converting Traffic Image Credit: websiteoptimization.com

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE The 8 Basic Kinds of Link Building

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE #1 - Manual Link Submissions/Requests

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE #2 - Competitive Link Research/Acquisition

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE #3 - Links via Embedded Content

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE #4 - Linkbait & Viral Campaigns

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE #5 - Content, Technology & API Licensing

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE #6 - Partnerships, Exchanges & Trades

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE #7 - Paid Links

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE #8 - Link Reclamation

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Matching the Right Link Building Strategies to Your Organization’s SEO Goals

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Links for Individual Rankings

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Links for Domain “Authority”

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Links for Indexation

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Links for Traffic & Branding

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Links for Conversion

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Using Tools & Processes to Ease the Challenges of Link Building

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Tools for Competitive Link Research Yahoo! Site Explorer & Link Commands Open Site Explorer Top Pages Google Blog Search

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Yahoo! Site Explorer Directionally indicative within ~50% Not necessarily followed & in a somewhat random order

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Yahoo! Link Commands Less “accurate” than Site Explorer Lots of cool, useful modifiers available

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Yahoo! Link Commands Full list available in PRO Guide to Advanced Search Operators:

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Open Site Explorer

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Open Site Explorer Highly Correlation w/ Rankings Data updates monthly from the Linkscape web index (approx. 60% the size of Yahoo!/Google/Bing)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Open Site Explorer Poor Anchor Text Spells Opportunity

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Link Intersect Link Intersect uses the same principle – sites w/ links in common that don’t point to you.

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Top Pages Find which pages are earning links (your own & competitors) 404s? Reclaim them!

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Metrics for Evaluating a Link’s Value Numeric (Objective) Metrics Subjective Metrics Attainability and Effort

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Numeric Metrics for Link Valuation # of Linking Root Domains to URL # of Linking Root Domains to Domain Homepage PageRank vs. Domain mozRank URL PageRank vs. URL mozRank # of Links to the Page (Yahoo!, GG Blogsearch, Linkscape) Twitter mentions (Backtweets.com)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Numeric Metrics (Backtweets) Results count (in a weird location)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Subjective Metrics for Link Valuation Brand name reach/recognition Quality of other links on page/site ( Bing - Linkfromdomain ) Attainability and Effort Jumping through Hoops (via WKA on Flickr)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Scalable Link Acquisition Processes Written Process + Checklist Tools + Metrics for Quick Analysis Training & Incenting Link Builders Building & Refining a Link Acquisition Funnel

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Written Process/Checklist Checklist (via adesigna on Flickr) Run through the link building process yourself Document every step thoroughly Pass it on to others (w/ some training time)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Tools for Quick Analysis Get usable metrics quickly as you surf

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Tools for Quick Analysis

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Training & Incenting Link Builders Training Camp (via Gil Searcy on Flickr) Do link building together Create consistent metrics Reward like a sales team Record reasons why links didn’t happen (like objections to sales) and work on these (things like design quality, affiliations, language, etc. will come up)

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Building a Link Acquisition Funnel Visit Link-Targeted Content Grab Link Code Link to the Site

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Social Media & the Web’s Influencers

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Influencers on the Web

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE The Power of the “Linkerati”

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Content that Appeals to Influencers

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Making Content Easy to Share

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Making Content Easy to Share

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Incenting/Rewarding Link Behaviors

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Cannibalization of the Link Graph MMM… LINK GRAPHS ARE DELICIOUS!

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE The Rise of the Social Graph

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE Algorithmic Ranking Factors You have to do these right, before you can do these right

SLIDE MASTER – COVERPAGE For more information, visit us at All Content and Intellectual Property is under Copyright Protection, SEOmoz Learn More w/ the Free Beginner’s Guide: Feel free to distribute this presentation for educational use. We love to help SEOs learn!