Hands-On SEO

Hans RiemerMarket Vantage LLC

IAMCP New JerseyNovember 14, 2012

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� Search Engines vs Directories

� Organic and Paid Search

� Other sources of Traffic

First, just a few BASICS

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Search Engines and Directories

� Directories – Human-Edited

– Yahoo Directory, Google Directory / ODP (DMOZ)

� Search Engines – Crawler-Based / Algorithmic

– Google, Bing, Ask, etc.

� Recent History

– Google started making money in 2001

– Remember AltaVista? Infoseek? HotBot?

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Organic vs Paid Search (2009)

Paid AdsOrganic Results

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Organic vs Paid Search (2012)

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Website Traffic

On-Line AdvertisingReferrals Brand Awareness(Bookmark or Direct)

Pay-PerClick

Banners& Text Ads

Sponsor-ships

ContextualAds On-Line Pubs

OrganicSearch

ReferringLinks

PR(Online / Offline)

Ads (Radio/TV/Print)

Related Sites E-NewslettersPortals

ViralMarketing

Sources of Website Traffic

PaidSearch

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Search Engine’s Mission & Purpose

� Satisfy two stakeholders:� Search users

– Provide the most “relevant” results

� Investors

– Generate revenue from ads (tied to traffic from Search)

� Not: “Push lots of traffic to your site so can make lots of money”

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What Search Engines Do

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Who makes their job harder?

� People who try to get their pages to rank higher than they would otherwise

� Why? Because if they succeed, searchers may not get the best results!

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So search engines keep tweaking0

Panda

Penguin

Venice

Caffeine

Vince

Dewey

Buffy

Big Daddy

Jagger

Gilligan

Bourbon . . .

2012

2010

2008

2006

2004

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1st Generation Search Engine Signals– Keywords and Content

� The site with the most keywords – WINS!

Keyword

Keyword

KeywordKeyword

Keyword

Keyword

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1st Generation Search Engine Signals– Keywords and Content

The Result?

� Keyword-stuffed content

� Lots of spammy, junky content

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2nd Generation Search Engine Signals– Inbound Links

Google arrives on the scene

� Develops an algorithmic approach

� Granted a US Patent for PageRank

� Other search engines follow suit

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2nd Generation Search Engine Signals– Inbound Links

The Result?

� People create lots of junky content that links back to their site

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3rd Generation – User Experience

� Data from Google’s “free” tools– Google Search

– Google Analytics

– Google Toolbar

– Chrome or IE browser (with toolbar)

� Data from Social signals– Google+1

– Facebook

– Twitter

– Etc.

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3rd Generation – User Experience

The Result?

� Lots of pain and rank volatility

How do search engines determine Rank?

� Site crawls / content authority

� Inbound links & anchor text

� Traffic to your site

� Search results clicks

� Stickiness – time on site

� Domain age & hosting longevity

� Social “buzz”

� Hand about 200 other factors17

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How to Show Up at the Top

� Own a famous brand

� Get tons of visitors to your site

� Keep them there

� Become a thought-leader in your industry and write a ground-breaking blog post every week or two

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Three Things Every Website Must Have to Generate Leads:

� Relevant traffic

� A clear value proposition

� A compelling call-to-action

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#1 Mistake We See:

� Investing money and time on driving traffic to a poor quality website

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#2 Mistake We See:

� Unclear, non-unique value proposition

– “At Acme Corporation, our mission is to provide our customers and stakeholders with unparalleled quality, matchless service and unrivaled value.”

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#3 Mistake We See:

� Wasting money on the wrong traffic

– Poor keyword selection

– PPC “gotchas”� Incorrect targeting

� Geography

� Demographics / contextual

� Dayparting

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Do

� Start with a great website– Clear, crisp value proposition

– Straightforward navigation

– Strong calls-to-action

– Visually appealing

– Engaging – use multimedia

– Search engine friendly

– Careful keyword selection and well-optimized pages

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Do

� Keyword research is important– Google Adwords keyword tool

� https://adwords.google.com/o/keywordtool

� Or search: google keyword tool

� Use: “Exact Match” and take with grain of salt

� Understand: limitations

– Search Engine Suggest Feature� Start typing and what do you see?

