This came from a Digital Nashville talk on 5/17/2011. The speaker was [[http://www.viralorchard.com|Jeremy Scott]].
= SEO Basics (tl;dr) =
- Rule #1: Content Is King.
- Traditionally, Google's algorithms have focused on keywords and links (inbound and outbound)
- Recently, with Panda Updates, Google has started downrating pages that seem over-SEO'd
- Search Engines are placing far more weight on social signals (shares, likes, retweets, etc.)
- Everyone in the company should click the +1 button in the Google Search results
- On-site optimization means writing web copy that includes predefined target keywords and phrases
- Copywriters and developers should work together to strike a balance between natural copy and optimized keywords
- Utilize PR to produce content that will get linked to from reputable sources (newspapers, blogs, even site-of-the-day galleries like awwwards)
- Leverage content that Google pulls in from its other properties (YouTube, Places, Maps, etc) to get on the search results page
- Use simple, descriptive, keyword-rich URLs
- Non-Profits get an enhanced set of tools for Google and YouTube!
== Resources ==
- [[http://seomoz.com/blog|SEO Moz]]
- [[http://www.seobook.com/blog|SEO Book]]
- [[http://searchenginewatch.com|Search Engine Watch]]
- [[http://www.reelseo.com|Reel SEO]] (video SEO focused)
== 1. Keywords (On-Page Optimization) ==
- Keywords used to be the primary way Google determined rank
- After years of abuse, Google gives less weight to keywords in favor of link building
=== Official Keyword Tools ===
** [[http://trends.google.com|Google Trends]] *** Compares two keywords for relative rank (ie, "chiropractic" much more often searched than "chiropractor") ** [[https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS|Google Keyword Tool]] *** Real-number data about keywords (global monthly searches, local monthly searches, competition) *** Suggestions for other similar keywords
=== Which Keywords to Use ===
- Google looks for key phrases (not words) in your webpage called "Code Beacons" - they are all listed on Google's keyword tool ** "Keywords" (phrases people commonly use to search) ** Topic/Theme/Industry ** Location
- Check competitors websites for keywords - but don't steal or "scrape" them because Google downranks duplicated content
- Check Google Analytics for searches people are already using to get to your site (check each ranking)
- Choose different keywords for each page - "Each page is its own site as far as SEO is concerned"
=== Where To Put Keywords ===
- <title> tag
- Body copy
- tags
- URL
- Domain name (domains with acronyms like "tnchiro.com" are less valuable than "nashvillechiropractic.com")
=== How Many Keywords To Use ===
- More isn't always better (especially since recent updates) - you can water down the good ones
- Don't overstuff the site with too keywords or the same keywords - Google values "keyword diversity"
- Google automatically fixes misspellings, so including them as keywords won't help
- 30-50 is common
- You can't rank #1 for every keyword so make some goals and pull out ones you won't win
=== Evaluating Keyword Updates ===
- How long does it take to see on-page changes? 2~6 weeks
- Personalized results can affect the results you see: ** Your prior search history *** Log out of Google account *** Clear cookies ** Your geographic location *** You can "fake" a geographic location on the search page ** Rankings based on social signals *** Log out of Facebook, Twitter, G+ etc.
== 2. Domains and URLs ==
- You want keywords in your domain
- Google gives weight to older, established domains
- If you have a bad domain name, create a new one and use the old one to redirect to it
- .com is always preferable
- Google is good at separating words: no difference between hello-world, hello_world, helloworld
- Use descriptive, keyword-rich URLs (pickpuck.com/about-michael-puckett over pickpuck.com/about)
== 3. Crawl Issues ==
- Check your Google Webmaster Tools for crawl errors, crawl rates, etc.
- Google downranks sites with dead links, broken images, redirect errors, etc.
== 4. Links ==
- Links are the currency of authority
- Get linked from other highly-ranked pages (New York Times) - works with PR mindset
- Stay away from bad links - you don't want your site linked from spam sites, adult sites, directories
- Keywords in anchor text is preferred - example best advertising agency in Nashville
- How to get linked? ** Sometimes you can simply ask other website owners to get links ** Link Bait DOES still work - ie, Top 10 Lists - see http://bit.ly/KuKpyM - maybe because it often has a viral social aspect
- Anything automated, Google usually picks up on and will downgrade the connection
- Links have decreasing value in Google's algorithm because of abuse (linkfarms, exchanges, etc.) ** Avoid... *** Inbound links on website footers (including "Built by iostudio") *** Links from unrelated sites *** Too many links are pointing back with the same exact anchor text as each other *** Too many exact match keyword links *** Consecutive Sponsored Links *** Specific keywords that have recently dropped in ranking added to site (Google Keyword Tool stalking) *** "Basically what we have spent the last 5 years doing"
- Link shorteners seem to be OK
== 5. Fresh Content ==
- Google will return to your site more often if there is consistent conversation
- Make sure to have a blog! Link to an archive on every page so Google can crawl more easily
- Redesigns/recoding sites rarely have a negative effect - unless you change your page URLs
- Google prefers the newest technologies (HTML5 semantic structure)
- Basically: Content Is King so if you keep that in mind your site will rank well
== 6. Social Signals ==
-
The future of SEO is tied to social media ** Likes/Plus Ones ** Discussion - Comments ** Shares/Retweets ** Ratings ** Reviews - Google Places, Yelp, Google Maps are a "magic bullet" for local businesses - include every location ** Fans/Friends/Followers ** Embeds ** Video subscriptions, etc
-
Google started Google+ because it couldn't get social data about likes/shares from Facebook/Twitter ** Google+ integration is key to every brand website because that's where Google is getting most social data ** Everyone in your company should be +1'ing any website you launch ** Facebook data is used in Bing searches (thanks Thomas!)
= Don'ts =
- Do Not ** Keyword stuff ** Duplicate content (Do your Mobile Website and Desktop Website have the exact same content? Both will be downrated) ** Shady server IPs (porn/poker/etc) ** No shady tricks, scripts, "Black Hat SEO" ** Shady inbound links
= Leveraging Video Search Results =
- YouTube gets 40 billion video views a month vs. Google's 12.5 billion monthly searches
- Most video hasn't been optimized to show up on Google's (default) Universal Search (regular search but other content is thrown in)
- 80% of users click on a video if it shows up in Universal Search (40% higher clickthrough rate)
- Also consider YouTube ads (TrueView system is cheap and efficient)
=== How to Get Your Video to Show Up in Google Search ===
- Create a video (can be simple) ** Product demos, etc with lots of SEO-friendly VO copy ** Create an instructional video that (audibly) mentions lots of key search terms ** Write out a piece of content that could go on your website and create a text-based video ** Basically just have someone read a page of your website into a microphone and add visuals to it
- Transcribe the video as a .txt file and upload the caption file and the video to YouTube
- Provide appropriate title, keywords, description, etc for the video - but again, don't overstuff keywords - focus on 1 or 2
- Upload video sitemap (XML) to Google Webmaster Tools
- Embed the video on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc