seo keyword research and content mapping

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Part 1:SEO Keyword Research and Content

Mapping

Search Post Intensive Bill Hunt

Keyword Research

• Keywords are the lifeblood of any search marketing program. It is essential that you understand the universe of keywords related to your products and services.

• From this understanding you can understand the needs, wants and intent of the searcher to more effectively map your content with their query.

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Generate Keyword Review Matrix

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Keyword Related Keyword Demand Rank Data CPC Site

Search Type Comments PLP

diabetes 375,567

diabetes supply 58,731

Diabetes symptoms 48,148

Diabetes diet 22,133

Type 2 diabetes 21,393

Diabetes mellitus 21,038

Gestational diabetes 19,755

Diabetes treatment 18.999

Diabetes information 17,345

Juvenile diabetes 17,125

Initial KeywordResearch gives you related words

Number of searches last

month.

How is are the words performing

elsewhere

Research?Purchase? Service?

Good word? Bad? Issues?

RecommendLanding page URL

Brainstorming KeywordsBrainstorming words are our starting point. We take these top‐level, general keyword phrases and use them as the basis of the next set of actions.

Start the process by answering the following questions:

1. Make a list of your products, services and categories of each2. What do your potential visitors search for when trying to find your

product/services/information?3. When you search for your own site, what do you search for4. What do you want to be #1 in the search results for?5. What terms are currently driving visits to your site (analytics)6. What are people searching for currently on your site? (site search)

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www.mergewords.com

Mine your Pages for Keywords - Manually

• Review your site content for targeted keyword phrases.

• Start with general words and dig deeper to get more specific phrases that are exact matches.

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Research Demand & Opportunity

• Leverage one of the keyword research tools to understand variations of keywords and relative search volume for each phrase.

• Use “exact” or “phrase” match to get a closer representation to a natural search query

• Results are “averages” and not exact numbers

7https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Keyword Planner

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adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner

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WordTracker

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Subscription-based keyword research tool that offers a wide selection of keyword variations and relevance weightings for keywords.

- www.wordtracker.com

Keyword Discovery

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Subscription-based keyword research tool that offers a wide selection of keyword variations and relevance weightings for keywords.

Can save and recall keyword research projects

- www.keyworddiscovery.com

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UberSuggest

Scrapes variations of “auto suggest” for alphabet and some symbols

http://ubersuggest.org/

Keyword Prioritization

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Prioritization buckets words into High, Medium and Low categories

•Categories used to:•Control SOV levels on specific segments in paid search

•Identify priority words for SEO work

• Advise content developers on best words to include in new content

AwarenessHigh Priority

“Must Have” Keywords

Medium PriorityKeywords that are important but expensive or

not targeted enough

Low Priority“Nice to haves”

• High Priority keywords get 60% of budget & effort• Medium Priority keywords get 30% of budget & effort• Low Priority keywords get 10% of budget & effort

•Ensures important words get most exposure

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Map to Specific Relevant Pages

• Preferred Landing Pages (PLP’s) are used to match

keywords to the best page for that word or phrase. 13

Map Keywords to Predefined Actions Segments

• Use a brainstorming session to discuss and segment words into appropriate purchase lifecycle segments to understand how to better align messages.

• This will be very helpful later when creating ad groups and messages for PPC

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Current State Performance

• Once you have your list of keyword phrases, a Keyword Ranking Report can be run to benchmark a site’s current position in the search results for these phrases.

• Knowing how well Preferred Landing Pages are ranking for associated keyword phrases puts a priority on which pages need to be audited for optimization or added to your PPC campaign.

Additional Research Tools

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• Provides a graphical, relative search volume comparison.

• Enter in up to 5 search terms.

• Shows related news.• Free but not

necessarily current

Google Trends

www.google.com/trendswww.google.com/trends

Keyword Spy• Wide selection of keywords• Additional unique features

– See paid and organic data– Export master list of words– Great for competitive analysis and budget planning

• Free and Subscription versions

www.keywordspy.comwww.keywordspy.com

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Best Practices

• Brainstorm your keywords with a wide team to understand your base universe.

• Look at your content, site search data and external tools for variations

• Work to understand the intent of a searcher for each phrase and map to the appropriate page on your site.

• Repeat the process often to maximize your keyword universe.

Part 2: Fundamentals and Best Practices of

SEO

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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

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Making changes to your site to ensure it maximizes the key elements used by search engines to score and rank pages

How Search Engines Work1. Spiders (crawlers, robots) crawl the Web and extract

information from each page2. Information helps to build an Index

– What the page is about (number of times an important word appears)

– Where on a page the word appears

– How the word appears (capitalization, punctuation, bolded, etc.)

– Who else links to the page (number of times, and rank, of other pages linking to it)

3. Encodes, weights, rank, then stores informationSimple right?

Search engines have many hurdles to overcome

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How does the Algorithm Work• Spam and Inflation Detection

– Verifying that no unethical tricks are being used– Verifying that there are not duplicates or redirections

• Keyword Phrase Inclusion/Content Relevancy – Does the exact phrase occur on the page– Location and proximity of keyword and/or keyword phrase– What is the relationship of the keyword to the content?– How many other similar or relevant pages on the site are

connected to this page?

• Internet Relevancy– How many other sites/pages are linked to this site and page?– How “relevant” are the pages/sites linking to the page?– How are the other links references which point to the page?

What is Search Optimization?• Ensuring your site is search friendly which allows spiders to index the

content on the site • Ensuring your pages include the keyword phrases actually used by

searchers• Ensuring your pages offer “relevance signals” to the search engines to

help them understand what the page is about. • Ensuring the pages of your website are as compliant as possible with the

search engine scoring algorithms• Ensuring your relevant pages are considered “authoritative” by other sites

via quality and contextually relevant links to them. • Ensuring compelling and action oriented descriptions that encourage

visits

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4 Fundamentals of SEO

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SEOIndexibility

Relevance Authority

Clickability

INDEXABILITY

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Ensuring that all of the pages on your site are able to be detected and indexed by the search engines.

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Indexability• Is the site created in a way to enable the spiders to get

to the site, into the site and capture all the pages within the site?

• Do you have spider traps and barriers to indexing– Improper redirects– Incorrect robots coding– JavaScript and DHTML navigation – Multiple dynamic variables & Session ID’s– Session ID’s or cookie restrictions

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Inclusion Test• Test how many pages in the indexed

– site:yourdomain.com as well as site:www.yourdomain.com

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Robots.txt Syntax• Common protocol for blocking bots to all or part of your site

– Available at www.yoursite.com/robots.txt– Keeps spiders from specific sections of the site – scripts or user profiles– Done wrong, can block bots from entire site

Tip: Unless you need to block them always allow all bots access to all contentUser-agent: *Disallow:


User-agent: *Disallow: /cgi-bin/Disallow: /go/Disallow: /info/Disallow: /support/Disallow: /JumpData/Sitemap: http://www.hp.com/google-sitemap-index.xml

Complex URLs can be a challenge• Can inhibit or prevent crawling

• Can result in duplicate pages for same products with different attributes

• May not be linked so no way to find and index them

• Leverage XML site

https://avnetexpress.avnet.com/store/em/EMController/Audio-Amplifier/Maxim-Integrated-Products/DS4420N/_/R-7392976/A-7392976/An-0?action=part&catalogId=500201&langId=-1&storeId=500201&listIndex=-1

https://avnetexpress.avnet.com/store/em/EMController/Audio-Amplifier/Maxim-Integrated-Products/DS4420N/_/R-7392976/A-7392976/An-0?action=part&catalogId=500201&langId=-1&storeId=500201&listIndex=-1

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Complex URL Optimization Tips• Remove extraneous parameters that are no longer necessary

• Rename parameters like Category=400 to Category=Blue‐Widgets to add keywords to the URL.

