Getting started-with-seo-web-gnomes

Getting Started with

SEO The Definitive Beginner’s Guide

© 2012 Web Gnomes, LLC (http://www.webgnomes.org) 2

This book from Web Gnomes provides an introduction to search engine optimization (SEO). It is designed to help non-technical people understand and implement basic SEO techniques. Why Is SEO Important? According to Google, 97% of consumers do research online before buying. SEO enables prospective customers to find your website when they are looking for products or services that you offer. Without SEO, your wonderful site is like a treasure buried on a desert island. Only the person with a map will be able to find it (if that!). Who Should Read this Book? This book is for anybody who either has a website or is thinking about creating a website and wants to make sure the website is successful:

• Entrepreneurs • Non-Profit Leaders • Bloggers • Marketing Managers

Do you fit this description? If yes, read on! (Or quit at your own risk…) NOTE: If you are looking for a get-rich-fast book, you have downloaded the wrong eBook. However, if you stick with us, you will find lots of tips for building long-term value through reputable SEO techniques.

INTRODUCTION

All websites can benefit from SEO!


What Does this Book Cover? We wrote this book to be short, simple, and fluff-free. After reading this book you will have a better understanding of SEO and know how to improve your website to start climbing the search engine rankings. Here are the main things you will learn: How Search Engines Work Not the scary technical details, but just enough to help the search engines find and read your website. How to Optimize Your Website There are several techniques available to boost your website as a whole. How to Optimize a Webpage This section covers techniques involved in optimizing a specific page for a specific keyword phrase. How to Build Links Links from other sites have a big impact on ranking. This section provides tips on how to get those links. How to Leverage Social Media Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ can all help with SEO. Find out how to make the most of these social networks. How to Measure SEO Find out how customers are arriving at your site and which keywords they used to get there.

Let’s get started!


HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK

Search engines are software programs designed to return relevant information in response to a given keyword or keyword phrase. The top five search engines are (click for source): Google Sites: 65.3% Yahoo Sites: 15.5% Microsoft Sites: 14.7% Ask Network: 3% AOL, Inc: 1.5% All the search engines have so-called robots (aka “spiders” or “crawlers”) that spend all day and all night traversing (or “crawling”) the Internet to find new information. They get from page to page by following webpage links.

The robots store new information they find on big servers using a process called indexing. By indexing the content, the search engines can more easily retrieve it later.

Keyword Phrase: One or more words, which are used by users to search for information on search engines Bing & Yahoo: As of 2010, the Yahoo search engine is replaced with the Bing search engine. Robot (“Bot”): A software program that traverses the Internet to find and index new content. Indexing: A technique for increasing speed of data retrieval in databases.

Follow the links…


When an online user enters a search query into the search box, the search engine uses an algorithm to determine relevancy and ranking.

Relevancy means looking at only the content that is relevant to the given keyword phrase (e.g. returning pages that talk about dog grooming for the query “dog grooming”). Ranking means displaying those results with the most relevant result at the top. Thanks to crawling and indexing, search engines are able to determine relevancy and serve up ranked webpages in a matter of milliseconds:

This makes users happy. The rest of this book will take you through the various techniques for helping the search engines find and index your content as well as some of the things Google looks at when determining relevancy and ranking.

(Now you know as much as you need to know about how search engines work!)

Search Query: The keyword phrase that a user enters into the search field. Algorithm: A set of rules to compute the answer to a question. (E.g. what is the most relevant page for “dog grooming?”) Google’s algorithm is top secret.

“Relevancy means looking at only the content that is relevant to the given keyword phrase.”


A Note About Organic vs. Paid Search Results The search results we discuss in this book are so called “Organic Search Results” (or “Natural Search Results”). Organic search results are determined entirely by the relevance algorithms described above. Nobody can pay Google or Bing to have their site appear higher in the organic search results. Ranking is completely dependent on implementing a good SEO strategy. Search engines make money by selling advertising that shows up in the search results. These are referred to as “Paid Search Results.” Paid search results can help with click-through-rate (CTR), and running paid advertising campaigns can help quickly to determine which keywords work and which do not. See below screenshot to see how Google presents organic vs. paid search results (ad space is highlighted in red):

You can see that paid advertising takes up a big portion of the screen. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t spend time on SEO. They work together.

