SEO Basics & Beyond: Fall 2017 Edition

SEO Basics & Beyond:
Keys to Search Engine Success

Download this slide deck at: http://bit.ly/seofall2017
Agenda
 What SEO Means
 How Search Engines Work
 Setting Up a Successful SEO
Strategy (Basics and Beyond)
 What to Expect
 ThingsYou Can Do Right Now to
IncreaseYour Exposure in Search
Engines
 SEOTrends toWatch

Q&A
 We will have Q&A at the end of each section

Download Slides
http://bit.ly/seofall2017

About Me
 Coding since 6 years old
 Creating websites since 1997
 Working in e-commerce since
2005
 Marketing MBA
 Agency since 2011

What “SEO” Means
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is
the art and science of influencing
search engines to rank your content
high in search results..

What “SEO” Means
…influencing search engines…
1. Apply a set of educated guesses
2. Test and measure results
3. Rinse, repeat.

How Search Engines Work
 Search engines just want to give users the
information they need.
 Therefore, they just want you to provide
good/useful/helpful content.
How Search Engines Work:
The Basics

 Google does data entry with your website
 They extract a copy of your site’s text and
code and put it into their own database
 This is called “indexing”

 Their copy is what gets
searched against when a
user enters a search

 To determine position in results, sites are ranked according to a
set of algorithms (“if this, then that” conditions)

 There are over 200 known ranking factors that Google looks at
 They can all be lumped into 3 categories

 Search engines need to understand your content.
 Things that help them do that:
 A good content management system (CMS) like
WordPress
 A fast–loading site
 A mobile-friendly site
Technical: The Basics

Content: The Basics
 Using the same keywords people are
searching with
 Using those keywords naturally and logically
 Well-organized content
 Fresh (new) content added on a regular
basis
 User-friendly navigation, linking similar
pages to each other

 Getting reputable & relevant websites to link to yours and talk
about your brand.
 Building up social media “signals” that indicate real people are
liking and sharing your content.
 (For local businesses) Creating accurate local listings in sites
like SuperPages,YellowPages, WhitePages,Yelp, etc.
Off Page: The Basics

Without getting into further detail, if you simply:
▪ Have a good CMS, fast-loading, and mobile-friendly site
▪ Use keywords logically and naturally
▪ Organize your content well and add to it often
▪ Get other brands and people to talk about your brand
▪ List accurate information in “online phone book” directories
You will get more search engine traffic.
Summary: The Basics

 Search-engine-friendly & error-free website code
 Website server response time & page load time
 Mobile-friendliness, proper responsive design
 Secure (https) and malware-free
 Additional markup
(Schema.org)
Technical

A Successful SEO Strategy
 New site in the works? Start with a “blueprint”
 Build it right in the first place!
 At most basic level, make sure new site will be fully responsive (mobile-friendly),
and that it loads fast per Google PageSpeed Insights test
Technical
 WordPress is highly recommended as an SEO-
friendly platform, as it is a widely-supported
open source platform. Click here to read why
open source is best for SEO.
 An SEOAgency can provide full and
customized specifications for the web designer
to work off of

 Existing site? Start with an audit
 WooRank is free, but only scans one page and doesn’t check
for everything. Good place to start though.
 An SEO agency can do a full audit
▪ Be sure it includes mobile friendliness & site speed, as well as other
common factors such as header tag hierarchy, Schema.org,
robots.txt, XML sitemaps, etc.
Technical
www.WooRank.com

Technical
www.WooRank.com
Hand audit report to
webmaster.
Tell them to fix it all.
(Cry at cost if
necessary)

 Google Search Console
 (formerly known as Google WebmasterTools)
 For now, still located at:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
 Contains info on index status, crawl errors, warning
messages, penalties, mobile usability errors, etc .
 This is THE ONLY place Google will communicate with you
directly about your site!
▪ Ensure that email notifications are turned on in the preferences!
Technical

 OngoingTechnical Strategy
 Full audit updates quarterly
 Check Search Console regularly & subscribe to email
notifications
▪ Consistently fix any crawl errors that come up
 Subscribe to Google WebmasterCentral Blog for real time
alerts of new technical considerations
▪ https://webmasters.googleblog.com/
Technical

 How to organize information
 A lot of different topics on one page is confusing to the search
engines
Content

Content
 How to organize information
 Separate pages for each topic, product, or service
 Link similar pages to each other to create topical “hubs”

Content
 Ongoing content strategy
 “Fresh” content is important, but that doesn’t
mean CHANGING existing content, that means
ADDING new content
 Important to keep site size growing by adding
new pages or articles all the time
 Blog RELIGIOUSLY!
(Blog must be on your own website, not on WordPress.com or Blogger.com)

Content
Source: Hubspot

Content
 4 Categories = 4 Posts Per Month
 Use Keyword Research to get ideas
 Plan far ahead
• HINT: An Editorial Calendar is a lifesaver!