• When possible, use a rewrite engine to make complex URL’s “friendly URL’s”

• Leverage XML site maps for the different categories of products and content to monitor indexing rates and completeness.

• Reduce repetitive path elements that are not

Canonicalization• Home pages can be accessed many ways. Example:

– dell.com– www.dell.com– http://www.dell.com/us/en/gen/df.aspx?refid=df&s=gen

• Results in link dilution and content duplication.• Use 301 redirect for non‐www to www redirect

• Use “Canonical” tag for page to page – V1 ‐ http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron‐r‐series.aspx?c=us&cs=19– V2 ‐ http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron‐r‐series.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs– V3 ‐ http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron‐r‐series.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

– Canonical Tag Selects one version as the primary page: – <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-r-series.aspx?cs=19" />

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Design Issues Create Indexing Challenges

Design issues can impact ranking – educate developers on key challengesEvaluate impact when integrating the following when building a site – not all are bad if integrated correctly– Flash– Frames– JavaScripts– Table Structures– Dynamic Content – Redirects– Slow Loading Pages– Graphics vs. text– Image Maps

Spider-Friendly Sites -Navigation

• HyperText alternatives to GUIs• Footer Navigation• Hierarchical, link-based navigation (vs. dropdowns/input

boxes)• Spiders love hierarchies, users prefer search (have both)

• Always link back to your HomePage• ...so spiders can find the rest of your site• ...and lost users can re-orient

• Use Site Maps • Link in footer of site with sitemap.html • Include links to key areas of the site • Maximum of 100 links on the page

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Spider-Friendly Sites -Settings

• Don’t require Cookies/Session IDs• If you “Soft 404” ....let the spider know

• redirect to one generic page designed for that purpose (i.e. not the HomePage)

• Title your page appropriately (e.g. “ERROR 404”)

• If your site has moved, 301 the old URLs to point to the new ones

• transfers in-link credit from the old site to the new one• keeps legacy in-links and user’s bookmarks from breaking• don’t be afraid to leave the 301s in place as long as

necessary

Spider-Friendly Site Hierarchy

• Avoid excessive URL depth– Increases the chance that crawlers won’t find all your pages– Very-deep URLs typically don’t rank as well– Hard for users to e-mail

• Examplewww.mybooks.com/order-of-the-phoenix (Depth 1, but may be hard to build a 50K page site this way!!)

www.mybooks.com/uk/fiction/childrens/jkrawlings/harry-potter/order-of-the-phoenix

(Depth 6, may not get crawled!!)

www.mybooks.com/jkrawlings/harry-potter/order-of-the-phoenix(Depth 3, probably a reasonable balance)

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XML SitemapsProtocol to inform the search engines of your pages.– Auto‐discovery through robots.txt or submission via Webmaster Tool Accounts– Same format and file supported by all major search engines Google and Bing report “issues” with URLs.Site Map Protocol ‐ www.sitemaps.org

XML Site Map Best Practices

• Build one sitemap category of business with a maximum of 10,000 records per site map.

• Build one site map per country or language on the site to monitor inclusion

• Append new pages and push new sitemap.xml nightly

• Rebuild full Site Map set and Index monthly

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Barrier Checking Tool

FireFox Webmaster Tool https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/web-developer/

Check for cookies, page size, JavaScript and other key barriers

Site speed...• How quickly do you deliver content?

– Dirty code– Unnecessary files– No compression– Oversized images– Server speed & pipe

Don’t waste the spiders time!

Test with Speed tools Yslow Google Speed Tool

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Site Speed Testing Example

Test indicates multiple areas of improving load speed which will help the spiders access the content quicker – this will also be helpful to visitors – especially on mobile phones.

RELEVANCE

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Ensuring that your pages are relevant to the query by placing keywords in location that send strong signals to the search engines.

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Relevance Questions

• Do your on-page elements align with the search industry’s understanding of the algorithm scoring model as represented by accepted best practices?

• Is the desired keyword included on the page? • Is keyword included in key elements on page like title

and heading?• Is the keyword phrase used in the body copy?

How a user sees a website

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How a spider sees the site

Optimal Keyword Placement

• Title Tags are the MOST IMPORTANT attribute– Supply Chain Management Consulting - TCS

</title>• Heading Tags - <H1> and <H2>• Body Copy - Keywords appearing throughout page

content• Anchor Text - The keyword phrase appearing in a

hyperlink to your site or within it• Alt Attribute - In lieu of keyword rich content, engines

will pull a page description from an images alt attribute.

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Optimal Keyword Locations Illustrated

Overlay Source: SEO xRay from SEO for FireFox tool bar

Not Spam, But Bad for Rankings

• Splash pages, content‐less home page, Flash intros• Title tags the same across the site• Error pages in the search results (e.g., “Session expired”)

• "Click here" links• Superfluous text like “Welcome to” at beginning of titles

• Spreading site across multiple domains (usually for load balancing).

• Content too many levels deep

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• Hidden or small text• Keyword stuffing• Targeted to obviously irrelevant keywords• Automated submitting, resubmitting, deep submitting• Competitor names in meta tags• Duplicate pages with minimal or no changes• Spamglish• Machine generated content

Spamming in Its Many Forms …

AUTHORITY

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Ensuring that your pages are considered relevant and authoritative by other authoritative sites via links and anchor text.

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Key Off‐Page Factors: Links • Search Engines look for clusters of thematically similar content. To do this

they look at:– Link Popularity ‐ Number of links pointing to site– Link Authority – Quality of links pointing to site– Anchor Text or Link Text

• The keyword phrase appearing in the hyperlink to your site– Title Tag

• The keyword phrase appearing in the title of page linking to your site

• Think of inbound links as “votes of authority” between sites

Votes – website backlinks

A webpage with little or no authority

A webpage with some authority

A webpage with lots of authority

Internal web pages

Externally linked web pages

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Types of Links• Reciprocal (Fig 1) – Less important today due to past abuse;

value of reciprocal links is usually discounted • Triangular (Fig 2) – Attempt to hide reciprocal linking – easily

detectable • One Way (Fig 3) – One way inbound links are usually most

valuable

Fig 2.

B C

A

Fig 1.

A BFig 3.

A B

A Closer Look at Links• Popularity:

95 Pages linking to this page• Authority:

3.9% are quality links (PR>5)• Relevance:

74.7% of the links are relevant

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Age – how old is your site?

• Google gives great weight to sites that have been around for a few years or more. This makes them seem to be more legitimate.

