SEO Basics & Beyond - 2017 Edition

SEO Basics & Beyond:
Keys to Search Engine Success

Download this slide deck at: http://bit.ly/seobasicsbeyond17
Agenda
 What SEO Means
 How Search Engines Work
 Steps to Setting Up a Successful
SEO Strategy
 ThingsYou Can Do Right Now to
IncreaseYour Exposure in Search
Engines
 SEOTrends toWatch

Q&A
 We will have Q&A at the end of each section

Download Slides
http://bit.ly/seobasicsbeyond17

About Me
 Coding since 6 years old
 Creating websites since 1997
 Working in e-commerce since
2005
 Marketing MBA
 Agency since 2011

What “SEO” Means
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is
the art and science of influencing
search engines to rank your content
high in search results..

What “SEO” Means
…influencing search engines…
1. Apply a set of educated guesses
2. Test and measure results
3. Rinse, repeat.

How Search Engines Work
 Google does data entry with your website
 They extract a copy of your site’s text and
code and put it into their own database
 This is called “indexing”

 Their copy is what gets
searched against when a
user enters a search

 To determine position in results, sites are ranked according to a
set of algorithms (“if this, then that” conditions)

 There are over 200 known ranking factors that Google looks at
 They can all be lumped into 3 categories

 Technical ranking factors include
things like:
 Search-engine-friendly website code
 Error-free code
 Website server speed
 Mobile-friendliness
 Additional markup
(Schema.org)
1) Technical

 Content ranking factors include things like:
 What keywords you use
 Where and how you use them
 How you organize the content
 Frequency of new content added
 How you link the content together
2) Content

 Off Page ranking factors include things like:
 How many reputable & relevant websites link to yours
 Social media “signals”
 (for local businesses) NAP Citations
(a.k.a. online phone book listings)
3) Off Page

A Successful SEO Strategy
 A successful SEO strategy has 4 parts:
1. Technical
2. Content
3. Off Page
4. Measurement & Analysis
4 Parts

 New site in the works? Start with a “blueprint”
 Build it right in the first place!
 At most basic level, make sure new site will be fully responsive (mobile-friendly),
and that it loads fast per Google PageSpeed Insights test
Technical
 WordPress is highly recommended as an SEO-
friendly platform, as it is a widely-supported
open source platform. Click here to read why
open source is best for SEO.
 An SEOAgency can provide full and
customized specifications for the web designer
to work off of

 Existing site? Start with an audit
 WooRank is free, but only scans one page and doesn’t check
for everything. Good place to start though.
 An SEO agency can do a full audit
▪ Be sure it includes mobile friendliness & site speed, as well as other
common factors such as header tag hierarchy, Schema.org,
robots.txt, XML sitemaps, etc.
Technical
www.WooRank.com

Technical
www.WooRank.com
Hand audit report to
webmaster.
Tell them to fix it all.
(Cry at cost if
necessary)

 Google Search Console
 (formerly known as Google WebmasterTools)
 For now, still located at:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
 Contains info on index status, crawl errors, warning
messages, penalties, mobile usability errors, etc .
 This is THE ONLY place Google will communicate with you
directly about your site!
▪ Ensure that email notifications are turned on in the preferences!
Technical

 OngoingTechnical Strategy
 Full audit updates quarterly
 Check Search Console regularly & subscribe to email
notifications
▪ Consistently fix any crawl errors that come up
 Subscribe to Google WebmasterCentral Blog for real time
alerts of new technical considerations
▪ https://webmasters.googleblog.com/
Technical

 How to organize information
 A lot of different topics on one page is confusing to the search
engines
Content

Content
 How to organize information
 Separate pages for each topic, product, or service
 Link similar pages to each other to create topical “hubs”

Content
 Ongoing content strategy
 “Fresh” content is important, but that doesn’t
mean CHANGING existing content, that means
ADDING new content
 Important to keep site size growing by adding
new pages or articles all the time
 Blog RELIGIOUSLY!
(Blog must be on your own website, not on WordPress.com or Blogger.com)

Content
Source: Hubspot

Content
 4 Categories = 4 Posts Per Month
 Use Keyword Research to get ideas
 Plan far ahead
• HINT: An Editorial Calendar is a lifesaver!

Determine what keywords to use (a.k.a. “Keyword Research”)
Content
 Search SuggestTools
▪ AnswerThePublic (free)
▪ Soovle (free)
 DataTools:
▪ Google AdWords Keyword Planner
(for existing advertisers)
▪ SEMRush (partially free)
▪ SERPStat (partially free)

“Not too hot, not too cold…”
Content

Content
Determine what keywords to use

Where & how to use keywords
Content
1. Pick One Primary Phrase, and Several Secondaries for Context: Focus
your content on one primary phrase that meets the “Goldilocks Rule”, but
also pick several related words to use as secondaries. Secondaries don’t
have to be used in all the following places, but should be “peppered in”
naturally for context.
2. Use Primary Phrase in the Title: Use the phrase in the article or page
title, towards the front if possible, e.g. “Facebook Marketing Strategy: Top
10 Best Practices”
3. Use Primary Phrase in a Subtitle: Subtitles are great for breaking up
longer content into more digestible chunks. Use your phrase once in a
subtitle.

Content
4. Use Primary Phrase in the Title tag & URL: Most modern content management
systems will do this automatically for you based on the title of your article, but
make sure your phrase lands in both the title tag and the URL for the content.
5. Use Primary Phrase in the Meta description: This is a one-page summary of
the content that search engines often use as the “snippet” in the search results.
Although not a direct ranking factor, using the phrase here can assist with click-
through rates.
6. Use Primary Phrase in Image Filename & Alt Tag: All content should have at
least one image. Name the image filename with the phrase, using dashes (NOT
underscores) as spaces, e.g. facebook-marketing-strategy.jpg. There is also a tag
called an “image alt tag” that exists to tell search engines more about the image.
Use your phrase in this description as well.

