Search Engine 101

Search Engine 101: An Introduction to Search Engine Optimization Presented by: Brian Kleisner Intuit Global Search Marketing July 23, 2008

Paid Vs. Organic Search Results According to Nielson / Net Ratings, 46% of Web sites are found through search, and 55% of all online purchases result from Web sites found through search engines. Savvy SEO professionals think about content creation as writing for this audience . Paid Search Results (sponsored) Organic Search Results (natural)

For More Information on Paid Search… http://adwords.google.com/select/Login http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/index.php

How Do Search Engines Work?
Search engines collect all of the words on each web page taking note of
Where they are placed on the page and
How they are formatted
The engines don’t think, they simply use pattern matching and scoring attributes
Search engines look at all of the pages on the web and take note of
How they are connected
The themes running through them

On Page Influencers of Search Results
Page Title
The single most important element on a web page for SEO
Each page should have an unique title
Description Meta tags
May appear in the search results snippet
Should utilize important keywords
Each page should have an unique description
Header tags
Provide additional information to the search engine of what the page is about
Content
Must include keywords
The first 250 words are the most important

The Importance of Page Titles Page Title

The Importance of Page Titles This is how page titles appear in search results Does this search result inspire your confidence that this website will meet your needs? Compare this result to this one. Which one better meets your request as a searcher?

The Importance of Description Tags Compare this description to this one. Which one better describes what you are looking for? Does this description inspire your confidence that this website will meet your needs?

The Importance of Header Tags
Header tags help the search engines understand what the page is about much like a headline in a newspaper.
Header tags also help tie the page content to the page title.

Content - Writing Tips for Search
Do your keyword research. Think like your audience and be specific.
Look at each page in your site — what words do you think are relevant for each page? Now look again at the pages — are you actually using these words?
Try searching your own site for these words. If you can't find them, search engines won't.
Choose one keyword phrase that is targeted for each page
Include each keyword phrase three to four times each within your copy — more if it makes sense. If your text sounds “awkward” to you, slice your keyword phrase usage.
Use the exact term — “small business accounting software” is not the same as “accounting software for small business.”.
The first 250 words on a page are the most important. Search engines prefer body text that contains 300 to 500 words per page. The longer the better opportunity for keyword placement that sounds good — your text always needs to sound natural.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Levers SEO Basics =
On Page Factors
Title Tag
Description Tag
Keywords in Body
Heading Tags
+
Avoid Unethical
SEO
Hidden Text
Duplicate Content
Link Farms
+
Keyword Research
Search volume
Competitiveness
Relativity
+
Link Building
Navigation
Internal
External

To Learn More
Search Engine Optimization Blogs
www.seomoz.org
www.searchengineland.com
www.searchenginewatch.com
Books
Moran, M. and Hunt, B. (2008) Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site (2d Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: IBM Press.

Search Engine 101

by HostPaul on Aug 03, 2009

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

1 Embed 1

Statistics

Search Engine 101 — Presentation Transcript