500co seo talk
TRANSCRIPT
Proprietary & Confidential | © 2014 - UpCounsel
Crash Course in SEOMason Blake
Co-founder & CTO
Proprietary & Confidential | © 2014 - UpCounsel
▪ Who the hell am I?
▪ About UpCounsel
▪ What is SEO?
▪ The Easy Stuff
▪ The Hard Stuff
▪ What I would do differently
▪ Q & A
Agenda
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▪ Born & raised in South Dakota
▪ Studied Computer Science
▪ Lead Engineer - 15 yrs; 4 startups
▪ Co-founded UpCounsel in Nov 2011
▪ I’m not a Marketer
▪ I do not know everything about SEO
About Me
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About UpCounsel
▪ Marketplace for Business Legal Services
▪ RFP-based process, ala Odesk / Elance
▪ End-to-end legal solution
▪ Practice management suite for attorneys
▪ Fixed fee services, subscriptions & more…
www.upcounsel.com
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About UpCounsel
▪ Marketplace for Business Legal Services
▪ RFP-based process, ala Odesk / Elance
▪ Fixed fees, hourly rates, no “retainers”
▪ Ad-hoc jobs or ongoing Outside GC
▪ Attorneys are solos or boutique firms
▪ Attorneys average 14 yrs experience
▪ Get proposals for free
▪ Save 40% - 60% on legal bills
▪ Build your own virtual legal team
▪ Practice management tools for attorneys
▪ End-to-end legal solution for businesses▪ Centralized communications▪ Real-time Chat▪ Documents▪ E-signatures▪ Invoices▪ Payments▪ and more!
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▪ A long term play▪ Never-ending▪ On-site factors (the easy stuff)▪ Off-site factors (the hard stuff)▪ White-hat▪ All about the customer▪ Always evolving ...
What is SEO?
flickr.com - © "Startrails over the Autumn foliage" by Darron Birgenheier
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What SEO is not▪ Easily gamed▪ A Quick Fix▪ Short-term Growth
▪ Black-Hat▪ Link building
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Matt CuttsHead of Web Spam @ Google
currently on extended leave
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Rand Fishkinmoz.com
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Quick Poll
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LOCAL search terms▪ “business lawyer”
▪ “best restaurants”
▪ “lawn mower”
▪ “painters”
▪ “dog walking”
▪ “guitar stores”
Localized SEO opportunities
GLOBAL search terms▪ “legal practice software”
▪ “restaurant pos software”
▪ “john deere lawn mower”
▪ “paint removal”
▪ “beagle dogs”
▪ “martin guitars”
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Tools to Get Started
Most important tools
1. Google Analytics
2. Webmaster Tools (GWMT)
3. Page Speed analysis
4. Moz.com
▪ schema.org - structured data▪ Moz.com
▪ Open Site Explorer▪ moz.com/google-algorithm-change
▪ Screaming Frog ▪ App to index, query, analyze
▪ LOTS more … don’t get lost
▪ Don’t trust everything you read▪ Publish date matters when
learning SEO
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Google Webmaster Tools
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Google Page Speed analysis tool
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SEO - On-site factors…. The Easy Stuff
▪ Page titles▪ < ~60 chars▪ Keyword positioning matters▪ Uniqueness required!▪ Your brand at the end
▪ Meta keywords (not used)
▪ Meta descriptions▪ < ~155 chars▪ Unique▪ Alphanumeric chars only▪ Make it dynamic▪ Technically not a ranking factor
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▪ HTTP status codes & redirects▪ 301 - moved permanently▪ 302/307 - moved temporarily▪ 404 - not found▪ 410 - gone
▪ Keyword matching▪ Anchor link text
SEO - On-site factors…. The Easy Stuff
▪ Robots.txt ▪ Block spiders / bots▪ Block folders / URLs▪ Include your Sitemap URL
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Meta Tags
▪ charset▪ viewport (for responsive sites)▪ X-UA-Compatible (for IE)▪ apple-mobile-web-app-title▪ Open Graph
▪ og:site_name▪ og:url▪ og:image▪ og:description▪ og:title
▪ apple-touch-icon▪ stylesheets▪ rel=canonical▪ Pagination
▪ rel=next▪ rel=prev
Link Tags
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Structured Data
schema.org▪ People▪ Places
▪ Restaurants, venues▪ Events▪ Reviews▪ Organization▪ Product ▪ Creative Work
▪ blog, book, article, answer, question...▪ Media
▪ audio, video, photos...▪ dozens more...