Determine what keywords to use (a.k.a. “Keyword Research”)
Content
 Search SuggestTools
▪ AnswerThePublic (free)
▪ Soovle (free)
 DataTools:
▪ Google AdWords Keyword Planner
(for existing advertisers)
▪ SEMRush (partially free)
▪ SERPStat (partially free)

“Not too hot, not too cold…”
Content

Content
Determine what keywords to use.
(stick to the midrange on Volume, and as low competition as possible)

Where & how to use keywords
Content
1. Pick One Primary Phrase, and Several Secondaries for Context: Focus
your content on one primary phrase that meets the “Goldilocks Rule”, but
also pick several related words to use as secondaries. Secondaries don’t
have to be used in all the following places, but should be “peppered in”
naturally for context.
2. Use Primary Phrase in the Title: Use the phrase in the article or page
title, towards the front if possible, e.g. “Facebook Marketing Strategy: Top
10 Best Practices”
3. Use Primary Phrase in a Subtitle: Subtitles are great for breaking up
longer content into more digestible chunks. Use your phrase once in a
subtitle.

Content
4. Use Primary Phrase in the Title tag & URL: Most modern content management
systems will do this automatically for you based on the title of your article, but
make sure your phrase lands in both the title tag and the URL for the content.
5. Use Primary Phrase in the Meta description: This is a one-page summary of
the content that search engines often use as the “snippet” in the search results.
Although not a direct ranking factor, using the phrase here can assist with click-
through rates.
6. Use Primary Phrase in Image Filename & Alt Tag: All content should have at
least one image. Name the image filename with the phrase, using dashes (NOT
underscores) as spaces, e.g. facebook-marketing-strategy.jpg. There is also a tag
called an “image alt tag” that exists to tell search engines more about the image.
Use your phrase in this description as well.

Content
7. Use the Primary Phrase AND Secondaries in the Copy :
• It’s important that the copy reads very naturally, e.g. “New business owners
often wonder what’s involved in executing a successful Facebook marketing
strategy.”
• In total, when you are finished writing, the primary phrase should appear
approximately 1 to 2 times per 100 words. This DOES include the titles and
subtitles. DO NOT exceed this frequency!
• For example, a 500 word article should have the phrase appear anywhere from a
minimum of 5 times (1 time per 100 words) to an absolute maximum of 10 times (2
times per 100 words).
• Secondaries can be used as little as 1 time each. Just “pepper them in”
naturally.

Off Page
 Links
 Other websites linking to your website
 QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
 Reputable and Relevant
 CANNOT be manipulated – DO NOT buy links!

Off Page
 Best Ways to Get Natural Links
 Write great content & pay to promote it
▪ Paying for eyeballs is okay, paying for links is not!
▪ Pay to boost great blog posts on social (FB/LI)
 HARO (Help A Reporter Out)
 Offer (and promote) scholarships & internships
 Offer government & university staff/student discounts
 Look at competitor links for ideas (Ahrefs, OpenSiteExplorer, Majestic)

Off Page
 Social Signals
 Content that lives on your website getting
“liked”, shared, commented on, etc.
 Boost to get more signals
 Again, write great content & pay to promote it

Off Page (for Local Biz)
 Citations (a.k.a. “Online Phone Book Listings”)
 For local businesses
 NAP = Name, Address, Phone
 Consistency is key
 Google My Business (a.k.a. Google Maps)
 Claim & fully fill out all info

Measurement & Analysis
 Remember…
 This is educated guesswork
 You HAVE to measure what
worked and what didn’t!
 Why? So you can do more of
what works and less of what
doesn’t

Measurement & Analysis
 What to measure
 Organic traffic
▪ Make sure it’s always increasing
 Top landing pages
▪ See what content works best
 Top referring sources
▪ See what sites are linking to you
 Top organic keywords
▪ What keywords is Google associating your site with (in Search Console)

What to Expect
SEO Takes Time.
• You may see some
immediate
improvement, but
overall SEO takes a
lot of time and
commitment to
really work.

