Or How to Convince Google to Include Your Site in

Top Search Results

SEO FOR BEGINNERS

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SEO for Beginners

WHY DO SEO IN THE FIRST PLACE?

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• To be high enough in Google search results to get

more traffic and business.

• In other words to show up on first page of search

results for your money keywords.

• Ideally to be in the top three search results on the first

page since it’s anything but lonely at the top.

WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT?

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5

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On the other hand, the second

page is very lonely. Only 4.2%

of the traffic.

It’s crowded at the top

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Organic PPC Local Local More Results

ORGANIC/PPC/LOCAL/MORE RESULTS

For more results….for more traffic, business,

revenue!!

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SEO for Beginners

WHAT DOES GOOGLE (AND OTHER

SEARCH ENGINES) WANT?

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• To provide excellent search results for any given

search query.

• Satisfied users who will keep coming to their search

engine and click on their ads.

• In other words, Google wants:

WHAT DOES GOOGLE WANT?

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• The answer is:

WHAT DOES GOOGLE WANT?

Money

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• Manipulation of their search results so they no longer

provide good results to their users.

• In other words, Google does not want:

WHAT DOES GOOGLE NOT WANT?

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WHAT DOES GOOGLE NOT WANT?

The answer is: Spam

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SEO for Beginners

WHAT TO DO FIRST AND NEXT, NEXT, NEXT,

NEXT, NEXT, ETC.

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1. Spruce up your website: hire great web designer, writer, photographer, graphic artist, and filmmaker.

2. Google Search Console and Google Analytics

3. Install Yoast plugins: Both SEO and Analytics plugins.

4. Keyword and topic research. Write up short description for business and medium description. List of keywords. Make sure content contains keyword topics, industry specific language.

5. Meta tags: Title, meta description, meta keywords tags. NAP. Also web address. Be consistent.

6. Set up Google My Business Page.

7. Citations. Use Whitespark for ideas. Creep the competition.

8. Social media: Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Linked In, Instagram.

9. Chamber of Commerce and BBB.

10. Link bait. Blog, white papers, infographics, photos, articles.

11. Promote your content. Spend as much time promoting as you do writing.

12. BOTW and dmoz.

13. Be creative.

SEO TASKS IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE

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1. Baptism by fire if not a WP site and you don’t know HTML and FTP

2. Set up Google Search Console

3. Need Gmail account.

4. For WordPress site you need Yoast SEO plugin.

5. For HTML site you need ftp access.

6. Add both www and non www to Google Search Console

7. Verify both.

8. Set preference.

9. Geo-target. Pick country.

10. Robots.txt

11. XML Sitemap.

FIRST BABY STEP – GOOGLE SEARCH

CONSOLE

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1. Log in to Google account where Gmail and Google Search Console reside.

2. https://www.google.ca/analytics/

3. Click on “Sign in.”

4. Next create an account for your business or personal website, blog, and mobile apps

5. To create the account, click the "Admin" tab.

6. Fill in the New Account Form.

7. Create your properties within your account.

8. Next you'll need to put in the tracking code into every web page you want to track. For HTML site you need ftp access.

9. In WordPress you can use an analytics plug in. Put the tracking code in the plug in and WP will put it into every page’s code.

10. Now you'll want to check what you've done and see if it is working.

SECOND BABY STEP – GOOGLE ANALYTICS

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• Log in to your WordPress site

and then go to plug ins.

• Find and install Yoast Seo

plugin.

• Activate.

Install Yoast SEO Plugin

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• Use keyword research tool. Adwords but take it with a grain of salt.

• Ask client what words people use to find them.

• Find money keywords, high traffic, high competition.

• Find low hanging fruit, high traffic or medium traffic with low competition.

• Make different landing page for each major money keyword.

• Add local word for local businesses. Vernon plumbers. Calgarydriving school.

KEYWORD RESEARCH

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• Title is said to be the most important element in SEO.

• 9 words +/– 3, depending what successful competitors are doing

• Make the title up to 68 characters. If you want it all to show in search, keep it under 55. Google will truncate or change titles, even truncate at 40-something characters at times. But all will be indexed and influence ranking.

• Use keyword if possible but don’t keyword stuff.

• Include branding on opposite side to separator:

Calgary Emergency Plumbing – Quicker Rooter Plumbers

• Never have duplicate titles, each page needs a unique title.

• Place title in head of html, before meta-description.

BE EN-TITLED TO HIGH RANKING

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• Meta description can be up to 200 characters since Google will index more than it shows, which is 155

• Should be 18 + or – 6 words, consider competitors.

• Have keywords closer to beginning?

• Don’t include branding because that is in title already

• Make appealing to both users and bots

• Should entice searchers to click on it for CTR.

GET ALL META-ED OUT

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• Google has not really said “not considered”

• Becomes part of the cached copy of the page and becomes searchable, part of Google cache/data

• Comma separated, first letter capitalized: Calgary search engine optimization, Calgary seo, Seo Calgary

• Should be 36 +/– 12 words, consider competitors.

• A word in title or meta description must be added

• Repeat any word a maximum of 4 times

• Bruce Clay likes meta keyword tags, Joost doesn’t.

• The above info is from Bruce Clay’s course.

CONTROVERSIAL META KEYWORD TAGS

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NAP=Name, Address, Phone

number, URL – Not the same

NAP=Name, Address, Phone

number, URL – All the same

THE NAP: GET CAUGHT NAPPING OR GET A

WAKE UP CALL

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Just Desserts Cafe

725 Fat St. NE

Calgary, AB T2E 2F7

403-333-4444

http://www.justdesserts.ca

Just Desserts Inc.

103 - 725 Fat St. Northeast

Calgary, AB T2E 2F7

403-333-4401

http://justdesserts.ca/

NAP 2NAP 1

NAP CONSISTENTLY

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• Reinforce the NAP and give

your site local authority

• Help your site rank on the

map listing

• Use Whitespark

• Creep your competitors with

Majestic and Whitespark

• Check Trust Flow

Citations

Citations

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YOAST PLUG IN!!!

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• Facebook – Open graph meta information is used by Twitter and Pinterest

• Twitter – A good resource for traffic and community

• Google My Business – Need for local maps

• Pinterest – Use to promote business, don’t go too far from business in your boards except if extraordinary link bait and closely related... For instance, if you’re Calgary driving school then don’t pin car photos. If lawn mowing then don’t pin vegetable gardening tips, do lawn care tips and include some from blog.

• LinkedIn – do personal. Use business page

• Instagram

• Can’t be too private…Google wants to see real people at real businesses. If you want to hide then maybe SEO isn’t for you.

SOCIAL MEDIA

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• Local

• Mentions in blogs, other websites

Citations

• BOTW

• Dmoz

• Niche

Directories

• Make some awesome content as link bait

• Join conversation in niche – forums and blog posts

Join conversation

• Contests

• Press releases

• Scholarships

Be Creative

• Citations

• Directories

• Make some awesome content

• Join conversation in your niche

in blogs and forums

• Be creative.

LINKING STRATEGIES

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SEO for Beginners

RESOURCES

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• Majestic SEO and AHREFS

• ProRank Tracker

• AdWords Keyword Tool

• Whitespark

• Google Web Master Tools

• Analytics

TOOLS

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• Learn HTML and CSS

• Learn WordPress

• Bruce Clay classroom training

• Pubcon

• SMX

• Local Search U

• Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing Podcast

• Read all the material… But it will be disjointed and conflicting, so get training!

• Invest in yourself. Save money to take classes to make money. Be obsessive.

WHERE TO GET TRAINING

THE END