Learn more about organic search results here: http://www.webgnomes.org/blog/organic-search-results/


In this chapter, we will cover the most important techniques for making sure that search engines can easily crawl your site and other key site-level best practices.

HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR WEBSITE

Your Domain Matters Your domain is your base address on the Internet. For example www.webgnomes.org. Here are some things to keep in mind about your domain: 1. The older, the better: If you have an existing

domain and are thinking about changing it, think twice. The search engines prefer older domains to newer ones.

2. Keep it short and sweet: Really long domain names are difficult for people to remember.

3. Target a keyword: Your domain is a great place to target one of your keyword phrases. This may be your company name, a specific brand, or even a given product. Make sure it matches closely what your website is about.

4. Register domain for several years: Search engines take you more seriously if it seems like you are committed to your domain. Your domain registration should be at least two years out.

Domain: A domain name is a string of characters representing an IP resource. Domain names are easier for humans to remember than a set of numbers. Introducing Yoast: If you use WordPress as your CMS, we suggest you use the Yoast SEO plugin: WordPress SEO Throughout this book, we will reference the Yoast plugin and how it can help you with SEO.

Action Items: ü Register your domain (if you haven’t already) ü Include a keyword phrase in your domain (this

might be your company name or brand) ü Make sure you have paid for your domain to

be registered for at least two years in the future.


Canonical Homepage This is not as scary as it sounds. The main thing you need to know here is that http://www.yoursite.com is not the same as http://yoursite.com. You want one to redirect to the other in order to avoid duplicate content issues.

Website Load Times Users don’t like to wait for slow-loading pages. Neither do search engines. Make sure your hosting service is good and don’t bog your pages down with too many large images and videos to load. Selecting a good web host is one important aspect of ensuring good performance. A few of the currently top-rated web hosts include: iPage – “Affordable Web Hosting” FatCow – “Udderly Fantastic Web Hosting” justhost.com – “The Last Hosting Plan You’ll Ever Need” GoDaddy – “Domains, Websites & Everything in Between!” (See: http://www.consumer-rankings.com/hosting/)

Gnome Tip! Learn more about how to set up a canonical homepage: http://www.webgnomes.org/blog/avoiding-duplicate-content/

Gnome Tip! Check your website load time here: http://www.iwebtool.com/speed_test

Action Items: ü Test to make sure that you have a canonical homepage. E.g. if your site

has www.yoursite.com as the canonical homepage, when you enter “yoursite.com,” it should redirect to www.yoursite.com.

ü If redirects are not working properly, check out the blog post for tips on how to resolve the issue.

ü Check your website load time and make sure it’s at an acceptable speed. Try to keep it under 3 seconds.


Google Webmaster Tools Google provides a set of tools to help webmasters with SEO called Google Webmaster Tools (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/). Here are some of the features Google Webmaster Tools provides: • Information about how Google sees your website (includes crawling and

indexing metrics). • A list of sites that link to your webpages. • Search data related to keywords used to find your site and how many

people clicked on your site when it appeared in the search results. (See screenshot below.)

• Ability to set up alerts to find out when Google finds malware on your site or encounters other problems such as missing pages.

• Sitemap submission (see below). Signing up for Google Webmaster Tools is easy. Follow these three steps to get started:

1. Sign in with your Google account at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

2. Click the “ADD A SITE” button and enter the main URL of your site (e.g. http://www.webgnomes.org)

3. Verify that you own the site (follow the detailed instructions on the Webmaster Tools website)

It may take a few days to weeks before you start seeing information about your site. Be patient. It’s worth the wait!


Bing Webmaster Tools Bing also provides tools for web masters at www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster. You can access this site with your Windows LiveID.

Bing Webmaster Tools provides similar capabilities to Google Webmaster Tools and presents the data in three main categories: • Pages Crawled • Pages Indexed • Traffic Information (Impressions, Clicks, and

Rank by keyword phrase) Like Google, Bing allows you to submit an XML sitemap (see below) to improve your chances of being crawled and indexed. Signing up for Bing Webmaster Tools is easy. Follow these three steps to get started:

1. Sign in with your Windows LiveID at http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster.

2. Click the “Add Site” button and enter your main website URL.

3. Verify ownership (follow the instructions online). We recommend option #1, “Place an XML file on your web server.”

As with Google, it may take a few days to weeks before you start seeing information about your site.