▪ Helps Google understand your site▪ GWMT Structured Data highlighter▪ Some data types shown on SERPs
▪ Can get hairy really quick…
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Site Architecture
▪ MAKE A PLAN!!▪ All pages within 3 clicks from HP
▪ URLs do not need to match this
▪ Don’t go too deep (4 nodes max)
▪ No orphaned pages▪ ie, pages in your sitemap that cannot
be found by your users
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URL Structure
▪ Use hyphens to separate words▪ upcounsel.com/trademark-attorneys-san-francisco-ca
would also be ok to do this:▪ upcounsel.com/trademark-attorneys/san-francisco-ca
probably not this:▪ upcounsel.com/attorneys/trademark/california/san-francisco
▪ Avoid query strings when possible▪ 3 or more parameters is considered bad
▪ Avoid using too many folders▪ OLD: upcounsel.com/free-legal/documents/21/release-of-liability
became▪ NEW: upcounsel.com/release-of-liability-agreement
▪ Semantic URLs help - include the keywords you’re targeting▪ upcounsel.com/profile/jennifer.wang
probably should be▪ upcounsel.com/attorneys/jennifer.wang
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Query Strings
▪ Avoid if possible ▪ .com/red-shoes
instead of:▪ .com?cat=shoes&color=red
▪ Minimize if you can’t remove them▪ > 2 parameters is bad
▪ Be careful about duplicate content▪ rel=”canonical”
▪ Use GWMT to configure▪ proceed with caution
Can be used to your advantage with:
▪ Pagination - articlea. rel=”next”b. rel=”prev”c. all in one page
▪ Faceted Search - article
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Canonical URLs
▪ <link href="https://www.shop.com/red-shoes" rel="canonical"/>
▪ https://www.shop.com/red-shoes▪ https://www.shop.com/shoes?color=red▪ https://www.shop.com/search?term=shoes&color=red▪ Important for pages with:
▪ Query strings▪ Filters ▪ Faceted search
▪ Tell SEs how to untangle pgs w/ multiple URLs for the same content
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Sitemaps
Sitemap.xml▪ Critical to tell SEs about all your URLs▪ 10MB or 50,000 URLs for 1 file▪ If > 50,000 URLs
▪ sitemap.xml = sitemapindex▪ points to all other sitemap files
▪ UpCounsel has ~600k URLs▪ Sitemap index points to▪ 12 sitemaps▪ upcounsel.com/sitemap1.xml.gz▪ upcounsel.com/sitemap2.xml.gz
HTML Sitemap ▪ Gone out of style lately
▪ Still important
▪ Doesn’t have to be pretty
▪ Link to all / most of our URLs
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SEO - the harder stuff
▪ Link building - proceed with caution!
▪ 80% deep▪ 20% homepage
▪ Authorship▪ It’s dead
▪ Content marketing▪ Guest blogging▪ PR links▪ Duplicate content at scale▪ Controlling flow of rank thru links
Keeping up with the next changes
Always keep it white-hat
Add value to the end user
Don’t build for SEO, build for the user
Build for UX and conversions
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What I would do differently
▪ Invest in SEO sooner
▪ Make a plan for the long term
▪ Build an SEO roadmap
▪ Don’t deny too many ranking factors
▪ Do tons of keyword research
▪ Pg Speed more important than ever
▪ Put your blog on your main domain▪ www.upcounsel.com/blog/
not▪ blog.upcounsel.com
▪ Launch pages sooner even if they
don’t meet your ideal format *
▪ Time is a factor
▪ Iterate - go back and improve
▪ Mobile friendly from the start
▪ Mobile optimized from the start
▪ Mobile first from the start
