1. SEO Strategy for WordPressWebsites & BlogsWordCamp Raleigh 2014Jake Aull | ZenFires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull

2. SEO Strategy for WordPressWebsites & BlogsFind the following presentation & othersreferenced here onwww.slideshare.net/jakeaullJake Aull has written WordPress SEOSuccess for Pearson Prentice-Hall theirfirst book of its kind (http://bit.ly/1fxIQzu).He has also been GSUs first Social MediaMarketing and SEO course writer andinstructor since 2010, directing students tocreate new social channels drivingmeasurable traffic to major brands. He wasa reviewer of, and wrote the instructorsmanual for, Pearson-Prentice Halls firstsocial media marketing text book. 3. ! T.O.C.Intro! Digital Marketing & SEO Objectives! SEO Strategy & Plan! Architecture & Linking! Social Media! SEO Stages of Execution! SEO Details Breakdown of Stages! Review 4. Questions & PlanningJake Aull 5. Whats SEO & How Does it Apply to You?! One big happy/dysfunctional family?! Digital research! Technical/code integrations! Content planning/writing! Off-site implementations (i.e., backlinks)! Social media integrations! Location directories and profiles! Making Google Happy 6. ! Goals?Driving Questions! SEO! Marketing/digital! Content/social! Strategy! Tacticalimplementations! Content channelsintegrations! Analytics! Proving goals results 7. Driving Questions! Nature of WordPress site! Brochureware! eCommerce! Blog/magazine! Forum/social site! Mobile! **(Note: Plenty more website types in the book WordPress SEO Success) 8. Digital Marketing & SEOObjectivesJake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull 9. SEO (& PPC) Objectives- Page rank- Top/first page results goals- PPC and first-page real estate- Competitive- Suppress bad reviews- Local SEO- First-time search or new site- Social Media Optimization 10. SEO Stages of ExecutionJake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull 11. The Stages of SEO! Strategy & Discovery! Keyword Analysis & discovery! Marketing strategic alignment! SEO plan! Keyword/copywriting plan! Implementation & Programming! Coding keywords & tags! Robot.txt file! Search engine integrations! Analytics integrations & auto-reporting! Geo-local integrations! Google Images, video, etc. 12. The Stages of SEO! Off-site Activities! Local directories set-up! Submission to social sites & social search engines! Articles & PR publishing! Obtaining links! Ongoing Maintainance! SEO new content! Reviewing analytics 13. SEO Strategy & PlanJake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull 14. Keyword Discovery & Content Strategy! PROBLEMS TO SOLVE:! BENEFITS:! Why should customers visit our site or buy our product?! WHAT IS THE BRAND PERSONALITY WE WANT TO PROJECT?! Tone of copy:! MARKETING/DIGITAL STRATEGY:! Existing:! Proposed:! POSITIONING STATEMENT OR USP: 15. Customer Targeting & Journey! TARGET AUDIENCE:! CURRENT TARGET CUSTOMER BELIEF! CURRENT TARGET CUSTOMER CLICKING/BUYING BEHAVIOR! DESIRED FUTURE CUSTOMER BELIEF! DESIRED FUTURE CUSTOMER CLICKING/BUYING BEHAVIOR! WHY SHOULD CUSTOMER BEHAVE THIS WAY?! TARGET CUSTOMER INSIGHT:! KEYWORDS:! Previous website & competitor keywords! Client list! Post-analysis recommendations 16. SEO & Site ArchitectureWordCamp Raleigh 2014Jake Aull | ZenFires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull 17. SEOSitemapguidefor20-25pgwebsiteHome||||||||mainnaviga,onFloorServicesSuccessStoriesWhoWeServeAboutAcmeFloorFloorworkPhotosContactNews&Blog|||||||HardwoodFloorCaseStudiesCommercialFloorsHardwood Experts Hardwood Photos Direc,onsPress||||||HomeCarpetTes,monialsHomeFlooringCarpet Experts Carpet Images DecorBlog||||OfficeFloorsDecorPartnersMission/vision Business Floors(footermenu):Home--------------------Legal?LEGEND:Boxitem=menu/submenuitemDo.edbox=possible,futuremenuitem?Green&/oritalictext=Descriptertextnotgoingonwebsite 18. Site architecture planning Plan your website upfront for keyword-drivenpages The power of the Footer navigation Linking throughout the site: It sounds cumbersome, but plan links throughevery page and blog post of your site if possible.When you write up your sitemap, plan which pagesyou want to link to the next, and so on and so on. Link planning doesnt require a long list of linkson your websites pages! Target a primary link (maybe 2 or 3)to show, and push web userscontinually through your site. 19. Site architecture planning Blog/news: This can especially work for theblog section of your site youcan continually link to/from thoseposts to distribute link juice. Mobile sites Nav/architecture Most important content(keyword-focused) 20. Off-Site Links & Brand-Owned! Link Building:! Quality and relevance over quantity! Press release/white paper placement! Local SEO! (Never buy links!!!And note that too much, or bad, link building will hurt you!Be careful)! Brand-side SEO simplified! Copywriters who know your industry best! Keyword evaluation! Monitoring! Sharing/link building 21. Inbound & Social Links for SEO! Inbound web links (a.k.a. backlinks and referrals) arehelpful. Here's why:! They increase paths to the target more ways andplaces for visitors to find the site.! They create alternative entry paths for crawlers tospecific web pages (even when the target site is notoptimized for search engines).! Good ones do help search rankings. 22. Inbound & Social Links for SEO! Inbound links represent a solid, alternative (to in-site)web metric. They gauge the content value and referraltraffic of a site in the online marketplace (especiallyvaluable if there are issues with existing in-site SEOor analytics).! They also can be alternate drivers to lead-gen pages.! They get shared amongweb users and multiplicityof network effects occurs. 23. Relational Relevant Links What Google looks for: Do the sites and links relateto each other? Are the directories relevant? Vertical (industry nice) vs. locational relevance Local channels are very beneficial. Even if you are an eCommerce, if you have a locationI would still consider optimizing location-basedprofiles. Because Google loves Google+Local. And Bingloves Bing Local and Yahoo!Local. And have you ever searched for any businesses orproducts, only to see Yelp and YP listings on first pageof results? Theyre there use them if you can. 24. *Link Addendum! *Want to know more about Link Strategies? Did youknow what Anchor Text is? Did you know to no longermake anchor text keyword rich? If you want more, seemy recent webinar hosted by SEMrush on SEO LinkStrategies & Anchor Text, or see my sources:ow.ly/DK7oq 25. SEO Plan InputsWordCamp Raleigh 2014Jake Aull | ZenFires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull 26. ! ResourcesPlan Inputs! Personnel! Roles! Content sources! Sites/Technologyin-place! Keyword Research 27. Plan Inputs! Depth for Execution! Amount of pages/content! Non-Text Opportunities! Image! Video! Audio! Social integrations! Plugins! Mobile 28. Know Your Limits! How much do you actually know?! How much time do you have?! How many people are helping?! Will you break thesite &/or Google? 29. Keyword Research Inputs! Technology:! Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool (best data)! Bing Webmaster Tools! Other keyword/SEO research tools such as SEMrush(good spy data) and KeywordSpy (easy, but lessaccurate data)! Competitive analysis/keywords! Competitors! Industry thought-leaders/bloggers! Comparable industry digital marketing leaders! Organic, PPC and social 30. Keyword Research Inputs! Your website historical analytics! Past organic keywords! Favorite pages of your site! Blog categories/tags! Your past PPC performance! (even if flawed)! Your social media top clicks/likes/shares 31. Content Strategy & SEOProcessJake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull 32. The importance of goodKeyword drivers Good copywriting is vital and can be used inconjunction with good keywords! Copywriting can be built on primary keywords for apage/post. Find the junction of readability, SEO, copy hooks andwebsite usability Link bait: Good writing intrigues readersto read on and share your link CTAs: You need good calls-to-action ensure your reader takes the next stepand links to where you drive them!