• New sites will find it very hard to compete in mature markets

5 Tips for Successful Link Building

1. Build Links Naturally 2. Get Links from Sites That Give Few. 3. Get Your Keywords into Your Link Text 4. Get Links from Relevant Sites 5. Go for Deep Links

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CLICKABILITY

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Ensuring that your SERP Snippets are relevant and compelling to searchers to encourage more clicks.

Maximizing Click Opportunity1. Relatively little risk 2. We are impatient and easily frustrated

• 6.4 seconds before clicking on a link3. There is a lot of information

• Scan an average of 3.9 results• Assimilate an average of 140 words• Included in those words are between 35 to 60

factors we have to consider to make a decision

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Review your Snippet Periodically• Review your snippet periodically especially if you get low click through• if you don’t rank well use the following syntax to review: Keyword phrase site:yoururl.com

Maximizing your Search Result Listing

• Description comes from one of the following:– Compiled from content on the page – Taken from Meta Description– Open Directory Listing– Anything else the engines can find (Alt, navigation) to form a snippet

• Optimize the Snippet by:

• Place keyword at the beginning of opening paragraph

• Place benefit statements near your main keyword phrases at the top of the page.

• When an engine takes a snippet for the SERP page, your description will boost your benefits.

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You cannot build a house in a day...• SEO takes time to identify the issues make the changes and wait for

reindexing and scoring. • Often resources and Web Development team are not available or

have conflicting ideas • Educate the wider team to help integrated into the existing content

creation workflow• SEO must be done in line with Google standards• Never employ black hat solutions or risk the negative consequences• If you invest now SEO will deliver long term quality traffic for the

future!

SEO Best Practice Key Takeaways

1. Reduce barriers to entry for search spiders2. Keyword phrase in far left of title tag3. <H1> heading tag includes primary keyword phrase4. Emphasize the primary keyword early in the content

and include secondary phrases as you write5. Create strong and relevant content 6. Use relevant keywords in the anchor text for all links7. Contextually relevant inbound links from quality sites8. Consolidate links and pages to form clusters

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Part 3: Using Project Management to

Manage SEO Projects

What is SEO Project Management?

• Embedding SEO into marketing strategy• Planning your SEO program• Making SEO operational

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Direct marketers always think metrics at the start

• Target your first campaign• Assess your current situation• Calculate your opportunity

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Define numeric

objectives

Get real feedback

Constantly look at

performance

Try different approaches

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Use SEO to drive conversions

How many search visitors come to buy?

The right search result puts the visitor in the “Learn” stage to view a product page.

How many customers that view a product page put items in their carts?

And how many check out?

Multiply by your average revenue and you have the impact of search on revenue.

Learn

Buy

Shop

Use

Get

Search

Increasing the success rate at any stage increases the overall conversion rate

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SEO Project Management

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Planning your SEO Program

Choose the scope of your overall SEO program

• A single product line?

• Business unit?

• Country market?

• The entire enterprise?

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Digital Cameras

Home Theatres

DVD Players

Televisions

Time

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What are the basic steps of each campaign?

• Make sure your pages are in the search indexes

• Identify the words that searchers use to find you

• Use those words in the right places on your Web pages

• Create content that others will link to

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Get Pages Indexed

Choose Keywords

Optimize Content

AttractLinks

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Decide what tasks you must centralize

Task Functional Product-Oriented

Multinational Conglomerate

Targeting search engines

Central Central Extended Central

Planning keywords

Central Extended Extended Central

Reporting metrics

Central Central Central Extended

Defining standards

Central Central Central Extended

Organization type influences the right place for each task

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How does a company plan an SEO program?

• Example: Snap Electronics• A fictional electronics manufacturer• Well‐known brand name• Large Web site with heavy online sales• High‐end, innovative, easy‐to‐use products• “Our products are a snap!”

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Choose the target area of your site

• Pick something high profile

• Ensure the impact is measurable

• Keep it simple

• Make it practical

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How much search traffic do you already get?

• Your metrics facility can tell you your current traffic

• You can project your missed opportunities:

Check to see where your competitors are

• Competitors rank much higher for digital camera than Snap does

• That likely means you can improve

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How much more traffic can you get?

Project the traffic improvement for each keyword

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Then project the value of the resulting conversions

• To know what the value of search marketing is worth, you must calculate the conversion rate and its value

• You can use this to justify the investment and to check your return on investment later

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Project your costs

• You already projected your revenues• Now you need to see the other side

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Put together your revenue and expenses

• Your mileage may vary, but the number will be big for you

• This won’t persuade everyone, but it’s a start

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Put together your plan

• Don’t skimp on details for execution

• Anyone can cook a spreadsheet to forecast success

• Make sure that your plan is detailed and believable79

SEO Project Management

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Making SEO Operational

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Mike Moran

© 2010 Mike Moran81

Make your search program operational

• Your central team handles everything you need to do in one place in your organization

• But their most important job is working with your extended team—all of those specialists that already run your Web site:– Copy writers

– Product managers

– IT folks

– etc.

Search EcosystemAn ecosystem approach to build a world‐class infrastructure

• Knowledge platform• Thought leadership• Uniform KPI’s• Ridged Training Program

• Content Prioritization• Searcher Intent Modeling• Keyword Page Mapping

• Keyword Centralization• PPC/SEO Co‐Optimization• Keyword Level Performance• Always On Monitoring

• Integration with IT & Content• Crawlable Infrastructure• Relevance built into templates• SEO into localization process

InfrastructureIntegration

Keyword Management &

Reporting

Centre of Excellence

Content & Social Media

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Education Infrastructure Enhancement

Force Multipliers

Which are mosteffective techniques, tools and resources?

Uniform KPI’s

How do we compliment other teams for enhanced outcomes?

Where can we intersect with current activities and technologies?

What do we measure and why?

T3Rapid repairs

T1Fast & easy

claims

T2Personalized

coverage tool & same day assistance

E2Makes me feel

valued & there with me every step of

the way

E1Treats me as an

individual

Emotional

F3Fair prices & easy / upfront information

F1Personalized

service, just right for me

F2Clear info, fair claims, sound

advice

Functional

P2Understanding,

proactive, empathetic

P1Dynamic, fast, dependable,

efficient

R1Known for effective

& caring intermediaries

R2Known for good claims service & customer service

Persona / Reputation Touchpoint

Functional Benefits & Touchpoints

Reputation & Persona

Emotional Benefits

Desired Outcome

T2Fast claims process

P1Dependable & Efficient

.868

Insurance Company I Would Proactively Recommend

T1Has an easy to use

website

.333

F3Responds quickly to my changing needs

E2Makes me feel reassured

because they deliver when it really matters

.839

.160

P2Understanding

.518

.812

43.3%

40.6%

43.5%

42.0%

40.5%

38.1%

27.8%

35.9%

25.2%

20.8%

43.3%

30.6%General

Direct

Life

Helpful and Fair

Claims

Partner who

Delivers

• Ensures that claims will be resolved to our satisfaction• Has fair prices• Known for open and transparent dealings with customers

• Has a dedicated relationship leader focused on my company's needs• Helps my business move on because they deliver when it really matters• Makes me feel like they are there with us every step of the way

• Is a global thought leader known for analytical rigor• Dedicated, proactive and dynamic

• Global view of reported and paid claims• Helps get my employees back to work quicker

• Has a deep understanding of the unique needs of our business• Uses a thorough understanding of our business to tailor its risk

management services to us

Tailored Insight

DeepUnderstanding

• Has tools that help us identify and mitigate risks specific to our business• Offers a unique tailored solution that fits the needs of our business• Provides professional guidance that keeps me on top of my business

Nice to Have But not

Discriminating

Must Havebut not

Discriminating

1 2 3 4

Best Practice – Center of Excellence

IBM, Dell, P&G, Nestle and Coach have adopted COE to manage shared services, centralize best practices which have been leveraged to scale search globally resulting in exponential performance improvements.

