Search engines, specifically Google, are continually making changes to the their algorithms to improve user experience. With a greater emphasis on quality content and social media, the responsibility of search engine optimization (SEO) has begun to shift towards public relations. The following presentation was given by our digital media supervisor, Bob Burch, at the Northeast Regional Conference for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and teaches PR professionals the basics of SEO and how it applies to them.

1. Keeping Your Content Searchable in Google’s World
Bob Burch, Digital Media Supervisor
bburch@martinoflynn.com
9.28.2011

2. Today’s Agenda
• What is Search Engine Marketing?
• Understanding The SEO Process
- Finding the Right Keywords
- Building a Search Engine-Friendly Website
- Website/Content Optimization
- Acquiring Relevant Inbound Links
- Leveraging Social Media
- Analyzing Performance
• Key Takeaways for PR Professionals
• Resources
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3. What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?
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4. What is SEM?
• Search engines are generally the #1 source of
traffic to most websites.
• Because of this, a strong search Search Engine
Marketing (SEM) strategy is essential to the
success of your site.
• There are two components of SEM:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): the act of
optimizing a website through content edits and
inbound link development to improve organic or
natural listings.
- Paid Search / Pay-Per-Click Marketing: the act of
purchasing sponsored listings on search engines in
order to ensure high rank and visibility.
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5. SEO vs. PPC
Paid Search Ads /
Sponsored Listings
Organic / Natural
Search Listings
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6. Successful SEM = Aligning Goals
Relevant Offer or Benefit
Quality Info & Results
to Click
Search
Search Consumer’s
Engine
Engines Search Query
Marketers
Repeat Searcher Conversion
Source: Certified Knowledge
Did I find the answer to my actual question?
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7. Principles of Search Engine Optimization
• Architecture and design:
- Give search engine spiders easy, user-friendly
access to content through the site and page
architecture.
• Quality content:
- Keyword-focused: use words and phrases
commonly searched by your target audience.
- Leads to link popularity: increase the number of
objective, third-party, quality sites linking to your
content.
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8. SEO Strategies Must Continually Evolve
• The search engines (specifically Google) made many changes to their
algorithms over the past year.
• What’s changed?
- Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) were given a face-lift
- Personalized search
- Greater emphasis on site usability
- Greater emphasis on quality, not quantity, of inbound links
- Greater emphasis on social media
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9. Integration is Essential
• With an increased focus on quality content and social media, the
responsibility of SEO is shifting.
• Online marketers and PR professionals must rely on each other for
support.
• Constant collaboration is key.
• Must leverage each other’s efforts to meet each group’s own goals.
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10. Digital
Interactive
Media Websites HD Pre
Mobile Motion +
Online Graphics Post-Poduction
Marketing Email
3D Video
Animation
SEO
Blogger Social
Relations Networks YouTube
PR
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11. Understanding the SEO Process:
Step 1: Finding the Right Keywords
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12. Understanding the Search Process
• People do not search to browse the Web; they are seeking an answer to a
question.
• Your website needs to provide that answer.
• Keywords can take many shapes:
The actual question Where do I find a plumber?
The answer to the question Boston Plumbers
Description of the problem Flooded Basement
Description of the cause Broken Pipes
Source: Certified Knowledge
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13. The Search Shopping Funnel
• Basic process: Learn --> Shop --> Buy
Consumer: Consumer: Consumer:
Information Gathering Comparing products, Ready to Buy
prices, & features.
Keywords: Keywords: Keywords:
Computer IBM Notebook IBM Series Thinkpad
Laptop Computer Sony Laptop Sony Vaio Ultraportable
Hi-Def TV Plasma TV Samsung hl-s61ssw
Source: Certified Knowledge
• Be sure to know your buying cycle:
- For less expensive products, the buying cycle could last minutes.
- In other industries, the buying cycle could take months.
- Keywords can indicate where a user is in this process.
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14. Types of Search Queries
• Informational: doing research
(“HDTV vs. Plasma”)
25.0%
• Transactional: ready to buy
(“Buy HDTVs Online” or
“Samsung PN58B550”)
• Navigational: looking for a 7.5% 60.0%
specific site (“BestBuy.com”) 7.5%
Informa(onal
Transac(onal
Naviga(onal
Ambiguous
Source: Jansen et al. (2008)
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15. Tools for Keyword Discovery
• SEOmoz Term Extractor
- Analyze the content of any
website to extract terms to
target with SEM.
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16. Tools for Keyword Discovery
• Google Adwords Keyword
Tool:
- After extracting terms,
enter them into the Google
Adwords Keyword Tool to
identify related keywords,
competition, and average
search volume.
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17. Tools for Keyword Discovery
• SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty
Tool:
