SEO basicsChris Snider | @chrissnider

About Chris• Instructor of Practice in Multimedia @ Drake

• Former digital editor @ Des Moines Register

• Former editor @ Juice magazine

• Designer at St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Baltimore Sun

Who played Mr. Belding on

Saved By The Bell?

Who inventedthe toilet?

How would we find out?

What if youneeded

a plumber tofix that toilet?

How would youfind one?

Then what?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the

"natural" or un-paid search results.

In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the

more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users.

SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and news search.

Source: Wikipedia

92% of internet users conduct searches.59% say they conduct searches on a daily basis.

Most popular Internet activity (tied with e-mail).

pewinternet.org - May 2011

Google processed 114.7 billion searches in Dec. 2012. Yahoo! processed 8.6 billion searches in Dec. 2012.

Microsoft processed 4.5 billion searches in Dec. 2012.

Source: Comscore Dec. 2012 ... http://searchengineland.com/google-worlds-most-popular-search-engine-148089

drake relays is searched 12,100 times each monthdrake university is searched 60,500 times each monthiowa state fair is searched 74,000 times each monthdes moines is searched 2,740,000 times each month

Source: Google Keyword Tool

Imagine if your site were at (or near) the top of those search results.

Search is a great way to drive traffic to your site.

And very likely the best way to drive traffic to your site.

What you see when you perform a search...

paid search results

paidsearchresults

organic search results

top 3 spots are seen 100 percent of time

Eyetrack and search...

10x traffic difference for 1st vs. 10th position

How people search• Users no longer scroll down the page

• Instead, they submit multiple queries to narrow information

• sandals > men’s sandals > men’s nike sandals > blue men’s nike sandals

How does SEO work?And how can it work for you?

Simplified SEO• Build a quality site with great content

• Find the right keywords – and put them in the right places

• Get other quality sites to link to you

The more useful, relevant and compelling your content, the greater chance someone will link to you (and increase

your rank in SERPs).A couple things to avoid...

Hidden text

Keyword stuffing

Finding the right keywords

Figure out what words people should search to find your site.

Remember: The goal is to be helpfulto readers, not to trick them.

Then: Research those words.

Why research?• To find words people actually search

• To make sure you’re not trying to optimize a word you will never get ranked for

• To find alternative words in case our words are not searched or are too competitive

Great resource tool is Google Keyword Tool

looking for low competition and high search volume

Google will make search for “heating

and air” local.

Where to use those keywords

In your page Title (at the front).

In your URL.

In your headlines <h1> and <h2>.

In the first <p> of your post.

In your meta data (not as important for SEO).

In links to your site.

Target one keyword per page.

title

URL

H1

text

And also your source code...

What Google shows...

title

meta description

URL

Reviews

sitelinks

70 characters

156 characters

Case study

Google trends is your friend

Get links

Links & Google Page Rank• PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named

after Larry Page and used by Google, that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of measuring its relative importance within the set.

Chrome extension

“SEOSite

Tools”

Tools such as opensiteexplorer.org and majesticseo.com can tell you what sites link

to your site (and your competitors).

.edu sites have more link authority.

So hire more Drake University studentsand get Drake Marketing to write a story.

Good link:

Bad link:

Link to your own site. That has value too.

Try to get other credible sites/blogs to link to you.

Best way to do that is to have great content.

Next best way to do that is to link to them.

But no tricks. Google wants things to make sense.

Write articles/posts that people will want to link to.

Look closely at your metrics to see what is popular.

Write posts that people will want to link to:

Chris Brogan’s most-linked-to posts:

Promote your best work on:• Facebook• Twitter• Tumblr• Digg

• Guest blogging

Just don’t overdo it.It’s always better to promote other’s best work.

Occasionally dip into Google Trends to seewhat topics people are suddenly searching.

If those topics are relevant to your site/blog, take advantage of that fact (and optimize appropriately)

More tips• Make sure images have alt tags.

• Have text on your page (100+ ideally).

• Google Webmaster Tools will alert you to problems.

• marketing.grader.com gives good overview of site.

• Claiming your name on SM will help in search results.

• Google Authorship will add your photo to search.

• Google+ is important (Search + your world).

If you only do one thing...

Create good content.

The rest will follow.

Questions?

Resources:seomoz.org/blog

seobook.com/blogmattcutts.com/blog

googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.comblog.hubspot.com (then click on SEO at bottom)

twitter.com/chrissnider