Mike Moran

© 2010 Mike Moran

Purpose

• Lower operating costs of running global search programs

• Increased leverage of portfolio site assets

Search Council Responsibilities

• Deploy best practices, standard metrics, and tools

• Consistent process, reporting, and optimization methods

• Coordinate with PR, other agencies, web dev, analytics

• Evangelize and educate business units and geographies

• Standardized in-sourcing / outsourcing delivery

Coordinated Oversight

Implemented At

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• Incremental page audits – on demand page auditing via automation or agency resources to identify problems with pages outside the Top and Strategic Keywords Lists

• Ad Hoc site and diagnostic audits – leverage agency resources to triage site segments for SEO performance beyond the page level

• Link building and outreach – leverage external resources to identify and request relevant links from relevant third party sites

• Localized and translated research & modeling – working with translation resources to conduct local language keyword research and page mapping

• Market assessment modeling – using localized keyword data and keyword demand tools to develop opportunity models to understand missed opportunity in non-core markets

Core deliverables (COE-funded)

Incremental

COE Obligations & Deliverables

SEO Consulting• Support development of COE and

GBU SEO strategies• Identify SEO tools and GBU

optimization best practices• Create models aligning search interest

and content• Review PLP relevance and actionable

keywords• Sponsor “Lunch & Learn” sessions• Audit underperforming content• Integrate SEO models into COE

workflows

Basic SEO Services• Conduct org level keyword research • Develop keyword mappings/clusters• Publish text and XML site maps• Monitor blogs, podcasts, videos,

pdfs, pages for best practice sharing and process improvement

• Align SEO requirements with Global IT infrastructure

• Maintain preferred landing page (PLP) keyword mappings for Top and Strategic Keywords

SEO Reporting/Analysis• Monitor performance of top and

strategic keywords• Provide reports and analysis

- KPIs (rankings/ traffic/conversions)

- Compare SEO & PPC results- Compare SEO and social media keywords

- Directional metrics• Establish diagnostic signals• Maintain Issue Tracker

Mike Moran


Training the extended team is the main job

• Explain why search is important—they all want the site to be successful and they all search themselves

• The specialists on your extended search team need different training in their ownlanguages:– Copy writers: Keyword rich

– Product Managers: Keywords

– IT folks: Spider traps

– etc.

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Mike Moran


What levers do you pull?• If you use “processes” to your advantage, you can

use the system against itself– Change existing standards– Leverage compliance systems to enforce

• Training and Evangelizing – Show the negative current situation– Offer focused training sessions

Mike Moran


Fix your infrastructure to get your pages indexed

• Set standards to control spider traps:– Ban frames, pop‐ups, JavaScript links, etc.– Regulate Flash, cookies, dynamic pages– Correct robots directives– Redirect pages properly

• Enforce standards withexisting processeswhenever possible

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Enabler: Optimize Templates for Scale & Global

Sony.de Sony.fr Etc.

Page Title and Meta Data recommendations

Fully indexable navigation?

Ensure all parts of the page are indexable

Correct use of Header tags

Can search engine’s follow all of the links?

Enhancement of cross-links to distribute link equity

Data Input Central Keyword Database Informed Output

BASIC DATA•Keyword•Keyword Demand•Page/URL•Owner

ADVANCED DATA•Organic Referral•Paid Clicks•Organic Conversions•Paid Conversions

BASIC OUTPUT•Duplication Identification•Primary v Secondary •Pages with multiple primary keywords

ADVANCED OUTPUT•PPC + SEO Co‐Optimization•Organic Keyword Opportunities•Page Optimization Opportunities•Keyword Overlap & Arbitration

Provides a central resource combining all major data points for informed decision-making on Paid and organic search priorities

Centralized Keyword Management

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Is Your Keyword Data Aligned?

• Paid Search Spend $20 million US• Critical/Important Keywords – 1,120• SEO Team ‐ 98 important keywords• Active Paid Search Keywords – 187,252• Omniture Keywords – 397,832 (>20 visits)• SEO Tool – 298 keywords (allowance was 10k)• 4,887 keywords in PPC are Top 3 Organic• No coordination between teams

After Coordination

• 1 to 1 alignment of Tier 1 Keywords• Found 2,783 PPC keywords cannibalizing SEO• Shift saved $180k in first month • Shift went to 1,016 important words not ranking• SEO revenue Increased 67% w/no loss from PPC• Weekly monitoring of Top 3/Top 3 keywords• Weekly monitoring of new and expensive• Co‐Optimization Monitoring

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Managing the Performance

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Assess your content with metrics

• Build or buy an automated program that regularly inspects your content

• Check compliance to all key standards:

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Rank checking alerts you to sudden movements

• You can check manually, but automated rank checking programs save you effort

• Increasing personalization is making ranking harder to measure than in the good old days

• Observe changes in your rankings or your competitors’

95

96

Assess your referrals and conversion metrics

• Use the Web Conversion Cycle to use your added search referrals to show the revenue and costs for each conversion

• Use this to compare to the projections you made and to detect any changes (positive or negative) that need attention

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Monitor search referrals and conversions regularly

• Overall• By keyword• By search engine• Organic vs. paid

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If you see referrals and conversions out of sync, it can be worth examining

Mike Moran


Use scorecards to “motivate” teamwork

Keyword Google Rank MSN Rank Yahoo Rank AOL Rank AlltheWeb Ask Rankkeyword 1 1,2 58 1 1,2 1,2 100keyword 2 1,2,6 70 1,5 1,2,6 1,2,6 29keyword 3 1,2 45 1 1,2 1,2 65keyword 4 1,2 3 1 1,2 1,2,10 4keyword 5 3,4 2 2 3,4 3,4 1keyword 6 18 13 16 20 18 18keyword 7 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 1,2,3,4,5 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 1,2,3keyword 8 3,4 4,6 3 3,4 4,5 12keyword 9 1,2,10 1,2,3 1,9 1,2,10, 1,2,10 2,4keyword 10 1,9,10 100 1,7 1,9,10 2,3,4 50keyword 11 2,3,4 0 2,3 2,3,4 0 0keyword 12 1 100 1 1 1 0keyword 13 1,2 20 1 1,2 1,2 47keyword 14 10 100 9 10 27 100keyword 15 8 100 11 7 7 100