Impressions: The number of times a link to your web page appears on another web page. In this case, in the Bing search results. Clicks: The number of times a user of the search engine clicks on your link. Click-Through-Rate (CTR): The number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. Rank: The relative position in the search results.


Generate and Submit Sitemaps to the Search Engines A sitemap is a map of your website. There are two types of sitemaps:

• HTML - for users on your website • XML - for search engines

This section is about the XML sitemap, which is simply a list of the webpages (URLs) that you want the search engines to crawl. Generate a Sitemap There are multiple sites on the Internet that will generate a sitemap for your website. We recommend www.xml-sitemaps.com.

If you are using WordPress and the Yoast plugin, Yoast will automatically create an XML sitemap for you. It will be called <your domain>/sitemap_index.xml. Submit Your Sitemap to Google Follow these steps to submit your XML sitemap on Google Webmaster Tools:

1. Sign in to your account at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/. 2. Select your website by clicking on the link. 3. Select Site Configuration -> SItemap in the menu on the left side of the

page. 4. Click “Submit a Sitemap.” 5. Enter the name of your sitemap file and click “Submit Sitemap.”

Gnome Tip! For detailed instructions on how to generate a sitemap, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-QV44GoBdo

Gnome Tip! You can also watch this video to learn how to submit your sitemap to Google: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx6pvEQBV-s


Submit Your Sitemap to Bing Follow these steps to submit your XML sitemap on Bing Webmaster Tools:

1. Sign in to your account at https://www.bing.com/webmasters/. 2. Select your website by clicking on the link. 3. Select “Sitemaps (XML, Atom, RSS)” under “CRAWL” in the menu on the

left side of the page. 4. Click “Add Feed.” 5. Enter the name of your sitemap file and click “Submit.”

Gnome Tip! You can also watch this video to learn how to submit your sitemap to Bing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_KEuzXXsD4

Action Items: ü Create a Google Webmaster Tools account

(http://www.google.com/webmasters/) and submit your website. ü Create a Bing Webmaster Tools account

(www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster) and submit your website. ü Generate a sitemap for your website. ü Submit your sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. ü Submit your sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools.


Crawling/Indexing Tips You have some control over which pages the search engines (at least the legitimate ones) crawl. This section will cover two options: Robots.txt Robots.txt is a text file that is placed in your top-level directory on your Web server. Use robots.txt to block search engines from indexing specific directories or pages. Robots.txt - Allow access to all pages: User-agent: *

Disallow:

Robots.txt - Remove access to all pages: User-agent: *

Disallow: /

Robots.txt - Remove access to all pages in /support directory: User-agent: *

Disallow: /support

Robots.txt - Remove access to specific page in /support directory: User-agent: *

Disallow: /support/index.html NOTE: This does not prevent the URL of a given page to be indexed if other pages refer to that URL. Why would you want to exclude certain pages from the crawlers? It depends on what you store on your servers. In a lot of cases, you would want the crawlers to access everything.


NoIndex Meta Tag Add the noindex meta tag to pages you don’t want indexed. If Google sees this, they will drop the URL from their search results completely (even if other pages link to it). Here is an example of the noindex meta tag (goes in the <head> section of your page): <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> Some examples of pages you would not want to be indexed are search results pages and other auto-generated content.

Action Items: ü Check your website to see if you have a robots.txt ü If you do have a robots.txt file, make sure it has the correct settings to

ensure the search engines can find the webpages you want them to find. ü If you do not have a robots.txt file, consider creating one, even if you don’t

want to block the search engines. ü Add the noindex meta tag to webpages you don’t want indexed, e.g.

search results pages and other auto-generated pages.


Website Design and User Experience The layout and general design of your website has a significant impact on SEO. There are several reasons:

1. A flat, intuitive navigation helps search engines index your pages quickly. 2. Properly naming your menu items and linking them to pages with the

same names helps both search engines and human users understand what your site is about and how to navigate through it.

3. Humans enjoy a well-designed, easy-to-use website and are more likely to link to it if they can find what they need. (You will find out later in this book that links are awesome for SEO!)

A Note About HTML It is important to follow the latest HTML best practices. If you are using a CMS such as WordPress, you don’t have to worry much about this.

