2. About Stone Crossing Solutions – Who We Are
• A digital marketing agency and technology consulting firm focused on you
• 30 year history - re-launched in 2010 to take advantage of the company’s deep
expertise and results-driven approach to helping clients grow their business and
meet the demands of their changing marketplaces
• Focus on our clients’ business needs first, and then we choose the right
technology solution to meet your current and future needs
• All of our service offerings are managed and staffed by experts with vast
experience in their disciplines
• Deliver strategic and technology solutions to clients in B2B, eCommerce and the
travel and hospitality industries
• Develop on scalable platforms like .NET, Ruby on Rails, Microsoft Dynamics NAV and
Community Stack – a new platform and content management system for the
development of websites and social communities
• We are your trusted partner for effective, affordable technology and digital
marketing solutions. We look forward to growing and evolving with you!
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3. About Stone Crossing Solutions – Interactive Marketing
• Holistic marketing experts determine the best strategy to increase
your business growth and revenue
• Expert customer acquisition services in all areas of strategic internet
marketing including SEO, Social Marketing, PPC and Online
Display
• Combine traditional marketing with technologies to increase online
conversions, visibility and overall performance of a website
• Team has extensive experience in all aspects of interactive
marketing, usability & analytics
5. SEM / SEO Defined
Paid Search Engine Marketing (SEM):
The act of marketing a Web site via
search engines by purchasing paid
listings and other search engine-related
activities.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
The process of using specific
techniques to enhance a Web site to
improve rank and visibility within the
search engines.
6. Importance of Organic Optimization
As countless studies indicate, organic search
engine optimization is one of the most important
marketing activities a company can undertake.
60%-70% of searchers prefer to click on
organic listings instead of paid search
listings
62% of searchers don’t look past the first
page of search results
36% of searchers correlate top search
placement to company prominence or
importance
8. Organic Optimization Process
Review business goals and market opportunities Analysis &
Optimization
Implementation Promotion Management
Research keyword and key phrase opportunities
Define success metrics and establish performance
benchmarks
Strategy Develop strategic roadmap for search engine
Implementation Promotion Maintenance
optimization enhancements (often part of a redesign
effort)
9. Organic Optimization Process
Leverage Stone Crossings technical expertise to
ensure timely implementation of search engine
Optimization optimization enhancements; including: &
Analysis
Implementation Promotion Management
Page titles
Meta tags
Alt tags
Page content
Strategy Implementation Promotion Maintenance
Page layout
Site Infrastructure
10. Organic Optimization Process
Optimization
Once changes are completed and validated, begin Analysis &
Implementation Promotion Management
promotion process; including:
Engine & directory submissions - where
necessary
Dynamic site maps
RSS developmentStrategy
and syndication
Implementation Promotion Maintenance
Link acquisition
Optimized press releases & articles
11. Organic Optimization Process
Optimization
Provide monthly search engine visibility reporting Analysis &
Implementation Promotion Management
Adjust / Expand organic optimization as needed
Leverage analytics to track and identify improvements
based on key performance indicators
Strategy Implementation Promotion Maintenance
12. Understanding Search Motivations
Understanding and managing the keyword-driven
consumer buying lifecycle:
Broad keywords often signify the start
of the buying lifecycle and are the
most frequently used queries.
Source: comScore – Search and the Consumer Buying Cycle (2009)
Niche keyword phrases experience
fewer searches but often lead to far
greater conversion rates.
The key is finding the right keyword
balance to ensure strong presence in
the early buying lifecycle and the
strong conversions rates associated
with the “long tail”.
13. Importance of Keyword Research & Site Architecture
Traffic vs Conversion
Example: High/Low
• hispanic
• latino
• widgets
Balanced
Example:
• hispanic social media
• latino social media
• blue widgets
Low/High
Example:
• hispanic social media agency in miami florida
• blue polka dot widgets for sale in los angeles
14. Keyword Research
Keyword research tools provide deep insight
into:
Consumer demand
Top categories and products
Market trends
Geographic interest
Seasonality of demand
Search engine market share
15. Tools for Keyword Research and Discovery
Google AdWords (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)
Google’s (free) keyword suggestion tool has a number of features that will help you learn more
about keywords. If you type in a keyword, you will get multiple keywords that are related. This tool
gives you a general sense of search volume but will not show you actual number of searches. You
can also get an idea of how competitive the keywords are. Also gives rudimentary average search
volume and search volume trends.
Yahoo! Keyword Selector Tool (http://inventory.overture.com)
A former industry staple, but longer updated with current search data. However, it remains a good
general tool (free!) for discovering and evaluating keywords. This tool helps you discover additional
keywords similar to a keyword you are searching on. You can type in general keywords like “dog”
and get many variations like “dog breeders, dog training and dog house”. This is especially good
when you are just brainstorming new words as it gives you ideas that you hadn't thought of.
Keyword Discovery (www.keywordiscovery.com)
Subscription based tool which provides features to help you with both finding new keywords and
analyzing them. Compiles search statistics from over 180 search engines worldwide. Features
include keyword research, industry keywords, seasonal search trends, related keywords, and more.
Wordze (www.wordze.com)
Subscription based tool that provides tools for discovering keywords and phrases. In addition, this
tool provides some excellent optimization features, including competitive insight on top performing
sites.