Keywords with Top 10 Rankings 14 5 13 14 12 4With KW List Size Factor 0.933333333 0.333333333 0.866666667 0.93333333 0.8 0.26666667With Browser Share Factor 0.466666667 0.033333333 0.086666667 0.09333333 0.08 0.02666667Number of Top 10 Rankings 34 12 20 34 31 7

Unit: XX URLs: URL1, URL2, URL3Search Engine Brand Unit Scorecard Worksheet

Current Missed CurrentKeyword Monthly Annual Visits Visits 10% 25% Google Rank

Keyword 1 59,130 709,560 591 58,539 5,913 14,783 25Keyword 2 41,580 498,960 416 41,164 4,158 10,395 45Keyword 3 40,050 480,600 401 39,650 4,005 10,013 22Keyword 4 31,560 378,720 316 31,244 3,156 7,890 88Keyword 5 23,700 284,400 237 23,463 2,370 5,925 120Keyword 6 19,860 238,320 199 19,661 1,986 4,965 75Keyword 7 12,660 151,920 127 12,533 1,266 3,165 46Keyword 8 7,740 92,880 77 7,663 774 1,935 82Keyword 9 6,210 74,520 62 6,148 621 1,553 38Keyword 10 1,230 14,760 12 1,218 123 308 98

Total Searches/Visitors 243,720 2,924,640 2,437 241,283 24,372 60,930

Results Current 10% 25%Visitors 2,437 24,372 60,930

# Leads @ 10% Conversion 244 2,437 6,093

Increased Traffic Potential

Estimated Searches Potential

Score each business unit every month and publicize the results

internally

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Create Missed Opportunity Performance Models

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Create Cost of Not Ranking Models

• 3.75% increase clicks would bring additional 111k visitors

• Potential for $220k in PPC click costs reduction if ranked better

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Enabler – Deploy BU Performance Metrics

• Leverage Scorecards for governance to ensure consistent global performance goals are achieved.

• Helps prioritize resource allocation

• Effectively blend paid search and natural search for brand awareness and lead generation

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IBM’s global search performance

increased 500% when BU level performance

metrics implemented

Slowly change organizational behavior

• Change the rules• Set benchmarks• Review business unit scorecards• Demand improvement• Repeat

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Summing up SEO Project Management

• Embed SEO into your marketing strategy• Plan your SEO program• Make SEO operational

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Part 4: Developing Efficient

Link‐Building Strategies

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Links Defined• In basic terms, links are the underlined words people click on a website to go to

another. Technically, they are called "hyperlinks" which is the foundation of how the web works.

Text Link

Image Link

Why are links important? • Links are the foundation of the Internet

– Links allow users to move site to site seamlessly– Links connect pages with similar and relevant information

• Links are a source of targeted traffic. – Links from similar themed websites drive relevant and targeted traffic.– Links create exposure and a “referral” scenario from the other site.

• Relevant links raise your natural search engine rankings. – Links connect you to search engines for inclusion. – Search engines use links in their relevancy algorithms as a means of

determining “relevance” and “authority” of your site within the peer sites of a similar topic.

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Importance Of Links For SEOInternal Links• Ensures all pages are connected and findable via crawling • Tells SE’s what each page is about and how relevant they are• Identifies primary keyword phrases• Highly relevant links often used at SERPS as “site links” to internal pages

External/Incoming Links• Drives traffic from relevant site to your site • Allows SE spider to find pages naturally and in context • Identifies key authoritative pages and site sections• Creates a “contextual link” between similar content that increases relevance

for search engines resulting in higher rankings

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Google Penguin Updates

• 4 Major Variations • 36+ iterations to the algorithms

• Goal: Identify and remove any value derived from unnatural links and spam link building techniques

• Reciprocal (Fig 1) – Less important today due to past abuse; value of reciprocal links is usually discounted

• Triangular (Fig 2) – Attempt to hide reciprocal linking – easily detectable

• One Way (Fig 3) – One way inbound links are usually most valuable

Fig 2.

B C

A

Fig 1.

A BFig 3.

A B

Types of Linking

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Link Quality (Popularity + Authority)Important pages are either linked to by a lot of pages or by other important pages– Page A is more important than page B– Page C is more important than Page D

B

C

A

D

1 1 1 1

1

1

3

3

External “inbound” links

Link Quality (Popularity + Authority)Page Importance (or “Link Value or “Link Juice”) counts…– Page B is more important than page A– Page D is more important than Page C

B

C

A

D

1 1 1 6

63

3 6

External “inbound” links

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Google Page Rank• Google PageRank™

– Google’s Algorithm for measuring a page’s importance based on the quantity, quality and contextual relevance of links

– Each “page” has its own score – Scores are are from 0 – 10 – logarithmic scale

• Tool Bar Page Rank– A simulation of Page Rank in the form of a “bar” and “number 0 to 10”

– Not always accurate and should not be obsessed over

View Google PageRank in Chrome Browser with PageRank Viewer Plugin

Current State Assessment

IBM CONFIDENTIAL 114

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Current State Assessment

• How many links do we have to the following: – Home page (and variations)– Key categories– Specific pages

• How many links do we have that are: – Linking to broken pages – Linking to the home page vs. category or page

Google Webmaster Toolshttps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

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Bing Webmaster Toolswww.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

Open Site Explorerwww.opensiteexplorer.com

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MajesticSEOwww.majesticseo.com

Link Research Toolswww.linkresearchtools.com

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LINK BUILDING STRATEGIES

“Give them a Reason to Link”


Why should they link?

• Why would anyone want or need to link to you? – Does your content provide topically relevant and trusted information to its

audience?– Is your content solve a problem, save time or money?– Is your content interesting or relevant to an audience?– Is your content timely, relevant and/or entertaining? – Would you read your content if it was not yours?

– If not, then you don’t deserve links!

• Are you an Authority?– Are you well known in your field?– Are you active in committees, forums and blogs?– Have you been quoted in articles, press releases?

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Popular Content Ideas

• How to & Beginner Guides related to your products and services

• Top 10 ways to... [Number + Adjective + Keyword Phrase]• Surveys & Polls and Survey Data • Handy Web Tools & applications that streamline tedious tasks.• Expert Interviews on relevant and timely topics• Awards or Recognition for your industry or customers

• Develop your Asset Matrix of valuable content

Develop Content to Satisfy Needs

How To related searches80,000 monthly

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Content Distribution Strategy• Companies create “transportable” assets each year yet doesn’t always

maximize their portability

• When using and distributing marketing assets, always ask yourself some key questions– Is my content linkable?

• Does this product, news release, event create interest where someone would link to it?

• Have you clearly articulated the proper destination URL for more information?

– Is my content portable?• Do you have anything you can pass along? PDF? Video? Widget?• Have you included “forward to a friend” or other social media capabilities on the page?

– Have you syndicated your portable content?• Do you have it indexed in Google and/or White Paper aggregators like Bitpipe?

• Do you have videos in YouTube and Google with appropriate meta information?

• Have you included the content in your Pressroom?

Digital Asset Distribution 101• Enable RSS feeds.

– Potent permission marketing tool, RSS feeds provide an avenue for ongoing distribution of assets in context.