User Experience Checklist This book is not a user experience book, but since it is an important for SEO, we’ve provided a list of key things to look for in your site to help determine the usability (for a comprehensive report, consider investing in a user experience review):

ü New user can determine what the website is about in 5 seconds. ü Website is aesthetically pleasing. ü Organization’s logo is clearly displayed and links to homepage. ü New user can easily find and understand the main navigation (menu). ü Navigation labels are clear and concise. ü User can easily find information about the organization. ü User can easily locate the “Contact Us” information. ü User can find company phone number and email. ü Testimonials/Case Studies are present, if applicable. ü Privacy policy is in place if collecting user information. ü Site search is easy to access. ü Avoid pop-ups and other non-user initiated actions. ü Pages function as designed and are error tolerant. ü Webpages are efficient to use (e.g. registration form).

Gnome Tip! You can check the quality of your site’s HTML here: http://validator.w3.org/unicorn/


Avoid Duplicate Content Ah, duplicate content - the archenemy of SEOs across the globe. But what is duplicate content? Duplicate content is content that is the same (or similar) on multiple webpages within your site. This is bad, because the search engines may get confused about which content is the original (or canonical) and not know which version to show. Here are the main sources of duplicate content:

• www vs. non-www homepage (see page 8) • Multiple domains with the same content • CMS-generated archives • Mobile-friendly pages • Printer-friendly pages.

So what do I need to do about it? 301 Redirects 301 HTML redirects is the best way to redirect one page to another. This is one option for resolving the duplicate content issue.

NOTE: There is also a WordPress plugin to help you with redirects: http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/ Canonical Tag If you don’t want to redirect the user, but want to note that a page is a duplicate of another, you can add the following tag to the duplicate page: <link rel="canonical" href="http://www.mysite.com/canonical_page"/>

Gnome Tip! Learn more about 301 redirects on Google’s help page: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93633


This chapter covers key SEO techniques for optimizing a given webpage. Search Query Relevance On-page search engine optimization is all about making sure your page appears as relevant as possible to a given search query. For example, if you have a dog grooming business, you’d want your homepage to show up in the search results for the query “dog grooming,” especially when coupled with a local search in your area. This will likely not happen without some level of SEO best practices applied to the content of your homepage (unless you have no competition). The search engines look at a number of elements of your page to determine relevance. We will review these in detail in this chapter:

• Page content • Title tag • URL • Header tags • Image alt tag • On-page links

However, before we dive into the specifics, let’s talk about keyword research. Keyword Research Keyword research is not as scary as it sounds. It is simply the process of determining which keyword phrase to target on a given webpage. Keyword research should always be your first step when contemplating a new webpage (or when rewriting an existing one).

Here are the key secrets to successful keyword research using only free tools:

HOW TO OPTIMIZE A WEBPAGE

Keyword research should always be your first step when contemplating a new webpage.


Listen to Your Audience It’s important to understand the language of your audience. If you sell dental prophylaxis services but your potential customers think of this as dental cleaning, you should use the term “dental cleaning.” The search engines do search for synonyms, and it doesn’t hurt to keep this in mind. But we still recommend using terminology that your audience understands.

It’s equally important that the target page answers the question users are asking when entering the search query. If you manage to get people to your site for the term “dog grooming” but don’t offer information about how to make an appointment, you haven’t gained anything. Google and Bing Search One good way to get a quick feel both for the value of the keyword and the amount of competition out there is to do a search on your potential keyword phrase.

Note for this search (with location Minneapolis, MN) rendered over 68 million results and a fair amount of paid advertising. This tells us that there is a good deal of competition for this phrase, because it’s a high-value keyword.

It’s important to understand the language of your audience.


Google AdWords Keyword Tool The Google AdWords Keyword Tool is the most useful, free keyword research resource. If you have an AdWords account, you can access the keyword tool via the Tools and Analysis menu item: There is also an external version of the keyword tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Here are some tips for using the keyword tool:

1. Enter your keyword phrase into the search field. 2. Note the level of competition (High/Medium/Low). 3. Note the number of local monthly searches (based on your location

settings). 4. If you selected a keyword with very few or negligible (marked with a dash)

searches, it’s a good idea to reconsider. 5. Take a look at the “Keyword ideas” for other keyword phrases to consider.

