Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz | March 2012

The Fundamentals of Great SEOA guide on how to increase rankings & traffic from search engines

SEO?

Bah, Humbug

The Use of Search Engines

http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Search-and-email/Report.aspx

Growth of Google Queries

http://www.quora.com/How-many-search-queries-does-Google-serve-worldwide-every-day

Currently, there are more than 3 billion searches/day

on Google

Value of Search Engine Traffic

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/illustrating-the-long-tail

Yes, You Can Compete with the Big Guys

Good SEO is Easier

than It Looks

You Have to Get These Right

Before You Get These Right

Making Your Site SEO-Friendly

Using Wordpress? You’re 80% of the Way There

From a talk given by Google’s Matt Cutts at Wordcamp: http://www.howtomakemyblog.com/seo/googles-matt-cutts-wordpress-the-best-blogging-platform-for-seo/

“(Wordpress) is a fantastic piece of software, it makes your site easily crawlable by search engines, solves some 80-90% of mechanics of SEO and is the first big step anyone can take towards creating a popular online business.”

If You Use Wordpress, Read This

http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/ - I also recommend Joost’s plugin “Wordpress SEO”

Other SEO-Friendly Platforms Include:

http://drupal.org/, http://joomla.com and http://www.squarespace.com are all good choices if Wordpress isn’t a match.

These Are Less Ideal for SEO

I wouldn’t recommend these platforms as a first choice for SEO-friendly blogging, though some (like TypePad and Tumblr) can be customized with enough elbow grease.

Tools to Help with Accessibility

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Tools to Help with Accessibility

Shameless Plug: http://pro.seomoz.org/

RSS: Essential for Bloggers(and anyone producing regular content)

Via Google’s Feedburner: http://feedburner.google.com/gfb/, an ideal tool for setting up, managing

and tracking feeds

XML Sitemaps – Recommend, But Not Always a Must

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I recommend against it, just that for many, relatively basic sites and blogs, you don’t need to worry about submitting these (unless you use video, in which case there’s some cool options; we’ll chat about that later in the deck)

Keyword Research

A Simple Process for Choosing Good Keywords

More on this here: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research

High Volume(many searches/month)

Low Competition(weak sites/pages in the top 10)

High Value(large % of visitors convert)

Ideal Keywords!

AdWords: The Best Choice (Most of the Time)

The AdWords Keyword Tool Can Be Found Here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Use Exact Match! Be Careful About Phrase + Broad

Note the much higher numbers!

Google Insights: Interesting Trend Data

http://www.google.com/insights/search/ shows that the food blogging movement likely gained widespread popularity and interest around 2007

Analyzing the Top 10 to Determine Difficulty

Strong, popular sites w/ targeted titles + content

Analyzing the Top 10 to Determine Difficulty

Weaker, lesser known sites and

non-targeted titles

Keyword Difficulty Tool

Another shameless plug as this is an SEOmoz tool: http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/keyword-difficulty/

Value of Visits? Use Analytics Data

Via Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics) which is free!

Good proxies for the value of traffic from these sources

A Simple Process for Choosing Good Keywords

High Volume(many searches/month)

Low Competition(weak sites/pages in the top 10)

High Value(large % of visitors convert)

Google AdWords

Gut Feel (or KW Difficulty Tool)

Gut Feel (or Analytics Data)

Picking keywords doesn’t have to be a chore, and the process can often help you find topics for content you haven’t yet tried/thought of!

How Great Writing and Great

SEO Go Hand-in-Hand

High Volume Keywords = Content People Want

People really want to know this stuff!

Not Everything Needs to Be Keyword-Targeted

http://www.everywhereist.com/budding-bromances-in-peru-10-photos/

The Better Your Content, The Better Your SEO

Good process for getting to great content:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/great-content-for-seo-simpler-than-you-ever-imagined

Great Content + SEO + Social Really Works.

Great Content

+SEO

Friendly+

Social Sharing

+Link

Building

=

HigherRankings

More Readers

More Followers

More Influence

=

Virtuous Cycle of Inbound Marketing!

Link Building

Why Links Matter to Search Engines

Good primer on link building basics here: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links

What You Say About Yourself.

What Others Say About You.<

What Matters in a Link?

