Intro to SEO - SES New York 2013

Search Engine Optimization
What it really is and
what you need to know about it
Carolyn Shelby
Director of SEO, 435 Digital/Tribune Company

New York | March 25–28

New York| March 25–28, 2013 | #SESNY

Today We Will Cover
• What is SEO?
• The Basics of On-Page SEO
– Domains
– Typesof Search Engine Results
– Content Types and Styles
– On-Page Optimization
– Keyword Research
– How to write optimized content


The Goals of SEO
• Organize the information and content on a website to
– create a positive and intuitive user experience,
– while
clearly and unambiguously communicating the
theme, topic and intentions of the site owners to the search
engines so they can recommend you to relevant searchers.
– Maximize the value of the websites assets (inbound links,
content)

• (Doing so should) attract natural inbound links and
traffic, which boosts rankings for thematically relevant
keyword phrases.


Think of Your Website like a Cake
Links, SEM, Social

Content
SEO is the sugar

Info Architecture

Platform/CMS

Infrastructure

@cshel


They’re Both Cakes, Right?

@cshel


What Are Engines Looking For?
Search Engines want to refer users to content/websites that are
the most relevant to the user query.

Relevancy is determined by:

• The content (theme/topic, text on the page, menu items,
titles, descriptions, etc.)
• The performance of the site (Does it work? Is it fast? )
• The authority of the site (Do other people link to or talk
about the site? Do other sites/publications use this site as a
reference or cite information available on it?)
• The user experience (Does the site “look” safe? Does it
have an unreasonably high bounce rate?)
@cshel


What Are Engines NOT Looking For?
Above all, the engines do not want sites that use “tactics” and
tricks to snake their way to the top of the SERPs. If you have to
resort to trickery, you’re probably lacking substance or utility.

Specific things the engines do not want:
• Keyword stuffing
• Purchased links
• Overly optimized sites
• Sites with poor user experience (too many ads, too hard to
find useful content or perform actions)

@cshel


Knowing is Half the Battle
• Know your bu$ine$$ model.
– Conversions? Online/offline, what defines a conversion?
– Advertising? Are you selling eyeballs or clicks?

• Know your business and SEO goals.
• Know your assets and liabilities.

@cshel


New: Multichannel Optimization
Twitter

Email Facebook

SEO
Offline Pinterest

LinkedIn

@cshel


Multi-Channel Optimization

• Use consistent phrasing and messaging across all
platforms *including* offline (radio, TV, billboards,
print, etc.)
– It
trains the searchers to use specific keyword phrases that
you’re optimizing for.
– It builds your brand across platforms.
– It increases the efficacy of all of your efforts.


The Basics of On-Page SEO


What’s in a Domain Name?

domain.com
Root domain

www.domain.com
Sub-Domain
Foo.domain.com

Domain.com/foo-foo Sub-Directory
Root Domain


What’s in a Domain Name?
• Old domain names generally rank better than new.
• Having the primary keyword in the domain is still helpful…
– Target keywords in the URL are good, *and*
– The domain will naturally attract links with better anchor text.
– *JUST* keywords (especially if it’s not your brand/product name) is bad.
• .COM is still considered to be the best option.
• Your domain is like your credit rating. Protect it. Once it’s
burned, it takes forever to (if it ever does) recover.
• Also, don’t allow your domains to drop… if it was important
to you once, you NEED to maintain control of it!


Parked Domains and Redirections

• Is it okay to have more than one domain pointed at a
single source? YES, if you do it right.
– NEVER have more than one domain with the same content.
– “It’s the same site!” to the engines says “duplicate content”
– If you redirect one domain to another, use a 301 redirect.
– Avoid using the registrar level (GoDaddy, Network Solutions, et al.)
redirection. It sometimes reads as a 302, which is BadTM

• Is it okay to “park” a domain? Yes, but it’s also not
useful.


Registration Length and New Domains
• Registration rule of thumb is: Longer is Better.
The longer your domain registration, the more serious you are
about using/protecting that asset. Engines like this and it
dramatically reduces the chances someone will forget that the
renewal is tied to a credit card that expired 3 months ago and
an email account no one checks anymore.

• Changing domain names rule of thumb is: DO NOT.
Unless the domain is burned, or there is some compelling legal
reason to do so, avoid changing your domain. You will flush
away whatever accumulated authority you may have.