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� Lateral search using software tools

� Evaluate each term across three axes

� Group by theme

� For SEO: Assign to pages

� For PPC: Assign to ads

Search Frequency

Competition

Relevance

Keyword Research

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Do

� Search engines understand synonyms– No need to “stuff” keywords

– So, write web copy for humans

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Do

� On-Site SEO Basics– Unique HTML title for each optimized page

– Unique description tag for each optimized page

– Keywords in Headline

– HTML or XML sitemap and footer links

– Post to your blog to offer fresh content

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Do

� Natural link development– Vary anchor text – don’t over-optimize for one

keyword

– Diversify links� Article placements

� Business partners

� Press releases

� Review sites

� Industry directories

� Conferences

� Social signals (bookmarks, Pinterest, Google+, etc.)

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Don’t

� Keyword “stuffing”

� On-site SEO “tricks”

� Unnatural links– Link schemes

– Automated links

– Too many links from one site

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Do

� Surprise! SEO = Marketing– Crisp messaging + thoughtful word choices

– Visitor engagement

– Useful, informative content

– Compelling offers

– Impeccable customer service

– Follow-up and nurturing

– PR outreach

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Bottom Line

� Your website should represent you well– Often the first impression of your prospect

– Hire a pro

� Timely follow-up is critical, especially for web leads– Use a marketing automation system like

Leadformix

How to tell if your site got nuked

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How to tell if your site got nuked

� Traffic

� This: instead of This:

� site:www.yoursite.com comes up empty

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What to do if your site got nuked

� Run, don’t walk, to

– Install Google Webmaster Tools

� Find out what needs to be fixed and fix it!

� File a reconsideration request

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And now a few words about

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� Pay-Per-Click

Yearly Revenue

6,332

10,625

14,413 15,723

19,443

26,145

4,160

5,788

6,7147,167

8,793

10,386

$0

$5,000

$10,000

$15,000

$20,000

$25,000

$30,000

$35,000

$40,000

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Licensing & Other Network Google.com

$ in millions

PPC Truths

� If your site isn’t converting, the solution is not to spend more money

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PPC Truths

� You’re playing against “the House” and your fellow advertisers

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PPC Truths

� It’s a live auction

– Pay attention

– Don’t “set it and forget it”

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PPC Truths

� Target carefully

– Keyword selections

– Display Network sites

� Sloppy = Expensive

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PPC Tip

� Use AdWords Preview tool to check ads

– Impressions are costly

– Allows geographic testing

– adwords.google.com/d/AdPreview/

– Or search: adwords preview tool

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PPC Tip

� Who is seeing your ads?

– Search: check typed “search terms”

– Display: check Automatic Placements

� NEVER mix Search and Contextual advertising in the same Campaign

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“Typed” vs. “Matched” Keyword

� Keyword matching options– Broad Match

– Phrase Match (“ “)

– Exact Match ([ ])

� Typed keyword is what they typed

� Matched keyword is what you bid on using matching options

� Important to track BOTH in web analytics and CRM

� Use “Negative Match” to filter Broad and Phrase matched misfits

– Modified Broad Match (+)

– Negative Match (-)

PPC Gotchas

� Parked Domains

� MFA’s

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MFA (Made-For-AdSense) Example

SEO & PPC Tools

� Majestic SEO (paid)

– Backlink analysis

– Competitor analysis

– Identify link opportunities

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SEO & PPC Tools

� Spyfu (free and paid)

– Competitor keywords� Organic and paid

– Competitor ad copy variations

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SEO & PPC Tools

� Google Keyword Tool (free)

– Keyword research / suggestions

– Search frequency

� Google Trends (free)

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SEO & PPC Tools

� Wordtracker (paid)

– Keyword research / suggestions

– Link-building

� SEOmoz (subscription)

– Site evaluation

– Rank tracking over time

– DIY advice

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Questions?

Hans Riemer

Market Vantage LLC

978-482-0130

hjr@market-vantage.com

Blog / Tips / Newsletter at

www.market-vantage.com

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