The Google AdWords Keyword Tool is the most useful, free keyword research resource.


Note that there is a setting for “Match Types” in the left column. This allows you to get more specific with your

search terms:

• Broad: Search query includes your keyword(s). E.g. “Dog and cat

grooming.” • [Exact]: Search query includes your exact keyword phrase (no other

words). I.e. “Dog grooming.” • “Phrase”: Search query includes your exact keyword phrase, but may

also include other words. E.g. “Dog grooming and supplies.”

Action Items: ü For a given page, brainstorm what you are trying to convey to visitors ü Listen to your audience to determine what terminology they use. E.g. visit

forums, successful competitor sites, and listen in Facebook/Twitter. ü Perform a search on your keywords to get a feel for competition and

relative value (based on paid ads). ü Use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to refine your list and get

additional ideas.


Writing Search Engine-Optimized Content Before we delve into the ins and outs of writing search engine-optimized content, I must say this:

You write primarily for humans, NOT for search engines.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s talk about what writing search engine- optimized content looks like. It involves using the keyword phrase you selected and writing insanely useful or funny or inspirational (or all of the above) content. You must keep your audience in mind first.

However, there is nothing wrong with also adding some information to help the search engines understand what your wonderful content is all about. This is what we refer to as on-page signals. What follows are a list of best practices (good) SEOs all over the world follow. These best practices are based both on what the search engines tell us, and what we discover as we test and tweak and test again (aka research). Title Tag Here is what Google has to say about the title tag: “A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is.”

Google thinks the title tag is so important that it’s the very first section in their Search Engine Starter Guide. The title tag is an HTML tag that is included in the <head> section of a web page: <head> <title>Page Title</title> </head>

Gnome Tip! For more on writing for your audience, read this blog post: http://www.webgnomes.org/blog/seo-writing-keep-your-audience-in-mind/


There are three important things to keep in mind as it relates to the title tag:

1. Make sure every page in your website has a unique title. 2. Place keyword in the beginning of the title.

For example: Dog Grooming | Pampered Pets Grooming 3. Use less than 70 characters for your title (Google will truncate the rest

when displaying the title in search results). NOTE: If you are using the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin, you can set the page title in the user interface right on page editor:

Notice that the page title is also your main headline when your webpage shows up in search results. So make sure it conveys what your page is about.

Meta Description The meta description is an HTML tag that summarizes the page content for users when search engines display search results: Dog Grooming | Pampered Pets Grooming www.pamperedpetsgrooming.com/dog-grooming/ Visit Pampered Pets Grooming for professional dog grooming services. Our groomers are friendly and skilled. Your dog will look amazing!

Gnome Tip! Learn more about creating a great SEO title here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBoJtL1z-Vk


The search engines don’t use this particular tag to determine relevancy and ranking. However, it is what they may display in the search results as noted above. It’s important because it is the description that users see when deciding whether or not to click the link. Make it as relevant as possible! NOTE: If you are using the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin, you can set the meta description in the user interface right on page editor:

Keep your meta description to 140 characters or less to avoid text being cut off.

URL A meaningful URL is good for both humans and search engines (sense a trend here…?). The URL is the human-readable address for your webpage on the Internet. The good news is that it is also search engine-readable. Search engines do look at the URL when they determine relevancy. Let’s hear what Google has to say about well-structured URLs: “If your URL contains relevant words, this provides users and search engines with more information about the page than an ID or oddly named parameter would.”

Gnome Tip! Learn more about creating a great SEO meta description here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVh14zOl7SU


For example, if you have a B2C eCommerce site, it is much better to use the product name in the URL of the main product page versus some random item number.

It is a general practice to remove stop words (such as and, of, with) from the URL. Use common sense here: If the stop word is part of our keyword, by all means keep it. If your URL ends up being really long, take out non-keyword stop words.

NOTE: If you are using WordPress, you can edit the URL (Permalink) in the user interface:

Heading Tags Just like books, magazine features, and newspaper articles, good web pages have headings to help users easily scan the content. Typically, the page title uses the <h1> tag, and first-level sub headings use the <h2> tag. </head> <body> <h1>Dog Grooming Tips</h1> <h2>Brushing Your Dog</h2> <p>One of the basic elements of dog grooming is brushing your dog’s hair. Whether you have a non-shedding dog or a shedding dog, it is important to brush the hair frequently. </p>

Here is what Google has to say about heading tags:

“Heading tags are an important website component for catching the user's eye, so be careful how you use them!”

