Search Engine Optimization Strategies

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Search Engine Optimization Strategies

• The Basics of SEO
• Offered to you by Mary Anne Donovan
• Vice President, SEO Literacy Consultants

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What We Will Cover

1. Factoids
2. What is SEM?
3. What is SEO?
4. How Do Users Access Sites?
5. Facets of SEO?
6. How Are Pages Ranked?
7. Business Goals

• Usability
• Site Design
• Content
• Linking
• Keywords
• Measurement
• SEO Steps
• How to Assess Your Site

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Factoids

• Over 8 billion pages indexed by Google
  (http//aixtal.blogspot.com/2005/01/web-google-sea
  rching-9105590456-pages.html)
• 20 of all searches now for local resources
  (Kelsey Group)
• In 5 years, local search market worth 3.4
  billion
• 24 increase in 2005 holiday shopping, but 8 of
  shoppers walked away from sale (ClickZ)
• 5.75 billion spent on SEM in 2005 44 increase
  over 2004 (SEMPO)

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What is Search Engine Marketing?

• The practice of marketing and advertising through
  the search engines

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Facets of SEM

• Digital public relations
• Pay-per-click
• SEO

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What is Search Engine Optimization?

• Search engine optimization is the work required
  for your web site to achieve high rankings with
  the search engines when people search using
  selected phrases or search terms.

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Facets of SEO

• Business goals
• Keywords
• Document relevance
• Usability
• Site design
• Content
• Linking
• Measurement

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How Do Users Access Sites?

• Search engines
• Typing the URL
• Link from other site
• Bookmark

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How Are Pages Ranked?

• SE spiders crawl and measure
• Content
• Keywords
• Links
• Site Design
• These measurements are turned into algorithms

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Business Goals

• Write a formal business plan and determine
  measurable goals
• To improve branding
• To increase direct sales
• To get more leads
• To increase web site traffic

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Keywords

• Keyword analysis
• Competitive analysis
• Select those search terms used frequently but
  with the least competition
• Optimum page placement
• 4 9 page frequency
• Use phrases vs. words

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Document Relevance

• Google determines document relevance by looking
  at
• How people find information
• What they do when they access a document
• Which document in a site they tend to land on
• How long users spend on that document
• How much time does a user spend exploring
  information in a domain, (http//searchenginejour
  nal.com/index.php?p2572)

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Usability

• Intuitive site navigation
• Easy to find content
• Consistent use of terms and icons
• Use of Alt tags with images
• Chunked and bulleted text
• Short sentences, grammatically correct
• World Wide Web Consortium W3C http//www.w3.org/

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Site Design

• Title tag
• Meta keyword tag
• Meta description tag
• Body text
• H1 and H2 headings
• Internal links
• Alt tags

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Content

• Content elements
• Digital rhetoric
• Audience
• Purpose
• Style and format

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Linking

• Significance -- Link popularity PageRank
• Votes
• Link building
• On-page vs. Off-page

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Why Are Links Important?

• The visibility of your site is affected by
• How you link to other sites
• How other sites link to you
• How your web pages link to each other

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Getting Valuable Links

• Distinguishing between one-way vs. reciprocal
  links
• Making your web site attractive
• Improving your link popularity
• Finding relevant, credible websites
• Determining link popularity for incoming links
• Arranging for the link

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Linking Strategy

• Benefits
• Ranking
• Traffic
• Network
• Credibility
• Content

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Measurement

• Monitor site performance
• Customer feedback (CRM)
• Web tracking systems

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Overview of Steps in SEO

1. Select and assign keywords
2. Develop and post quality content
3. Get quality inbound links using a good link
   strategy
4. Use your on page elements correctly
5. Make your site usable for visitors
6. Design and implement a comprehensive PR plan

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How to Assess Your Site

• Google Toolbar http//toolbar.google.com/
• http//validator.w3.org/  (how many errors)
• http//www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyz
  e/ (speed and size etc, see our Scanreport)
• http//www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/ 
• (link popularity)