Search Engine Optimization [SEO]
Coding and Content Tactics to Keep in Mind
Below are code- and page-level tactics to aid your search engine rankings. Keep
these techniques in mind as you:
• Create new web pages, features, and copy
• Tweak web copy – particularly link text – to improve rankings
• Issue new web campaigns, announcements and press releases
• Redesign your organization’s homepage or your site
After you conduct research to determine the best keywords for your web page(s)/site,
make sure to include those keywords in the following locations…
1) HTML page <TITLE> tag, <META> keyword and summary tags
• <TITLE> tag is the most important
• Include between 6-11 words
• Average between 60 and 75 characters each; any excesses are ignored
• Place most important keywords at the beginning
• Never place the same keyword/phrase side by side (this is considered keyword spam)
2) ALT text for all photos, graphics, images
• Use your keywords in the ALT text
• Link graphic elements with ALT text to related pages on your site (by keyword)
• When a photo or graphic serves as a semantic header, wrap it in HTML header <H#> tags
• Don’t spam; keep the content and flow of language natural
3) Content-related HTML tags
• Links should contain the keywords of their target pages as link text
• Page headings should all contain keywords (using <H#> heading tags)
• Bold and italicize keywords in your copy (using <strong> and <em> tags, not <b> and <i>)
• Use keywords in ordered and unordered list items (<OL>s and <UL>s, respectively)
5) Web page content
• Include both singular and plural spellings of your keywords
• If your keywords contain hyphens or special characters, then also include them without these,
too (ALT text is a good place for this)
• Include your keywords in the link text for as many of the links pointing to your site as possible
• Ask partners and like-minded organizations to your page or site (using your keywords as link
text), particularly if their pages rank well for your keywords
You’ll know that you’ve succeeded in your optimization efforts when:
• You have natural links to your SEO campaign pages from all high-level pages in your site
• Your keyword appears between 5-10 times on a web page and it feels natural, not forced
• You can review any web page and know at least 1-3 keywords for which is it optimized
• Between 30 and 90 days out, you start to see higher rankings for your optimized pages

Search Engine Optimization [SEO]
Best Practices for Soliciting New Inbound Links
Below are tactics to aid you in external web marketing. Keep these in mind as you:
• Create links on web sites that allow you to generate your own content
• Comment in blogs, discussion groups, forums, and other community sites
• Reach out to external web sites to solicit new inbound links to your own site
• Communicate and build relationships with web site owners
After you conduct research to determine the best keywords for your web page(s)/site
and optimize all of your content, follow these best practices to garner high-quality
links to your campaign or promotion:
1) General considerations:
• Follow the same best practices for pitching a story to the press and traditional media
• Never promise to link back to any site (unless it supports your business goals)
o If pressed, cite your non-profit status and illegality of endorsing an external
organization, service, or product
• Answer any follow-up e-mails or calls ASAP, but prioritize by site influence
2) When communicating with a web site owner/stakeholder:
• Use your professional/organizational e-mail address
• Use your organization’s name or brand in subject line and message body
• Identify yourself by name as a unique, personal representative of your organization
• Be open, kind, and generous:
o Tell recipient how much you enjoy their site and content
o Reference the name or title of the site you’re soliciting
o Thank the site owner (by name) in advance
• Include a single link to your content on it’s own line/paragraph
o Use your complete, fully qualified http://www.name.org/… URL
• Use your chosen keywords within the note
o Subtly suggest the use of your keywords as link text
• Overall: Keep your note short and to the point
o Make it as easy as possible for site owners to link to your content
What is the very least you should do for external web marketing?
• Spend at least one hour doing external web marketing for each new web feature or promotion
o Spend at least five hours for major new promotions
• Place at least ten new high-quality links to each new campaign or promotion that you develop
o At least half of them should be created via contacting site owners
• Keep your new and best-performing contacts in a database for future mail-merging
o This can decrease the amount of time you’ll spend e-mailing site owners in the future

