Search Engine Optimization Success with WordPress

Mark McLaren
McBuzz Communications – a Seattle Search Engine Marketing Company
SEO SUCCESS WITH WORDPRESS
Links to resources covered in this presentation are included on the final slide. Contact me with questions.

My Goal: Show Three Things
How to optimize a WordPress site for search
How to see if optimization is working
How to use feedback from Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools to optimize further

You Can Do This

Which keywords should I use?
Common problem: You can use Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools to identify keywords that are bringing quality traffic to your website, but how do you identify good keywords if you don’t already have quality traffic coming to your site?

What Does a Well-Optimized Site Look Like?

Many visits via many keywords

Visitors “convert”

Sample email from Gravity Forms
Click here to get the Yoast Gravity Forms Add-on Plugin
source/medium
keyword
landing page (top ranking page)
pages visited

Optimization Is Working
700 + organic visits a month via a broad range of related keywords
7% of these visitors submit the contact form
Others contact the business by phone
Site generates 50-100 new leads per month
2-3 new customers per month

How Do We Get There?

Who submits the form?
Bounce rate less than 100%
View more than one page
Spend more time on site than average

What can we learn from Google Analytics?

What Does a Not-So-Well-Optimized Site Look Like?
Low organic search traffic
Low number of organic keywords
Most keywords are “branded”: variations of the business name or owner’s name
Few keywords are about products/services
Very few visitors convert

Some days there are no visits from organic keywords
18 out of top 25keywords branded

Visitors we love:
Submit the form.
Branded (name) searches.
Search using “good fit” keywords.

Top 1-6 keywords are all company-name or owner-name, but #7 is not. It’s a “good fit”: a keyword we should use to optimize the site.

Finding Good Keywords
Choose words people actually use to search
Google Suggest
“Searches related to…”
Keyword Tool
Analytics to find “good fit” keywords
Look at competitors in search results
Think Sunday Brunch, not À La Carte Menu(Use a wide variety of related keywords – a “keyword theme” – rather than use one or two keywords repeatedly.)

Google “Suggest”

Google Keyword Tool
Login to your Google account and click here for a link to the tool

Google Keyword Tool

Use Google Analytics to identify “good fit” keywords that are not company-name or owner-name keywords

Look at competitors’ sites in top search results. What keywords appear in their search result listings? What keywords appear on their web pages?

Keyword Variety
seo presentation
seo seminar
seo workshop
seo class

Keyword Search Volume (Google Keyword Tool)
seo seminar 4400 searches/month
seo seminars 3600 searches/month
seo workshop 3600 searches/month
seo workshops 2400 searches/month

I use keywords like “search engine optimization seminar” on the mcbuzz.com home page.

Oops! I forgot to optimize for “workshop” keywords. (In other words, I forgot to use the word “workshop” in my post and on the mcbuzz.com home page.)

I went back and added “workshop” to the HTML title of the post using All In One SEO plugin and to the visible title and body text using the WordPress editor.

Here’s the result.
(I also added the words “SEO class” to the body of the post.)
I used the Rank Checker add-on for Firefox to collect the ranking information. (Click here to get it.)

Where to Put Keywords
HTML Title

Meta description

HTML Title
title and description on other pages & posts(Using the All in One SEO Pack plugin)

URLs & permalinks
These can be customized

http://mcbuzz.info/?page_id=32
http://mcbuzz.info/web-development/

Permalinks (under Settings)

Use: Custom Structure

Visible Page Title (Heading)

Use Keywords!
Subheadings

Use keywords in subheadings
Subheadings

Make content “sticky”, useful, a resource
Hire (or partner with) a writer
Add interviews, guest bloggers, Top 10 lists, summaries, reviews
YouTube – add rich descriptions!
SlideShare
PDFs / White Papers

Put Keywords in Body Text
“keyword density”? Meh.
Add images. Put keywords in image descriptions.
Use captions (text)
Use bullet points
Use numbered lists
Italicize keywords
Some pages that rank well for a particular keyword use that keyword 10-15 times. They are not penalized for doing so.

Links, Links, Links
Golden Rule
Use a blog
Use social media
Use http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
Use keywords in link text

Refine your content
Analytics
Webmaster Tools
Form Submits
Goals

Adding a Goal in Google Analytics

Resources
Google Keyword Tool (Login to your Google account when you use this.) All In One SEO Pack pluginGoogle Analytics plugin by YoastWebmaster ToolsGravity Forms for WordPressSEO Add-on for Gravity FormsRank Checker add-on for Firefox
Mark McLaren & McBuzz Communications

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Search Engine Optimization Success with WordPress

by McBuzz Communications on Jul 08, 2011

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Search Engine Optimization Success with WordPress — Presentation Transcript