SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Donna Habersaat WHAT IS SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of setting up your web site so that it ranks well for particular keywords within the organic search results of major search engines such as Google,Yahoo and Bing. WHY WE NEED SEO? In order for users to find your web site  It needs to be more than just a great web site  Web sites need to be “search engine friendly”  Help search engines with spidering and indexing  Help match queries with web site content  Search engines do not generate popularity but promote links to an already popular web site, so SEOs need to work on making your web site popular through marketing. THE LAYOUT OF A SEARCH RESULTS PAGE HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK  Crawling  Building an Index  Calculating Relevancy and Importance  Ranking WHAT SEARCH ENGINES ARE ABLE TO “SEE” ON A WEB PAGE WHAT SEARCH ENGINES ARE NOT ABLE TO ”SEE” ON A WEB PAGE  Images  Flash files  Audio and Video files  AJAX and Java applets  iFrames  Web pages only accessible after a form  “nofollow” attribute of a link SEO SKILL SETS  HTML writing  Knowledge of CSS  Data analysis  Graphic design  Server administration  Copywriting  Link building  Blogging  Social media MAIN SEO TACTICS  Keyword Generation  SEO for each web page  Web site structure (basic and advance)  Content creation  Create communities  Build Links  Google Webmasters Tools and Analytics  Social Media Optimization  Pay-per-Click Campaigns  Measuring KEYWORDS  Unique keywords  Each page optimized for 1 or 2 essential keywords  Keyword placement in the title, meta keywords and meta description tags as well as text of the page  Keyword generation tools: Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker, Rapid Keyword, Term Extractor, (all paid services) and Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool  Continuous keyword research SEO FOR EACH PAGE WEB SITE STRUCTURE <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:image="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1" xmlns:video="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1"> <url> <loc>http://www.example.com/foo.html</loc> <image:image> <image:loc>http://example.com/image.jpg</image:loc> </image:image> <video:video> <video:content_loc>http://www.example.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc> <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes" autoplay="ap=1">http://www.example.com/videoplayer.swf?video=123</video:player_loc> <video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.example.com/thumbs/123.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc> <video:title>Grilling steaks for summer</video:title> <video:description>Get perfectly done steaks every time</video:description> </video:video> </url> </urlset> WEB SITE STRUCTURE  Advanced techniques  Friendly URLS  http://www.example.com/green-dress.html not  http://www.example.com/index.php?id_sezione=360&sid=3a5ebc944f41daa6f849f730 f1 CONTENT CREATION  Unique, well-written content  Use keywords at least 3 times within text content  Latent Semantic Indexing  Each unique piece of content has its own URL  User generated content to keep content fresh  Any text in an image needs appear in text as well CREATE COMMUNITIES  Blog or forum  Establishes you as an authority or expert others will link back to your site  Promotes interaction and activity on the site  When syndicating with RSS feeds be sure use absolute links, so all referrals come back to your site BUILD LINKS TO YOUR SITE  Search engines prefer quality links:  Links from local or topic-specific popular web sites  Links from global popular sites who are trusted sources  The use of keywords as anchor text links  Methods to recruit links:  Directory listings  Business or partnership badges  Company blog  Build content that can be shared through citation-based licensing ageement  Link Broker or pay-per-post network  Participate in other blogs or forums with links back to content on your site  Press releases through PRWeb SEARCH ENGINE TOOLS  Google webmasters tools  Geographical Target  Google Image labeler  Web Crawl  Mobile Crawl  Content Analysis  Google Analytics  Top search queries  Top keywords that are sending you traffic  Goal tracking of target keywords  Identify where traffic is dropping off SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION (SMO)  Participating on various social media web sites to generate traffic, buzz and links back to your site. PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) CAMPAIGNS MEASURING & TRACKING SUCCESS  Referring visits from users  Direct Navigation  Referral Traffic  Search Engine  Compare performance  Terms and phrases that generate traffic  Learn depth of search engine indexing ITERATIVE PROCESS STAYING UP TO DATE WITH SEO PRACTICES  Blogs: SearchEngineLand.com, Seroundtable.com, SEOmoz.com  Websites: DMNews.com, ClickZ.com, WebProNews.com  Industry conferences: Search Engine Strategies, Search Marketing Expo, WedMaster World, SEOmoz’s SEO Training Seminars RESOURCES  SEOmoz. (March 14, 2011). The Beginners Guide to SEO. Retrieved from http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo  Kristopher B. Jones (2010). Search Engine Optimization:Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing, Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing.  Enge, E., Spencer, S., Fishkin, R., Stricchiola, J.C, (2010). The Art of SEO: Marketing Search Engine Optimization. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.