The document discusses the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) for marketing efforts. It provides an overview of SEO best practices, including conducting keyword research, optimizing content and site architecture, and focusing on both on-page and off-page optimization factors. The goal of SEO is to understand how search engines work and evaluate keywords to create relevant content that search engines can easily access and understand.

1. “How to elevate and maintain your search engine ranking results.” Wisconsin Strategic Web Marketing LLC. Concordia College PR Seminar Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Mkting. Please do not distribute

3. (SERPs) Search Engine Result Pages methods include:

4. Paid Placement (PPC) and Paid Inclusion

5. Social Media Optimization

6. (SEO) Search Engine OptimizationProprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

7. 17,576 TLA choices We will only focus on one: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

9. Making information easier to find is what it is all about and that info can be good or bad for you and your company. SEO can play a very strategic role in media relations. What if as a PR firm you would systematically find out what people searching on and create a company glossary and develop content around it?The idea is you optimize according to what people looking for!For instance you should be creating search optimized press releases Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

11. Research keyword phrases (1-2 per release)

12. Add phrases to the title, sub heading and body copy

13. Use keyword phrases when linking to landing pages– not “click here”

14. Add media to the release (images, video, audio)

15. Add alternative formats of the release (MS Word, PDF)

16. Count conversions -Implement tracking codes in the URLs

17. Make certain tracking codes point from the press release to landing pages

18. Post the release to the company online newsroom

19. Write a blog post version of the announcement link to the press release

20. Distribute the release via a wire service such as; PRWeb, Marketwire, PRNewswire or Business Wire

21. Optional: create and distribute a social media version of the press release

22. Encourage bookmarking of press release pickups

23. Monitor release rankings, social mentions, traffic & outcomesProprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

24. How essential is SEO to your marketing efforts ? You Decide… Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

25. Think about this… Americans conducted 18.4 billion total core search queries in October 2010 Overall US search volume increased almost 4 % over last month Currently about 28.7% of world uses Internet as of June 2010 and growing daily (www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) 80% of all online transactions start with search engines Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

26. …and did you know… Google Sites led the U.S in October 2010 with 66.3 percent market share, followed by Yahoo with 16.5 percent and Microsoft sites with 11.5 percent. Ask Network captured 3.6 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL LLC Network with 2.1 percent (comScore) Search marketing continues to dominate the online advertising space with a sustained growth of about 40% yearly since 2004. To put 40% share into context, no other online ad format (display ads, classifieds, rich media/video, lead generation, email and sponsorships) contributes much more than half that amount. (eMarketer) Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

27. Stats point to needed action The bar is moving UP in most industries but there is still time to gain a competitive advantage with SEO. SEO investment is the fastest growing segment and for good reason! Only $1.05 billion of the $6.75 billion dollars spent on search engine marketing last year was spent on organic SEO. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

28. Fundamentals of Good SEO How Search Engines Work 101 First things First = Keyword/Phrase Analysis is essential and critical SEO – Implementing Best Practices On-page SEO factors Off-page SEO factors SEO – Avoiding Worst Practices Results you can count on Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

29. How Search Engines Work Two ways to get found Paid Results = PPC (Pay per Click) Organic or Natural Results = SEO Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

30. Paid or PPC Search patterns reveal that fewer search engine users visit PPC (pay per click) advertising sites than visit SEO (organic) sites. In fact 4 out of 5 search engine users report that they never click on PPC results. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

31. Organic Results = ROI More than 70% of search engine users report visiting organic listings daily (Forester Research) 72% of search engine users report feeling that Google’s organic listings are more relevant than their paid listings. Only 20% of search engine users will view a paid listing. (Forester Research) 3 out of 4 advertisers are victims of click fraud Eye tracking study showed that 70% of search engine users choose to visit websites that appear in the top 10 organic results. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

32. Eye Tracking Studies A recent study by Think Eyetracking shows that visitors are less likely to look down the SERPs than they were 3 years ago. They are significantly more concentrated on the top of the results than ever before Searchers have become so confident in Google to answer their query that they no longer place the burden of proof on the search engine to come up with the right answer. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

33. The Golden Triangle Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

34. Eye Study Results Side Paid/Sponsored Visibility (% of participants looking at a listing in this location) 1 – 50%2 – 40%3 – 30%4 – 20%5 – 10%6 – 10%7 – 10%8 – 10% Organic Ranking Visibility (% of participants looking at a listing in this location) Rank 1 – 100%Rank 2 – 100%Rank 3 – 100%Rank 4 – 85%Rank 5 – 60%Rank 6 – 50%Rank 7 – 50%Rank 8 – 30%Rank 9 – 30%Rank 10 – 20% Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

