Taming the Google Monster

Ladysmith Downtown Business Association presents Taming the Google Monster! June 23rd, 2010 By Paul Mycroft Design

Questionnaire results Taken from 17 questionnaire results at LDBA membership meeting 1. Do you have a business website? Yes No 21% 79%

Questionnaire results 2. Do you use visitor tracking software? Yes No 47% 53%

Questionnaire results 3. If YES, do you analyze traffic? Yes No 37% 63%

Questionnaire results 4. Do you know what “SEO” means? 32% Yes No 68%

Questionnaire results 5. Which search engine(s) do you use? 6% 17% Google Yahoo! Other 78%

Questionnaire results 6. Are you happy with the results? 26% Yes No 74%

Questionnaire results 7. Do you have a Google account? 42% Yes No 58%

Questionnaire results 8. Do you update your site on a regular basis? No Yes 47% 53%

Questionnaire results 9. If YES, how do you do it? Self Other 38% 63%

1) Free Google Account www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount 1. Email address 2. Password Google sends a conﬁrmation email to that email address with veriﬁcation link 3. Done!

2) Webmaster Tools www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

2) Webmaster Tools www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ 1. Verify your site (server access required) 2. Set your preferred domain name: www.name.com or name.com. 3. Set the geographic target (e.g. .ca domain name will automatically appear in google.ca but you may want to limit your .com domain name to a country such as UK-only). 4. Submit a Sitemap so Google can crawl your site and identify errors (server access required). 5. Change your web address. 6. See keywords used to ﬁnd you. 7. See links to your site and internal links. 8. See if any malware has infected the site. 9. Request re-inclusion if you’ve been banned. 10. Control what Google can crawl.

2) Google Analytics www.google.com/analytics/

2) Google Analytics www.google.com/analytics/ 1. Install the code correctly on your web pages (i.e. just before the closing </body> tag at the bottom of the page) - use an “include” file. 2. Verify the site is being tracked. 3. Set filters and add other users (to just view reports or full access) 4. Set the time zone. 5. eCommerce? 6. Track site search? 7. Set Goals! Let Google know which areas on your site are your “actions” then add a $ value to them (if possible). 8. Add more than one website profile so you can see everything in one convenient place. 9. Connect your Google AdWords account to Analytics. 10. Start tracking in Excel to identify weak points.

2) Google Analytics www.google.com/analytics/

2) Other Cool Free Stu ! 1. Conversion University - free Analytics videos 2. Local Business Center - add your business map location and add company info, opening hours, logo, photos! 3. “URL builders” to track marketing campaigns 4. Feedburner to help share and optimize your blog feed 5. Merchant Center - upload your product data to Google and make it available to Google Product Search and other Google services 6. Google Checkout - quickly and easily buy from stores across the web and track all your orders and shipping in one place 7. Gmail - access webmail from anywhere! 8. Add a search function to your website 9. Google Alerts - sent straight to your inbox 10. Google AdWords keyword research tool

What is “SEO”? Search Engine Optimization or “SEO” is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the “organic” traffic the site receives from search engines.

3) Internal or On-Site “SEO” 30% of SEO success 1. Know your keyword phrases! 2. Title Tag - under 60 characters 3. Meta Description tag - under 160 characters 4. Headlines and sub-headlines using the phrases 5. Body copy including your keyword phrases 6. Page naming and structure (e.g. www.name.com/web-design/) 7. ALT tags: text behind an image, very useful for screen readers 8. Internal linking to goal pages 9. Add Sitemap page with a link to every page 10. Push important “actionable” copy to the top of each page

3) Page Title and Meta Description “professional web designer” (#6 from 21.7M)

4) Inbound Links (O -Site SEO) 70% of SEO success PageRank: “Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.” “PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value.”

4) Inbound Links (O -Site SEO) 70% of SEO success 1. Join the LDBA and Chamber(s) to get proﬁle pages and links 2. Join your governing body 3. Submit an article or press release to industry news site - BUZZ! 4. Allow a way for people to easily link to you (“Link to us”) 5. Syndicate your site (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, RSS feed) 6. Trade articles with other websites 7. Submit your site to paid directories—quality matters! 8. See if your manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site—relevancy matters! 9. Craigslist, Yahoo! Answers, Google Groups, forum signatures, real blog commenting, start a blog, 10. Swap irrelevant links? WHAT?? Nah.

5) Why Content is Still King! 1. Use real, easy-to-understand language that humans can read 2. The search engines don’t buy from you—your visitors do! 3. Adding more keyword-rich pages is good for more “organic” tra c 4. “Link Bait”—catch more of your ﬁsh with the exact bait 5. Become a valuable resource to the online community 6. Become an authority/expert in your ﬁeld 7. Add more links to your target pages 8. Shows the writer’s personality 9. NO MORE “CLICK HERE”—use in-context linking 10. Track keywords and visits in Analytics and do more of the same!

Paul Mycroft Design Let’s get together • www.paulmycroft.com • www.facebook.com/PaulMycroft • www.facebook.com/PaulMycroftDesign • www.linkedin.com/in/paulmycroft • twitter.com/PaulMycroft • www.google.com/proﬁles/pmycroft • www.paulmycroft.com/newsletter/ - Sign up to receive our email news • Email us at creative@paulmycroft.com • Call us on (250) 245-8777 • Stop by the o ce at 622 1st Avenue, #201, Ladysmith • Talk to us on the street or at the next business meeting

Are you going to tame the “Monster”?

That’s all, folks! Talk to you online.

Taming the Google Monster

by PMD (Paul Mycroft Design) on Jun 26, 2010

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