On April 4, 2013 Jenn Mathews AKA the SEOGoddess spoke in front of a large group of tech savvy individuals looking to gain more understanding into the world of SEO. Jenn's talk included updates from Google's recent Panda and Penguin updates as well as incorporating Social media into SEO. This is a preview of her PPT for that talk.
2. Who am I?
Twitter.com/SEOGoddess
Facebook.com/theSEOGoddess
SEOGoddess.me
3. What We Will Be Covering:
• What is SEO?
• How people use Search Engines
• Keyword Research
• Keyword Placement
• Checklist –
• Internal SEO Checklist
• External SEO
• SEO & Social Media
• What not to do
• Panda & Penguin
5. How Search Engines Work
User searches with key word
User Interface
Search Engine
Results
Database of information
Web
about web pages
World Wide Web robots, crawlers,
collected by robots,
and spiders
crawlers, and spiders
6. Keywords
User types in
key word
Computers
Search
As the user is researching they will type more
specific words and phrases to find exactly what
they are looking for.
7. Keywords
User types in
key word
User types in 2
Laptop Computers
word phrase
Search
As the user is researching they will type more
specific words and phrases to find exactly what
they are looking for.
8. Keywords
User types in
key word
User types in 2
750GB Laptop Computer
word phrase
Search User types “long
tail” key term
As the user is researching they will type more
specific words and phrases to find exactly what
they are looking for.
12. What We See
We see styles, fancy
fonts, images, interactivity, and general
user experience.
13. What a Search Engine Sees
Search styles, see fonts, images,
We see enginesfancyletters (symbols), words
(symbols grouped together parted by
interactivity, and general user experience.
spaces), punctuation, and limited html tags
like <a href=“link”> and <img src=“picture”
alt=“text for image”>
14. What Users Look At
User stays within the first
couple of results then scans
the rest of the page briefly
Robert Stevens – February 25, 2013
16. How to Select the Right Keywords
Type in your general word or phrase
Add your website
Choose advanced options
Click “search”
17. Your Suggested Key Terms
Selecting Terms
◦ Choose the terms
that are closest to
your target.
Competition
◦ Number of
websites that show
up for the term
Monthly
Searches
◦ Number of times
that term is
searched in a
month
◦ Local – number of
times a local
search is
performed
18. Bucket Terms
Categorize your terms based on search volume
and estimated revenue
19. Terms Hierarchy
Blanket Terms
Blanket ◦ Select few broad
Terms terms that represent
the whole website
Categorical Terms
Categorical ◦ 2-3 word phrases
Terms describing each
section of the
website (directory or
microsite)
Longtail Specific Terms (or
Terms longtail)
◦ 4-5 word phrases for
specific pages (or files)
20. Blanket Terms
The 2-3 broad words you chose that “describes” your
entire website
1. Homepage Title and within every title of every page
within the website.
2. Within the Meta Description of the Homepage, and
on every page of the entire website (somehow)
3. Within the body of the homepage (preferably within
a 200-300 word description of your business,
website, product, etc that if for the user to quickly
understand what your website is about)
4. Within the body of every page of the entire website
at least once – preferable once at the beginning of
the content on each individual page, and again
towards the bottom. (Do not just place the terms in
commas, with periods, or standalone in the same
spot on every page. They MUST be within the
content and naturally flow with the rest of the copy)
5. Within Image alt tags (in a way that still describes
the image if possible, if not possible don’t do it)
21. Categorical Terms
The 2-3 word phrases (terms) that describes a
section of the website.
1. Within the Title of the main page and the supporting pages in that
section.
2. Within the Meta Description of the main page and the supporting
pages in that section.
3. Within the body content of the main page and the supporting pages
in that section. (preferably at least once and up to 3 times –
beginning, middle, and end of the unique content.)
22. Longtail Terms
4-5 word phrases that an individual page is
about.
1. Within the Title of the individual page.
2. Within the Meta Description of the individual.
3. Within the body content of the individual page.
4. In the URL of the file
5. In the heading of the file
6. Within the anchor text of the link pointing to the page (either
internally or externally)
In general, the page should be focused on these terms
23. Server Folders and Files
Folder
Server
Index.html
file.html
Index.html
Folder
robots.txt
Index.html
Folder
Index.html
27. Simple Right?
Keyword Placement
◦ Title
◦ Description
◦ Body content
◦ URL (domain, directory, filename)
Keyword Densities
Internal Linking
External Links
Age (Domain/files)
28. Keywords - Body
Keyword density in body text
Individual keyword density
Keyword in H1, H2 and H3
Keyword font size
Not Really
Keyword proximity (for 2+ keywords)
Keyword phrase order
Keyword prominence (how early in page/tag)
Keywords - Other
Keyword in alt text
Keyword in links to site pages (anchor text)
NAVIGATION - INTERNAL LINKS
To internal pages- keywords?