• Enable social bookmarking.– Ensure you’re using social media tags in footers.– Submit the new page to social bookmarking sites with relevant tags so that others

can find it.

• Ensure all digital assets have meta data.– Pull together your relevant words and develop a solid asset title and description.– Update the Meta properties of digital assets.

• Develop social media tags.– Pull together a list of most impactful and relevant tags for the individual asset.– Investigate Technorati, Delicious, and other social media referral sites to identify

which tags are garnering maximum traffic.

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LINK BUILDING STRATEGIES

“Fix the Ones You Have”


Consolidate or Migrate- Consolidate existing links from old or legacy pages or domains and properly

redirect them to the proper page or primary domain- Free Management tools: Google & Bing Webmaster Tools

Why are they linking here?

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Fix Wasted LinksCheck and repair any broken links – Webmaster Tools

Shows you pages that link to the Page Not Found.

External Links – PortfolioFamily domainsIdentify all the domains that your company owns as well as key partner sites and acquisitions.Example: http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home

http://www.telelogic.com/

International Sites Identify your international sites and create links from them to each other for relevant content.

Link “context to context” using your international site navigation in the footeror in a SEO friendly pull down

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Maximize WW Link Architecture

•Leverage enormous power of globally located sites to build link equity

•Leverage Partners and Distributed content to increase link equity

•Leverage different C block sites in your portfolio

Leverage the links between your sites where they are hosted in separate environments.

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IP & Class C Blocks• The IP address is a numeric address, providing a unique

identification of a computer and the network it resides, written as a set of four groups of numbers separated by dots, for example 129.42.38.121

Typical IP Address 129.42.38.121A block - 129B block - 42C block - 38D block – 121

• Imaging “C block” as an apartment building and all of the apartments are all “D blocks” this means the potential for these people to know each other and “help” each other achieve a goal is pretty high.

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Leverage Business RelationshipsBusiness partners

Review special deal partners, vendors, and channel partnersConduct training or share linking best practices

Trade & Industry associationsIdentify reputable industry associations, especially the ones where your currently a membership.Review the links you get to ensure they are relevant

Industry EventsParticipate in industry events to get content exposure and linksBloggers and online bios are often great places to get links

Business PartnersConfirm reciprocation from business partners.

Request your business partners to add a link on the relevant page and use the keyword in the anchor text pointing to the IBM small business resources page.

Opportunity IBM Page

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Industry AssociationsIndustry associations are a great source of links but make sure they use the context in the anchor text.

Request the association to add a link and use the keyword in the anchor text pointing to the Point-of-sale page.

Opportunity IBM Page

LINK Acquisition

“Finding Relevance”


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Key Link Acquisition Concepts

Quality vs. Quantity• Better from Relevant sites & Authority sites than many non-related or poor

quality.

Contextual Relevancy• The measure of how well two sites are related in content and Theme

Authority & Trustworthy Sites• A site highly rated by a search engine: size, importance, & relevance• Age and perceived “trustability” of the site

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Choosing Quality Links

Authority SitesSite Rated By Size, Importance, & Relevance• Unique content• Many inbound links, especially from other authority sites• Many of outbound links• Inbound links built gradually over time• Usually an older site.

Avoiding A Bad Neighborhood• Has been banned• Under a penalty• From a link farm• From a shady industry

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Start with Google

Review the top positions for key phrase and what links do they have!

Identify Quality Shared Links• Identify relevant links with a high PageRank that are linking to top sites in search

results. Quality is more important than quantity.

* Below are URLs currently linking to the top ranking pages in Google's results for a specific keyword phrase. Sort linking by Google PageRank and Link Score, which helps assess the validity of a site.

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Quality Not Quantity of Links

PR0 PR1 PR2 PR3 PR4 PR5 PR6 PR7 PR8 PR9 Total PR6+ %PR6+

app server 450 15 149 96 537 148 23 6 0 11425 30 2%

Google #1701 27 204 57 63 96 41 23 4 0

1216 68 6%

Google #2223 10 45 31 36 145 143 30 11 28

702 212 30%

Google #3613 38 120 191 100 121 35 3

0 0 1221 38 3%

• While the IBM page as more links than anyone, only 2% were links from high-quality sites.

Compare your links to those in the top positions of Google or Yahoo!

Link Quality Worksheet

http://ontolo.com/link-building-tools/link-building-worksheets

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Search Modifiers• Leverage “search syntax” in engines to find relevant content:

Syntax Term Location Results“digital camera reviews” Anywhere on page 1,180,000

allintext: “digital camera reviews” Body Text 1,150,000

allintitle: “digital camera reviews” Only Page Title 821,000

allinanchor: “digital camera reviews” Only In AnchorText

922,000

allinurl: “digital camera reviews” Only in URL 85,500

Note: Helps find “contextual relevance but not quality”

External Blogs/ SitesGoogle Blog Search

Use target keywords to find topically relevant blogs.

Sign up ‘Blog Alerts’ to stay updated on potential blogs.

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Submission OpportunitiesDirectories• General: Yahoo! & Open Directory Project (Google) Business.com

Local Directories• Google• Yahoo!• City Search• AOL

Yellow Pages• Super Pages• City Search• Info USA and Info USA Business• MSN Yellow Pages• Yahoo! Yellow Pages

.Edu and .Gov Sites• These are valuable since they don’t just link to anyone

• Ways to get .edu and .gov links – Provide valuable content to their audiences– Speak at their events, seminars and provide resources– Leverage memberships and alumni organizations

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.Edu and .Gov Sites

Provide high-value and relevant information to be linked as a resource

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.Edu and .Gov Sites

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Integrate Search and Social Media/PR

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Priceline release announcing destinations for Valentines day and Presidents Weekend

1. 20,300 pick ups of digital release in Google

2. 2,589 inbound links to release3. 3,043 new links to blog4. 1,500+ new links to destination

pages

Caution: Google monitoring “excessive links” in releases

Buying Links

• Simple answer – Don’t buy them– Ever from a link broker or link builder – If your business depends on traffic from Google

• Complex answer – Buy them when:– You negotiated the direct link from a highly relevant site where you would benefit primarily from traffic and there is not mention of the sale or tracking.

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Avoid Link Spamming Techniques

What to Avoid• Link farms• Reciprocal links• Republished or poorly written articles• Inconsequential or repeatedly used press releases• Paid links• Hidden image & text links• Blog spam• Forum spam• Site wide links

Best Practices Recap

• Link Building is hard and cannot be faked or rushed

• Quality and relevant content generates links• Clean up and fix current links • Research quality links from relevant sources• Leverage digital press releases • Leverage social media for real time impact

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Part 5:Optimize your Search Program through Research and Ongoing

Diagnostics

What do I Need or Want to know?

1. How are we doing and how to benchmark? 2. How and what is my competition doing?3. What opportunities am I missing?4. Key SEO diagnostics to monitor your search health

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Benchmarking Current State

1. What are my business goals?a. What do we want from our search program?b. What products and keywords do we need to perform?c. What would be a considered a success?

2. How are we doing today? a. How much traffic and for what keywords?b. What share of search am I getting?c. What are my most valuable words?

