SEO On A Budget

Search Engine Optimizationon a Budget!

Henri Asseilyhenri.tel

• CSO/CTO, Telnic Ltd.• Founder, Shopzilla.comNovember 2009

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What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

$∅ yoursite.com

$$$2

Contrast with SEMSEM = Search Engine Marketing

yoursite.com

$$$

Paying Ads

$$

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Theoretical Value Equation

SEO:

$$$$$- =$

0$$$- =$$$

SEM:4

SEO: More than direct monetary value

Branding

Awareness

Competitive positioning

Perception of knowledge & expertise

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Unfortunately...

A perfect market for Snake Oil peddlersout to cash in on their “expertise”

Black Box(“hidden”)Algorithms + Lots of

potential$$$

=6

Lies, Fallacies and Snake Oil

" We guarantee a #1 position on Google !!! "

Oh Really?

For what search terms?For how long?At what cost?What are the long-term risks?What about Bing and other engines?

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Just the changing facts, ma’am

HUNDREDS of signals (i.e. parameters) used✓List of used signals constantly changes✓Importance of signals constantly changes

User behavior changes✓More precise queries with more terms✓Mobile usage exploding

Cat-and-mouse fight against unscrupulous SEO optimizers

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One Example among Many

<meta name="keywords" content="Financial, News, Stock, Market, Headlines, Investments, Quotes, Trading, TheStreet.com, Alix Steel ,Metals and Mining">

Popular SEO Tools: Manage Meta “keywords”

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Usage: MILLIONS of web pages

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SEO Impact:

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SEO Impact: ZERO

No search engine has used meta keywords since 2002. Including Google.

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So, what to do?

Understanding how search engines work

Winning strategies and tactics

Latest tools, channels and networks

Putting it all together

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2 simple goals

WebPages

Search Engine Indexer

SearchEngine

Database

SearchEngineWebsite

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2 simple goals

WebPages


SearchEngine

Database

SearchEngineWebsite

MAKE ENGINES FIND YOU

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2 simple goals

WebPages


SearchEngine

Database

SearchEngineWebsite

MAKE ENGINES FIND YOU

MAKE PEOPLE CHOOSE YOU!

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What do Search Engines want?

Index anything and everything

Determine “best” results for a search

! Make more money via ads and partnerships

To be your ultimate destination site for search.

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To be your ultimate destination site for search.you can

easily get indexed

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To be your ultimate destination site for search.you can

easily get indexed

that’s thehard partto improve

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“Best” as defined by Search Engines

Content relevance given the search terms Yep, what’s in the page does matter. Amazing, isn’t it?

Incoming links from other relevant pages given the search terms

They’re called “backlinks” in SEO jargon. It tells engines your page is important because others think it is. This was Google’s founding idea.

The Obvious

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Backlinks Power

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Critically important concept of “Authority”

If Hertz’s corporate site isn’t the first result in a search for “hertz”, then the user will think something is broken.

This is what an authority for a search looks like:

The Not-So-Obvious


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Importance of the URL stringEveryone knows the URL text is important.

But the greatest secret is that the DOMAIN string is the most important part!

Order of importance of each element: domain, subdomains, folders, filename

The Not-So-Obvious

http://some.domain.com/a/b/c/page.html?param=1...

12 3 4


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http://some.domain.com/a/b/c/page.html?param=1

http://some.domain.com/a/b/c/page.html?param=1

AgeRelax. Be patient. The older, the better.

First 3-6 months: your domain/page is in a purgatory sandbox to avoid spamming the index.

Changes slow to appear. Read up on the “Google Dance”

The Not-So-Obvious


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AgeRelax. Be patient. The older, the better.

First 3-6 months: your domain/page is in a purgatory sandbox to avoid spamming the index.

Changes slow to appear. Read up on the “Google Dance”

The Not-So-Obvious


NOTE: Since Twitter became a hit, search engines have been pressured to add “real-time search” to their indexes and are revisiting the age issue. It seems that engines will differentiate between temporary status/news updates and

intemporal information.

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The Not-So-Obvious


Page load time

Google likes faster page load times

People love faster page load times

Rule of thumb:

5 seconds is horrible

1 second is good

0.2 seconds is a feeling of “instantaneous”

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Increase the number of valuable placements

Improve your placements’ rankings for relevant searchesDon’t try to outsmart the algorithms. Always ask yourself:

Is what I publish useful to those who look at it?

SEO Strategy( What to do )

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Classic SEO Tactics( How to do it )

Make sure the engines can read your information: careful with this Flash and Rich Media stuff. It may be pretty, but it can be very frustrating for both your users and the search engine robots

Don’t ever duplicate content or functionality

Point the search crawlers to all your properties

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Guerilla Tactics on the Cheap

1. Spend time but little money to add points of presence for your company/brand online:

Twitter stream: good channel for news updates and promotions

Facebook page/group for local or global brands

LinkedIn and Google Profile (beware obsolete data)

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Guerilla Tactics on the Cheap2. Actively participate in forums dedicated to your areas

of expertise:

Don’t spam the forums, avoid blatant product placements

Provide valuable in-depth information showing that you are an expert in your field

When feasible, provide links into your properties of interest (.tel domain for contact info, your authoritative website for purchasing)

Traffic from communities is much more valuable than search engine traffic

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3. If you have your own domain,

3.(i) if it’s well indexed by search engines,

3.(i)(i) and if it is considered authoritative by Google

then link as many points of presence from the previous slide as you can to your domain

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4. You don’t have a domain? Or your domain isn’t optimized for search engines? No problem:

Disclosure: I am the CSO/CTO of Telnic, registry for .tel

Buy and leverage your own .tel domain

.tel is your digital business card that gives you an instant online presence without having to build a website.

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Why ?

Very cheap (£ 10/year or less)No hosting, development or maintenance feesMobile friendly: quick access to all your contact informationPerfect for SEO:

Fast!!!Can become your authoritative domainFully leverages the search engines’ love of domain stringsAbsolutely no duplication of content with a main .com domain: .tel is exclusively for communications

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A Practical Example:My personal brand

2008: Top Google result for “Henri Asseily”

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FAIL

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AuthoritativeUnder my control

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How I did it

Acquired my own .tel domain!

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How I did it

Filled my .tel with contact info, links

and relevant keywords

"

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How I did it

Identified existing high-value pages#

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How I did it

Identified existing high-value pages#

$

%

% %% %

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How I did itLinked those pages into my .tel&

LinkedIn Profile:henri.tel

Twitter Profile:

My Blog:

And vice-versa: created reciprocal links!

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How I did it

Waited 6 months'

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Result

I took control over my brandin 6 months for $15

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Even better on Google Mobile

Google is saying thatthere’s a phone number here

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More Examplesof SEO using .tel

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More mobile examples

domain name value

page title value(and a nice short

domain!)37

marineparts.tel

domain name value

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Waikiki.tel

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.com & .tel

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Questions?Comments?

Henri Asseily

• CSO/CTO, Telnic Ltd.• Founder, Shopzilla.com

Business Startup Expo, November 2009Seminar:Search Engine Optimization on a Budget!

henri.tel

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Technology

SEO On A Budget