What to Expect
SEO is an ONGOING Strategy.
• There areTHOUSANDS of algorithm updates each
year. Google will always want you to do at least a few new
things to your site each year.
• Adding new/fresh content can never stop. It’s like
putting gas in your car.Without gas, it doesn’t go.Without
new/fresh content, your SEO efforts won’t fully work.
• It’s partially guesswork. You have to test and measure
constantly, and keep doing more of what’s working and
less of what’s not.

What to Expect
You Will Need Resources.
SEO works best when a company has the following resources in place:
• An SEO expert or agency
• A good web developer/designer
• A great copywriter
• A public relations agency and/or a great social media agency
• Funds for all of the above
That being said, you can make great strides on your own if you
have the time to learn and do the work yourself, and at least some
small funds for coaching/training.

What to Expect
You Will Waste Money
if You “SEO it Later”
• Many people think they can build a new site and just “SEO it”
later.
• Technically this is true, but this approach will cost a lot more in
the long run.
• It’s best to have a new site “architected” for SEO from the very
beginning of the build.
• An SEO agency actually needs to start research and planning
WEEKS prior to the web developer starting to code the site.

Things to do NOW
 Set up Search Console
 Subscribe to email notifications
 Start blogging (on your own site)
 Share (and boost) your great content on social
 Sign up for HARO
 For local businesses…
 Claim/optimize Google My Business listing
 Build/correct other “online phone book” listings

Things to NEVER do
 “Stuff” keywords into your content
 Create lots of similar pages with boilerplate copy
 Create orphaned/doorway pages
 Use hidden text
 Hyperlink tons of keywords
 Buy links (NEVEREVEREVEREVER do this!)

Trends to Watch
 Mobile, Mobile, Mobile!
 Google is getting pickier and pickier about how well sites perform on mobile.
 Test your site frequently with Google’s mobile-friendly tools.
 Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
 At first, this was important only for news sites & large blogs, butAMP pages
are now found throughout all types of search results.
 Speed
 Google cares about this more than ever.We have seen direct correlations
between site load time and rankings.Test page speed frequently with Google’s
PageSpeed Insights tool.
2017 SEO Trends to Watch

Trends to Watch
 Better Ads Standards
 NO pop-ups!There is now a specific SEO penalty for this on mobile. Keep an
eye on https://www.betterads.org/standards/ for new developments.
 Security (https)
 As of October 2017,Google will show warnings on forms that appear on non-
https sites.
2017 SEO Trends to Watch

Recap
 What SEO Means
 Art & science of *influencing* position
in search engines
 How Search Engines Work
 Sites ranked based upon 200+ factors
in 3 categories: Technical, Content, Off
Page
 Successful SEO Strategy
 Good CMS, fast-loading, mobile-
friendly site
 Use keywords logically and naturally
 Organize your content well and add to
it often
 Get other brands and people to talk
about your brand
 List accurate information in “online
phone book” directories
 Things to do NOW
 Set up Search Console
 Start blogging & promote on social!
 Things to NEVER do
 Buy links!
 Try too hard (stuff keywords, etc.)
 SEOTrends to Watch
 Mobile, AMP, Speed, Ads Standards,
HTTPS
 Go Beyond the Basics
 Work with an SEO expert or agency
 Hire good web developer, copywriter,
PR, and social experts
 Get coaching if going at it on your own

List of Resources
 Technical
 WooRank.com:
https://www.woorank.com/
 Google PageSpeed Insights:
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights
 GTMetrix (another speed tool):
https://gtmetrix.com/
 Google’s Mobile FriendlyTool*:
https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
▪ Doesn’t test mobile usability. See Search Console for that.
 Google Search Console:
 Content
 Google AdWords Keyword Planner:
https://adwords.google.com/
 SEMRush:
https://www.semrush.com
 SERPStat:
https://serpstat.com/
 AnswerThe Public:
https://answerthepublic.com/
 Soovle:
http://soovle.com/
 Off-Page
 HARO (Help a Reporter Out):
https://www.helpareporter.com/
 OpenSiteExplorer:
https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/
 Local
 Google My Business:
https://www.google.com/business/
 Listing Checker:
https://www.optimizelocation.com/partner/pamannmark
eting/diagnostic.html
 Measurement
 Google Analytics:
https://analytics.google.com/
 Google Search Console:
 Trends
 BetterAds Standards:
https://www.betterads.org/standards/
 GoogleWebmaster Blog:
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/
Services
Coaching: http://pamannmarketing.com/internet-marketing-services/internet-marketing-coaching/
SEO: http://pamannmarketing.com/internet-marketing-services/new-jersey-seo-services/

Download this slide deck at
http://bit.ly/seofall2017

SEO Basics & Beyond: Fall 2017 Edition

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