SEO On A Budget

Search Engine Optimization on a Budget! Henri Asseily henri.tel • CSO/CTO, Telnic Ltd. November 2009 • Founder, Shopzilla.com 1

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? ∅ $ yoursite.com $$$ 2

Contrast with SEM SEM = Search Engine Marketing Paying Ads $$ yoursite.com $$$ 3

Theoretical Value Equation SEO: $$$ - 0 = $$$ SEM: $$$ - $$ = $ 4

SEO: More than direct monetary value Branding Awareness Competitive positioning Perception of knowledge & expertise 5

Unfortunately... Lots of + Black Box (“hidden”) potential Algorithms $$$ = A perfect market for Snake Oil peddlers out to cash in on their “expertise” 6

Lies, Fallacies and Snake Oil " We guarantee a #1 position on Google !!! " Oh Really? For what search terms? For how long? At what cost? What are the long-term risks? What about Bing and other engines? 7

Just the changing facts, ma’am HUNDREDS of signals (i.e. parameters) used ✓List of used signals constantly changes ✓Importance of signals constantly changes User behavior changes ✓More precise queries with more terms ✓Mobile usage exploding Cat-and-mouse ﬁght against unscrupulous SEO optimizers 8

One Example among Many Popular SEO Tools: Manage Meta “keywords” <meta name="keywords" content="Financial, News, Stock, Market, Headlines, Investments, Quotes, Trading, TheStreet.com, Alix Steel ,Metals and Mining"> 9

One Example among Many Popular SEO Tools: Manage Meta “keywords” <meta name="keywords" content="Financial, News, Stock, Market, Headlines, Investments, Quotes, Trading, TheStreet.com, Alix Steel ,Metals and Mining"> Usage: MILLIONS of web pages 9

One Example among Many Popular SEO Tools: Manage Meta “keywords” <meta name="keywords" content="Financial, News, Stock, Market, Headlines, Investments, Quotes, Trading, TheStreet.com, Alix Steel ,Metals and Mining"> Usage: MILLIONS of web pages SEO Impact: 9

One Example among Many Popular SEO Tools: Manage Meta “keywords” <meta name="keywords" content="Financial, News, Stock, Market, Headlines, Investments, Quotes, Trading, TheStreet.com, Alix Steel ,Metals and Mining"> Usage: MILLIONS of web pages SEO Impact: ZERO No search engine has used meta keywords since 2002. Including Google. 9

So, what to do? Understanding how search engines work Winning strategies and tactics Latest tools, channels and networks Putting it all together 10

2 simple goals Search Engine Search Database Engine Indexer Search Engine Website Web Pages 11

2 simple goals Search Engine Search Database Engine Indexer Search Engine Website MAKE Web ENGINES Pages FIND YOU 11

2 simple goals Search Engine Search Database Engine Indexer Search Engine MAKE PEOPLE Website CHOOSE YOU! MAKE Web ENGINES Pages FIND YOU 11

What do Search Engines want? To be your ultimate destination site for search. Index anything and everything Determine “best” results for a search ! Make more money via ads and partnerships 12

What do Search Engines want? To be your ultimate destination site for search. you can easily get indexed Index anything and everything Determine “best” results for a search ! Make more money via ads and partnerships 12

What do Search Engines want? To be your ultimate destination site for search. you can easily get indexed Index anything and everything Determine “best” results for a search that’s the hard part to improve ! Make more money via ads and partnerships 12

“Best” as deﬁned by Search Engines The Obvious Content relevance given the search terms Yep, what’s in the page does matter. Amazing, isn’t it? Incoming links from other relevant pages given the search terms They’re called “backlinks” in SEO jargon. It tells engines your page is important because others think it is. This was Google’s founding idea. 13

Backlinks Power 14

“Best” as deﬁned by Search Engines The Not-So-Obvious Critically important concept of “Authority” If Hertz’s corporate site isn’t the ﬁrst result in a search for “hertz”, then the user will think something is broken. This is what an authority for a search looks like: 15

“Best” as deﬁned by Search Engines The Not-So-Obvious Importance of the URL string Everyone knows the URL text is important. But the greatest secret is that the DOMAIN string is the most important part! Order of importance of each element: domain, subdomains, folders, ﬁlename http://some.domain.com/a/b/c/page.html?param=1... 2 1 3 4 16

“Best” as deﬁned by Search Engines The Not-So-Obvious Age Relax. Be patient. The older, the better. First 3-6 months: your domain/page is in a purgatory sandbox to avoid spamming the index. Changes slow to appear. Read up on the “Google Dance” 17

“Best” as deﬁned by Search Engines The Not-So-Obvious Age Relax. Be patient. The older, the better. First 3-6 months: your domain/page is in a purgatory sandbox to avoid spamming the index. Changes slow to appear. Read up on the “Google Dance” NOTE: Since Twitter became a hit, search engines have been pressured to add “real-time search” to their indexes and are revisiting the age issue. It seems that engines will differentiate between temporary status/news updates and intemporal information. 17