What’s in a SERP?

• SERP = Search Engine Results Page
• Results are not universal – they change based on:
– Your geographic location (or perceived location)
– Your device (phone, tablet, desktop, etc.)
– Your logged in status (are you logged into Gmail?)
• The kind of results you’re looking for, or what Google
thinks your real intent is…


Types of Search Results

We can’t always
•Organic control what types of
results appear,
•News but we can optimize
•Local everything in our
tackle box to make
•Video ALL of our content
•Images alluring to the
engines.


Optimizing for Different Types of Results
• Have a mobile version of your site. Queries from mobile
devices will be served results that favor mobile friendly
websites.
• Optimize your non-text content. Add appropriate attributes
and surrounding context so they can be properly indexed.
• Use Rich Snippets and RDFa. Especially if you have an
ecommerce or data heavy website (like reviews).
• Diversify Your Assets. It’s easier to get video to rank on the
first page than to get a plain text page to rank on page 1.


Flash, AJAX, Video, and PDFs
• Flash
– Bots are getting better at reading what’s in flash sites, but they
still cannot
– Deep link into flash sites, or
– Index pages and content beneath the homepage in most cases.
– If you must use flash, read up on the latest best practices for
optimizing flash sites
– In the PDF creation process (using Acrobat, not Reader) make sure you fill
in all of the “optional” author and meta data. The engines can see that
stuff.
– Make sure you’re creating the text portions AS TEXT, not as a giant
image.


• AJAX
– It
is *possible* to make a search engine friendly site
out of AJAX, but it’s still not easy or simple.
– Thesafest thing to do (much like with Flash
websites) is to use AJAX sparingly, and for content
that is strictly for the use of the user and doesn’t
necessarily contain information that is vital for the
engines to see.
– Form fields
– Things that perform ACTIONS – it’s not for CONTENT


• Video
– Thereare an increasing number of ways video can
be optimized for search.
– Add transcripts
– Add tags
– Add descriptions.
– ALWAYS add content AROUND the video ON the page itself.

– Videosadd an extra opportunity for appearing in
the SERPs thanks to the new universal results.


• PDFs
– Thereare hidden meta fields within PDF documents
that most people never bother to fill out.
– You can embed links within PDF documents.
– Imagesare still invisible elements… nothing can be
done for that.
– All
optimization of PDFs has to be done when
they’re being created (with Acrobat)


Local SEO for Local Results
• Make sure your Business Name, Address(es), and Phone
Number(s) are on your page.
• Include a (REAL) Map… they’re geocoded. JPGs of maps are
just pictures – they mean nothing.
• Use special hCard Microformatting around important things
like the business name, address and phone number (Google
likes this).


Normal HTML with Local Info
<div>
<img src=www.example.com/bobsmith.jpg />
<strong>Bob Smith</strong>
Senior editor at ACME Reviews
200 Main St Desertville, AZ 12345
</div>


hCard (Person) Microformatting
<div class="vcard">
<img class="photo" src="www.example.com/bobsmith.jpg" />
<strong class="fn">Bob Smith</strong>
<span class="title">Senior editor</span> at <span
class="org">ACME Reviews</span>
<span class="adr"> <span class="street-address">200 Main
St</span>
<span class="locality">Desertville</span>, <span
class="region">AZ</span> <span class="postal-
code">12345</span> </span> </div>


Meta Data: The First Impression
Because Search Engines use the Title tag and Meta Description
to generate your listing in the SERPs, those elements are your
first opportunity to inform and educate the user about your
site, and to motivate him to click through.

ProTip: For a quick view of how your site’s search engine
listings look, go to Google and type in “site:yourdomain.com”
where “yourdomain.com” is (obviously) your actual domain
name. Do you like what you see?


Anatomy of a SERP Listing
Title Tag

Description

The URL


The Meta Data
• The meta title tag is incredibly important.

• The meta keyword tag is pretty much ignored by the major
SEs these days. (It still has some uses, though)

• The meta description is still important. It provides the brief
description the SEs display under your listing. It’s like a small
advertisement for your site.
• Rel=Canonical, NoFollow, NoIndex, etc. have very specific
uses, but aren’t actually visible to the searcher like the others.