- Determine how difficult it will be
to rank organically for certain
keywords by analyzing the sites
currently ranked in the Top 10.
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18. Which Keywords are the Right Keywords?
• Varies from business to business due to a number of factors:
- Tactic (PPC vs. SEO)
- Budget
- Conversion rates
- Goals
• The key is to find the right combination of keywords that will help you
reach your goals.
- Test
- Optimize
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19. Understanding the SEO Process:
Step 2: Building a Search Engine-Friendly Website
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20. User-Friendly = Search-Friendly
• Search engines are focused on offering up the most relevant results for
their users, not just the sites that optimize the best.
• By focusing on the user, you’re making sure that your site is optimized
against future changes to the search engine algorithms.
• More importantly, user-friendly = repeat visitors, repeat customers, and
high ROI (return on investment).
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21. How Can You Tell If Your Site is User-Friendly?
• 5-second site usability test:
- Pick a key page on your site
- Show the page to a prospect for 5 seconds (make sure he/she is not familiar with
your site)
- Ask the prospect: “What is this page about?”
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23. What Was This Page About?
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25. What About This Page?
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27. What About This Page?
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28. Know the Principles
Principles of Web Design:
• Easy to read
- Legible and scannable
• Easy to navigate
- Easy to identify where you are and where you can go
• Easy to find
- The site is easy to find by searching and has a memorable and easy-to-spell URL
- Easy to locate specific pages on the site
• Consistent in layout, design, and labeling
- Contributes to a cohesive brand message and user experience
- Contributes to ease and predictability of navigation
• Quick to download
- Actual AND perceived
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29. Determining Your Site Architecture
• Group all of your content the way your users do, not based on how you
would organize things.
• List sections in order of importance within your navigation.
• Choose navigation labels that match users’ search queries:
- Problems vs. Solutions
- High search volume
• Make it easy for a user to jump to multiple sections and pages:
- Embed links within body copy when other keywords are used
- Bread-crumb links
• Include your Call-To-Action (CTA) on every page (Buy Now, Check out, etc.)
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30. Understanding the SEO Process:
Step 3: Website / Content Optimization
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31. On-Page Optimization Tactics
• Each page should have an individual theme, with relevant phrases used
in key locations:
- URL
- Page Title
- Headline (H1 & H2)
- Body Copy
• Other items to consider:
- Meta-descriptions: short description of the page, only visible on Search Engine
Results Pages (SERPs)
- Alt-tags: 1-2 word description of any images to help them rank well in Google
Image Search
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32. On-Page Optimization
Page title & URL
Clear navigation, Header Tag (H1)
easy to identify
current section and Call-to-action
page
Relevant pages
Body copy includes embedded links and covers problem/solution-based keywords
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33. Content Optimization for PR
• Optimizing product pages and other important sections of your website is
important, but this content is often static.
• Google, Yahoo, and Bing take notice every time your site is updated and new
content is added.
• All content released by your company should be optimized:
- Press releases
- Blog posts
• Add a layer of approval for SEO purposes, before posting or releasing content.
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34. Content Optimization for PR
Page title & URL
Title includes
relevant keywords
Body copy includes embedded links to relevant product pages
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35. Content Optimization for PR
Title includes
relevant
keywords
Optimized copy
with embedded
outbound links
and inbound
links
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36. Content Optimization for PR
• Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin
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37. Remember...
• Whether you’re writing an article/blog post or optimizing a website, always
put the user first.
• Add a layer of approval for SEO purposes, before posting or releasing
content.
• Site optimization is important, but the quantity and quality of sites linking
are often what determine which sites rank well.
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38. Understanding the SEO Process:
Step 4: Acquiring Relevant Inbound Links
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39. The Power of Link Building
Source: SEOmoz
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40. Quality Content is Key
• Inbound links “break the tie”
• Easy links:
- Directories (free and paid)
- Leverage existing relationships
- These are helpful, but do not carry as much weight as impartial,
third-party links.
• Must create compelling, quality content that other sites
WANT to link to.
- Blogs
- Articles
- White papers
- Videos
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41. Finding Relevant Links
• Who links to my competitors? - http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/
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Source:
SEOmoz

