Ethical Search Engine Optimization | White Hat SEO Tips and Techniques

Fundamentals of Ethical SEO

OptimizationCreative Fusion Media

Ethical SEO + Social Media Marketing

What is SEO?

• Search Engine Optimization

SEO is...“...the process of improving the volume and quality

of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" or "organic" search results.

To this end “SEO focuses on how search engines work and what people search for.”

Thanks Wikipedia

Why focus on SEO?

To be heard

To be found

The alternative is...

You might be wondering...

How Does Google Work?

• Wants to find best content for searchers

• Created by academic model

• Incoming links to a webpage is fundamental to the formula

So winning in Google

• Its about...quality, unique, audience centric content

• Its about creating relationships with your readers

• Its about creating relationships with other influential content creators (bloggers)

• Its about thinking like your users

• Checking out your competition

Google Rankings 101

• Great Content + Links = Winning

How do you create great content?

• Unique

• Audience centric

• Visual (pictures, photos, or diagrams)

• Technical, Personal, or both

• Community oriented

Unique Content

• Interviews

• Pillar Content

• Themed Content

• Interesting, new, quirky, unique

• Memes

Unique Content

• Best of “ “

• Step by step hacks

• Creative expression (poetry, video, pic)

• Project or Movement

• Identifying a nuance

• Secrets of, Top 10 Lists (magazine-like)

Unique Content

• Re-mix or new perspective. Transform

• Metaphor

• Story (how a bible verse effects you)

• Visual

• Resource

• Aggregation your best, the best, x best

Fundamentals of SEO

• Lets check out some examples....

Pillar Content Question:

• If I was a baptist mother or father, why would I link to this?

• If I was a baptist minister would I link to this?

• Is this unique? Is this moving?

• Is this a resource?

Examples of Content thats “Linkworthy”

• Colorful whitepapers (2-9 pages)

• How-to with pictures or video

• Colorful, original design

• Simplicity in design

• Funny cats

• Moving photography

Fundamentals of SEO

• Experiment. Check your visitor stats in 2 weeks or a month.

• Check your Technorati stats in 2 weeks or a month to see if you got links.

• Ask your audience.

Fundamental SEO Tips

• Create pillar content

• Check your stats and piggyback on existing content

• Knowing influential niche blogs and interacting

Fundamental SEO Tips

• Identify a core set of keywords that receive significant traffic.

• Long tail keyword vs. Fat Belly

• Recognize that people enter phrases

• Identify what you rank for

• Identify what your “competition” ranks for

Fundamentals of SEO

• Keyword research:

• Google keyword suggest is sufficient

• SEO Book Keyword tool

• Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, and Wordze are available. Wordtracker is the leader among professionals (each about $30-40 a month)

Fundamentals of SEO

• Linking out to quality sites (aka that Google trusts)

• Linking to your own related content

• 2 Ways: internal text citation and suggested reading or suggested resources (aka Bread crumbs)

Fundamentals of SEO

• Aaron Wall “Linking out is a form of marketing”

Fundamentals of SEO

• What is a trusted site?

• Trusted sites: DMOZ

• Or high in Google rankings

• Wikipedia, Amazon, Google, Yahoo

• Also .edu and .gov are trusted more

Fundamentals of SEO

• What Google pays the most attention to in the text

• Title

• H1, H2, H3

• Bolding

• Italics

Fundamentals of SEO

• Anchor text, anchor text, anchor text

• Anchor text, anchor text, anchor text

• Anchor text, anchor text, anchor text

Fundamentals of SEO

• What is anchor text?

Fundamentals of SEO

• Deep linking, deep linking, deep linking

• Deep linking, deep linking, deep linking

• Deep linking, deep linking, deep linking

Fundamentals of SEO

• What does deep linking mean?

• Attempt to link to specific URL destination of generic URL

• Best for SEO and usability

• Why? Increased specificity of landing

Fundamentals of SEO

• One key thing to keep in mind: [moderate] siloification.

• There is a little debate over this topic, but I’ve seen the results.