<title>The Title Tag</title>
• Every page *must* have a unique title
• Build the title around target term for that page
– This will be a 2-4 word keyword phrase

– “Green Building Home Retrofitting" or “Chicago Cubs
Tickets”
– Note… all keywords in descending order of importance, BUT
they still read nicely.
• Keep it short, attractive and enticing.
– It’s like a 4-8 word advertisement. It’s your first chance to
entice the reader to click through and read more – about
you.


The Meta Description
• Every page of the site should have a unique meta description

• Include details that are not presented in the <title>

• Use proper English. It shouldn’t read like a bunch of keywords
randomly slung together.

• Accurately represent the content of the page.


Meta Keywords
• The Search Engines don’t really bother with this tag much.
• If you DO have this field in your source, make sure it is
– filled in correctly (keywords are for the specific content on that specific
page, not general for the website)
– the fields are formated correctly (keyword,keyword,keyword)
• If it’s not right, just get rid of it. Better not there than wrong.


Rel=Canonical
Use this to specify the original source of a page’s content.
Helps prevent duplicate content.
Especially useful if you have pagination, content
syndication, or if your CMS generates weird parameters in
the URL.

This is a quick one to check on…
Go check, if it’s missing or not set up right, fix it!


Rel=Canonical
• If you have multiple languages available, you may use
“rel=canonical” in conjunction with “hreflang” to help Google
direct users to the version best for their language while
keeping the links and “credit” assigned to your primary site.

• Rel=canonical acts like a 301 redirect… usually. To be safe and
sure, if something MUST be 301’d… do it with Htaccess.


NoIndex
• If you see:

<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,nofollow">

• Or really anything with “noindex” in it, it means your webpage
is NOT being indexed by the search engines.
• Not in the index means NOT available to show up in search
results. It may as well say “invisible”.


NoFollow
• NoFollow was developed to prevent the passing of “page
authority” through links.
• That function was largely devalued after abuse.
• Currently, the use of the “rel=nofollow” attribute tells Google
that you do not trust the site at the end of the link, or that it’s a
paid relationship and therefore should the “link credit” should
be devalued or discounted.


A Word About Redirections
• 301 redirects pass “link authority” and “Google Juice” *much*
closer to 1:1 than a 302 redirect will.
• Too many internal 301 redirections is
– Lazy
– Wasting internal link juice
• How do you find your redirections? Use “Screaming Frog”:
http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/


Implementing Redirections
• It’s usually in a hidden file in the web root of your file system
(.htaccess)
• It’s best to keep it short. The directives are executed linearly
and every line is another line the server has to evaluate before
it can respond to a request from a client.
• It’s incredibly easy to screw up. So don’t fiddle with it unless
you know how to back out of the changes FAST.


Robots.txt
• A file on the webserver that people usually never look at, but
the engines look at them ALL THE TIME.
• If you’re missing one, it probably won’t kill anything.
• If you have one that’s screwed up, you’re in big trouble.


XML Sitemap
• Only *mandatory* if you have a HUGE site or if you have a lot
of video or news assets (there’s are special video and news
sitemaps)
• Bots find your sitemap via a reference or pointer to the
location that is found in your Robots.txt file.
• You can also submit your sitemaps directly to the search
engines via their respective Webmaster Tools areas.


Body Data: What We’ll Cover

• Search Engine Crawlers (Bots)
• Good HTML and Header Tags
• Images and Alt Attributes
• Intrasite Linking, Bookmarks
• Linking Out
• Site Speed and Server Issues


Search Engine Crawlers (Bots)
• Bots crawl web sites to discover, analyze and index new
content and links.

• Bots are becoming more sophisticated daily; however…

– They are unable to fully appreciate colors or or changes in
font weight or size.
– They can’t always extricate themselves from “traps”
– They are efficient *machines* that disregard what they don’t
understand.

• Properly structuring your data helps the engines better understand
your content, and deliver it to the right (more qualified) searchers.


How Do We “Properly Structure” Content?

• Good HTML provides context, weight and importance
to the various elements on your pages.

• When you turn off the CSS, JavaScript and all of the
bells and whistles on your site, a well structured site
will look a lot like an outline.