3. Where can I get improvements?

Create a Traffic BaselineSelect a subset of important keywords related to your business & average traffic

Baseline Options:

• Average of 3, 6, 12 months • Average of seasonal variations – busy, slow, average • Average of advertising cycles – high advertising, low advertising

and/or no advertising

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Demonstrate Change over BaselineShow the % Change (Δ) over baseline for all important keywords

Change Formula - (Current month divided by baseline) -1

Show overall improvement in your SEO traffic over some baseline period.

Cost of Poor Performing SEOShow the incremental PPC budget to make of for organic search traffic

Helps demonstrate to management why additional resources should be spent on SEO activities to capture a larger share of traffic that does not have a cost per click.

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What is my competition doing?

Who is your competition?• Named Competitors

– Typically companies management really cares about that compete with you on sales and market share.

– Who are your biggest direct competitors IBM vs. HP– The larger the company typically the poorer they do in SEO

• Search Results Competitors– These are the companies that rank in the top positions of search

engines and may not be a direct competitor – like Wikipedia or a Trade Journal

– Need to understand “why they are ranking” and if you can leverage their ranking via advertising or links

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What do you want to know?• PPC Advertising Spend

– Insight on what your competition is spending on paid search– What keywords do they seem be be performing well for? – What ad messages are they using?

• Keyword Lists – What keywords are they using in PPC and/or ranking well for in

SEO– How are they performing for various keywords ?– What pages are ranking well – home page or deep pages

• Inbound Links– What quality and relevant sites are linking to them?

What do you need to know?• Team Size and Bench Strength

– How do they manage program? In-house, agency– How many team members? Skills?– How big is the agency and their reputation?

• Business & Actionability Value– Leverage their team size to increase mine – Expect lack or quality performance based on team

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SEM Rush – www.semrush.com $

163

Keyword Spy – keywordspy.com $

164

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PPC Ad Performance Monitoring

165

See which competitor ads are being clicked and converting and which are not!

Spyfu– spyfu.com $

166

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167

Compete – compete.com $

168

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Open Site Explorer –opensiteexplorer.org $

169

Competitive Research Takeaways

1. Care about competitors once your house is in order2. Monitor performance against your baselines3. Use multiple tools to “Monitor” competition but don’t

obsess over it4. Spend time diagnosing site performance 5. Share any and all findings with wider audience!

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Building the Business Case via Opportunity Research

Why Calculate Your Opportunity?

Calculating opportunity from the start helps…

• Make the business case and justify the investment

• Focus your activities and identify content gaps

• Set expectations – Keeping it real• Prioritize resources to focus on the

most value and greatest return

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Search Influenced Revenue

KeywordGlobal

DemandSE

Visits

% of Global

Demand

SE Visits

% of Global

DemandEst % Visits

Added Visits

Added Visits

Opp. Realized % Gain

free mobile software 15,508 0 0.00% 53 0.34% 3% 465 465 53 -89% 100.00%

nokia mobile software 3,195 18 0.56% 66 2.07% 7% 224 206 48 -77% 72.73%

free nokia software download 1,850 0 0.00% 102 5.51% 8% 148 148 102 -31% 100.00%

free nokia n70 software 1,448 0 0.00% 63 4.35% 10% 145 145 63 -56% 100.00%

mobile search 1,320 4 0.30% 175 13.26% 3% 40 36 171 380% 97.71%

Total 23,321 22 0.09% 459 1.97% 4.38% 1,021 999 437 -56%$1.00

SE Visits for

Words Listed

Monthly Annual Gain

Beginning 22 $22 $264Projected 1,021 $1,021 $12,255 $11,991

Current 459 $459 $5,508 $5,244

Projected RealizedStart Current

1986.36%

Value of a Visit

% Gain

4542.16%

We may not be able to tie to exact sales but we have “influenced” the sale by brining traffic and matching to needs of searcher.

Set time periods

May not be very exciting but it does show an

improvement that will focus efforts and

attention.

6 Parts of the Opportunity MatrixTM

1. Identify your important target keywords (gold words)– These are the words that are critical to your

business2. Determine demand for your gold words

– Get data from Keyword Discovery, WordTracker or Google AdWords Suggestion

3. Determine current gold word performance (rank and/or traffic share)

4. Estimate a share of search clicks for your brand5. Estimate the value ($$) of a visitor to your site 6. Estimate the incremental sales or leads from SEO

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SEO Diagnostics

WHY ARE WE DIAGNOSING THE SITE?• Did traffic decline to whole site or specific

page? • Did rank decline to whole site or specific page? • Did conversions decline for specific keywords? • Did one or more ranks increase or decrease?• Did your page inclusion count

increase/decrease?

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Webmaster Tools Messages/Alerts

Due to ranking loss…

Drop For All Keywords

Is the site still indexed in the engines?

Did you substantially change the site content?

Did you change the underlying site infrastructure?

Was there a large change in linking behavior?

Does the site rank for different queries than before?

Drop For Only Some Keywords

Did the content of those pages change?

Is the page(s) still indexed?

Do you syndicate this same content?

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Ranking ChecklistRelevance

Is the page related to the keyword phrase?Are the current pages ranking for the desired query more relevant?Are keywords in the key relevance locations? Title, headings?

AuthorityHow many relevant links (and how authoritative are they?)What’s the value of the page to a user? (do more useful and authoritative pages rank above yours?)

SERP displayAre the title and snippet compelling and action oriented?Do Sitelinks appear for navigational queries are they relevant?What universal elements appear on the page? Are they yours?

Does the site rank for non‐branded queries?

Penalty Warning Signs

• Search Engine Referrals dropped drastically• Decreasing rankings• Drastic drop in PR (7 -> 1) in three months• Complete loss of page rank – “gray bar”• Loss of pages reported by Google; 500, 250,

50, 1• Can only find website by URL search• No referrals from Google in previous months• Back links decrease each month, until none

reported

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Webmaster Tools Traffic Change

Crawl Efficiency ChecklistEnsure page load times aren’t slow as to reduce number of

pages crawledEnsure server is responsiveReturn a 304 for unchanged contentUse compressionReturn a 404 for not found contentEnsure each page has at least one linkAvoid infinite redirects and redirect loopsEnsure most important pages are linked from home pageNo JavaScript redirects or meta refresh redirects (if possible)Reasonable crawl‐delay setting (if used at all)Reasonable use of Google Webmaster Tools crawl setting

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Inclusion Test• Test how many pages in the indexed

site:www.yourdomain.com

Robots.txt Syntax

• Common protocol for blocking bots to all or part of your site– Available at www.yoursite.com/robots.txt– Keeps spiders from specific sections of the site – scripts or user profiles– Done wrong, can block bots from entire site



User-agent: *Disallow: /cgi-bin/Disallow: /go/Sitemap: http://www.mysite.com/google-sitemap-index.xml

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Current Crawl Rate Changes?

Using Google Webmaster Tools determine of the crawl rate has increased or decreased.

Review Webmaster Tools Crawl Errors

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XML Site Map ErrorsProtocol to inform the search engines of your pages.Google and Bing report “issues” with URLs.Site Map Protocol ‐ www.sitemaps.org

Spam Domains (whois.sc or domain tools)

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Hacked or Malware Inclusion?