“Best” as deﬁned by Search Engines The Not-So-Obvious Page load time Google likes faster page load times People love faster page load times Rule of thumb: 5 seconds is horrible 1 second is good 0.2 seconds is a feeling of “instantaneous” 18

SEO Strategy ( What to do ) Increase the number of valuable placements Improve your placements’ rankings for relevant searches Don’t try to outsmart the algorithms. Always ask yourself: Is what I publish useful to those who look at it? 19

Classic SEO Tactics ( How to do it ) Make sure the engines can read your information: careful with this Flash and Rich Media stuff. It may be pretty, but it can be very frustrating for both your users and the search engine robots Don’t ever duplicate content or functionality Point the search crawlers to all your properties 20

Guerilla Tactics on the Cheap 1. Spend time but little money to add points of presence for your company/brand online: Twitter stream: good channel for news updates and promotions Facebook page/group for local or global brands LinkedIn and Google Proﬁle (beware obsolete data) 21

Guerilla Tactics on the Cheap 2. Actively participate in forums dedicated to your areas of expertise: Don’t spam the forums, avoid blatant product placements Provide valuable in-depth information showing that you are an expert in your field When feasible, provide links into your properties of interest (.tel domain for contact info, your authoritative website for purchasing) Traffic from communities is much more valuable than search engine traffic 22

Guerilla Tactics on the Cheap 3. If you have your own domain, 3.(i) if it’s well indexed by search engines, 3.(i)(i) and if it is considered authoritative by Google then link as many points of presence from the previous slide as you can to your domain 23

Guerilla Tactics on the Cheap 4. You don’t have a domain? Or your domain isn’t optimized for search engines? No problem: Buy and leverage your own .tel domain .tel is your digital business card that gives you an instant online presence without having to build a website. Disclosure: I am the CSO/CTO of Telnic, registry for .tel 24

Why ? Very cheap (£ 10/year or less) No hosting, development or maintenance fees Mobile friendly: quick access to all your contact information Perfect for SEO: Fast!!! Can become your authoritative domain Fully leverages the search engines’ love of domain strings Absolutely no duplication of content with a main .com domain: .tel is exclusively for communications 25

A Practical Example: My personal brand 2008: Top Google result for “Henri Asseily” 26

A Practical Example: My personal brand 27

A Practical Example: My personal brand IL FA 27

A Practical Example: My personal brand 2009: Top Google result for “Henri Asseily” 28

A Practical Example: My personal brand 2009: Top Google result for “Henri Asseily” Authoritative Under my control 28

How I did it ! Acquired my own .tel domain 29

How I did it Filled my .tel with contact info, links " and relevant keywords 30

How I did it # Identiﬁed existing high-value pages 31

How I did it # Identiﬁed existing high-value pages $ % %% %% 31

How I did it & Linked those pages into my .tel henri.tel LinkedIn Proﬁle: Twitter Proﬁle: My Blog: And vice-versa: created reciprocal links! 32

How I did it ' Waited 6 months 33

Result I took control over my brand in 6 months for $15 34

Even better on Google Mobile Google is saying that there’s a phone number here 35

More Examples of SEO using .tel 36

More mobile examples domain name value page title value (and a nice short domain!) 37

marineparts.tel domain name value 38

Waikiki.tel 39

.com & .tel 40

Questions? Comments? Henri Asseily henri.tel Business Startup Expo, November 2009 Seminar: • CSO/CTO, Telnic Ltd. Search Engine Optimization on a Budget! • Founder, Shopzilla.com 41

http://www.telnic.org	464
http://telnic.org	324
http://www.telchina.org	119
http://www.hybirdcommunications.com	93
http://www.telnic.com	40
http://telchina.org	29
http://www.telname.com	20
http://telnic.com	14
http://www.nic.tel	14
http://dominiotel.blogspot.com	8
http://hybirdmediaglobal.blogspot.com	6
http://www2.telnic.org	5
http://www.slideshare.net	5
http://121.101.223.240:8888	4
http://playpen2.telnic.net	4
http://staging.telnic.com	3
http://anaue.net	2
http://dominiotel.blogspot.com.br	2
http://myminilaptop.blogspot.com	2
http://www.hybirdmediaglobal.blogspot.com	2
http://telsales.blogspot.com	1
https://www.telnic.org	1
http://telfordummies.blogspot.com	1
http://qc.telnic.com	1
http://www.telnic.co.uk	1
http://wipoworld.blogspot.com	1
http://static.telnic.org	1

SEO On A Budget

by hasseily on Nov 26, 2009

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SEO On A Budget — Presentation Transcript