SEO OverviewEmma Still + Bill Sebald

1.15.16

Drexel: New Media Marketing

#DrexelNMM

EMMA STILLTeam Lead @ SeerInstructor @ Girl Develop It@mmstll

Seer Interactive• Agency: Analytics, PPC, & SEO

• Office in Northern Liberties

• 1 office in San Diego

• ~100 full time employees

• Philly 100, Philly Best Places to Work, Philly’s Coolest Companies 2015

• @seerinteractive

BILL SEBALDOwner @ Greenlane

@billsebald

‣Boutique Agency – SEO, PPC, CRO, Content Strategy

‣Office In Phoenixville

‣8 employees

‣Way smaller than Seer!!!

What is SEO?

SEO is about getting found.

• Using a computer-based algorithm, Google calculates a website’s relevancy, quality, & authority when determining where to rank a website for a given query.

• This algorithm can be updated up to 500 times per year.

How do search engines determine rankings?

Remember: there is no person actually reviewing your site to determine where it

should be ranked.

How do search engines determine rankings?

Search Engine Goals

Search Engine GoalsGOOD USER EXPERIENCE

Good User ExperienceSearch Engine’s Goal

• Relevancy

Good User ExperienceSearch Engine’s Goal

• Relevancy

• Quality

Good User ExperienceSearch Engine’s Goal

• Relevancy

• Quality

• Authority

Good experience = algorithm updates

What do we do all day?An SEO’s job is to understand what Google deems relevant, quality, and authoritative to make good choices that will bring more quality traffic to a website.

“Soooo… how exactly do you do that?”

• On-page SEO factors

• “In-page” SEO factors

• Off-page SEO factors

3 Primary Elements

ON-PAGE SEO

ON-PAGE SEOthe factors that help google find your website

• Keywords (relevancy)• Identify what people are most likely to search for when looking for

your website

• Keyword research

On-page SEO Factors

Keywords Example

On-page SEO Factors

Write down what you would type into Google to find the items above

Keywords Example

On-page SEO Factors

Mid ring

Midi ring

Knuckle ring

Mid knuckle ring

Half finger rings

Champagne glass

Champagne flute

Wine glass

Sparkling wine glasses

Champagne stemware

Glass champagne flutes

Keywords Example

On-page SEO Factors

• Think about your brand for your group assignment

• What are 2-3 keywords you think people would search for to find them online?

• Keywords (relevancy)

• Architecture (quality)• How your website is built

• Page load time, internal structure, links/URLs, etc.

On-page SEO Factors

• Keywords (relevancy)

• Architecture (quality)

• Page content (relevancy & quality)• Copy

• Page titles & headers

• URL names

• Internal Links

On-page SEO Factors

If there is one thing to remember about On-page SEO… and this presentation

DON’T MAKE CRAPPY CONTENT

Content is KING

Content is KINGQuality

Unique

Relevant

Informative

Adds value

Don’t do this…

…or this

Do more like this

…and this

http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/06/food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-steak.html

IN-PAGE SEO

IN-PAGE SEOaka “technical SEO”

Technical SEO

BOTS DON’T LIKE HARD WORK(so we make it really easy for them)

1,720,000 Indexed Pages?!?!

• Accidental duplicate pages

• Pages that don’t need to index

This means…

• A lot of wasted crawl budget

• Many good pages that won’t be found by Google

• Lost traffic / revenue

It’s all equally important

Some Important Areas to Audit

Site

Speed

Internal

Linking

Canonical

URLs

Image/Video

Optimization

OFF-PAGE SEO

OFF-PAGE SEOaka link building & local citation building

Local Citation Building / Local SEO

www.google.com/mybusiness

What is link building?

• Link building is the process of getting other websites to link to your website.

What is link building?

Why is link building important?

Link building = AuthorityAuthority = TrustTrust = RankingsRankings = ?

Link building

Off-page SEO Factors

• When another website links to your website, Google sees this as a vote of confidence for your website.

• Not all links are created equal.

>

Quality of Links > Quantity of Links

“Sooo… how do you build links?”

1. Build relationships.Treat other websites like potential business partners or friends

Link Building Examples: relationships

Off-page SEO Factors

• Guest posting

• Sponsorships

• Media relationships

• Speaking engagements/biographies

• Partnerships

• Testimonials

2. Build quality content.

2. Build quality content. Create content that will appeal to those business partners and friends.

! real example !

http://spoilers.netflix.com/

833 websites linking

SEO takes time

SOCIAL MEDIA & SEO

Do tweets/likes/+1s affect rankings?

The short answer: NO

The longer answer:The impact of social engagement is still speculative but projected to be a critical ranking factor in the near future

• Increased visibility & awareness = links = rankings

• Increased positive reviews on G+/Yelp = increased visibility in local search

• Google+

• Posts are seen by Google almost immediately

• Using social influence to build relationships = links = rankings

• Audience analysis

How social [indirectly] affects SEO

How social [indirectly] affects SEO

Social Shares

Social Impressions

Influencer Impressions

Links

Remember the relationships we’re supposed to be building?Identify influencers

Build relationships = awareness

Understand needs of others

• Identifying influencers

• Finding out what your audience likes; create content for them that they’ll want to share

• [example of Buzzsumo & Twtrland]

SEO Benefits of Building Social Relationships

QUESTIONS?

• Get together with your groups

• Brand > Challenge > Tactic

• Example: Your tactic is to increase online revenue. Which SEO factors could you employ to help you increase online revenue and further the awareness objectives of your brand?

• What SEO tactic did you choose? (content, architecture, link building)

• Why did you choose that tactic?

• How will that tactic help achieve your brand’s challenge?

Take 10-15 minutes to work through your ideas with your group

Each team will have 2-3 minutes to present their ideas

Practice!