SEO for Food Bloggers A
thorough look at search engine issues faced by some of my favorite people (those who lead me to great meals). Download at http://bit.ly/seo4foodblogs Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz | November 2011

SEO?
Bah, Humbug 

The Use of Search Engines
Text Down Here!

Growth of Google Queries Currently,
there are more than 3 billion searches/day on Google Text Down Here!

Value of Search Engine Traffic
Text Down Here!

Text Down Here!

Yes, You Can Compete with
the Big Guys

Good SEO is Easier than
It Looks

You Have to Get These
Right

Before You Get
These Right

Making Your Site SEO-Friendly

Using Wordpress? You’re 80% of
the Way There “(Wordpress) is a fantastic piece of software, it makes your site easily crawlable by search engines, solves some 80-90% of mechanics of SEO and is the first big step anyone can take towards creating a popular online business.” From a talk given by Google’s Matt Cutts at Wordcamp: http://www.howtomakemyblog.com/seo/googles- matt-cutts-wordpress-the-best-blogging-platform-for-seo/

If You Use Wordpress, Read
This http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/ - I also recommend Joost’s plugin “Wordpress SEO”

Other SEO-Friendly Platforms Include: http://drupal.org/,
http://joomla.com and http://www.squarespace.com are all good choices if Wordpress isn’t a match.

These Are Less Ideal for
SEO I wouldn’t recommend these platforms as a first choice for SEO-friendly blogging, though some (like TypePad and Tumblr) can be customized with enough elbow grease.

Tools to Help with Accessibility
http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Tools to Help with Accessibility
Shameless Plug: http://pro.seomoz.org/

RSS: Essential for Every Blogger
Via Google’s Feedburner: http://feedburner.google.com/gfb/, an ideal tool for setting up, managing and tracking feeds

XML Sitemaps – Not Always
a Must for Bloggers I wouldn’t go so far as to say I recommend against it, just that for many, relatively basic blogs, you don’t need to worry about submitting these (unless you use video, in which case there’s some cool options; will chat about that later in the deck)

Keyword Research

A Simple Process for Choosing
Good Keywords High Volume (many searches/month) Low Competition Ideal Keywords! (weak sites/pages in the top 10) High Value (large % of visitors convert) More on this here: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research

AdWords: The Best Choice (Most
of the Time) The AdWords Keyword Tool Can Be Found Here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Use Exact Match! Be Careful
About Phrase + Broad Note the much higher numbers!

Google Insights: Interesting Trend Data
http://www.google.com/insights/search/ shows that the food blogging movement likely gained widespread popularity and interest around 2007 

Analyzing the Top 10 to
Determine Difficulty Strong, popular sites w/ targeted titles + content

Analyzing the Top 10 to
Determine Difficulty Weaker, lesser known sites and non-targeted titles

Keyword Difficulty Tool Another shameless
plug as this is an SEOmoz tool: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/keyword-difficulty/

Value of Visits? Use Analytics
Data Good proxies for the value of traffic from these sources Via Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics) which is free!

A Simple Process for Choosing
Good Keywords High Volume Google AdWords (many searches/month) Low Competition (weak sites/pages in the top 10) Gut Feel (or KW Difficulty Tool) High Value Gut Feel (or Analytics Data) (large % of visitors convert) Picking keywords doesn’t have to be a chore, and the process can often help you find topics for blog posts (or tasty, tasty meals) you haven’t yet tried/thought of!

How Great Writing and Great
SEO Go Hand-in-Hand

High Volume Keywords = Content
People Want People really want to know this stuff!

Not Every Post Needs to
Be Keyword-Targeted http://www.everywhereist.com/budding-bromances-in-peru-10-photos/

The Better Your Content, The
Better Your SEO Good process for getting to great content: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/great-content-for-seo- simpler-than-you-ever-imagined

Great Content + SEO +
Social Really Works. Great SEO Social Link + + + Content Friendly Sharing Building = Higher More More More Rankings Readers Followers Influence = Virtuous Cycle of Inbound Marketing!

Link Building

Why Links Matter to Search
Engines What You Say What Others Say About Yourself. < About You. Good primer on link building basics here: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing- popularity-and-links

What Matters in a Link?
Editorially given From a trusted source Uses descriptive anchor text Points to the right page http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links

What Matters in a Link?
Rel=“Nofollow” URL (a tag that indicates search (the link target) engines shouldn’t trust/count this link) <p><a href=http://www.seomoz.org rel=“nofollow”> SEOmoz’s Website </a> is a good resource for those seeking to learn more about search engine optimization.</p> Surrounding Text Anchor text (may provide context on (tells the engine what this link is about) the link’s relevance) All of these elements are good to understand when thinking about links

Manual Link Building Tactics like
discovering the links of competitors, getting listed in directories, resource lists, submitting content, building profiles, etc. are all in the “manual link building” category (above via http://opensiteexplorer.org)

Link Building through Outreach +
Networking Geraldine emailed the Salt Museum folks to let them know about her post (or maybe she just tweeted at them, I can’t remember), and they wrote this lovely blog!

“Natural” Link Building Many of
these blogs will use the badge and link to the list, because it makes them look good! The AdAge 150 is a brilliant example of link building through the creation and sharing of a resource.

Link Building & Social Sharing
Resources • Beginner’s Guide: Chapter 7 – Growing Links & Popularity • Link Building Blog Posts on SEOmoz • Webinar on Link Building Strategies • 101 Ways to Build Links from SEOBook • Link Building Presentations on Slideshare • The Science of Retweets from Dan Zarrella There are literally infinite numbers of ways to build links – creativity is your only limitation!

Social Media & SEO

How Social Media Helps SEO
Directly People you’re connected to in social networks can help content rank thanks to Google’s use of social annotations (Bing does this too with Facebook shares!) http://www.seomoz.org/blog/social-annotations-in-search-now-your- social-network-rankings

Indirect Impacts of Social on
SEO All these shares lead to visits, which may lead to links, comments and positive user/usage signals This handy tool can be found at http://sharedcount.com

Twitter & Google

Google UK
Result #42

Google US
Result #13

Facebook Correlation of Social Media-Based
Factors (data via Topsy API & Google Buzz API) Amazing: Facebook Shares is our single highest correlated metric with higher Google rankings. But correlation is not causation! http://www.seomoz.org/blog/does-google-use-facebook-shares-to- influence-search-rankings

Google+
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/using-google-plus-ripples-to-connect-with-influencers

LinkedIn Some good tips here:
http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/linkedin-seo-campaign.html

Other Networks to Consider 14mm
Millions 14mm 6.5mm 10mm 2.5mm 500mm 1.5mm There are many social networks potentially worthy of participation

A Few Specific SEO Questions

What Was Panda? Do I
Need to Worry About It? Check out http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-googles-panda-update-changed-seo-best-practices-forever-whiteboard- friday for more on how Panda imapcted SEO and http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beat-google-panda for tips on how to beat it.

Should I Worry About Spam
Comments? Oh man does this stuff suck  But remember, it’s NOT SEO!!

Are Scraper Sites a Danger
to My SEO? Via Google’s Head of Webspam

Can Links from Low Quality
Sites Hurt Me? http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-if-my-competitors-point-spammy-links-to-my-site

What About Image Search SEO?
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/image-seo-basics-whiteboard-friday

What About Local/Maps SEO? Normal
Algorithm Maps Algorithm http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

What About Recipe Search?
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/02/google-recipe-search.html

Really?

Q+A You can also reach
me on the Interwebs: @randfish on Twitter or by email - rand@seomoz.org Download at http://bit.ly/seo4foodblogs Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz | November 2011