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Slide 1: Joshua Sciarrino joshua@refugedesign.org CRASH COURSE IN SEO Tips and tools for promoting exposure to your website, via search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc)
Slide 2: Assumed Knowledge  What is:  Link  & Co-citation  Anchor Text  Keyword  Webpage  Website    Pages rank individually Basic HTML Optimization=Betterment Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN)
Slide 3: My Goal = Three Main Concepts (and two bonuses)   How many Search Engines do you need to optimize for? (ONE) What are some onpage/site tactics that safe (white hat)? (CONTENT)    What are some offpage tactics? (NETWORK/LINKS) 250$ Prize given to one attendee Gift to Chamber Members (FREE questionnaire PDF)
Slide 4: Outline of what IS Covered Answers to the following:  What is SEO?  What are Search Engines?  What are their market shares?  And how do they work?  On-site Optimization  Off-site Optimization  Non-direct SEO Efforts  List of Do’s and Don’ts  Hiring an SEO  Resources to learn more
Slide 5: Things NOT Covered in this Webinar     Search Engine History Extensive Details on Each Topic Black/Gray Hat Techniques          Web Analytics Email Marketing Pay Per Click Ads Web Advertising RSS Feeds Conversion Optimization Buying Links (with & without PR) 301/302 Redirects & 404 pages Vertical Optimization (Video, Images, etc) How to rank #1 in 3 days (run away, if you hear this from a ‘SEO’)  SEO ‘software’ (90% of it is wrong, or misinformation)   Sitemaps Nofollow, noindex, & other META tags
Slide 6: What is SEO? – Search Engine Optimization    Driving quality traffic to your website via Search Engines Strictly organic listing Has only been around since 1997(11 years!) It’s used as noun (John is a SEO) It’s used as a verb (I’m doing SEO)  It’s a confusing term to use.    It should be called ‘Increasing Search Engine Listings’ or ‘ISEL’ or ‘INSEL’ because it’s inbound marketing We are stuck with SEO, but it’s fine. 
Slide 7: What is SEO? – (cont.) SEO=Search Engine Optimization SEO=Organic Results SEO=5 times more effective than traditional media advertising (Source: ComScore, 2005-2008) Our Source: Hubspot
Slide 8: Search Engines – Who? How much? Search Engine Google Yahoo MSN Top 3 totals Others US 70% 20% 9% ~99% ~1-4% UK 88% ~7% ~6% ~95-100% ~0-5% Rest of the World 70% 20% 5-10% ~95-100% ~0-5% Exceptions Russia (31%), China (20%), Japan (27%) Japan (64%) None N/A N/A Sources: Hitwise 06-07; Compete.com 07-08; ComScore 07-08; Analysys International 08; MarketingVOX 06; 1ere Position 07; LiveInternet.ru 07; 50bang.com 07; Webcreate.ga-pro 08
Slide 9: Search Engines If you had a checklist of 10 Search Engines to market to, this is the break down: 1 = most urgent. 10 = least urgent. •Google is your main concern (1-7) •Yahoo is some concern (8-9) •MSN is last (10) •Others is 0. Source: Refuge Design 2008
Slide 10: Google – How does it work? 90% automated 10% manual editing Two Main Factors: 1.Pagerank™ 2.Text relevance Source: Google Pagerank™ or ‘PR™’ Inbound links, every link is NOT equal Anchor text Text Relevance Plain Text on a Webpage How it corresponds to the Website
Slide 11: Google Pagerank™ – It changed Search •Pagerank™ is off-page factors (links) •Each link counts as an editorial ‘vote’. •Each ‘vote’ has a different weight. •Quality Links + Quantity Links = high PR™ Example: If president-elect Obama says ‘John A. is a good guy’ that would carry more weight/impact than Mary, a stranger, saying ‘John A. is a bad guy’. Since Obama is more authoritative/popular.