Search Engine Optimization [SEO]
Worst Practices: “Black Hat” SEO Tricks to Avoid
Below are tactics that you should avoid at all costs when performing search engine
optimization. Keep these in mind as you:
• Create new web pages, features, and copy
• Tweak web copy and code to improve rankings
• Issue new web campaigns, announcements and press releases
• Redesign your organization’s homepage or your site
The potential results of using the following techniques include becoming blacklisted
in search engines, or having all of your sites’ contents completely removed from
search engine indices. This can have a huge, negative impact on your organization’s
web performance metrics and generate of critical stories in the press. Many of these
tactics no longer work well to increase search engine rankings, but sometimes a few
slip through the algorithms and programmatic detection.
Worst practices: “Black hat” SEO tactics to avoid at all costs
• Cloaking and redirects
Building a page in such a way that it serves one version of a page’s content to a search
engine (which winds up in the index) and another, completely different version of content to
an actual visitor (such as an automatic redirect to another site). If you need to redirect a page,
use a 301 (permanent) redirect via an .htaccess file on your server.
• Hiding and/or shrinking keywords
Applying color to keyword-laden text so that it becomes invisible against the background
content of the page (i.e., beige text on a beige background).
• Hiding and/or shrinking links
Making links so small or invisible (via the above tactic) that they can’t be seen by the human
eye, but will still be picked up by search engines.
• Web page swapping and hijacking
Optimizing a page’s content so that it becomes very popular at one location and then
completely swapping out that content for something new; the new content is not immediately
indexed by the search engine and continues to draw much unsuspecting traffic.
• Doorway/gateway/ghost pages
Distributing many “welcome” portals to your site at various locations on the Internet that all
link to your real site and then creating many new inbound links to these portals so that they
rank well in search engines (and transfer their credibility onto your site).
• Replicating web pages and/or web sites
Creating many copies of your web content all around the Internet in hopes that a search on
your keywords will reveal nothing but your content. Also known as “mirror pages” and/or
“Googlebombing”. Content syndication via RSS and similar protocols is fine, but not complete
site replication.
• Keyword stacking and stuffing (keyword spam)
Repeating the same word over and over in the page’s <TITLE>, <META> content, and page
content.

Search Engine Optimization [SEO]
30 (mostly) Free Tools and Resources
1) Keyword research:
• Yahoo/Overture Keyword Selector Tool:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion
• Digital Point Solutions Keyword Suggestion Tool:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
• SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty Tool: http://www.seomoz.org/tools/kwtool.php
• Wordtracker: http://www.wordtracker.com/
2) SEO stats, analytics and metrics:
• Google:
o Sitemaps: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/siteoverview
o Analytics: https://www.google.com/analytics/home/
• Alexa traffic details: http://www.alexa.com/
o Alexaholic: http://www.alexaholic.com/
• SEOmoz Page Strength tool: http://www.seomoz.org/tools/page-strength.php
• Yahoo Search query to determine all inbound links to your site coming from external sites:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=linkdomain%3Awww.YOURSITE.org%20-
site%3Awww.YOURSITE.org
• SearchEngineWatch.com index of search engine statistics:
http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/
• ClickZ search marketing statistics: http://www.clickz.com/stats/
3) Blogs and general search engine-related news:
• Google blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
o Matt Cutts’ blog: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/
• Yahoo Search blog: http://www.ysearchblog.com/
• SearchEngineWatch.com blog: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/
• John Battelle’s Search blog: http://battellemedia.com/
• Bruce Clay, Inc. blog: http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/
• SEOmoz: http://www.seomoz.org/blog.php
• SEO Roundtable: http://www.seroundtable.com/
• Pandia: http://www.pandia.com/sew/index.php
4) Other tools to ease SEO tasks and tactics:
• SEO Browser: http://www.seo-browser.com/
• Search-related extensions for the Mozilla Firefox web browser:
https://addons.mozilla.org/search.php?cat=13&app=firefox&appfilter=firefox&type=E
o StumbleUpon: http://www.stumbleupon.com/
• Digital Point Solutions tools for webmasters: http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/
• SEOmoz SEO tools: http://www.seomoz.org/tools.php
o Beginner’s Guide to SEO: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners.php
o Ranking factors: http://www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php
• Wayback Machine: http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
• Copyscape: http://www.copyscape.com/