• Easy way: Create link rings/circles

Fundamentals of SEO

•Ranking factors study (available @ SEOMoz)

Fundamentals of SEO

• No follow to contact page and other low value pages

• No follow to the competition (debateable)

• “Rel = no follow” in href < >

Fundamentals of SEO

•Like Ice into an Ice Tray

Fundamentals of SEO

• For photos use dashes instead of spaces (ie “social-media-specialist”)

Fundamentals of SEO

• Universal search

• Google Maps/Local Business

• Videos

• News

• Images (?)

Fundamentals of SEO

• Social Bookmarking

• Squidoo, Hubpages, Work

• Slideshare

• Google Knols

• Other platforms like Wikis + Wordpress

Fundamentals of SEO

• Trusted directory submission = Decent

• SPAM directory submission = BAD

• Article marketing/Submission = OK

• PR Release (free + paid options)

Fundamentals of SEO

• Anchor text, anchor text, anchor text

• Anchor text, anchor text, anchor text

• Anchor text, anchor text, anchor text

Monitoring Rankings

• Free tools like:

• Rank Checker

• SEO Digger (freemium)

• Paid tools:

• SEO Moz ($80 a month)

• Solo SEO ($25 a month)

What is Reputation Management?

• How your brand shows up in key brand word searches

• For instance ego surfing = searching for your brand

• Includes your organization + people

Reputation Management

• Part of online branding

• Listening for organization, issues, and people (e-mail, RSS, Filtrbox)

• Use of social media sites (Twitter, Friend Feed, Stumbleupon)

• Guns a blaz’n style pre-emptive reputation management could backfire as new news is released

Fundamentals of SEO

• Keywords in URL Name (ie faithandpublicpolicy)

• Keywords in Title, H1, H2, H3, Bold

• Related Keywords in Article Content

• Keywords in Anchor text of incoming/onsite links

• Incoming Links (Quality and Number)

• Outgoing Links to trusted sources

• Keywords in tagging

• Keywords in picture title and alt attributes

Fundamentals of SEO

• Let unique, interesting, and engaging and audience centric content determine what gets published.

• (and of course Godly prayer + submission)

Fundamentals of SEO

• How do I find my backlinks?

• How do I find my competitors backlinks?

• How do I find subject hub backlinks?

• Link Diagnosis (The Doctor is In)

Fundamentals of SEO

•“Sticky” Content

Fundamentals of SEO

•Great writing

•+ keywords

•+ relationships/links

Fundamentals of SEO

•Write for humans, not search engines

Fundamentals of SEO

• Listening

• Your audience (crowd sourcing)

• Your web analytics (ie top posts, top comments)

• Thought leaders (Technorati, Alltop)

• Keywords

Fundamentals of SEO

• Create pillar authority content.

• Builds trust.

• Builds audience.

• Builds links when marketed well.

Fundamentals of SEO

• Create original content

• This can mean: remixing it, aggregating, or picking a new metaphor, story, or historical reference to related it to and sticking a relevant

Fundamentals of SEO

• Add a conversational, community, social, audience participation, or question element

Fundamentals of SEO

• Make it easy to join your email list and to subscribe to sub-areas of content

Fundamentals of SEO

• Make it easy to share your content

Fundamentals of SEO

•Create link bait & list bait

Future for Google Search

• Personalization!!!

• Thanksgiving weekend launched Search-wiki

• Allowed you to rank up or down

• Allowed you to leave personal comments

Google Trends :Who cares?

Web Analytics

• Golden Three Questions from Avinash:

• What is the purpose of your visit to our website today?

• Were you able to complete your task today?

• If you were not able to complete your task today, why not?

Web Analytics

• Avinash Web Analytics Guru:

• Where is your traffic coming from?

• Forget about your homepage, your top 50 (your top 15) are your new landing page.

• 2% conversion is really good

• Multivariate testing (Google Webmaster tools) is almost mandatory

• 3 Golden Questions

Ethical SEO Basics

•Ready for a review???

Review....

• What is SEO?

• What are the 2 to 3 core components of SEO?

• What main factors does Google look to determine ranking?

• SEO fundamental strategies?

Where can I find SEO resources?

• Google keyword tool

• Link Diagnosis

• SEO Quake for Firefox (Backlinks, PR, and KW Density)

• Dave Naylor Keyword Density

• SEO Moz: Ranking Factors Study

• Aaron Wall : SEO for Bloggers

• Aaron Wall : SEO for Non-profits

• Aaron Wall: Work Guide

Thank you....

Questions?

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