16. Optimization Opportunities
On the site In the code On other sites
Page Structure • Title tag Header Tags
Navigation • Meta tags Body Copy
Body Copy
Anchor Text
Header Tags
ALT Tags
Anchor Text
17. On the Site - Body Copy
Because the search engines are only able to index HTML text, it is important to provide enough
content to help the search engines fully understand the theme and focus of each target page. In
order to do so, it is recommended that each page include a minimum of 250 words that are
carefully chosen based on their meaning and value to site visitors and the search engines.
18. On the Site - Header Tags
Besides the page title, a page’s
Header tags are the next most
important or heavily weighted
place to include the target
keywords and phrases.
Generally speaking, the <h1> tag is
considered more important than the
<h2>, which is more important that
the <h3> tag, and so on.
So where should they go?
<h1>
<h2>
<h3>
19. On the Site - ALT Tags
Image ALT Attributes or ALT Tags are
important because search engines (and
site visitors using assistive technology)
cannot see content contained in images.
The only indexable aspect of images is
the text content that is placed within
the <image alt=”Put Text Here”>tag. As
a result of including target keywords in the
ALT tags, it is possible to turn images into
optimization assets. The character length
for ALT tags should support a minimum of
150 characters.
In addition, ALT tags are needed for
Section 508 compliance which requires
that: “when an image is used to represent
page content, the image must have a text
description accompanying it that explains
the meaning of the image.”
21. On the Site - Link Anchor Text
Link anchor text refers to the visible text in an HTML link (i.e. Get an Auto Insurance Quote). The
search engines place an increased weighting on the content found within the anchor links.
Ideally, the most important keywords and phrases for that page should be included within the
anchor links of that page.
Top search engine performance requires inclusion of target keywords in all of the following
types of link locations:
Top Navigation
Sub Navigation
Contextual
22. In the Code – Titles and Meta Tags
Key Factors
Page Titles should contain the
most important keywords and
phrases for the page
Meta Descriptions should be
keyword-dense for the most
important keywords and phrases
for the page
Meta Keywords should only
contain the target keywords and
phrases for the page
23. In the Code – Title Tag
The Title Tag is the single most important and heavily weighted place within a Web site to
place target keywords. The page title should consist of a sentence or sentence fragment that
includes the most important keywords or phrases for the page. Each important page of the site
should have a unique page title. Standard format is Title Case.
24. In the Code – Meta Description
The Meta Description provides an opportunity to increase the total keyword density for the page,
because some search engines combine the words from the Meta Description with body copy when
calculating density. The Meta description should consist of a keyword-rich paragraph (250-500
words) that further elaborates on the page title by using target keywords to convey the value
proposition and call-to-action. Standard format is sentence case.
Did you know? In Google, if the
keyword in the search query is
contained in your page title,
Google will show your Meta
description as the description
in the SERP. Otherwise, they
will use a snippet of text from
your page content.
25. In the Code – Meta Keywords
The Meta Keywords tag is the least important of the tags discussed in this section, however it
should not be omitted. Some search engines may include the Meta Keywords in the ranking
algorithm, and therefore you should include 4-6 unique keyword targets for each page.
Additionally, the Meta
Keywords tag is an
acceptable location to use
common misspellings of
keywords or singular /
plural tenses of keywords
since the user will not see
it on the page.
26. Technical Design - URL Structure
Always maintain the hierarchy of your domain structure by driving all traffic from the top
down thru the root domain. By driving the traffic thru the root domain, your sub-pages are
creating “juice” for your domain.
BAD
http://auto.driveinsurance.com/auto/auto_insurance.aspx
http://rv.driveinsurance.com/rv/rv_insurance.aspx
http://motorcycle.driveinsurance.com/motorcycle/motorcycle_insurance.aspx
GOOD
http://www.driveinsurance.com/auto-insurance/
http://www.driveinsurance.com/rv-insurance/
http://www.driveinsurance.com/motorcycle-insurance/
27. Technical Design - HTML Site Map
Since spiders crawl through Web sites in
a sequential manner, it is beneficial to
have a single page that links to the
majority (and preferably all) of the
pages that exist on the site.
This is far superior than requiring a
multi-page parse in order to find deep-
rooted pages.
28. Technical Design - robots.txt file
It is extremely important to include a
robots.txt file on the Web server. This
file tells search engine spiders which
directories of a site can or cannot be
crawled.
Common pages to exclude from
spidering include: privacy policies,
shopping cart pages, help pages,
account details, and directories that
contain images or other sensitive
company data.
29. Measuring Success - Search Engine Cache
Google’s Cache provides important
indicators of search engine
performance, including:
• Inclusion in search index
• Date of last indexing
• Keyword inclusion
30. Measuring Success - Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools
provides valuable insights
into top search queries and
search query clicks
Top search queries are the
queries on the selected search
property that most often
returned pages from your
site
Top search query clicks are
the top queries that directed
traffic to your site (based on
the number of clicks to your
pages).
31. Thank You
• Register for a FREE I-Pad from Stone Crossing Solutions by visiting our booth (#113) or visiting
stonecrossingsolutions.com
• FREE White Paper: The Definitive Guide to Social Media Marketing for Business
• Product Sheet: Spanish SEO – Optimize your site in 60 days!
• Product Sheet: Community Stack (Community Website Platform)
• Product Sheet: Site Core (Content Management Solution)
• Session: Introduction of Spanish SEO, brought to you by Hispanicize and Stone Crossing
Solutions (session Friday @ 5:00)
Contact Us:
Stone Crossing Solutions
One Independence Place, Suite 700
4807 Rockside Road
Independence, OH 44131
www.stonecrossingsolutions.com
Email: Info@StoneCrossingSolutions.com
Phone: (216) 524-9055
Fax: (216) 524-2594
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