An introduction to SEO for beginner. From what SEO is, to how search engines work, to how to optimise websites for search engines and people. Originally a slide deck for a guest lecture given to the Department of Marketing, Faculty of Business, Oxford Brookes University

1. An Introduction to SEO
Guest Lecture by Benjamin Morel

2. An Introduction To
Me
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

3. An Introduction To Me
Benjamin
Morel
Project Manager and Digital Marketer
@BenjaminMorel
Linkedin.com/in/benmorel
ben@obergine.com
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

4. An Introduction To Me
Obergine
Creative Digital Agency
@Obergine
Linkedin.com/company/obergine
Obergine.com
Slideshare.net/obergine
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

5. What is SEO?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

6. What is SEO?
First: Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

7. What is SEO?
Paid
search
listings
(ads)
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

8. What is SEO?
Organic
Listings:
you can’t
pay!
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

9. What is SEO?
Or
universal
listings
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

10. What is SEO?
SEO is the attempt to gain
search engines’ organic
visibility in
and universal
results with the aim of driving revenue
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

11. How do Search
Engines Work?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

12. What is SEO?
“Our goal is to make it as
easy as possible
for you to find the information you need and get
the things that you need to do done” - Google
http://www.google.co.uk/about/company/products/
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

13. What is SEO?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

14. How do Search Engines Work?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

15. How do Search Engines Work?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

16. How do Search Engines Work?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

17. How Do We Achieve SERP Visibility?
Links ≈ Citations
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

18. How Do We Increase
Our Visibility?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

19. How Do We Achieve SERP Visibility?
By Creating
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Value
An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

20. How Do We Achieve SERP Visibility?
“The more creative you are or the
better
the experience is with your website, the
more likely you are to be successful”
– Matt Cutts
http://www.stonetemple.com/link-building-is-not-illegal-or-bad/
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

21. How Do We Create
Value?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

22. 1. Have A Site That Works Well
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

23. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
Use search
engine friendly URLs:
they keep people happy as well.
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

24. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
Which URL means more?
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=95330226
or
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/benmorel
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

25. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
<title> elements and META
descriptions are your shop window.
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

26. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
Which would you click?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

27. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
Search engine
friendly URL
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Not-so
friendly URL
An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

28. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
Unique
<title> tags
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

29. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
Unique META
description
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No META
description
An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

30. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
content they need
and do it quickly
Serve people with the
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

31. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
47% of people expect a web page to load in
2 seconds or less
http://blog.kissmetrics.com/loading-time/
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

32. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
Intuit took average page load time from 15s to
5-6s. They boosted conversion rates by
14%
http://velocityconf.com/velocityny2013/public/schedule/detail/30146
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

33. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
How do search engines know when I’ve written
something?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

34. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
How do search engines know when I’ve written
something?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

35. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
How do search engines know I wrote this?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

36. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
They read
Structured Data
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

37. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
<p>
My name is Benjamin Morel. I have a profile
on <a
href=“http://twitter.com/benjaminmorel>
Twitter</a>.
</p>
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

38. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
<p itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Person">
My name is <span itemprop=“name”
rel=“author”> Benjamin Morel</span>. I
have a profile on <a
href=http://twitter.com/benjaminmorel
itemprop=“sameas”> Twitter</a>.
</p>
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

39. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
<p itemscope itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Person">
My name is <span itemprop=“name”
rel=“author”> Benjamin Morel</span>. I
have a profile on <a
href=http://twitter.com/benjaminmorel
itemprop=“sameas”> Twitter</a>.
</p >
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

40. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
Look! Google knows it was written by me!
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

41. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
Look! Google knows it was written by me!
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

42. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
Structured
data gives
rich
snippets
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

43. Create Value: Have A Site That Works
“Rich snippets… help you communicate a clear,
unique value
proposition and establish a
competitive advantage” – Hubspot
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/power-google-rich-snippets-ecommerce-seo-ht
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

44. 2. Create Great Sales Pages
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

45. Create Value: Great Sales Pages
Not-So-Great
http://www.countryattire.com/shop-by-brand/hunter-boots/hunter-original-tall-gloss-wellington-boots-black.html
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

46. Create Value: Great Sales Pages
Great
http://www.zappos.com/hunter-hunter-original-black
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

47. Create Value: Great Sales Pages
Not-So-Great
Minimal
product
info
http://www.countryattire.com/shop-by-brand/hunter-boots/hunter-original-tall-gloss-wellington-boots-black.html
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

48. Create Value: Great Sales Pages
Great
Look at
all that
useful
info!
http://www.zappos.com/hunter-hunter-original-black
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

