What you need to know about SEO · Search 101- What search engines do ... BuzzStream – Link...

What you need to know about

SEO

Tina Arnoldi360 Internet Strategy LLC

Agenda

• SEO Intro• Keywords

o Analytics

• On-site o Page tagso Content

• Off-pageo Link building

What is SEO?

• It’s about making your website easy to find - both by spiders and by humans.

• Intent (Hummingbird)o Navigationalo Informational o Transactional

Search 101- What search engines do

• Crawling pages looking for contento Text-driven (they won’t see your pictures)

• Indexing – storing for retrieval

• Pushes out relevant results

Does your site come up in

search results?

Not seeing it

• Violated webmaster guidelines

• Tell Googleo http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/

• Create a sitemap

• Is your site only images?

Tags

What are tags anyway?

• HTML tags are coding instructions that tell the web browser how to see the page

• <title>• <h1>• <meta description>• <meta keywords>• <alt> (images)

<title>Welcome to Trident Technical College</title>

Title

ExamplesOnline marketing strategy for nonprofits and small business Google Analytics Training - On site - Charleston, SC

Why do page titles matter?

• Lets the user and search engine know what the site is about

• Describes the content• Descriptive. Relevant. Brief.• Note: Keep it under 70 characters

o lettercount.com

Why do meta descriptions matter?

• Lets the user and search engine know what the site is about

• Not a ranking factor• It’s a quick ad for your content• You don’t always need to write it• Keep it under 160 characters

Meta Descriptions

Heading <H1>

• H1 - tells Google and users this is important

o <h1> Online Marketing Training </h1>o <h2> Google Analytics </h2>

o <h1> Online Marketing Services</h1>o <h2> AdWords Campaigns</h1>o <h2> Email Newsletters</h2>

• Think of it like an outline: h2, h3, h4, h5, h6

Alt (for images)

If your image doesn't display for some reason, the "alt" attribute will at least show a description of the picture.

What if this picture doesn't display?

alt="Geekend Savannah GA 2011"

src="http://360internetstrategy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Geekend-screen-shot-300x164.png

Friendly URLs

x8alskjfd?a;slk.html

Navigation

Why does navigation matter?

• People want to find what they need quickly• If an item on your site is more than three

clicks away, it’s not important

Don’t do this

http://360internetstrategy.com/online-marketing-services/

http://360internetstrategy.com/online-marketing-services/another-directory/have-you-found-what-you-need-yet/are-you-seriously-still-reading-this/now-i’m-annoyed

Sitemaps

Sitemaps

• A list of pages on your site.• Dynamic content.• For people to use if they have trouble finding

something on your site.o Hopefully, they won’t need it

• For Google to use to find pages on your site.o Sitemap generators

Sitemap for people

Sitemap for Googlehttp://360internetstrategy.com/sitemap.xml

Is it working?Google Search Console

(Webmaster Tools)

404 errors

404 errors

• An irritation more than a crisis• A status code seen by the user when the

page doesn’t existo Link out there pointing to that page

• Use Webmaster tools to find URLs causing "not found“

Customize your 404 page

• Will help users find what they are looking foro Same look and feel as rest of the siteo Link to popular postso Webmaster tools widget creates a search box and

shows alternativeso Show a specific landing page

• Or redirect to homepage

Keywords

Keywords

• People find you by typing keywords into their browser

• Customer-centric – stay away from lingo!o Charityo Nonprofito Organization

• Long-tail (less competition)o Nonprofit (lots of traffic but….) After school programs (….higher conversion rate)

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Keyword Tools

• Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool

• WordStream

• Ubersuggest *

• Sitemapdoc.com *

• Google incognito *

Incognito

Look for negative keywords too

• Illinois?• Instructor?

Content

Content

• Blogs

• Social Media

• Enewsletters

What makes good content?

• Engaging• Unique• Serves a purpose• Lists

• Use keywords• Shareable• Videos

Share it

Anchor text

What’s anchor text?

•Visible, clickable text in a hyperlink•Helps determine the subject matter of

the item linked-to

Anchor Text

Click here to learn more

VS

Learn more about SEO

Anchor Text

Read our article

VS

Read our tips for SEO

Link Building

Quality over quantity

oDon’t beg

oDon’t buy

oBe relevant

Do you have links?

• OpenSiteExplorer.org

• Traffic Travis

• Local Citation Finder

• BuzzStream – Link Building Query Generator*

Local listings

Why bother?

• People are searching with “where”o Restaurant Charlestono Training Mount Pleasant

• Chances are you’re already listed and it could be wrong

Local Listings

• Verify listing

• Complete profile

• Relevant categories

Local Links

• Google Plus Yelp• Bing• Citysearch• Yahoo local• Yellow pages

• Best of the web• Hotfrog• InsiderPages• Superpages

Moz localGYBO*

Mobile Matters

Check your mobile traffic

www.google.com/think/multiscreen/

Is your site mobile friendly?

google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

Is your site mobile friendly?

Now what?

• Setup:o Google analyticso Google webmaster tools

• Read:o Google’s SEO Guide

• Check:o Source codeo Contento Sitemaps

Q & A

Tina Arnoldi360InternetStrategy.comTwitter: TinaArnoldi