SEO BEST PRACTICES
Presented by:
Kent Schnepp - VP Strategy

What do the search engines like?
• Content visible to search engine spiders
• Naturally keyword rich content
• Communicate clear information hierarchy
• Sites that load quickly
• Links from authoritative sites
• Meaningful URL structure
• Domains with history

The SEO Trifecta

Keywords: The Foundation Of SEO

Keyword Mining
• Brainstorm With Team
• Site Extraction
• Competitor Sites
• Site Visitor Perspective

Keyword Research
• Search Popularity
• Relevancy
• Competitiveness
• Wordtracker
• Keyword Discovery
• WordZ

Keyword Expansion
• Advanced Industry Tools
• Search Engine Tools
• Topical Issues

Keyword Selection

Site-Wide SEO
Elements that could have an effect on the ability of
search engines to correctly index and rank a Web site:
• Server Considerations
• Information Architecture
• URL Structure
• Accessibility
• Duplicate Content

Site-Wide SEO: Server Considerations
• Server Location • Canonicalization
• Shared Hosting • 301 Redirects

Site-Wide SEO: Information Architecture
• Develop Good Structure
• Compartmentalize
• Semantic Weight

Site-Wide SEO: URL Structure
http://www.xyzbikes.com/road-bikes/womens-specific-six13
• Use Keywords! • Fewer Folders
• Describe Content • Hyphens Separate Best
• Keep Short • Static Is Better

URL Structure: Good/Bad
http://www.competitivecyclist.com/road-bikes/frame-brand/ http://www.onceridden.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/
bmc-110.html Pages.getBrand/Id/55/category/11/brand/8

Site-Wide SEO: Accessibility
Accessible Content Is
Findable Content
• Correct Mark-up
• Use Flash Sparingly
• External JavaScript
• HTML Site Map

Site-Wide SEO: Duplicate Content
Search engines donʼt like to show the same content
multiple times for any given search query.
Search engines select one version as the original.
Copies rarely appear for competitive searches.

On-Page SEO
Web page attributes that help the search engines
understand and categorize your content:
• Title Tags
• Meta Tags
• Semantic Markup
• Images
• Internal Linking
• Latent Semantic Indexing

On-Page SEO: Title Tags
Arguably the most important on-page element.
• Keep It Short
• Use Targeted Keywords
• Incorporate Your Brand
• Create Unique Titles
• Do Not Copy

On-Page SEO: Meta Tags
Optimized Meta descriptions improve click-through rates.
• Keep Them Short
• Be Informative
• Incorporate Keywords
• Write Unique Descriptions

On-Page SEO: Semantic Markup
Search engines possess great computational power, but
they canʼt evaluate the context of a message.
• Important Keywords In H1 Tags
• Long Tail Keywords In H2 Tags

On-Page SEO: Images
• Descriptive File Names
• Use Alt Attribute
• Use Captions
• Robots.txt Consideration

On-Page SEO: Internal Linking
• Navigation Text Links
• Breadcrumbs
• Sitemap Links
• Analytics Data
• Long-Tail Keywords

On-Page SEO: Content
• Write Great Content!
• Make It Useful
• Keep It Simple
• Humans First
• Update Content Regularly

Off-Page SEO: Link Building
External links that the search engines use to evaluate
authority for specific keywords.
• Keyword Relevancy Votes
• Blogs
• Optimized Press Releases
• Social Media Marketing

Off-Page SEO: Blogs
• Fresh Relevant Content
• Community Participation
• Niche Focused
• Target Long-Tail Keywords

Off-Page SEO: Optimized Press Releases
• Topical, Relevant Content
• Temporal Relevancy
• Strategic Out-Bound Links
• Multiple Distribution Points

Off-Page SEO: Social Media Marketing
• Web 2.0 Content
• Social Media Distribution
• Social Media Profiles
• Widget Integration
• Badge Marketing

The SEO Trifecta = Success
• Prominent Rankings
• Increased Qualified Traffic
• Improved ROI
• Enhanced Brand Exposure

THANK YOU!
Questions?
Presented by:
Kent Schnepp - VP Strategy
kent@engineworks.com
www.engineworks.com
www.engineworks.com/blog/