Drupal SandCamp San Diego - Thunder SEO Presentation

Max Thomas max@thunderseo.com @ThunderMax (800) 819-6894
SEO
Sunday, January 24, 2010

Why Online Matters

SEO – Why Ranking Matters?
Ranking = Traffic
Ranking for Target Keywords = Sales
Recent Site Example:

SOM – Strategic Online Marketing
Think strategically.
Search and Social Media are separate channels, but they do overlap.
SEO is not Online Marketing – that’s short sighted.
Look at your market – sometimes Search is better than social, sometimes email, etc.
Be on lookout for new media, like Mobile.
SEO = turtle (steady, slow, wins in the end)
Social = hare (fast, fun, unpredictable)

SEO & Google
White vs Black Hat SEO
“A lot of people think Google hates SEO and nothing could be further from the truth. SEO when done well and done in a white hat way, can make your site more crawlable, more accessible and help users find useful content on your site.”Matt CuttsSee State of the Index 2009 on GoogleWebmasterHelpYoutube.com

Track – Track - Track
“We can’t manage what we don’t measure.”
Keyword Ranking Reports
SEO Stat’s (key indicators)
Webmaster Tools, site performance, etc.
Site Traffic (Analytics)
Call Tracking (Dynamic Call Tracking)
Conversions/Sales (Forms & Purchases)
Frequency:
Daily: Conversions & Call Tracking
Weekly/Bi-Weekly: Keyword Ranking, Site Traffic
Monthly: SEO Stat’s, Site Performance

Max Thomas | max@thunderinternetmarketing.com | (800) 819-6894
Track – Keyword Ranking Report
Use Proxy Servers Rotate to prevent Google from serving “personalized” search results, or identifying KW software.Example here fromwww.AdvancedWebRanking.com

Track – SEO Stat’s
GI = Google Indexed Content
YI = Yahoo! Indexed Content
Inb = Inbound Links
Int = Internal Links
PR = PageRank
Alexa = Site Traffic Comparison
Age = Age Domain Registered
mR = URL Rank (SEOmoz)
mT = URL Trust (SEOmoz)
DmR = Domain Rank (SEOmoz)
DmT = Domain Trust (SEOmoz)

Track – Site Performance
Webmaster Tools – this is how Google “sees” your website. Very important to be aware of this.
Reference Webmaster Tools for:
Crawl Errors (404 errors)
Crawl Stats (how frequently G bots crawl)
Site Performance (see Resources regarding PageSpeed)
http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/
webpagetest.org

Track – Site Traffic
Using Analytics, consider (at minimum):
Change in Visitors (month to month)
Traffic Sources
Organic Keywords

Track – Conversion/Call Tracking
Conversions:
Use Analytics for sales & “form submits”
Call Tracking/Leads:
Dynamic call tracking enables tracking by source
See VoiceStar example

Track – Conversion/Call Tracking

What Impacts Rankings
SEO’s Three-Legged Stool:

1. Content – Site Structure
Keyword Relevancy
Onpage Keyword Optimization (SEO Elements)
PageRank and Navigation

A. Keyword Relevancy
Start with “Conversational Terms” – talk with customers to learn what they search for.
Research Keywords - research keywords and historical searches using Google’s Keyword Tool and Wonder Wheel .
Create Keyword Map – prioritize terms in order of importance (e.g., “conversions”), group terms by “theme” (or user experience), then merge with site’s navigation.

A. Keyword Relevancy – Keyword Map Example

B. Onpage SEO/Keyword Optimization
Organize/Optimize page for target keyword(s)
Don’t try to rank homepage for multiple terms; target keyword-specific pages (the sub-pages)
Key Elements for Onpage Keyword Optimization:
URL
Title Tag
Description Tag (for user, not for SEO)
Header
Keyword placement close to top of page
Use of terms related to keyword in copy
Reference: SEOmoz Term Target Tool

C. PageRank and Navigation (Internal Linking)
PageRank Primer
Google’s quantitative measure of a site’s “Authority”
PR’s influence has wavered over time; Cutts now “says” it’s important
Highly relevant and quality inbound links are primary determinant of PR; links help determine a site’s Authority.
Site Goal: Maximize the flow of PR throughout site to important pages.