42. Finding Relevant Links
• Look for similar sites - https://www.google.com/adplanner/
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Source: SEOmoz

43. Finding Relevant Links
• Finding relevant blogs and forums:
Blogs
Source: SEOmoz
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44. Finding Relevant Links
• Finding relevant blogs and forums:
Discussions
Text
Source: SEOmoz 44

45. Link Outreach
• Once you have a list of link targets, the next step is to reach out to those
targets.
• Determine if any existing content would be relevant to the site owner or
create new content.
• Reach out to the site’s administrator / blogger:
- Guest blogger / ghostwriting opportunities
- Sponsorship opportunities
- Reciprocal links (only if it makes sense for your company)
• Don’t forget to ASK for the link.
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46. Using Proper Anchor Text
• Getting a link to your site is great, but
the anchor text is key.
• Common mistakes:
- “Click Here”
- Company/Product Name
- URL
• Whenever is site is linking to you, be
sure that the links are placed on
important keywords.
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47. Understanding the SEO Process:
Step 5: Leveraging Social Media
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48. Social Media and SEO
• Google puts great emphasis on what users are saying about websites
when determining the rankings.
- Sharing of an article or page on Facebook
- Re-tweet of an article on Twitter
• Sharing options are always evolving:
Read
{ Watched
Listened
Want
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49. Where Do PR Professionals Fit In?
• Keep doing what you’re already doing:
- Frequent posts, relevant content
- Acquire fans, followers, etc.
- Monitor discussions
- Respond to comments
- Participate in forums
• All of this helps, but keep SEO top of
mind:
- Post relevant links when responding to
comments (other products, FAQs, customer
service, etc.)
- Include relevant keywords, whenever
possible
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50. Understanding the SEO Process:
Step 6: Analyzing Performance
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51. Monitor. Analyze. Optimize.
• Using a web analytics program (such as Google Analytics), start by establishing benchmarks:
- Visits from search engines
- Visits from referring sites
• Monitor search engine ranking and traffic trends.
• Analyze the performance of individual keywords:
• Refine your strategy (target new keywords, update your content, review your link strategy)
Initial
Execution Applied Applied
Strategy Learning Learning
Insights & Insights &
Learning Learning
Refined
Strategy
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52. Key Takeaways
• Digital, Media, and PR must be integrated.
• Make sure that any content released by your company is optimized, but
always put the user first.
• Always ask for a link (with the proper anchor text, of course).
• Use SEO as an opportunity to grow individually and as a company:
- Make yourself more valuable to a company
- Push for additional services (blogger relations, social media monitoring, etc.)
• Adopt an iterative mindset, test and refine.
• Stay informed:
- SEO is constantly evolving
- What works today, may be irrelevant tomorrow
- Follow blogs, attend conferences, etc.
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53. Relevant Resources
• Great blogs and resources:
- SEO Moz: http://www.seomoz.org/blog
- iMedia Connection: http://www.imediaconnection.com/
- Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/
- Search Engine Watch: http://searchenginewatch.com/
- Internet Marketing Glossary: http://www.laredogroup.com/free-
tools-resources/index.asp
• Conferences to consider:
- Search Engine Strategies (SES)
- Search Marketing Expo (SMX)
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54. Questions?
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55. To learn more about Martino Flynn, visit us at martinoflynn.com, read our blog,
join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or tune in to our YouTube channel.
Presentation will be posted to our blog this week.
Any further questions, feel free to contact me at bburch@martinoflynn.com
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