36. How Do They Work? Four Easy Steps Crawling the Web Search engines run automated programs, called "bots" or "spiders", that use the hyperlink structure of the web to "crawl" the pages and documents that make up the World Wide Web. Estimates are that of the approximately 30 billion existing pages, search engines have crawled between 12 and 15 billion. Indexing Documents Once a page has been crawled, its contents can be "indexed" - stored in a giant database of documents that makes up a search engine's "index.” This index needs to be tightly managed so that requests which must search and sort billions of documents can be completed in fractions of a second. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

37. How Do They Work? Four Easy Steps Cont’ Processing Queries When a request for information comes into the search engine (hundreds of millions do each day), the engine retrieves from its index all the documents that match the query. A match is determined if the terms or phrase is found on the page in the manner specified by the user. Ranking Results Once the search engine has determined which results are a match for the query, the engine's algorithm (a mathematical equation commonly used for sorting) runs calculations on each of the results to determine which is most relevant to the given query. They sort these on the SERPS in the order of most relevant to least relevant so that users can make a choice about which to select. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

38. What do the Search Engines see and what don’t they see? Lets take a look http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php www.willmaster.com/library/tools/What_Search_Engine_Spiders_See.php?dlperry Look at Source and see what the spiders see Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

39. What don’t spiders see? Frames, Flash, JavaScript, images, and other popular web design elements can cause problems for rankings if they aren’t used correctly. Splash pages, sites done completely in images, framed sites with a single URL for multiple page versions, and navigation hidden in Flash are all common examples of bad design for SEO. Thus, creating a site with “visible content” is critical for good rankings. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

40. The Search Algorithms The Secret Formula Each SE has different algorithms Google alone uses 200+ algorithms All Algorithms are focused on 2 key results: Relevance Popularity Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

41. GB Measuring Relevance Relevance - the degree to which the content of the documents returned in a search matched the user's query intention and terms. The relevance of a document increases if the terms or phrase queried by the user occurs multiple times and shows up in the copy, title of the work or in important headlines or sub headers. Meta data! Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

42. Measuring Popularity Popularity - the relative importance, measured via citation (the act of one work referencing another, as often occurs in academic and business documents) of a given document that matches the user's query. The popularity of a given document increases with every other document that references it. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

44. Stay current with Algorithm changesProprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

46. Google Search-based Keyword Tool

47. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

48. Proprietary tools and services = WordTrackerProprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

49. Understanding Keywords Typically users will type 2-5 wordphrases into the search box to research a topic Single words are too generic and too competitive Keywords should define your product or idea #1 Mistake - avoid internal or company-speak (keywords are not about what you call your stuff but what your users call your stuff) Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

50. The LONGGG Tail One of the most effective traffic building approaches Picture a graph of your search terms in relation to traffic provided Perhaps focus on the least trafficked terms Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

51. LONGGG Tail Strategy First, determine which terms you already rank well for Second, which terms already have a page of content ready to optimize Finally, which terms you will need to create content for Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

52. Build a hierarchy of terms your audience cares about Know your priority keywords and TARGET your web pages Organize priority keywords into groups Think of unique “themed” content and target your keywords around each page Choose 3-5 synergistic target phrases that flow “naturally” into the content Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

54. Architecture

57. Increases search engine rankings and traffic

58. Promotes the likelihood of quality links from other sitesProprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

60. More readable for skimmers and scannersProprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

61. Search Value Pyramid Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

62. Utilizing Long Tail Keywords in Search Value Pyramid Some of the best value is at the bottom of the keyword pyramid. If you spend too much time focused too broadly on the top you may miss some of the exceptional value on the bottom. Targeting generic terms may not add much value, since the leads are not strongly qualified. Paying extra to rank for more generic terms may not be a cost that is justified unless you can resell those leads at a profit. Being exceptionally aggressive raises your risk profile and makes your site more likely to fluctuate in rankings when new search algorithms are rolled out. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

63. Title Tags = The most important on-page SEO factor Displays in upper left hand corner of browser window Also appears in the title of most search engine results Needs to be different for every web page Must contain the keyword targets for the webpage Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

64. Best Practices - Title Tags Incorporate keyword phrasesIt is critical that whatever your keyword research shows as being the most valuable for capturing searches, gets prominently included in your Title Tag. Limit length to 65 characters or less Brand your trafficUse the title of your site or brand at the beginning or end of every Title Tag to help searchers know where they're going and to increase return visits. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