PageRank Sculpting – by Scott Smigler
PageRank sculpting is the application of rules regarding the quantity, prioritization and relevance of links on pages throughout a site to efficiently distribute PageRank. For example, suppose a page on my site has 100 PageRank “points” to pass on to the pages that it links to. I will want to be strategic about how those points are distributed rather than squander them indiscriminately.
Reference: http://searchengineland.com/pagerank-sculpting-leaves-nofollowed-tags-behind-34120

This is our made-up page called “Page 0” with links to 35 pages:

“Page 0” has 70 PR points to share. According to Matt Cutts, each of the 35 pages it links to receives two points of PageRank. :

Rel=nofollow
Google introduced rel=nofollow in 2005 so that NoFollowed links “won’t get any credit when we [Google] rank websites in our search results.”
This made it possible to shape (or “optimize”) the flow of PR through a site by using rel=nofollow on internal links that are secondary. Result: PR would be divided only across dofollow links
What changed: About a year ago, Google started dividing PR across links on a page (regardless of rel=nofollow) thus undoing SEO’s “PR Shaping”.

Prioritize pages by User Experience and SEO impact:

Revised “Page 0” with links to 10 primary pages:
Previous “Page 0”

Revised “Page 0” PageRank points allocation now shared 7 points with each page, versus 2 points previously:

Techniques to Reduce Number of Pages HP Links to
Reorganize Links – there may be links from homepage to low-value sub-pages that can be consolidated under a high-value page; link from homepage to primary page, include links to low-value pages on primary page.
Remove Low SEO Pages – remove pages from primary navigation that have low value for users and SEO; move them to the blog.
Drupal Modules & Tools –
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1. Content – Creating
Blog
Video
Feeds (RSS, Twitter, Blog Updates, etc.)
“Organic Content” What content can be created by organic process of doing business?
Ecommerce easy example – new products daily
See if content hosted on 3rd party sites can be brought into the primary domain (not via frames)
Sign-up Forms – keep them on domain

2. Freshness
New Content (Frequency)
The more frequently site is updated, the more frequently Google crawls, updates index and changes rankings.
How often should I add new content?
As often as possible; depends on ranking goal; local map listings – weekly okay; regional/national organic listings – daily.
Blogging
Easy and effective way to add content
Blog posts are crawled and indexed quickly by Google
Fast and easy way to add internal links
Expensive because of human involvement – original, non-duplicate content

3. Inbound Links
PageRank
Quality Over Quantity
Edu/gov myth
Reciprocal links
Viral links
Tools

3. Inbound Links – Sample Methods
Manual Link Submissions/Requests
Competitive Link Research/Acquisition
Links via Embedded Content (Widget, Badges, etc.)
Linkbait& Viral Campaigns
Content, Technology & API Licensing
Paid Links (Typically poor quality)

3. Inbound Links – SEO Tools
SEOmoz.com
Linkscape and others
OpenSiteExplorer.com
SiteExplorer.Search.Yahoo.com
Google Webmaster Tools
Goolge Search/Experimental
Social search (google.com/experimental)
Wonder Wheel

3. Internal Links
Guidelines for Building Internal Links for Ranking:
Use target keyword for anchor text
Consistency is key
Target same words as for inbound links
Setup internal tracking – Internal Linking Map (see Keyword Map example)
Show Sitbetter example

3. Internal Links
Internal Linking Map (ILM)
Confirm target keyword correlates with onpage and code optimized terms.
Use ILM for all internal links (including navigation)
First link on page to any URL is the only one that Google counts.

3. Internal Links – Example
Blogging Example for Online Retail Site
Site posts blog “product review” – including target keyword in post title (and blog url) and product name
Here, target keyword = office chair
Reviewurl = http://www.sitbetter.com/blog/2009/06/22/office-chair-preview-the-ray-leather-office-chair/

Google SERP after 2-3 days for “ray leather office chair”
Blog Review URL

Google SERP after 3-4 days
Product URL
Blog Review URL

4. Site Speed
Go Drupal!
Caffeine / Google –What is it?
Update to how Google indexes urls and displays them in search.
Google PageSpeed Tool
Other Google Webmaster Tools
Code.google.com/closure
Compiler – make javascript compact
Library – for code
Google Web ToolKit – easy to write code

CRO – Conversion Rate Optimization
It’s not only about the traffic – what happens when they get to the site? Sometimes the best strategy is to rethink onpage factors to increase conversions from existing traffic.
Resources/links:
Conversion Optimization - http://www.seerinteractive.com/conversion-maximization/
11 Conversion Rate Optimization Lessons Learned 2009 http://www.seomoz.org/blog/11-conversion-lessons-learned-2009

SEO Resources
Google Webmaster Tools
GoogleWebmasterHelp’s Channel on YouTube
Matt Cutts – posts and videos
SEOmoz – blog and tools
SearchEngineLand
Local Search – David Mihm
Local Search/Technical – Mike Blumenthal
SEO/Technical – Stephan Spencer

Thank You!
To Contact Max or Ask Questions:
max@thunderseo.com
#ThunderMax
- or –
#ThunderSEO

Drupal SandCamp San Diego - Thunder SEO Presentation

by Max Thomas on Jan 27, 2010

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