SEO Best Practices for 2015

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SEO 101: Best Practices for Optimizing a Web Site in 2015


SEISMIC SHIFT #1THE EVOLUTION OF THE SERP


Basic SERP

circa 2005


Paid Shopping Ads

Regular Paid Ads

Knowledge Boxes


Expanded Info


Built In Tools


Video Results


Personalized Results


“Snack Packs”


SEISMIC SHIFT #2USER BEHAVIOR HAS CHANGED


2005: First eye-tracking

study of user behavior on

search engines


But SERPs don’t look

like this anymore


Where searchers have been conditioned to look has changed.

1

Source: Mediative, March 2015


Searchers are viewing more results during a single session and

spending less time viewing each one2



Businesses that

are lower on the

SERP (especially

positions 2-4) will

see more click

activity than they

used to.

3



SEISMIC SHIFT #3 THE RISE OF MOBILE


“Mobile to

overtake fixed

Internet access

by 2014.”

- Mary Meeker, Kleiner Perkins

Caufield Byer, 2008


Today, mobile users outnumber desktop users


Sales of smartphones have skyrocketed

Source: StatCounter, March 2015


Users have changed how they search online

96% 93% 90% 85%75% 70%

4% 7% 10% 15%25% 30%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Desktop Mobile

Source: StatCounter, March 2015


Why is mobile so important?

1. Mobile has changed the way in which people conduct searches– Search queries are longer, more “natural”

– A high percentage of searches are spoken and that number is increasing

2. Google rewards mobile friendly designs– Mobile designs are faster, more efficient, more user friendly

– New mobile search algorithm on April 21st will penalize sites that aren’t mobile friendly


Translated to Mobile


BEST PRACTICES FOR SEO IN 2015


What EXACTLY

is

SEO?


SEO is…

• The practice of tweaking the content and structure of a web site in order to make that web site appear towards the top of the natural (organic) search engine results– Pros

• Most cost effective as long as you implement some best practices with respect to content creation and design

• Historically, organic results have been more trusted because they’re perceived as being earned

– Cons

• Requires strict adherence to Best Practices to be most effective

• Every page on the web site must have unique information

• Changes do not show up overnight


And what

doesTHAT

mean?

In English?


In English it means…

• Google has many different search algorithms – not just one:– Web search

– Image search

– News search

– Video search

– Mobile search

• There are 130 signals that the search algorithms is currently listening for

• Their core web search algorithm is tweaked over 400 times per year alone

• And in addition…there are special tweaks that have names


Google’s Special Tweaks

• Panda is designed to listen to specific signals related to “thin” content– Short articles / few works

– Lack of citations or external links

– Poorly written



• Penguin is designed to find “spammy” low quality links– Links with anchor text that

appear to be written for search engines and not for humans

– Links that are coming from low quality web sites or link farms



• Pigeon, released July 24th of last year, is designed to impact local search results – Affects both Google Maps

and Google Web Search

– Uses more traditional signals


Google Tweaks Can Hurt. A LOT.


Pandas? Penguins?

Pigeons?

Seriously…?

All I care about is how

do I get MY site to

rank?


Path to SEO Success

The “old” way of doing SEO

• Use lots of keywords in your content

• Use lots of keywords in your keywords and meta desc tag

• Get lots of links with keyword rich anchor text

• Do lots of guest posts

• Post to directories

• Spam comments

• Buy links

The “new” way of doing SEO

• Create well researched thoughtful content

• Focus on a single topic or highly related content

• Cite your sources and link out to them

• Encourage people to share your content

• Make your content mobile friendly


http://searchengineland.com/download/seotable/SearchEngineLand-Periodic-Table-of-SEO-2013-large.png

http://searchengineland.com/download/seotable/SearchEngineLand-Periodic-Table-of-SEO-2013-large.png


Content Techniques

• Concentrate on creating quality content. Make sure your users get something of value

• Research your topics carefully, and make sure you cite relevant, authoritative resources


Content Techniques

• Don’t skip on the word count. Best practices are to use a minimum of 200 – 300 words, but more is better.

• Make sure that your content is engaging.

• Keep it fresh. Search algorithms are focused on finding content that isn’t stale.


Content Techniques

• Just as you get rewarded for making your article longer (as long as it’s well written and informative) you can get penalized for having “thin” content.

• Don’t litter the page with a lot of ads


HTML Techniques

• Titles are still the most important HTML element on the page. Keep them between 55 – 60 characters and include important keywords

• Descriptions should be between 100 and 160 characters and give the users an overview of what’s on the page


HTML Techniques

• Headers (aka the on page title) don’t need to be long but then need to be done correctly. Use only 1 <h1> tag on each page.

• HTML has to follow a specific structure. <h2> tags come after the <h1> tags; <h3> tags come after the <h2> tags and so on. Also, <h> tags shouldn’t be used to apply styles or colors to text. That’s what CSS is for.


HTML Techniques

• Don’t stuff your content with keywords. It doesn’t work (anymore) and the search engines don’t like it.

• Don’t use background colors to mask content or use negative CSS positioning to move content “off” the page.


Architecture Techniques

• Make sure the site is easy to crawl and don’t make it difficult for the bots to find your content.

• Don’t duplicate content. But if you do, make sure you’re up front about it and use canonical tags to tell the search engine which page is the authoritative page.



• Make sure the site loads quickly. Keep the JavaScript and CSS code in external files and keep server calls to a minimum

• Use important keywords related to the on-page content in your URLs

• Make sure the site architecture is optimized for mobile devices



• Don’t give the search engines a different experience than the one for the user


Link Techniques

• Monitor your link profile and make sure that your inbound links are coming from relevant, highly authoritative sources

• Make sure the anchor text in your links sounds natural – like a human created it

• More links are better. Just don’t sacrifice quality for numbers


Link Techniques

• Do NOT buy links as a way of trying to get better rankings. It won’t work.

• Don’t spam blogs or forums with comments that contain links back to your site.


Trust Techniques

• Focus on becoming an authoritative site. Authority is a key for appearing high on the SERPs

• Domains that are older tend to rank better than those that haven’t been around as long. TIP: If you have a new domain, register it for more than a year.

• If you can, use an HTTPS and not an HTTP server; Pay attention to who is writing and posting content –make sure they’re who they say they are.


Trust Techniques

• Don’t steal other people’s work. Google has a filter that will penalize a site for DMCA violations.


Social Techniques

• Work on building a network of people with solid reputations. Encourage them to share your content

• Write content that people will want to share and encourage them to do so


Personal Techniques(?)

• Is your content hosted in the country of your target audience?

• Have you tagged your content so that it’s evident to search engines where you do business?

• Do you encourage people come back to your site often?

• Do your friends like or favor your site?


QUESTIONS


Thank You