2. Purpose of SEO
• To drive targeted traffic to your website [or specific pages]
• Ideally, the traffic drives additional sales
• Most online purchases are made on sites found through search engine listings
3. SEO is Technically Not Paid Advertising
• SEO – influence rankings in the “natural” (a.k.a. “organic”, a.k.a. “algorithmic”)
search results
• PPC – paid search advertising on a pay-per-click basis. The more you pay, the higher
your placement. Stop paying = stop receiving traffic.
• PPC – pay per click
• SEM – encompasses both SEO and PPC
• Search engine marketing
5. Most Commonly Used Search Engines
• Google
• Google AdWords
• Bing
• Microsoft Advertising
• Yahoo Search
6. SEO is Based on Keywords
• Keyword Research
• The “right” keywords are…
• relevant to your business
• popular with searchers
• https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/
8. SEO – Constant Changes
• Topically relevant links from important sites
• Anchor text
• Keyword-rich title tags
• Keyword-rich content
• Internal hierarchical linking structure
• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
9. Begin The 7 Steps
1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
2) Get Your Pages Visible
3) Build Links & PageRank
4) Leverage Your PageRank
4) Encourage Clickthrough
6) Track the Right Metrics
7) Avoid Worst Practices
10. 1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
Search engines are wary of “dynamic” pages - they
fear “spider traps”
The better your PageRank, the deeper and more often
your site will be spidered
11. 1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
Page # estimates are wildly inaccurate, and include non-indexed pages
(e.g. ones with no title or snippet)
Misconfigurations (in robots.txt, in the type of redirects used, requiring
cookies, etc.) can kill indexation
Keep your error pages out of the index by returning 404 status code
Keep duplicate pages out of the index by standardizing your URLs,
eliminating unnecessary variables, using 301 redirects when needed
12. Not Spider-Friendly
• GET http://www.bananarepublic.com --> 302 Moved Temporarily
• GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do --> 302 Moved
Temporarily
• GET
http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do?targetURL=http%3A%2
F%2Fwww.bananarepublic.com%2Fbrowse%2Fhome.do&CookieSet=Set --
> 302 Moved Temporarily
• GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/cookieFailure.do --> 200 OK
13. 2) Get Your Pages Visible
• 100+ “signals” that influence ranking
• “Title tag” is the most important copy on the page
• Home page is the most important page of a site
• Every page of your site has a “song” (keyword theme)
• Incorporate keywords into title tags, hyperlink text, headings (H1 & H2 tags), alt tags, and
high up in the page (where they’re given more “weight”)
• Eliminate extraneous HTML code
• “Meta tags” are not a magic bullet
• Have text for navigation, not graphics
14. 3) Build Links and PageRank
• “Link popularity” affects search engine rankings
• PageRank™ - Links from “important” sites have more impact on
your Google rankings (weighted link popularity)
• Google offers a window into your PageRank
• PageRank meter in the Google Toolbar (toolbar.google.com)
• Google Directory (directory.google.com) category pages
• 3rd party tools like SEOChat.com’s “PageRank Lookup” & “PageRank
Search”
• Scores range from 0-10 on a logarithmic scale
15. 4) Leverage Your PageRank
• Your home page’s PageRank gets distributed to your deep pages by virtue of
your hierarchical internal linking structure (e.g. breadcrumb nav)
• Pay attention to the text used within the hyperlink (“Google bombing”)
• Don’t hoard your PageRank
• Don’t link to “bad neighborhoods”
16. 4) Leverage Your PageRank
Avoid PageRank dilution
Canonicalization (www.domain.com vs. domain.com)
Duplicate pages: (session IDs, tracking codes, superfluous parameters)
http://company.com/Products/widget.html
http://company.com/products/widget.html
http://company.com/Products/Widget.html
http://company.com/products/Widget.html
In general, search engines are cautious of dynamic URLs (with ?, &, and = characters) because of
“spider traps”
Rewrite your URLs (using a server module/plug-in) or use a hosted proxy service (e.g. GravityStream)
See http://catalogagemag.com/mag/marketing_right_page_web/
17. 5) Encourage Clickthrough
• Zipf’s Law applies - you need to be at the top of page 1 of the search results.
It’s an implied endorsement.
• Synergistic effect of being at the top of the natural results & paid results
• Entice the user with a compelling call-to-action and value proposition in your
descriptions
• Your title tag is critical
• Snippet gets built automatically, but you CAN influence what’s displayed here
18. 6) Track the Right Metrics
Indexation: # of pages indexed, % of site indexed, % of product
inventory indexed, # of “fresh pages”
Link popularity: # of links, PageRank score (0 - 10)
Rankings: by keyword, “filtered” (penalized) rankings
Keyword popularity: # of searches, competition, KEI (Keyword
Effectiveness Indicator) scores
Cost/ROI: sales by keyword & by engine, cost per lead
19. Avoid Worst Practices
• Target relevant keywords
• Don’t stuff keywords or replicate pages
• Create deep, useful content
• Don't conceal, manipulate, or over-optimize content
• Links should be relevant (no scheming!)
• Observe copyright/trademark law & Google’s guidelines
20. Spamming in Its Many Forms…
• Hidden or small text
• Keyword stuffing
• Targeted to obviously irrelevant keywords
• Automated submitting, resubmitting, deep submitting
• Competitor names in meta tags
• Duplicate pages with minimal or no changes
• Spamglish
• Machine generated content
21. Spamming in Its Many Forms…
Pagejacking
Doorway pages
Cloaking
Submitting to FFA (“Free For All”) sites & link farms
Buying up expired domains with high PageRanks
Scraping
Splogging (spam blogging)
22. Not Spam, But Bad for Rankings
Splash pages, content-less home page, Flash intros
Title tags the same across the site
Error pages in the search results (eg “Session expired”)
"Click here" links
Superfluous text like “Welcome to” at beginning of titles
Spreading site across multiple domains (usually for load balancing)
Content too many levels deep
23. In Summary
• Focus on the right keywords
• Have great keyword-rich content
• Build links, and thus your PageRank™
• Spend that PageRank™ wisely within your site
• Measure the right things
• Continually monitor and benchmark
24. Pay Per Click
• Bid on the search terms
you want
• You only pay when
someone clicks to get to
your website
25. Positives of PPC
• Immediate placement
• You can control budget and positioning
• Only pay if traffic is produced
• You can use inexpensive keywords
26. Negatives of PPC
• Requires a lot of research
• Can cost you a lot of money if done wrong
• Requires you to know about the industry
29. Podcast Assignment
Write a one-to-two-page response paper answering the following questions after listening to a
podcast associated with web design or website development.
• What concepts were discussed that you learned about in BITM 3730? Identify the topics
discussed.
• How did the podcast present these topics differently than the course lectures? Explain how.
• Did the podcast make you more comfortable in using certain technologies? Explain how.
Also detail the name of the podcast, the “edition” of the podcast, and a link to the podcast.
30. Example of Podcast Detail
• Web Design Business with Josh Hall
• 219 - Using YouTube To Grow Your Design Business with Pat
Flynn
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/219-using-youtube-to-grow-your-
design-business-with/id1484689808?i=1000581383565
31. Apple Podcasts Link
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/genre/podcasts-technology/id1318
![Purpose of SEO
• To drive targeted traffic to your website [or specific pages]
• Ideally, the traffic drives additional sales
• Most online purchases are made on sites found through search engine listings](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)