SEO for the CEO

Dublin City University - All rights reserved © 03-2011

What C-level Executives Need to Know About Search

Gillian Muessig

Co-founder and President, SEOmozCEO Coach, WebmasterRadio.fm

What IS SEO?

It is enabling the dissemination of ideas on the web

Socio-Political Ramifications of Our Work

What IS SEO?

Revolution is fomented on the empty bellies of men

Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Fidel Castro, Che Guevera, and many others

It’s Like This…

Organic vs. Paid Search

Organic

Paid

Organic vs. Paid Search

90% of Clicks

10% of Clicks

Click-Through Rates

Vertical Search

Local Results

Image Results in SERPs

Video Results

News & Blog Results

Shopping Results

Instant Answers

Instant Answers

Instant Answers

News Results

Real Time Results

Local Results

Image Results

How Search Engines Work

Crawling & Indexing

Without links, the engines might never

find this page

Calculating Query-Independent Metrics

Via www.opensiteexplorer.org

Many Domains vs. One Domain

VS.

Domain Authority

PageRank

The Flow of PageRank

PageRank is Split Evenly

Between the Links on a Page

PageRank is Iterative

Technically, Every External Link “Leaks” PageRank

Removing Links CanAlter the Flow of PageRank

Google Says they use PageRank to Crawl

The Concept of TrustRank

Algorithmic Ranking Factors

Components of Google’s Ranking Algorithm

Query Deserves Freshness (QDF)

QDF

QDF

Normal Results

Query Deserves Diversity (QDD)

Building Search Friendly Sites

Algorithmic Ranking Factors

Crawlability / Link Architecture

Duplicate Content & Canonicalization

Duplicate Content & Canonicalization

Canonical URL Tag

Duplicate Titles & Meta Descriptions

Search Friendly URLs

www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/african-elephants

Single domain

Shallow folder structurewith relevant words

Keywords in page name,separated by hyphen

Search UN-Friendly URLs

Xyz3.nationalgeographic.com/a/?q=31z&mg=vv7z&sd=8

UnnecessarySubdomain Dynamic URLs don’t perform as well as

static and engines recommend against more than two parameters

No keywords in the URL string

Fix Broken Links & 404s

Don’t Block the Robots

Do Block the Robots

XML Sitemaps

www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php

Webmaster Tools (Google)

Webmaster Tools (Bing)

Search Engine Guidelines

www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

Important Tags & Signals

Title Tags

Meta Descriptions

Tag Length Recommendations

Anchor Text

Page Copy

Image Alt Attributes

Good keyword usage in the alt tag

Not Important

Meta Keywords Tag

H1, H2, H(x) Tags

Search Engine “Submission”

Reciprocal Links and Link Farms

link

Keyword Research

Identify High Value Keywords

Predict the Effort Required to Rank Well

Choose the “Best” Words/Phrases to Target

The Search Demand Curve

Popular Keywords vs. Long Tail Search Traffic

Conversion Rate by Keyword Phrase Length

Where To Find Your Best Keywords

Salespeople & Customers

Google AdWords Tool

Be Wary ofMatch Type

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Bing AdCenter Excel Plug-In

www.seomoz.org/blog/using-the-adcenter-excel-plugin-for-keyphrase-research

Google Trends

Not Very Accurate

Sign In for Y-Axis Numbers

Internal Site Search Stats

Competitive Keyword Research

Restrict queryto competitor’s

domain

Targeting the Linkerati

Create Content That Attracts Links

The Power of the “Linkerati”

Influencers on the Web

Content that Appeals to Influencers

Cannibalization of the Link Graph

MMM… LINK GRAPHS ARE DELICIOUS!

The Rise of the Social Graph

Reading

TAGFEE: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-we-believe-why-seomozs-tagfee-tenets

Beginner’s Guide to SEO:http://guides.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-search-engine-optimization

All the SEOmoz PRO Guides:http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo

Thank You

NO… REALLY Thank you!

Use the code: SMSB201130-Day Free Trial of SEOmoz PRO

© 2011 www.seomoz.org