Design Challenges

Have any of these items been added to the site?

– Flash– JavaScript Navigation– AJAX & Flex– Dynamic Content – Cookies, custom plugins– Slow Loading Pages– Graphics vs. text

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Monitor HTML Issues



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Manual Penalties

Have you been penalized?

To Many Links Too Soon

Does it make sense this page got 40 new links in 10 days with nearly perfect link text?

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Toxic Links

www.linkresearchtools.com

http://backlinks.webmasterworld.com/google-backlink-tool-penguin-disavow/

SEO Diagnostics Best Practices

1. Reduce barriers to entry for search spiders2. Check diagnostic issues weekly 3. Monitor your key snippets4. Monitor your links and link changes5. Monitor paid and organic optimization6. Monitor keywords ranking and not performing

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Part 6:Getting the Best Results In Search Through Effective Copywriting and Optimized Social Media Content

Writing for search… oh joy!

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The Web is Task Oriented

• The consumer is no longer surfing the Web aimlessly; They are on a quest to find, do or buy something!

• Success on the Web is achieved when your site is focused on getting visitors to engage

And the actions visitors take is the ultimate measure of your sites success

Optimization Blend

Searcher

Business Goals/Content

Search Engine

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Optimization Blend

Searcher

Business Goals/Content

Search Engine

The Reality: An Imperfect Fit

“If it can be searched on, it can be optimized for better marketing performance.”

Lee Odden

Copywriting = ContentOptimized Copywriting = Searchable Content

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RELEVANCE

Ensuring that your pages are relevant to the query by placing keywords in locations that send strong signals to the search engines.

Relevance Questions

• Do your on-page elements align with the search industry’s understanding of the algorithm scoring model as represented by accepted best practices?

• Is the desired keyword included on the page? • Is keyword included in key elements on page like title

and heading?• Is the keyword phrase used in the body copy?• Is the content engaging? • Does the content encourage the next step?

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Content Is King

• Feed the Spiders– Content is the food of search engine spiders. – Keywords integrated into the page helps the spider to understand

the topic and relevance of the page.

• Opening Paragraph– The first 25 words on a page are important to search engines as they

begin to formulate an idea about what the page is about. – If there is interesting content at the beginning the user will be more

compelled to dig deeper. Start general and get specific.

How a user sees a website

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How a spider sees the site

Spiders ONLY care about the text and information on the page. They are not humans – they don’t interpret they only gather and segment patterns.

• Identify 1‐2 most important keywords• Front load headline with Primary Keyword• Use keywords in headings, subheads and

throughout the copy• Add links to keywords

• TIP: Think about what people are going to type into a search to find your page. Make sure those keywords are on that page.

– Matt Cutts, Head of Google Web Spam Team

Keywords

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Optimal Keyword Locations Illustrated

Overlay Source: SEO xRay from SEO for FireFox tool bar

Optimize Templates for Scale & Global Reach

Sony.de

Sony.fr

Etc.

Page Title and Meta Data recommendations

Fully indexable navigation?

Ensure all parts of the page are indexable

Correct use of Header tags

Can search engine’s follow all of the links?

Enhancement of cross-links to distribute link equity

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Title Tag: Your Secret Weapon• Every page should have a unique title• Each unique title is built around target phrase for that page

– This will be a two or three word phrase– “Keep it short, attractive and enticing.– Relevance and Clickability

• Most important phrase as far to the left as possible– <title>Absolut Raspberri – Raspberry Flavored Vodka</title>– <title>Laptop Computers – Dell</title>

Relevance Best Practices

1. Keyword phrase in far left of title tag2. <H1> heading tag includes primary keyword phrase3. Emphasize the primary keyword early in the content

and include secondary phrases as you write4. Create strong and relevant content

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Titles Serve a Dual Purpose<title> ABSOLUT RASPBERRI - Raspberry Flavored Vodka </title>

Page Headings• Search engines consider Page Headings and related sub-headings

to be important signals.

• Headings act like a Table of Contents with sections and subsections.

• Each page should have one main header tag marked as <H1> and may be followed by subdivision with <H2>

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Not Spam, But Bad for Rankings• Splash pages, content‐less home page, Flash intros• Title tags the same across the site• Error pages in the search results (e.g., “Session expired”)

• "Click here" links• Superfluous text like “Welcome to” at beginning of titles

• Spreading site across multiple domains (usually for load balancing).

• Content too many levels deep

Optimized Copywriting Steps

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• Bullets• Short paragrapha• Easy reading• Lists• Break it up with headings

Page Format/Style

• What do you want them to do? • Ask for the sale

• You need to tell your searcher exactly what to do, how to do it, and that you want them to do it right now.

Add Calls to action

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• Write for your target audience• Most important above the fold – for

websites/blogs• At least 250‐300 words ‐more is better• Break up copy with bold headings

Optimizing Guidelines

Page Level Audits

• Identify all of the elements which are preventing the page from ranking for the desired keywords

• Compare your page to top ranking pages t id tif

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“THE” Cisco LAN Switches Page

1 mention of “lan switches”

Cisco vs. Top 3

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Snippet Optimization

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Factors Influencing How We Search

1. Relatively little risk 2. We are impatient and easily

frustrated• 6.4 seconds before clicking on a link

3. There is a lot of information• Scan an average of 3.9 results• Assimilate an average of 140 words• Included in those words are between

35 to 60 factors and details we have to consider to make a decision

How Searchers Search

1. Develop query: 75% of searchers search on 3-word phrases – or more

2. Search and Scan: Searcher filters SERP listing through collection of words in their head – semantic filter

3. Click, Scan, Repeat: Click on the first link that resembles what they are looking for, scan your site and…

Engage with your site or go back to SERP

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Review your Snippet Periodically• Review your snippet periodically especially if you get low click through• if you don’t rank well use the following syntax to review: Keyword phrase site:yoururl.com

Anatomy of a Listing

• Link is pulled from the Title tag• Description comes from one of the

following– Compiled from content– Taken from Meta Description– Open Directory Listing– Anything else the engines can find (Alt,

navigation)

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Maximizing your Search Result Listing

• Description comes from one of the following:– Compiled from content on the page – Taken from Meta Description– Open Directory Listing– Anything else the engines can find (Alt, navigation) to form a snippet

• Optimize the Snippet by:

• Place keyword at the beginning of opening paragraph

• Place benefit statements near your main keyword phrases at the top of the page.

• When an engine takes a snippet for the SERP page, your description will boost your benefits.

• Pinterest– Encourage people to “Pin”– Offer compelling images– Pin new images to relevant

categories– Name images logically

Socializing, Optimizing and Copywriting

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• Twitter– Take time and write with the

purpose of getting RT– Use keywords and hashtags– Follow influencers and RT key

influencer tweets


• LinkedIn – Profiles and Updates– Use relative keywords in profile– Share updates with links to relative

news with your network


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1. Findable2. Readable3. Understandable4. Actionable5. Shareable

Not just any copy... great copy that makes great content

seo keyword research and content mapping

Technology

diabetes information

keyword prioritization

map keywords

priority words

keyword discovery

keyword research projects

juvenile diabetes

diabetes supply