Content
7. Use the Primary Phrase AND Secondaries in the Copy :
• It’s important that the copy reads very naturally, e.g. “New business owners
often wonder what’s involved in executing a successful Facebook marketing
strategy.”
• In total, when you are finished writing, the primary phrase should appear
approximately 1 to 2 times per 100 words. This DOES include the titles
and subtitles. DO NOT exceed this frequency!
• For example, a 500 word article should have the phrase appear anywhere from a
minimum of 5 times (1 time per 100 words) to an absolute maximum of 10 times (2
times per 100 words).
• Secondaries can be used as little as 1 time each. Just “pepper them in”
naturally.

Off Page
 Links
 Other websites linking to your website
 QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
 Reputable and Relevant
 CANNOT be manipulated – DO NOT buy links!

Off Page
 Best Ways to Get Natural Links
 Write great content & pay to promote it
▪ Paying for eyeballs is okay, paying for links is not!
▪ Pay to boost great blog posts on social (FB/LI)
 HARO (Help A Reporter Out)
 Offer (and promote) scholarships & internships
 Offer government & university staff/student discounts
 Look at competitor links for ideas (Ahrefs, OpenSiteExplorer, Majestic)

Off Page
 Social Signals
 Content that lives on your website getting
“liked”, shared, commented on, etc.
 Boost to get more signals
 Again, write great content & pay to promote it

Off Page (for Local Biz)
 Citations (a.k.a. “Online Phone Book Listings”)
 For local businesses
 NAP = Name, Address, Phone
 Consistency is key
 Google My Business (a.k.a. Google Maps)
 Claim & fully fill out all info

Measurement & Analysis
 Remember…
 This is educated guesswork
 You HAVE to measure what
worked and what didn’t!
 Why? So you can do more of
what works and less of what
doesn’t

Measurement & Analysis
 What to measure
 Organic traffic
▪ Make sure it’s always increasing
 Top landing pages
▪ See what content works best
 Top referring sources
▪ See what sites are linking to you
 Top organic keywords
▪ What keywords is Google associating your site with (in Search Console)

Google Analytics Cheat Sheet
 What to measure
 Organic traffic
▪ Acquisition -> AllTraffic -> Channels
 Top landing pages
▪ Behavior -> Site Content -> Landing Pages
 Top referring sources
▪ Acquisition -> AllTraffic -> Referrals*
▪ *beware of referral spam

A Case Study
This is What Could Happen.

Things to do NOW
 Set up Search Console
 Subscribe to email notifications
 Start blogging (on your own site)
 Switch toWordPress if not already in it, or add it to your site
 Share (and boost) your great content on social
 Sign up for HARO
 For local businesses…
 Claim/optimize Google My Business listing
 Build/correct other “online phone book” listings

Things to NEVER do
 “Stuff” keywords into your content
 Create lots of similar pages with boilerplate copy
 Create orphaned/doorway pages
 Use hidden text
 Hyperlink tons of keywords
 Buy links (NEVEREVEREVEREVER do this!)

Myth Busting
 MYTH:The meta keywords tag
matters
 Google hasn’t used it since 2008
 MYTH:There’s a duplicate content
“penalty”
 It is NOT a “penalty” - Duplicate copies
will simply be ignored
 MYTH: “We can just ‘SEO it’ later”
 SEO needs to start BEFORE a site build
 MYTH: SEO is a one-time project
 There areTHOUSANDS of algorithm
updates each year. SEO is never-ending
 MYTH: Link-building is dead
 Inbound link factors continue to
outweigh all other factors
 MYTH: “Our Agency is Google-
Certified for SEO”
 No such thing. Only certifications
available are for AdWords & Analytics.

Trends to Watch
 Mobile, Mobile, Mobile!
 Google Mobile-FriendlyTest
 Mobile Usability in Search Console

Trends to Watch
 SPEED
 Google PageSpeed Insights
 GTMetrix
“You really have to speed up your site”
– Gary Illyes, Google
Closing keynote, Pubcon 2015

Trends to Watch
 Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
 Not yet an official ranking factor (but will be)
 At first, this was important only for news sites & large blogs, butAMP pages
are now found throughout all types of search results

Trends to Watch
 RankBrain
 Google’sAI (Artificial Intelligence)
algorithm
 Give context
▪ Schema
▪ Detailed/nuanced information
 Minimize pogo-sticking & bouncing
▪ Try to make content “sticky”

Trends to Watch
 Schema
 Schema.org
 Gives context to text &
code
 Helps Google develop
artificial intelligence &
machine knowledge

Recap
 What SEO Means
 Art & science of *influencing* position in
search engines
 How Search Engines Work
 Extract text & code, take a copy
 That’s what gets searched against
 Sites ranked based upon 200+ factors in 3
categories: Technical, Content, Off Page
 Successful SEO Strategy
 1)Tech: Spec or Audit, Search Console
 2) Content: Keyword Research, Page
Organization, Ongoing Blogging
(Editorial Calendar!)
 3) Off Page: Write great content & pay to
promote it – DON’T BUY LINKS. Use
HARO
 4) Measure & Analyze: Do more of what
works!
 Things to do NOW
 Start blogging & promote on social!
 Things to NEVER do
 Buy links!
 Stuff keywords
 Over-hyperlink
 Hide pages or content
 SEOTrends to Watch
 Mobile, Speed, Schema, RankBrain, AMP

Download this slide deck at
http://bit.ly/seobasicsbeyond17

SEO Basics & Beyond - 2017 Edition

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