Without Proper Structure/HTML
TITLE: The Title similar to the H1, but sometimes more brief. H1
is the Thesis statement of your document The H1 is what your
document is about. Period. All of the copy on the page should
support, explain or enhance that subject. H2 would be section
header, or a section that supports the H1/Thesis statement. This
would be content that explains or supports the words that are in
the H2. H3 is a subsection that would probably support one of
the H2’s. This would be information that belongs to the H3
immediately above. This is where I would support this point or
further elaborate.
This would be another H3 This would be information that
belongs to the H3 immediately above. This is where I would
support this point or further elaborate.


With Proper Structure/HTML

I. The TITLE/H1 is most important.
A. H2 is a header that supports the H1.
This would be content that explains or supports the words that are in
the H2.

1. H3 is a subsection supporting an H2
This would be information that belongs to the H3 immediately above.
This is where I would support this point or further elaborate.

2. This would be another H3
This would be information that belongs to the H3 immediately above.


The HTML to Look For

• Good HTML in the <body> of the document should
include:
– An <h1>Primary Headline</h1> -- there should be only one
of these.
– There may be sub-headings that use <h2>, <h3> or even <h4>.
– Header tags should NEVER EVER be used for navigational purposes.

– <p>Paragraph tags around blocks of content</p>
– Lists should be identified by <li>List Item Tags</li>
– The page should always end with </body></html>


HTML vs CSS
• Cascading Style Sheets should never be used in place
of good HTML practices.

• Without the structure provided by HTML, the bots
only see a page of evenly weighted words. No
emphasis, no obvious groupings, no importance.

• Because CSS is not an exact science, the bots don’t
know what to do with it, so they treat it like it’s not
there.


Knowing Good HTML from Clever CSS

• Open two browser windows and look at the “people
version” of a webpage in one, and the source of that
page in the other.
• Where there is a headline on the people version, look
for the corresponding text in the source. If that text
has an <h1> or <h2> tag around it. It’s a real headline.
• If the text has a <span class=“something”> or <p
style=“something”> around it, it’s CSS.


Images
• Always define the “alt=“ attribute for images.

– This
is a valuable opportunity to add some clarity (and more
keywords) to your content.
– It’s an ADA and Section 508 compliance requirement.
– UseCSS to display images when possible. It keeps your load
times low.

• Remember, images are pretty, but they’re only useful
to sighted humans. TELL THE ENGINES WHAT IS IN
THE IMAGE.


Internal Links and Bookmarks
• Internal links are links from your website, to other pages
WITHIN your website. These should be used to improve the
user’s experience (read: if it won’t be USEFUL to a user, DON’T
DO IT)

• Ditto Bookmarks. (http://domain.com/page#bookmark)


When Creating Internal Links…
The words that are clickable (the Anchor Text) tell the
SEs what the page that link points at is about.
If you want your page on pink widgets to rank for “pink
widgets”, you link to that page using the anchor text
“pink widgets”.
BAD: For information on pink widgets, click here.
GOOD: Get information on pink widgets here.

Same goes for naming Bookmarks (#bookmark). Use
words that are descriptive of what the reader will find
at the other end of the link.


Internal Linking Best Practices
• Link to your own content, from within the BODY of
your own content.
– When certain phrases occur naturally in your content, and you have
more information about that topic… link to it!

• Use good anchor text and never, never, ever use “click
here”.

• Do not use/waste Header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc) tags
on navigation or non-keyword or topic-relevant
words.

• Keep the number of links to a reasonable quantity.


Speaking of Excessive Links
• Too many links on a given page are bad.
– Too many is >50 and that includes all navigation.
• Multiple links to the same destination are wasted links.
– Engines only acknowledge the first instance (including anchor text
associated with that link).
• The total amount of authority that can be passed to
subsequent pages by each link is decreased by the number of
links on the page.
– 100% / 20 links = 5% authority per link
– 100% /50 links = 2% authority per link


Excessive Links: Blog Bling

Each and every single little
social media sharing button
is not only a link (and usually
a link away from your site),
but it’s also an API call.

Each API call and call to load
another tiny image slows
down your page load.


Blog Bling Best Practices
•You need social sharing buttons (on most sites). They
aren’t bad. It’s poor implementation that is bad.

•Avoid sharing buttons on excerpts, blog home pages,
archive pages, or tag archives. Why would someone share
something they haven’t read? Put them only on the whole
article page.