Slide 12: Google Pagerank - Averages ™
Slide 13: Google - Text Relevance   Are the words on the page? Are those words in the title, h1, h2, and other indicators as the topic Used cars in Florida Golfing in the UK My Used Cars
Slide 14: Google Manual 10% editing Ways Manual edits occur    Matt Cutts hears about your paid links A major flaw is exposed (Ex: George Bush ranking for ‘miserable failure’) Your competitors reported you for breaking Google’s TOS (terms of service) Source: Refuge Design 2008
Slide 15: Things to note  Google, Yahoo!, and MSN are NOT the government. They don’t control US, UK, nor any nation’s laws.   All three can have a major impact on your website traffic (and revenues). It’s best to abide by their rules, to insure higher ROI for your site.
Slide 16: Yahoo! & MSN  Yahoo! has Trustrank™ which starts from 200 seed sites and the closer you are to the top 200, the better you are.    MSN is stuck in the 1990’s Yahoo might be in early 2000’s Together have 30% market share
Slide 17: Differences between G vs. Y/MSN  Google doesn’t highly favor on-page unless it has a high Pagerank ™  (relevant and authoritative links)   Yahoo/MSN favors on-page more Google has many spam filters  Yahoo/MSN are easier to ‘domain game’ Google highly favors co-citation and anchor text (plus ~100 other factors)
Slide 18: Simple Put – Only One To Optimize for now   Currently Google is the only search engine to really optimize for. Typically people say ‘I can rank in Yahoo/MSN but Google I have trouble’   Google has 70% of the share everywhere This might change 2 years from now but there aren’t major differences between Search Engines.
Slide 19: Time to Announce the WINNER of 250$ Pick One!!! Rewardin g Good Behavior (The desire to learn) Congrats!!! Sources: www.ferndave.com/ccc/ & http://thefuntimesguide.com/2008/04/cmt_music_awards_2008.php & http://www.sizzledcore.com/2008/07/16/apple-ipod-touch-firmware-115-released/ & http://www.breakitdownblog.com/iphone-review-part-1-of-3/
Slide 20: The General Concepts to Search Engine Optimization How to and How Not to do Search Engine Optimization
Slide 21: STEPS to do SEO (white hat seo)  On-Page/Site  Keyword  Off-site Optimization  Research  Keyword Placement  Site architecture  Content Creation  Internal Linking Link Building (large topic)  Viral Content  Widgets/Quizzes  Reciprocal Links  Guest Posting
Slide 22: Keyword Research & LongTail    Start “wise” (Research) Continue “wise” (Brainstorm)  Rince and repeat   Use tools and your brain.  Google Adwords, Keyword Discovery, and WordTracker Examples: Dog Vs. Dogs How to feed a dog? Cleaning a dog vs. How to clean a dog? Great Dog Collars for x type dogs   LongTail is 3+ words together 85% of Traffic is in the Long Tail If you were #1 for the top 10,000 terms, you’d only get 18.5% of all searched traffic Source: Hitwise Study, Nov. 08
Slide 23: Content Creation   Blog Posts Industry-Related Articles Industry-Related News Linkbait Funny Images         Great Videos Quizzes Contests Free Stuff Widgets Source: SEOmoz
Slide 24: On-page Optimization – Keyword Placement Source: FashionMista  SERPS Show: Title tag of page Meta Description URL  #1: Title Tag & Meta Description H1,H2, etc; Alt tags of images; Bold; A few times on the page Source: SEOmoz
Slide 25: On-site Optimization – Architecture and Internal Linking    Source: SEOmoz Site Architecture (Navigation, Search Box?, breadcrumb, tag cloud, etc) Internal Linking (high priority, big issue) Don’t use ‘home’ for homepage link (use short phrase keyword)
Slide 26: Don’ts to On-site Optimization  Keyword Stuff  Hide Text, Links  Cloak (show something different to users than the Search Engines)  Target same word on different pages  Have same Title tag on multiple pages  Waste Time Submitting to Search Engine’s  Spread your content over multiple domains (blog, company, affiliate)  Links in Javascript  Site in Flash   Putting a page in iFrames   Worry about a sitemap (case-by-case)
Slide 27: Do’s to On-site Optimization  Sprinkle Keywords throughout the page  Blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just write!!!  Be Transparent without revealing nitty-gritty details  Be Humble and Be Honest  Be consistent. Two-Three times a week  Love what you do (Passionate)  Be Creative  Be willing to make mistakes  TRY new things  Most Important; BE YOURSELF
Slide 28: Link Building  1st make sure site is complete and no ‘under construction’ pages are on the site       Directory Submission (Paid and Industry relative) Article Syndication Press Release Syndication Social Bookmarking Blog/Forum commenting     Be relational with Industry related sites Guest Blog Post Industry-related widgets Contests & Free gifts Be Creative 
Slide 29: Don’ts to Off-site Optimization  Don’t buy links with follow attribute  Don’t partake in excessive link exchanges  Don’t use link farms  Don’t have the same anchor text to one page.  Don’t get links from totally unrelevant places (no porn, pills, poker, unless that’s your niche)  If you make a badge, don’t lie about the backlink. (E.g. If the image says ‘x’ don’t make the link say ‘y’.)  Don’t be scared of Google (just be aware of their TOS and obey, you’ll be fine)  Don’t be hesitant.
