DEMYSTIFYING SEO

Alex Rascanu

Director of Marketing, Wealthsimple

Founder, Marketers Without Borders

www.alexrascanu.com l @alexrascanu

Date: November 15, 2014

Event: WordCamp Toronto 2014

SEO, WHEN DONE WELL, DRIVES

SITE TRAFFIC, LEADS & SALES

1. BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO SEO

Search engines (Google, Baidu, Yahoo, Yandex, Bing, etc.)

are now a core resource for people looking for an

organization, product or service.

It’s important that WordPress web developers adopt SEO

best practices, thus ensuring that the brands we’re

building are found by their target audiences through

Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

BACKGROUND ON SEO

ON-SITE SEO

1. Find the best keywords around which to focus each page

Image source: Google AdWords Keywords Planner

Image source: Rand Fishkin at Moz

2. Make it clear to

search engines that

the page you’re

trying to rank is

highly relevant to

people searching

for that word/phrase

OFF-SITE SEO

“Natural links to your site develop as part of the dynamic

nature of the web when other sites find your content

valuable and think it would be helpful for their visitors.” (Google)

Generate links for your website because:

1. Links increase the authority and trustworthiness of a page to

search engines => increased overall authority for the website

2. Links help search engines connect the relevancy of a page

with specific keywords (based on the keywords used in a link’s

anchor text)

HOW NOT TO BUILD LINKS:

- Directories

- Paid links

- Article marketing

HOW TO BUILD LINKS:

- Blog

- Visual content

- Product/campaign launches

- Build a community

- Social mediaImage source: HubSpot

2. SEO WINS FOR WEB DEVELOPERS

1. SITE SPEED

Resources:

webpagetest.org

developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights

Image source: Distilled

2. 301 AND 302 REDIRECTS

Image source: Distilled

3. HTTP HEADER CODES

How to find the HTTP header code of a page: Web-sniffer.net,

MozBar, Screaming Frog

Most common HTTP header codes:

• 200 Success (page working fine)

• 301 Permanently Moved (search engines will pass link juice)

• 302 Temporarily Moved (search engines won’t pass link juice)

• 404 Page Not Found (make sure it displays a 404 HTTP header)

• 500 Internal Server Error (not helpful, try to minimize these errors)

• 503 Service Unavailable (use when about to launch a new site)

4. CRAWLER ACCESS

Images source: Distilled

5. JAVASCRIPT

i. Do not place valuable content within javascript(consider using Jquery)

ii. Do not place content or links within javascript to intentionally hide it from Google

6. WEB DEVELOPER’S CHEATSHEET

Image source: Moz

Image source: Moz

Image source: Moz

Image source: Moz

3. SEO WINS FOR MARKETERS

RULES

1. KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE: what they are looking for, what

problems they have or what opportunities they want to take advantage of,

their level of awareness about your brand, what online newspapers/blogs

they read, what style of writing connects with them

2. KNOW YOUR COMPETITORS: who is targeting the same keywords in

organic search, which sites is your target audience most likely to visit

when they leave yours

3. KNOW YOUR GOAL FOR THE SITE TRAFFIC YOU’RE ABOUT TO

GET. Traffic doesn’t matter, customers do. That’s why you should get them

to take action when they’re on your site.

1APPLY TECHNICAL SEO FIXES.

THEY CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN TRAFFIC.

Image source: John Doherty

2USE CUSTOM REPORTS IN GOOGLE ANALYTICS TO

UNDERSTAND WHICH KEYWORDS ARE CONVERTING WELL.

Image source: Dirty Analytics

3SPOT OPPORTUNITIES TO GET BETTER RANKINGS, CLICK-

THROUGH-RATES AND CONVERSIONS.

4CREATE PAGES FOR EVERY KEY ASPECT OF YOUR

PRODUCT/SERVICE & YOUR MOST IMPORANT LOCATIONS

Remember to add a

Call to Action button!

5 USE A/B TESTING AND CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION

Page A – The Obama team tested several

combinations of visuals and CTAs to identify the

most effective pair

Page B – The winning combination engaged emotion

with the image of the Obama family in conjunction with

the Learn More button

Improvement: 40% increase in sign-up rate, resulting in $60 million additional donations

Source: Unbounce

6 MAKE SURE ALL YOUR PAGES LOAD IN LESS THAN 1 SECOND

Loading time affects

your bottom line.

Image source: Pingdom

7EVALUATE YOUR BOUNCE RATE AND UPDATE THE PAGES

WITH THE HIGHEST BOUNCE RATE

Image source: KISSmetrics

8LET THE MEDIA KNOW WHAT YOU’RE UP TO

(WHEN YOU HAVE REAL NEWS TO SHARE)

Compile a media list

yourself, but you may also

want to use a PR tool like

www.pitchpigeon.com

($49 per pitch)

9SEND TARGETED CONTENT TO USER.

WATCH YOUR ENGAGEMENT INCREASE.

Image source: John Doherty

10WRITE ONE OR MORE OF THESE TYPES OF CONTENT

TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE

1. Infographics

2. Memes

3. Videos

4. Guides

5. Book reviews

6. Opinion articles

7. Product reviews

8. How-to articles

9. Lists

10. Link pages

11. Ebooks

12. Case studies

13. Podcasts

14. Interviews

15. Research & original data

Source: QuickSprout

11 TELL YOUR STORY INSTEAD OF JUST TALKING ABOUT YOUR

PRODUCT (PERSOANAL, HISTORICAL OR “MEET THE GURU” STORY)

4. ADDITIONAL SEO RESOURCES

Alex RascanuDirector of Marketing, Wealthsimple

Founder, Marketers Without Borders

www.alexrascanu.com

@alexrascanu

THANK YOU