**(for more see the aforementioned webinar) 33. Writing & Keywords! Web page titles and relevant copy (semantic content)! You can search for your blog phrase in search engine! Web writing with keywords! Writing for audience or writing for search engines?! Tone and positiveness! No stealth blogging! Clickstream and customer journey! Why Blog?! Blogging for both search engines and purchase decisions! Social media content and relevance(for more on this, see my WordCamp Atlanta 2014 presentation on SocialMedia Uses for WordPress Sites) 34. SEO Web Page Plan 35. Strategic content managers The emphasis on content, and link,quality has helped drive the newgeneration of content managers. Whether using social media, copywriting,video or SEO technology, content to meetdigital marketing goals is the strategy. And today, its a strategy more of qualitythan quantity for Google and for socialmedia engagement. So today we want link engagement; backlinks from social engagementstrategies, relevant content and referral sites everything wevediscussed here.(for more on this, see my WordCamp Atlanta 2014 presentation on SocialMedia Uses for WordPress Sites) 36. SEO Details Breakdown of StagesJake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull 37. Keyword Discovery & Optimization! Content/Inputs:! Client measurement assessment! SEO goals discovery! Client-provided keywords assessed! Content/keyword analysis of past client site! Keyword research, analysis and comparison! Tools:! Pro SEO tools utilized: Google AdWords keyword tool, SEO Book Tools, iSpionage, Open SiteExplorer! .xls report downloads, aggregated spreadsheets! Reports/Outputs:! Competitor ranking report! Backlinks! Keyword effectiveness index/ranking reports! Head and long-tail keyword weighting for optimal keywords/phrases! KPIs and measurement plan! SEO/keyword plans 38. Website Submissions & Analytics Implementations! Site Integrations & Submissions:! Search engine submissions and verifications (Google, Bing,Yahoo!)! Additional search engine tools implementations (e.g.,Google Webmaster tools, Google Analytics)! Analytics:! KPI plan integration! Keyword monitoringset-up (e.g., GoogleAlerts, SocialMention)! Google analytics set-up! Website auto reportsset-up 39. SEO Website Development/Programming Aspects! Robots.txt file creation/upload! Sitemap.xml file created for search engines! Maps/geo-local website tools integrations! Website SEO implementation:! title! meta description! meta keywords! H1s/H2s (headlines)! text editing! Anchor links! Image alt tags 40. Example: Does Meta Description matter?Company 3 has aconfusing metadescription yourfirst intro to thewebsite.Zen Fires Digital Marketing | jake@zenfires.com 41. SEO Lead-Gen Funnel Analytics 42. Review & Questions?Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull 43. Review of Topics! Why is it important to identify and align marketingand SEO objectives?! Importance of Architecture & Linking! How to form SEO Strategy & Plan! What are the major stages of SEO execution?! Find this presentation & others referenced here on www.slideshare.net/jakeaull 44. Questions?Find this presentation & others referenced here onwww.slideshare.net/jakeaullJake Aull, Principal of Zen Fires Digital Marketing since 2010, has 20years marketing, branding and digital experience in Atlanta. He takes astrategic digital marketing and usability approach to web analysis andsearch marketing. He has a Masters of Science degree in Marketingfrom Georgia State University where he did a thesis research projecton social media marketing.Jake has written WordPress SEO Success for Pearson Prentice-Hall -their first book of its kind (http://bit.ly/1fxIQzu). He has also beenGSUs first Social Media Marketing and SEO course writer andinstructor since 2010, directing students to create new social channelsdriving measurable traffic to major brands. He was a reviewer of, andwrote the instructors manual for, Pearson-Prentice Halls first socialmedia marketing text book. 45. Thank You!Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding404.259.5550 | ZenFires.com | jake@zenfires.com | @jakeaull