49. Create Value: Great Sales Pages
Great
Reviews
build
trust
http://www.zappos.com/hunter-hunter-original-black
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

50. Create Value: Great Sales Pages
Great
Size
guide
Size
guide
accuracy.
More
trust
building
http://www.zappos.com/hunter-hunter-original-black
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

51. Create Value: Great Sales Pages
Not-So-Great
Tiny
colours,
not even
on this
page
http://www.countryattire.com/shop-by-brand/hunter-boots/hunter-original-tall-gloss-wellington-boots-black.html
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

52. Create Value: Great Sales Pages
Great
Easily
compare
colours,
with
context
http://www.zappos.com/hunter-hunter-original-black
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

53. Create Value: Great Sales Pages
Give your customers useful
that they can’t
information
find anywhere else.
Make them trust you and give them a reason
to buy
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from you, not anybody else.
An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

54. 3. Have great design
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

55. Create Value: Great Design
http://livingedge.com.au/shop/
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

56. Create Value: Great Design
What We See
What Robots Would See
http://livingedge.com.au/shop/
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

57. Create Value: Great Design
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

58. Create Value: Great Design
Robots
can read
this
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

59. Create Value: Great Design
Make your design person
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture
friendly.

60. Create Value: Great Design
Not person friendly
http://cavs.mit.edu/
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

61. Create Value: Great Design
Person friendly
http://www.hubspot.com
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

62. Create Value: Great Design
Great design helps everyone find the value
in your offering.
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

63. 4. Create Remarkable content
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

64. Create Value: Remarkable Content
“Cows, after you’ve seen them for a while, are
boring. They may be perfect cows, attractive
cows, cows with great personalities, cows lit by
beautiful light, but they’re still boring.”
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

65. Create Value: Remarkable Content
“A Purple
Cow, though. Now that
would be interesting.” – Seth Godin
Seth Godin, Purple Cow (Penguin Books)
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

66. Create Value: Remarkable Content
People don’t talk about good.
They talk about
remarkable
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67. Create Value: Remarkable Content
In the latest Moz correlation survey all
of the
top 44 ranking factors related to links,
social media interaction, and trust.
http://moz.com/search-ranking-factors
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68. Create Value: Remarkable Content
Getting all four of these right
creates clear value
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69. Where Do Keywords Fit?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

70. Where Do Keywords Fit?
Keywords = aggregated search queries
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71. Where Do Keywords Fit?
They give us targets to aim for.
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72. Where Do Keywords Fit?
They help us target the right audience
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73. Create Value: Where Do Keywords Fit?
They help set context:
Where is the person in the buying
process?
What are their aims with this search?
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74. Where Do Keywords Fit?
Topic vectors
Wellington
Wellington
Welly
Wellesley
New Zealand
Boot
Waterloo
North Island
Rubber
Duke
Hutt
Rain
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Wellington
Napoleon
Russell Crowe

75. Where Do Keywords Fit?
Topic vectors
Shoes
Cities
75

76. Where Do Keywords Fit?
Topic vectors
Boots
Shoes
Capital of
New Zealand
Cities
76

77. Where Do Keywords Fit?
Topic vectors
Boots
Wellington
Shoes
Capital of
New Zealand
Cities
77

78. Where Do Keywords Fit?
Good on-page SEO looks a lot like good writing
An Introduction to SEO
SEO
search engines
keywords
SEO
rankings
optimisation
SEO and Digital Marketing
78

79. Where Do Keywords Fit?
Remember, rankings are less important
than revenue
79

80. How Do We Get
Exposure For Our
Valuable Content?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

81. How do we get Exposure?
By building relationships
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82. How do we get Exposure?
Social media is an invaluable part of SEO.
Make its use a core part of your strategy.
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83. How do we get Exposure?
Find influencers who may be interested in
your content – and be interested in them.
83

84. When Does The SEO
Process Finish?
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

85. When Does The SEO Process Finish?
Never!
The search landscape changes: guest blogging,
HTML5, Google+, the knowledge graph,
universal results, structured data.
They’ve all changed in the last three years.
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

86. When Does The SEO Process Finish?
Never!
There will always be someone smarter,
cleverer, more creative, quicker off the mark,
better connected, or more interesting than you.
And you will always need to beat them.
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

87. To Conclude
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture

88. To Conclude
1. SEO is all about organic search visibility and
driving revenue
2. That visibility and revenue comes from
providing value
3. Value comes from technical competence,
good design, and remarkable content
4. Keywords give you targets (not goals)
5. You need to convince people of your
content’s value. Build relationships with
them
6. SEO is an on-going process not a campaign
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An Introduction to SEO: An Oxford Brookes Guest Lecture