• Use good judgment when including social sharing
buttons. If your website has no images, why would you
include a Pinterest button?


Site Speed/Server Issues

• Google flat out said they show preference to sites that
are fast. Fast = Good User Experience, and Google
loves a good user experience above all else.

• Excessive load times are usually caused by:
– Too many scripts, broken scripts, or too many API calls
– Large images and files that user is forced to download
– Too many database calls, or a slow database.


• Check your site speed and load times at sites like
http://www.webpagetest.org

• Use caching plugins like W3 Total Cache or Quick Cache.

• Use minifying scripts to reduce the number of scripts and
external CSS files being called from your source code


• Check your Screaming Frog reports for “3xx Redirections”,
anything marked as a 301 or 302 that has an INTERNAL URL
destination should be fixed.

• Check for “4xx and 5xx Errors”. These are *errors* and they
should be fixed.

• Too many errors and redirections tells Google you don’t
maintain your site well. Poorly maintained sites = indication of
a poor user experience. Google hates poor user experiences.


Organic Keyword Research
1. Create a “starter KW list”
1. Include everything you can think of that might be relevant. We’ll
refine later.
2. Refine the list into a “master KW list”
3. Prioritize.
4. Rinse and Repeat. Frequently.


Brainstorming for Keywords
• Peopleto ask for keyword/descriptor
suggestions:
– Coreweb team members
– Product managers

– Marketing people

– Anyone who designs, develops, promotes,
markets or sells


Brainstorming for Keywords
• Don’t
forget to invite those from the
“front line” aka “Anyone who regularly
interacts with your target audience”:
– Customer service reps
– Tech support (if they interface w/ public)
– Field reps


Refining Your Keyword List

• Look for alternatives
or variations of your
terms and add those
to your Master List.


Refining Your Keyword List
• Run your starter list
through your
favorite KW
research tool.
Look for highest search
volumes.
• Remove KWs have
little/no search volume,
or are weak compared
to a very similar term.*


Categorize Your Keywords
• Separate KWs into 2 lists:

– List A: KWs w/ content to support
– List B: KWs w/ zero content to support
– This is your “missed opportunities” list


Content is Still King
• Content IS your site, and it also
– Establishes your theme.
– Attracts links.

– Providesopportunities to rank for more keywords (more
content == more words == more long tail phrases)
• If your content is garbage, your site is useless. Useless sites
rarely do well without cheating.
• If the search engines cannot SEE your content, you may as well
have none.
• Conversely, anything that is in the source code of the page can
be seen by the engines.


Writing Good Content FOR the Internet

• Write clearly and concisely, but very specifically. The
Internet takes away much of the contextual clues that
normally surround reading material.

Good Print Headline:
Mayor ends dispute with University
Good Internet Headline:
West Lafayette Mayor ends dispute with
Purdue


Writing Good Content FOR the Internet
• Use words your target audience uses rather than words that are too
industry or company specific. (drop-in sink or self-rimming sink?)

• Be specific. Don’t refer to a product as “our best-selling product”,
refer to it as “our best-selling product, the Acme Cat Slingshot”.

• Be super specific. Filters could be air filters, water filters, vacuum
filters, spam filters, porn filters, coffee filters, cigarette filters, etc.
Just because YOU know you’re talking about vacuum filters doesn’t
mean the engines do.

• Don’t be longwinded. People reading text on computer screens
skim. They prefer shorter paragraphs with line breaks between them,
rather than indentations. Make your content easy to digest.


In Summary…

THE WRAP UP


The Goals of SEO
• Organize the information and content on a Web site to create
a positive and intuitive user experience

• Clearly and unambiguously communicate the theme/topic and
intentions of the site owners to the search engines.

• Attract natural inbound links and traffic (visitors)

• Help the engines give credit where credit is due. Resolving
canonical issues and proper redirections maximizes the value
of the inbound links.


Basic SEO is fundamental.

Skipping the basics and spending all of
your time/money on social and “fancy
stuff” is the same as skipping brushing
your teeth and showering, but buying
white strips and wearing expensive
cologne.


Questions?

Carolyn Shelby
Director of SEO
435 Digital/Tribune Company

Twitter: @cshel
Email: carolyn@435digital.com or
cshelby@tribune.com

Intro to SEO - SES New York 2013

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