SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)PLUSH MARKETING

WHAT IS SEO?

• It’s the practice of improving and

promoting a website in efforts to

increase the number of visitors a site

receives from search engines.

• The goal should be to improve and

optimize a website for people and

search engines at the same time.

• It’s not about getting as many people

to view a site. How can you get the

right people to view your site to

convert the most sales/leads?

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS

WORK?• Search engines have data centers all over the

world that store billions of interconnected

documents. They use automated robots called

crawlers (spiders) to crawl all websites.

• Personalized results (when logged into Google)

are different from the default search. The image

on the right shows an example of that. I’ve

searched the Miami Dolphins before so Google

remembers that and returns that result first as I

type “Miami.”

• Searches are returned based on your ISP location

(city/town)

THE ALMIGHTY ALGORITHM

• Each year Google changes its

search algorithm over 500 times to

help return users better results and

to deal with those taking advantage

of the bad SEO tactics.

• Top indicators include keywords,

content value, on page

optimization, domain/authority

(links), user usage, spam check,

design, structure and load speed.

KEYWORDS

• Search engines return results based

on our search queries.

• KW research is looking for KW that

relates to the topic a website would

like to rank high for in search engines

• Shorter KW combos are harder to rank

for then long tail keywords. A short KW

example would be “coffee”

• Long tail keyword example would be

“best coffee in Bethesda Maryland”

KEYWORD RESEARCH

• Start with a seed keyword and look for related KW

phrases. My seed keyword or starting phrase is

“johnnie walker”

• Average monthly searches tell us how popular a

specific keyword or phrase is searched for each

month.

• Common mistakes are going after Broad KW, KW

with too much competition, KW that don’t get

enough traffic or KW that don’t convert for a

particular website.

• Qualifying KW can have one of the following in the

KW phrase: Time/Date (Morning/April), Price/Quality

(Cheap/Best), Intent (Buy/Shop), Location

(NY/Online). An example is “best Johnnie Walker

for 2014”

KEYWORD ON PAGE OPTIMIZATION

• Determine focused keyword for each page/post and never

repeat throughout the website

• Make sure the keyword appears in the URL

• Make sure at least one image appears on the page/post

with proper Alt description

• Meta Keywords are less important these days especially

in Google but still good to add for site usability and

organization

• Adding sub heading tags (I.E. H1 or H2 headings) with

the keyword is good practice

• Interlinking and external links is extremely important for

content on a website that is related

SEO TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS

• SEO titles are the top blue bolded text in a

search result

• Descriptions are the text under the URL link in

the search results

• Make sure to include your KW in the title

• Make sure to include your KW in the

description

• Tip: View your description like an add. In this

short amount of space it’s vital to write a

description that would grab the visitors

attention.

QUALITY CONTENT ISN’T KING IT EVERYTHING!

• You must have good content to engage people

on your site, have them share it and ultimately

have SEO rank pages higher.

• Web pages, infographics, video series, a new

tool, interview series, how to guide, Q&A,

webinar, blog posts are examples of content.

• Content without value = Spam

• The more in-depth your content explores the

more it can be about something of value or an

answer to a question/search query.

THE GOOGLE CHECKLIST FOR

QUALITY• Would you trust the info presented in the article?

• Is this article written by an expert who knows the

topic well?

• Does the article have spelling, stylistic or factual

mistakes?

• Does the article provide original info?

• Does the article describe both sides of the story?

• Does the article contain interesting info beyond the

obvious?

• Would you bookmark this article?

• Would you expect to see it in a magazine?

CREATE AND MEASURE VALUE

• How To - Does it help you

accomplish a task? An example is

“how to add email to a mobile

device” or “how to make pizza”

• Emotional Response - Do you feel

something?

• Point Of View - Positive or negative

• Perceived Value - Is the content

created by a person who is famous,

or has authority on the subject.

DOMAIN/PAGE AUTHORITY

• Domain Authority - the linked based

authority of all links pointing to all the

web pages on a specific domain,

tells the search engine how

important a site is to people.

• Page Authority - Page rank, and

trustworthy factor measure the value

of a single page.

• DA = Value of entire domain

• PA = Value of single page

USER AND USAGE DATA

• The goal of the search engine is to return

extremely relevant content.

• If someone clicks on a search result in Google,

visits the corresponding web page and

immediately goes back to the search results,

it’s considered a high bounce rate and bad for

your search rankings. In your Google Analytics

report you can check your average bounce

rate.

• If people constantly visit a website and spend a

lot of time on a website after finding it in the

search results it’s considered extremely

relevant and the search rank of that page will

be increased.

SPAM CHECKLIST FOR GOOGLE

• What is the value of the content

on your website?

• Is the content yours or copied?

• Does your site receive trusted

links?

• Do you link to trusted

websites?

WEBSITE LOADING SPEED MATTERS

• Make sure your website loads

as fast as possible

• Reduce file size especially

pictures to help pages load

faster

• Optimize the server the website

is stored on to allow pages to

load faster.

DESIGN AND LAYOUT

• Responsive - Google reports there will

be more mobile searches than

desktop searches at the end of 2014

• Navigation must be easy almost

instinctual for visitors

• Your website must be easy to

understand what each page is about

• Your website has to look good to be

trusted and to rank well

THE BASICS TO LOCAL MARKETING

FOR BUSINESS

• Add Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP) to

local online directories that make sense and make

sure NAP is consistent.

• Add schema markup to website (products, articles

& location page) for extra SEO benefit.

• Create/modify Google My Business Account to

appear in Google Maps and local search results.

• Create Bing/Yahoo local search engines accounts

too. Google has most of the market but not all of

it!

EARNING LINKS THE RIGHT WAY

WITH LINK BUILDING

• Reach out to other people in your industry that either do what you do or

something related to your business and create relationships.

• Focus on a few links from website that have high domain/page rank

authority instead of looking for many links from low ranking sites.

• Create partnerships and cross promote with business that make sense.

• Social Sharing - share links to content that is extremely valuable. Create

content that someone would want to share.

• Participate in local community activities and networking events (chamber of

commerce)

• Guest writing on articles where owners really care about content

• Participate in forums and comments WITHOUT leaving backlinks. Real

participation with quality comments that could influence/help people and

have them seek out your content.

• See what content your competitors are producing that is being shared the

most and create content about the topics but do it better

SEO REQUIRES TRUST/PATIENCE

• Most websites just starting with SEO will not

see much improvement for 6-8 months.

• If you have a small amount of marketing

dollars left, that you need to convert into client

or sales ASAP…SEO is not the answer.

• SEO is a longterm plan that requires

maintenance and updating

• Stick to the plan. Adapting overtime to Google

updates or analytics on your website is ok but

drastic overhauling changes are not and can

really waste your time.

WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY?PLUSH MARKETING