The Fundamentals of Great SEOA guide on how to increase rankings & traffic from search engines

SEO?

Bah, Humbug

The Use of Search Engines

Growth of Google Queries

Currently, there are more than 3 billion searches/day

on Google

Value of Search Engine Traffic

Yes, You Can Compete with the Big Guys

Good SEO is Easier

than It Looks

You Have to Get These Right

Before You Get These Right

Making Your Site SEO-Friendly

Using Wordpress? You’re 80% of the Way There

“(Wordpress) is a fantastic piece of software, it

makes your site easily crawlable by search engines,

solves some 80-90% of mechanics of SEO and is the

first big step anyone can take towards creating a

popular online business.”

If You Use Wordpress, Read This

Other SEO-Friendly Platforms Include:

These Are Less Ideal for SEO

Tools to Help with Accessibility

Tools to Help with Accessibility

RSS: Essential for Bloggers(and anyone producing regular content)

XML Sitemaps – Recommend, But Not Always a Must

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I recommend against it, just that for many, relatively basic sites and blogs, you don’t

need to worry about submitting these (unless you use video, in which case there’s some cool options; we’ll chat

about that later in the deck)

Keyword Research

A Simple Process for Choosing Good Keywords

High Volume(many searches/month)

Low Competition(weak sites/pages in the top 10)

High Value(large % of visitors convert)

Ideal Keywords!

AdWords: The Best Choice (Most of the Time)

Use Exact Match! Be Careful About Phrase + Broad

Note the much higher numbers!

Google Insights: Interesting Trend Data

Analyzing the Top 10 to Determine Difficulty

Strong, popular sites w/ targeted titles + content

Analyzing the Top 10 to Determine Difficulty

Weaker, lesser known sites and

non-targeted titles

Keyword Difficulty Tool

Value of Visits? Use Analytics Data

Good proxies for the value of traffic from these sources

A Simple Process for Choosing Good Keywords

High Volume(many searches/month)

Low Competition(weak sites/pages in the top 10)

High Value(large % of visitors convert)

Google AdWords

Gut Feel (or KW Difficulty Tool)

Gut Feel (or Analytics Data)

How Great Writing and Great

SEO Go Hand-in-Hand

High Volume Keywords = Content People Want

Not Everything Needs to Be Keyword-Targeted

The Better Your Content, The Better Your SEO

Great Content + SEO + Social Really Works.

Great

Content+

SEO

Friendly+

Social

Sharing+

Link

Building

=

Higher

Rankings

More

Readers

More

Followers

More

Influence

=

Virtuous Cycle of

Inbound Marketing!

Link Building

Why Links Matter to Search Engines

What You Say

About Yourself.

What Others Say

About You.<

What Matters in a Link?

Editorially given

From a trusted source

Uses descriptive anchor text

Points to the right page

What Matters in a Link?

<p><a href=http://www.seomoz.org rel=“nofollow”>

SEOmoz’s Website </a> is a good resource for those

seeking to learn more about search engine

optimization.</p>

Anchor text

(tells the engine what

this link is about)

URL

(the link target)

Surrounding Text

(may provide context on

the link’s relevance)

Rel=“Nofollow”

(a tag that indicates search

engines shouldn’t trust/count

this link)

Manual Link Building

Link Building through Outreach + Networking

“Natural” Link Building

Many of these blogs will use the badge and link to the list, because it makes

them look good!

Link Building & Social Sharing Resources

• Beginner’s Guide: Chapter 7 – Growing Links & Popularity

• Link Building Blog Posts on SEOmoz

• Webinar on Link Building Strategies

• 101 Ways to Build Links from SEOBook

• Link Building Presentations on Slideshare

• The Science of Retweets from Dan Zarrella

Social Media & SEO

How Social Media Helps SEO Directly

Indirect Impacts of Social on SEO

All these shares lead to visits, which may lead to

links, comments and positive user/usage signals

Twitter & Google

Result #42

Google UK

Result #13

Google US

Facebook

Correlation of Social Media-Based Factors(data via Topsy API & Google Buzz API)

Amazing: Facebook Shares is our single highest

correlated metric with higher Google rankings.

Facebook and Bing

Google+

Google+

Anyone logged-in

to any Google

service will see

results like these.

Time to get on G+!

LinkedIn

Other Networks to Consider

10mm

14mm Millions 14mm 6.5mm

2.5mm 500mm 1.5mm

A Few Specific SEO Questions

What Was Panda? Do I Need to Worry About It?

Should I Worry About Spam Comments?

Are Scraper Sites a Danger to My SEO?

Via Google’s Head of Webspam

Can Links from Low Quality Sites Hurt Me?

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-if-my-competitors-point-spammy-links-to-my-site

What About Image Search SEO?

What About Local/Maps SEO?

Normal

Algorithm

Maps

Algorithm

What About Recipe Search?

Really?

How Do I Get These Cool Results!?

That’s my

face!

What About Those Awesome Video Results?!

These are

great for

driving clicks

Want to Dive Deeper on SEO? I Recommend:

Just For Fun:

Some of My Favorite Google

Suggestions & Results!

Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz | March 2012

Thank You!