SEO Toolkit – Part 2: On-Site Changes. SEO Has 3 Main Legs: Copyright 2010 - 2011, Subscription Site Insider a division of Anne Holland Ventures, Inc

SEO Toolkit – Part 2: On-Site Changes

SEO Has 3 Main Legs:

Copyright 2010 - 2011, Subscription Site Insider a division of Anne Holland Ventures, Inc. All rights reserved.

Your Site

Keywords

Inbound Links

Today’s Topic: Your SiteYour Site

Inbound Links

Keywords

Today’s Topic: Your Site


Luckily, you can change your site’s design forbetter SEO fairly easily.

Here are the basics…

Part I: How Search Bots (aka Spiders)“See” Your Site


Example Paywall Page:


As Seen by Google


Yeah, It’s Text-Focused


Plus, if anything requires a mouse-overto see… the bot won’t see it. - Bots don’t run Javascript.- Bots mostly don’t “see” Flash.

Lastly, Bots ONLY follow text links.

Get a Bot-View of Your Site


Part II: URLs & Title Tags


URLs (It’s About Words)


Use keywords in URLs (not page numbers)

Keep under: 7-10 words/ 70 characters

Hyphens are the best way to separate words

Avoid session-specific gobbledygook URLs (bots don’t

crawl with cookies)

(Bots don’t use cookies)

Title Tags


HUGELY Important. Do NOT: -> Use generic words instead of keywords. -> Begin titles with your site/brand name (except for Home) -> Use the same exact title on two or more pages.

Example Good Title Tag


Part II: Textual Content


Your Brand’s Tagline


Worst practice:

Search Bots can’t read text rendered as an image.

This sub site’s tagline is invisible to bots.

Is yours too?

Headlines (aka H1 Tags)


Get some search bot attention.

If a headline doesn’t have a keyword in it – it’s wasted.

Often used by blogging platforms to create SEO-friendly page URLs .

Bad example ->

Body Copy


Also very important.

Put keywords in the first 100 words. Closer to the start, the better.

Use multiple variations of keywords (ie. Bike vs. Bicycle.)

Keyword Density


You can have too much of a good thing. Search engines will penalize your site if you overuse keywords in your content. Repeated keywords should make up no more than 3% of each page’s content

Easy way to measure it? Use a free keyword density tool like: www.keyworddensity.com www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html www.SEOquake.com

Image Captions


Don’t forget them!

Bots look for text close to the image to decide what it’s about.

Image File Names + Alt Tags


Alt tags are used in HTML code to describe a photo. Be sure to use keywords in the file name of your photo and your Alt tags for maximum SEO value.

Example for this report photo: <img width=”500” height=”360” src=”report-cover.jpg”alt=”benchmark report”>

Better Example: <img width=”500” height=”360” src=”subscription-membership-site-report.jpg”alt=”subscription membership site benchmark report”>

Part III: Internal Links & Navigation


Text Wording Matters

Copyright 2010- 2011, Subscription Site Insider a division of Anne Holland Ventures, Inc. All rights reserved.

Search Bots read anchor text to figure out what keywords your link is relevant for.

Example anchor text

Actual link

Click Here = Too Generic


Don’t use Read more, Continue, or Click here for anchor text alone without other keywords!

Links Per Page Rules


Rule #1. >100Google bots typically won’t crawl more than 100 links per page (unless you are really important)

Rule #2. Fewer Links = A lot BetterFewer links per page = the bots “value” per link.

Rule #3. Nav bars, breadcrumbs, footers, blogrolls, & tagclouds may all count as links!So your typical site page probably has more than you think.

So…


You may need to hide or eliminate some links to make your important-for-SEO links more valuable.

Too many links!


Bots probably aren’t delightedly valuing these. Only use if your human visitors find significant value in them.

Navigation


Horizontal vs. vertical : Doesn’t matterSearch engines rank all nav bars equally

… but footers are ranked with less importance.

Site Map


Great SEO idea

Best practice: use an XML auto-generated sitemap that bots like.

Free info at:http://www.sitemaps.org

http://www.sitemaps.org/

Breadcrumbs


Great SEO idea

As long as they contain keywords.

Body Copy Links


Great SEO idea

Just keep it well under 100 links (including everything else on the page.)

+ avoid generically-worded links.

Buttons


Critical Rule:Use CSS.(Otherwise search bots can’t “click” on buttons)

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Part IV: Paywalls


Bots Don’t See Behind Paywalls


Old tricks to allow bots, but not people, behind paywalls in are strongly discouraged. Search engines like Google have policies against what's known as “cloaking”: showing one web page to the spider that indexes it but then a different page to a user.

But there is a “legal” way to get a bot behind your paywall…

First Click Free


Google First Click Free allows the Google spider to index content behind their paywall, then allow users who find one of those articles through Google News or Google Search to see the full page without requiring them to register or subscribe. Publishers can allow up to five free clicks per day.

More info: www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=40543

http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=40543

http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=40543

Paywalls = SEO Power


Bots prefer sites with many, many relevant pages on a particular topic.Bots can’t see barriered pages … but they can see paywalls! So, publish a different, ‘bot-friendly paywall for each piece of content behind the barrier.

Avoid Generic Paywalls


Keyword-Loaded Paywall


Paywall Page Titles


Program your site to show a unique title on each paywall page. Users should land on a paywall page with the title of the page they were searching for…Helps with SEO and with conversions.

Keyword-Rich Teasers


Besides the article title, the teaser paragraph which is technically “outside” the paywall is your most important element for SEO. Fill it with keywords!

Part V: Other Page Elements


Social Media Share Buttons


Search engine experts such as SEOMoz have found a likely correlation between how often a piece of content is shared with social media buttons and higher search engine ranking.

Google launched the +1 button to have its own way to measure social popularity.

Consider whether your audience would utilize share buttons or test it out.

Social Media Text Links


Text links can sometimes be more effective than share buttons as a social media call to action. Test them on your site.

Comments Count!


Google’s recent algorithm change, called Panda or Farmer, gives more weight to reader comments.

Be sure to allow comments on Your free content and include a call to action like “What do you think?” at the end of blog posts.

MODERATE

Additional Resources from


Links to Our Entire SEO Toolkit including:

Part 1: Keyword ResearchPart 2: On-Site ChangesPart 3: Building Inbound LinksChecklist: SEO for Subscription Sites

Can be found at:www.subscriptionsiteinsider.com/members/446.cfm

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SEO Toolkit – Part 2: On-Site Changes. SEO Has 3 Main Legs: Copyright 2010 - 2011, Subscription Site Insider a division of Anne Holland Ventures, Inc