Search OptimizationTechniques
Dan BelhassengreatBIGnews.comModern Earth Inc.
About your presenter
• Dan Belhassen– Founder & President Modern Earth Inc., an Internet
technology company
– Website creators, online software developers, search engine consultants, elearning specialists, new media marketing specialists
– Find me in my booth if you want to follow up
– Presentation at Modernearth.net/lern2010
How large is the Internet?
• Estimates vary
• How many websites on the Internet?
How large is the Internet?
• Estimates vary• How many websites?– Apr 1997 1 Million– Feb 2000 10 Million– Jul 2001 30 Million– Mar 2005 60 Million– Aug 2006 90 Million– Nov 2008 182 Million– Oct 2010 netcraft.com
Finding Information Online
• Two main types of resources:– Search engines– Website directories (ie: yahoo directory, dmoz)
• We will focus on search engines
Top Search Engines
Google (67.5%)
Yahoo! (7.8%)
Baidu (7%)
Microsoft (2.9%)
Other (14.2%)
Global Search Share
GoogleYahoo!BaiduMicrosoftOther
Getting Listed
• Two methods
– Paid placement
– Organic results
Organic Results
• The “regular” “unpaid” results
• Focus on Google– Majority of searches
– Other major engines (such as Yahoo & MSN) use similar algorithms
The Purpose of Google
• Provide relevant search results• Make it seem magical
– ``Googol`` means 1 followed by 100 zeros• The largest number that the founders could imagine• Misspelled as ``Google``
“Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” http://www.google.ca/corporate/index.html
How Google Works
• Automated software crawls the Internet reading all website content (googlebot)
• Uses over 200 factors to determine ranking– So, don’t mind my generalizations…
How Google ranks sites
• Ranking is generally based on a simple algorithm
What your site is about Plus
The “Importance” of your site
What your site is about
• What your site is about
What your site is about
• What your site is about
– GoogleBot reads all content across all pages• Domain name• URL directories and file name• Page titles• Text headers• Text (regular site content)• Image alt tags
– NOT “meta keywords”!
What your site is about
• Be careful!
• Looks for overall “relevance”
• Knows that “important” words appear 6-7%
• Tries to not be fooled by “keyword spamming”
• Can’t read graphical text!
But Wait!
• Who are you designing your website for?
But Wait!
• Always design your website for– Visitors (prospects) first– Search engines second
• Conversion (clicks) is what matters– Importance of “meta description”
The importance of your site
• The “Importance” of your site
The importance of your site
• The “Importance” of your site– Based on “PageRank”
• PageRank determined by– Who is linking to your site• How important they are• How “relevant” they are
The importance of your site
• The “transfer value” of a link is based on the number of outgoing links on the page
The importance of your site
• How do you know your PageRank?
• Get the Google Toolbar– Free browser plug-in– Google.com
Who’s out there?
• Find out who is linking to your site
– Use Google• link:www.mywebsite.com
– Use Alexa.com
Who’s out there?
• All links were not created equal
– Relevance of the link text• Nurse continuing education
vs
• click here
– Relevance of the anchor page content• Is it relevant to your landing page?
Now what?
How to increase your website rankings
Increasing Your Ranking
• Step 1: Determine your keywords
– Initially focus on 3-6 keywords • Keywords are actually phrases
– (e.g. nurse continuing education seattle)
– Research which words are actually used in searches• https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal• http://Wordtracker.com
– See keywords driving traffic to competitors• http://compete.com
Increasing Your Ranking
• Step 2: Optimize your web pages• Domain name• URL directories and file name• Page titles• Text headers• Text (regular site content)• Image alt tags
– May need to develop “landing pages”• A “home” for your keyword• Create landing pages for each keyword• Develop appropriate links to your landing pages
Increasing Your Ranking
• Step 3: Verify keywords are found• <search term> site:www.mywebsite.com
• http://www.googlerankings.com/kdindex.php
– Ensure that Google knows about all your pages• Set up a google site map• http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
Increasing Your Ranking
• Step 4: Train Googlebot to re-visit your site often
• Learns how often to visit your site
• Perform frequent updates to shorten “indexing wait” after major updates
Increasing Your Ranking
• Step 5: Link building campaign
• Keywords used in links
• Relevance of content on the anchor page
Increasing Your Ranking
• Step 6: Track your rankings
• http://WebCEO.com
• http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/
Increasing Your Ranking
• Step 7: Track your traffic
• Website statistics (google.com/analytics)
• Are keywords driving traffic to your site?
• What are they doing when they get there?
Increasing Your Ranking
• Step 8: Begin again!
• Back to step 1..
• Keep revising your process based on results
What’s Next?
• Resources– http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/
search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
– http://seobook.com
Thank you!greatBIGnews.commodernearth.net
Presentation available at http://modernearth.net/lern2010
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