It’s good to put your keyword phrase in at least one heading tag on the page. However, only do it if it makes sense to the user. Don’t force it!


NOTE: If you are using WordPress, your page title will automatically use the <h1> tag. You can select headings from the page/post edit interface:

Image Alt Tag The image alt tag was invented to allow web developers to enter text to describe an image. There are a couple of scenarios when this is helpful:

1. User is visually impaired and is using a screen reader. 2. User has a slow connection and has disabled images in their browser.

You should always add descriptive text to images on your webpages: <img src=”descriptive-filename.jpg” alt=”Dog grooming example - Bichon Frise” height=”300” width=”192” /> Beyond the use cases listed above, search engines also look at the image alt tag to determine the content of the image.

It is good practice to include your keyword phrase in the filename and alt tag of at least one image on your page. Just be careful not to overdo it.

NOTE: If you are using WordPress, you can define the image alt tag (Alternate Text) when you upload your image. Make sure your image filename is already optimized, since this cannot be changed in WordPress.

You should always add descriptive text to images on your webpage.


On-Page Links and Anchor Text Search engines follow links to get from one webpage to another. The robots look at the text on the link (anchor text) to determine what the page you’re linking to is about. Example copy with link and meaningful anchor text:

The SEO Audit link links to the Web Gnomes “SEO Audit” page. The anchor text lets the search engines and users know what to expect when they click on the link. It’s good to have a few links on any given webpage. However, you don’t want to have too many. A good number to keep in mind is less than 100 links. Here are Google’s best practices for writing anchor text: • Choose descriptive text • Write concise text • Format links so they’re easy to spot • Think about anchor text for internal links too

The last point is an important one that is easy to forget. Rather than using anchor text like “click here” or “learn more,” use descriptive text for internal links as well! Content Tricks As we noted above, content should be written for humans. However, there are some tricks to keep in mind (as long as they don’t ruin the reading experience):

• Use your keyword phrase several times. SEOmoz recommends at least 3X, but more if there is a lot of text.

• Place your keyword phrase in the first paragraph and put some emphasis on it (e.g. bold).

• Use correct spelling and grammar. Yep, the search engines look at this. • Write at least 300 words. • Consider the reading level of your audience. Don’t use big words and

complicated sentence structure unless you’re writing for a bunch of PhDs.

Do you want to find out how well your website is optimized for search engines? Sign up for an SEO Audit today! (http://www.webgnomes.org/seo-audit/)


NOTE: If you are using Yoast, you can check many of these best practices on the Page Analysis tab:

Action Items: ü Write content for humans; optimize for the search engines. ü Write a unique <title> tag for each page and include your keyword phrase

at the beginning. Don’t go over 70 characters. ü Write a unique meta description for each page and include your keyword

phrase. Don’t go over 140 characters. ü Structure your URL (Permalink) for readability. Use words over IDs. ü Use heading tags to structure your content for optimal readability. Try to

use your keyword phrase in the heading tags – especially the <h1>. ü Add alternate text to every image on your webpage and include your

keyword phrase in at least one image alt tag on the page. ü Include both internal and outbound links in your text. Use meaningful

anchor text to help users and search engines better navigate your site. ü Include your keyword phrase at least 3X in the body text. ü Place your keyword phrase in the first paragraph and make it bold.


This chapter will teach you some of the techniques for building valuable links to your website.

The Importance of Links Linkbuilding is perhaps the most difficult SEO activity. But it is one of the most impactful strategies as it relates to website rankings. It must be done. As you may recall, search engine robots traverse the Internet by following links. So having external links point to your site is important for indexing. But even more importantly, external links are an important part of the search engines’ relevancy and ranking algorithms.

It’s a Matter of Trust The search engines are all about trustworthiness of websites. They want to know that the links they serve up in the search results are good and useful. Otherwise, their users may start using a different search engine, which may lead to a drop in advertisers spending their ad dollars with the original search engine. Trustworthy websites have many quality sites linking to them. Search engines view external links as votes of confidence in the content on a given website.