65. Best Practices - Title Tags Target searcher intentWhen you're writing titles for web pages, keep in mind the search terms your audience employed to reach your site. If you're reasonably sure the intent is a purchase, download or other action, make it clear in your title that this function can be performed at your site, i.e. “Buy Slatwall Here” Repeat in the headlineRe-using the title tag of each page as the H1 header tag can be valuable from both a keyword targeting standpoint and a user experience improvement. Users who go to a page from the SERPs will have the expectation of finding the title they clicked. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

67. Alt Image Tags AIT’s contain the text that appears when you mouse over an image. Use keywords to describe the image appropriately. For Effective AITs: Name the image files with keywords Write keyword rich captions ADA friendly pages = Text reader (Target had a $6 million settlement) Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

68. Site Architecture Directory structure flat as possible Parameter driven URLS and URL structure W3C Standards mean a lot Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

70. If flash or JavaScript, have an alternative static form of navigationProprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

71. Directory StructureInternal Linking When done right, you can kill two birds with one stone, and improve both search rankings and usability Use keyword rich anchor text to foreshadow content of the next page It helps the spider Do not use “click here” Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

72. Static vs. Dynamic Pros of Static URLs Higher click-through rates in the SERPs, emails, web pages, etc. Higher keyword prominence and relevancy Easier to copy, paste and share on or offline Easy to remember thus usable in branding and offline media Creates an accurate expectation from users of what they are about to see on the page All 4 of the major search engines (and plenty of minor engines) generally handle static URLs more easily than dynamic ones, particularly if there are multiple parameters Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

73. W3C Standards Based There are several reasons to make your website W3C valid Better chances for good rendering in different browsers Decrease dependency on error correction of browsers You could give a speed boost to your websites You avoid bad coding and hence poor spidering Accessibility means something Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

74. Technical Best Practices Hosting/Speed - avoid someone's basement or do-it-yourself Use redirects (301 vs. 302) Use Google Webmaster Crawl Tools Sitemaps - make them descriptive; Submit to Google Sitemaps Robots.txt Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

75. Linking, Linking, and Linking Most overlooked and important aspect of SEO Choose your friends wisely – you gain authority and respect from search engines and prospects Inbound linking: websites linking to you Outbound linking: websites you link to Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

76. Back-Link strategies How to get somebody to link to your site… Submitting to Free Directories There are hundreds of free directories. Submitting your site to them will help you improve your rankings somewhat and help get your site indexed, however they are usually too general. To find free directories, search for “list of free directories” in Google. Major directories such as Dmoz will only allow for an official site title (e.g. your company name). Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

79. Search for terms related to your site’s industry in conjunction with terms like “add site,” “submit resource,” “add link,” etc.

80. The highest quality links will require a written request. A written request should discuss what you like about their site, why you want to be listed, why they should list you, and how they might link to you. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

82. Find related forums, create a user in forums that appear to allow signatures, and make posts.Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

83. LinkingOther Ideas Content distribution – press releases, articles Specifications Case studies or White Papers Customers and Partners Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

84. LinkingCreate a Blog Blogging does two great things for SEO: First, if you run a blog correctly, you are updating content on a frequent basis. Search engines love fresh content on Web sites. Web pages or articles that have been published recently on an established Web site get an extra boost in the rankings. The second benefit of blogging is that blogs are a magnet for links!The people who do the most linking online are bloggers and writers. They are much more likely to link to an interesting blog article with a unique perspective on an issue than a typical corporate Web site. Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

85. LinkingKey Takeaways If your site truly has unique content or is considered authoritative, other sites will often link to it naturally. This is the best way to get links. Quality vs. Quantity – Google Page Rank Trusted links rank higher (.edu, gov, non-profits) Always keep in mind “How can I get other authorative sites to link to mine?” Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

87. Careful, you may get blacklisted or banned.Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

90. It is pretty easy for the search engines to detect this. If you're suspected of using cloaking, it's easy for someone (like a Google employee) to simply visit your Web site as a human and check whether you're cloaking. This technique, when discovered, is one of the most reliable ways to get a site banned.Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

92. Based on how sophisticated you want to get, it could be based on something as simple as tags in the HTML, CSS stylings or JavaScript that changes the page dynamically. Regardless of how sophisticated the approach, it is still going to be detected at some point.Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

93. Bottom Line It is Not Smart to Try to Outsmart Google Engineers Google has a lot at stake and has really smart engineers working on the algorithms. An Internet strategy that is predicated on outsmarting Google is not a smart strategy. For most marketers, the time and energy spent on trying to take these shortcuts is much better invested in two things: 1.)Improving their Web site so that it deserves to be ranked highly because it has valuable, differentiated content 2.) Helping the search engines discover the content for the benefit of users Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute

94. Thank You! Any Questions, Ideas? Proprietary & confidential to WI Strategic Web Marketing Please do not distribute