Slide 30: Do’s to Off-site Optimization  Focus on Contributing Quality Content (via blogging, linkbait, widgets, etc)  Quality Content doesn’t rule, Quality & Contributing Content does!  Reciprocal Links (Just don’t over do it)  Directory Submission  Article Syndication  Social Media promotion (via Digg, Slashdot, DesignFloat, etc)  Press Release & Syndication  Contribute to Industry Related Blogs & Forums  Use natural anchor text (http://example.com, click here, company name, etc)
Slide 31: List of SEO Resources  Read books  SEObook  SEOmoz  articles  Subscribe to RSS feeds  Sphinn, SEOmoz, & Eric Ward (my top 3) Join a forum & ask/listen  Cre8asite forums  High Rankings  Digital Point  SEO book  Webmaster World
Slide 32: BONUS: How to Hire An SEO Source: HulaSoftware “In-house SEO’s who consulted an SEO 3rd party increase traffic by 73%” Source: Marketing Sherpa 2007
Slide 33: Hiring an SEO (Third party person/company) Take This Serious By:       Acting as if the ‘SEO’ were being interviewed for a job at your company. Being familiar with Search Engine Guidelines Testing the ‘SEO’ on their knowledge. Get a feel for them, are they White Hat? Gray? Black? Do they sound honest? Call up their case studies or companies that are in their portfolio. DON’T take this lightly, this is a million dollar decision for your company. I’m not kidding Important: Always start with Google, Yahoo!, and MSN’s guidelines. Skim through SearchEngineLand or another Search Engine News website and the past month’s articles and look for ‘bad practices’ and ask the ‘SEO’ their opinion on these ‘bad practices’. Chamber Member, don’t forget to look in your mailbox, we will send you a questionnaire for when you want to outsource.
Slide 34: Most Important – Your Feedback    Refuge Design wants your feedback on the presentation. Rate the presentation 1-10 How can we make better it?  If you provide feedback, we will give you 2-3 SEO suggestions for YOUR personal website (delivered within 2 weeks of receiving)
Slide 35: Example Feedback (Bad=General; Good=Specific [answer WHY]) BAD FEEDBACK  To Joshua, I loved the webinar. Nothing to improve on, rate 10.  To Joshua, I hated it, do better next time, rate 2  To Joshua, I didn’t like it but I learned stuff, rate 5.  GOOD FEEDBACK  To Joshua, I like the webinar because you provided resources at the end, rate 7 (I gave you a 7 because I didn’t like ustream’s functions and it was confusing but I liked the content of your webinar, good job.)  To Joshua, I didn’t like the webinar, Ustream caused my PC to crash, and I missed out on the prize, rate 1 (I gave you a 1 because too many issues with watching the webinar on Ustream and I was fustrated and angry).
Slide 36: Contact Me – Refuge Design – Joshua Sciarrino  Email: JOSHUA@REFUGEDESIGN.ORG  Twitter: http://twitter.com/joshuaseo  Phone: Joshua Sciarrino (Sure-Reno) Cell: 727-366-6474 joshua@refugedesign.org 727-366-6474  Skills: SEO/PPC, Reputation Management, Email Marketing, Web Analytics  Specials: 500$ entry for SEO services