Certain domains (e.g. .edu and .gov) are considered especially trustworthy.

HOW TO BUILD LINKS

Trustworthy websites have many quality sites linking to them.

Gnome Tip! Learn more about external links here: http://www.webgnomes.org/blog/what-are-external-links/


Linkbuilding Strategies There is no magic formula for getting links. In fact, it is a long, tedious process. What follows are some common industry strategies for building external links to your site. Write Great Content This is perhaps the most clichéd advide in SEO, but it’s true. Great links start with great content. You must write interesting, useful, funny, or otherwise “link-worthy” content in order to get links. End of story. Be a Guest Blogger Get involved on a prominent blog and approach the author about writing a guest post. Not only do you get great exposure on the famous blog, but you’ll also get a link back to your site. Score! Contact the Webmaster If you find a site that has a list of <whatever it is that you do>, contact the webmaster to get your site listed. Make sure to specify the anchor text you want. Participate on Forums and Blogs Some forums and blogs have a place to leave your website address. A lot of times, these are nofollow links, but it still doesn’t hurt to get your name out there and participate in the conversation. Just don’t be spammy! Encourage Bookmarking and Sharing There are several bookmarking and web content voting websites out there. Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon come to mind. Make sure your visitors have an easy way to share your content on these types of sites.


Local and Business Links There are several options for getting listed at the local level as well as through your business connections:

• Chamber of Commerce • Better Business Bureau • Business Partners • Client Websites • Affiliate programs

It never hurts to ask! Create Link Bait Link bait is the term used for content that is created specifically to attract links:

• eBook (yep, this book is link bait – gotcha!) • Infographic (information presented graphically) • Funny video • Contests and give-aways • Anything FREE (e.g. tools, tutorials, webinars)

Action Items: ü If you know how to write, start writing! Write blog posts, eBooks, tutorials –

anything that your audience will find useful and link-worthy. ü If you don’t know how to write, hire somebody to write for you. Elance.com

is a decent, affordable place to start. ü Reach out to industry superstars and inquire about links/guest blogging

opportunities. ü Make sure your visitors can share you content on sites like Digg and

StumbleUpon. ü Do some local searches to determine what local directories are available

in your area. Get listed! ü Ask business partners & customers to link to you. ü Create a funny video. J


This chapter focuses on how you can leverage social media to boost rankings.

Social Media and Website Rankings Social signals are becoming increasingly important for ranking well in the search engines. Social signals are cues to the search engines that a given webpage is share-worthy. Examples of social signals are Twitter tweets, Facebook likes, LinkedIn shares, and Google +1s. How It Works The social shares may influence ranking if you or your friends have “liked” a particular webpage. This is because search engines believe that recommendations from friends are more valuable than recommendations from strangers. The search engines also consider the authority of the person “liking” a particular piece of content. So if you can get a heavy-weight in your field to share your content, this will be worth more than several shares from unknown fans. Bottom line: Make sure your fans can spread the word about your awesome website and content. This is best accomplished by having social share buttons available on all your content pages:

HOW TO LEVERAGE SOCIAL MEDIA


You can either go to the individual social networks to get the sharing buttons (see list below) or use a service such as AddThis or ShareThis. List of Links for Social Sharing Buttons

• Facebook: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/ • Twitter: https://twitter.com/about/resources/buttons • Google+: http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/index.html • LinkedIn: http://developer.linkedin.com/plugins/share-button

There are obviously other social networks, but these are the ones we focus on in our social media efforts. NOTE: If you use WordPress, there are several plugins avaialble to accomplish the same. I use “WP Socializer” on my personal bog. In Summary Social signals are up-and-coming in influencing search engine rankings. Encouraging social shares is a win-win situation. However, keep in mind that social signals are only one out of hundreds of signals. Don’t drop everything to focus only on social. Social sharing is one component of a solid SEO strategy.

Action Items: ü Install social sharing buttons on your website. ü Encourage your visitors to share your content. ü Attempt to get shares/likes from influencers in your field.


This chapter covers ways to track and measure SEO efforts.