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links

Editorially given

From a trusted source

Uses descriptive anchor text

Points to the right page

What Matters in a Link?

All of these elements are good to understand when thinking about links

<p><a href=http://www.seomoz.org rel=“nofollow”> SEOmoz’s Website </a> is a good resource for those seeking to learn more about search engine optimization.</p>

Anchor text(tells the engine what

this link is about)

URL(the link target)

Surrounding Text(may provide context on

the link’s relevance)

Rel=“Nofollow”(a tag that indicates search

engines shouldn’t trust/count this link)

Manual Link Building

Tactics like discovering the links of competitors, getting listed in directories, resource lists, submitting content, building profiles, etc. are all in the “manual link building” category (above via http://opensiteexplorer.org)

Link Building through Outreach + Networking

Geraldine emailed the Salt Museum folks to let them know about her post (or maybe she just tweeted at them, I can’t remember), and they wrote this lovely blog!

“Natural” Link Building

The AdAge 150 is a brilliant example of link building through the creation and sharing of a resource.

Many of these blogs will use the badge and link to the list, because it makes

them look good!

Link Building & Social Sharing Resources

There are literally infinite numbers of ways to build links – creativity is your only limitation!

• Beginner’s Guide: Chapter 7 – Growing Links & Popularity

• Link Building Blog Posts on SEOmoz

• Webinar on Link Building Strategies

• 101 Ways to Build Links from SEOBook

• Link Building Presentations on Slideshare

• The Science of Retweets from Dan Zarrella

Social Media & SEO

How Social Media Helps SEO Directly

People you’re connected to in social networks can help content rank thanks to Google’s use of social annotations (Bing does this too with Facebook shares!) http://www.seomoz.org/blog/social-annotations-in-search-now-your-social-network-rankings

Indirect Impacts of Social on SEO

This handy tool can be found at http://sharedcount.com

All these shares lead to visits, which may lead to

links, comments and positive user/usage signals

Twitter & Google

Result #42

Google UK

Result #13

Google US

Facebook

But correlation is not causation! http://www.seomoz.org/blog/does-google-use-facebook-shares-to-influence-search-rankings

Correlation of Social Media-Based Factors(data via Topsy API & Google Buzz API)

Amazing: Facebook Shares is our single highest

correlated metric with higher Google rankings.

Facebook and Bing

http://searchengineland.com/bing-linked-pages-better-people-search-results-112501

Google+

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/using-google-plus-ripples-to-connect-with-influencers

Google+

http://searchengineland.com/examples-google-search-plus-drive-facebook-twitter-crazy-107554

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-every-marketer-now-needs-a-google-strategy

Anyone logged-in to any Google service will see results like these. Time to get on G+!

LinkedIn

Some good tips here: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/linkedin-seo-campaign.html

Other Networks to Consider

There are many social networks potentially worthy of participation

10mm

14mm Millions 14mm 6.5mm

2.5mm 500mm 1.5mm

A Few Specific SEO Questions

What Was Panda? Do I Need to Worry About It?

Check out http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-googles-panda-update-changed-seo-best-practices-forever-whiteboard-friday for more on how Panda imapcted SEO and http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beat-google-panda for tips on how to beat it.

Should I Worry About Spam Comments?

Oh man does this stuff suck But remember, it’s NOT SEO!!

Are Scraper Sites a Danger to My SEO?

Via Google’s Head of Webspam

Can Links from Low Quality Sites Hurt Me?

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-if-my-competitors-point-spammy-links-to-my-site

What About Image Search SEO?

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/image-seo-basics-whiteboard-friday

What About Local/Maps SEO?

http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

Normal Algorithm

Maps Algorithm

What About Recipe Search?

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/02/google-recipe-search.html

Really?

How Do I Get These Cool Results!?

http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/how-to-implement-rel-author

That’s my face!

What About Those Awesome Video Results?!

http://wistia.com/doc/video-seo

These are great for

driving clicks

Want to Dive Deeper on SEO? I Recommend:

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

Just For Fun:

Some of My Favorite Google

Suggestions & Results!

Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz | March 2012

Thank You!Want to get in touch?

@randfish on Twitter or by email - rand@seomoz.org