All Internal links valid?
Efficient - tree-like structure
Intra-site linking
NAVIGATION - OUTGOING LINKS
To external pages- keywords?
Outgoing link Anchor Text
Link stability over time
Keyword Placement All External links valid?
Less than 100 links out total
Linking to Authority
OTHER ON-Page Factors
Domain Name Extension
◦
Top Level Domain - TLD
Title File Size
Hyphens in URL
Freshness of Pages
Freshness - Amount of Content Change
◦
Freshness of Links
Frequency of Updates
Description Page Theming
Keyword stemming
Applied Semantics
LSI
◦
URL length
Body content
OTHER ON-SITE Factors
Site Size - Google likes big sites
Site Age
Age of page vs. age of site
NEGATIVE
◦
ON-Page SEO Factors
URL (domain, directory, filename)
Text presented in graphics form only
No ACTUAL body text on the page
Affiliate site?
Over optimization penalty (OOP)
Link to a bad neighborhood
Redirect thru refresh metatags
Keyword Densities Algorithms
Vile language - ethnic slur
Poison words
Excessive cross-linking
Stealing images/ text blocks from another domain
Keyword stuffing threshold
Keyword dilution
Page edit - can reduce consistency
Internal Linking
Frequency of Content Change
Freshness of Anchor Text
Dynamic Pages
Excessive Javascript
Flash page - NOT
Use of Frames
External Links
Robot exclusion "no index" tag
Single pixel links
Invisible text
Gateway, doorway page
Duplicate content
HTML code violations
POSITIVE
Age (Domain/files)
OFF-Page SEO Factors
INCOMING LINKS :
Page Rank
Total incoming links ("backlinks")
Incoming links from high-ranking pages
Acceleration of link popularity
FOR EACH INCOMING LINK :
Page rank of the referring page
Anchor text of
inbound link to you
Age of link
Frequency of change of anchor text
Popularity of referring page
# of outgoing links on referrer page
Position of link on referrer page
Keyword density on referring page
HTML title of referrer page
Link from "Expert" site?
Referrer page - Same theme
Referrer page - Different theme
Image map link?
Javascript link?
DIRECTORIES :
Site listed in DMOZ Directory?
Site listed in Yahoo Directory?
Site listed in LookSmart Directory?
Site listed in inktomi?
Site listed in other directories (About, BOTW, etc.)
Expert site? (Hilltop or Condensed Hilltop)
29. Checklist – Internal SEO
Keywords Domains & URLs
Keywords in <title> tag URLs and filenames
Keywords in URL Sitemap
Keyword density in document text Website size
Keywords in anchor text Website/Domain age
Keywords in <alt> tags File Location on Site
Keywords in metatags Domains versus subdomains
Hyphens in URLs
Metatags URL length
<Description> metatag
<Keywords> metatag Other
robots.txt
Links - Internal Redirects (301)
Anchor text has key term(s) in links
(unless it’s a “click here” or “more” link) Social Actions
Content Around-the-anchor text is relevant Google +1
Facebook 'Like' or 'Recommend"
Content Facebook comments
Unique content Twitter "tweet"
Frequency of content change OGP - Open Graph Protocol
Age of document
File size
Poor coding and design
Duplicating Content = NO
Invisible text = NO
30. Checklist – External SEO
Links - External
Quality of source of inbound links
Links from similar sites
Links from .edu and .gov sites
Age of inbound links
Links from directories = no
Links from Social Media
Links on pages that include social actions
Social Actions
Website shared
Pages shared
+1 in search results (Google)
Shared links 'Like'd (Bing and Facebook Graph)
31. SEO and Social Media
Internal
◦ Sharing
◦ Commenting
◦ OGP
◦ Embedding
External
◦ Profiles/Pages
◦ Content
◦ Social Actions
◦ Commenting
39. Socially External for SEO
Commenting
◦ Blogs
◦ Articles
◦ Products
◦ Updates
I like your ……
40. Don’t
Hidden text
Hidden links
Keyword stuffing
Artificial traffic
Cloaking scripts
Doorway pages
Duplicate content
Buying links
Link exchanges
Frames
Title stacking
Spam blogs with comments
41. Panda
Released February 2011
Push down rank of “lower quality sites” or “thin sites”
More information:
◦ More Guidance on Building High Quality Sites – Google
◦ Testing Google’s Panda Algorithm - CNet
42. Panda – What to avoid
Content Farming
◦ Low quality content
◦ Outdated content
Spammy Links
◦ Commenting links
◦ Profile links
Over Advertising
43. Penguin
Launched April 2012
Decrease rank of sites that violate Webmaster Guidelines
More Information:
◦ Webmaster Guidelines – Google
44. Penguin – What to Avoid
Automatically generated content
Participating in link schemes
Cloaking
Scraped content
Loading pages with irrelevant keywords