Setting Goals for SEO Before embarking on an SEO campaign, it is crucial to set some goals for the project. Otherwise, there’s nothing to measure! Goals may include:

• Increasing number of blog subscribers by 20% over the next 3 months • Building email list to 500 members over the next 6 months • Increasing online sales by 15% by next quarter end • Increasing brand awareness (harder to measure)

Goals should be defined and written down before starting any SEO campaign. Keep in mind that good SEO takes time, so set realistic goals.

Track Visitor Data with Google Analytics There are several different analytics packages available. Some are free and some cost quite a bit of money. For the average small to medium-sized business, Google Analytics is a good option. It’s free and integrates well with other Google applications such as Google Webmaster Tools and Google AdWords. Getting set up with Google Analytics is easy as pie. Simply go to: http://www.google.com/analytics Follow the step-by-step instructions for creating an account. On the last step, you will be presented with a code snippet to paste into every page you want to track immediately before the closing </head> tag. If you do not maintain your website, this will require the assistance of your webmaster.

HOW TO MEASURE SEO


NOTE: If you are using WordPress, most themes have a location in the theme settings where you can provide your Google Analytics code. This makes it much easier to implement. Once you have Google Analytics installed, you will be able to view lots of interesting information about your visitors. Link Your Google Webmaster Tools to Google Analytics If you have signed up for Google Webmaster Tools as mentioned above, you can link the two together. This allows you to view SEO-related information right inside of Google Analytics. Follow these instructions to link your Google Webmaster Tools to Google Analytics:

1. Sign in to Google Webmaster Tools 2. Click the “Manage site” dropdown next to

the site you want to link and select “Google Analytics property.”

3. Select the “Analytics Web Property” you want to link to and click “Save.”

4. Confirm the association by clicking “OK.”

Useful Reports for Measuring SEO Depending on your goals, there are several excellent reports to help you determine how things are going: Traffic Sources The Traffic Sources section in Google Analytics will tell you from where your traffic is coming:

Gnome Tip! Watch this short video for hands-on instruction on this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i3grBseHgA


Search Traffic In the above screenshot, we can see that this site received 44.18% of visits from search traffic in the given time period. Under “Sources” on the left, you can get details about the search traffic. I.e. which search engines are sending you traffic (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc) and which keywords were used. By tracking the percentage of search traffic over time, you can determine if your efforts are paying off. Looking at the keywords people are using to find your site may also give you ideas for new keyword phrases to target as you expand your website. Referral Traffic You can also see that 27.22% of the visitors came from links on other sites (“Referral Traffic”). This is important information, if part of your campaign involves link building. If you click into the reports, you can see which sites link to you. Based on the volume of traffic you get from specific sites, you can determine on which types of sites to focus your link building efforts.


Content Another useful area in Google Analytics is “Content.” This is where you find information about which pages were most frequently visited.

This is useful in assessing the type of content that appeals to your audience. Write more of what works! Goals in Google Analytics If you want to go a step deeper, consider adding one or more Goals in Google Analytics. Goals allow you to specify a URL or other event that you want the visitor to accomplish on your site. For example, if you want visitors to sign up for your newsletter, you can enter the URL of the thank you page as your goal. This way, you can track how visitors reached this goal and (if you use a funnel) where they dropped off along the way. To access goals, click the settings icon in the top right corner and select the “Goals” tab.

Gnome Tip! Check out Google’s training on Google Analytics goals here: http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/goals/index.html

Action Items: ü Set concrete (and realistic) goals for your next SEO campaign. ü Install Google Analytics (or other analytics software on your site. ü Track traffic sources & keywords to understand how visitors find you. ü Track popular content and write more of what works. ü Set analytics goals for even more useful reporting.


About Web Gnomes Web Gnomes is a research-based Internet marketing consulting firm committed to helping companies of all sized succeed online. We offer live seminars, free how-to videos, and eBooks like this one for business owners, non-profit leaders, and marketing professionals who want to learn more about search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and other areas of Internet marketing. In addition, we offer the following services:

• SEO Audit • UX Review • Local Search Audit • Keyword Research • SEO Writing • Link Building • Social Media Strategy • PPC Management

About the Author Tabita Green is an Internet marketing consultant at Web Gnomes. She frequently contributes to the Web Gnomes blog and also writes at Simply Enough, a simple living blog. She specializes in PPC management, local search marketing, social media strategy, user experience expert reviews, and SEO writing.

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