SEO for Bloggers for EVO 2011

SEO for Bloggersand other stuff
Dennis Goedegebuure
@thenextcorner
Thenextcorner.net

Introduction
Dennis Goedegebuure
Director SEO eBay Inc
Responsible for SEO Strategy for Global Platform
9 years with eBay
5 years in the US

What can SEO do for you?
When successful, SEO can get you significant more traffic
http://thenextcorner.net/wireless-switch-dell-latitude-e4300/

The Future Of Your Business
SEO is NOT a business model
SEO is NOT a business model

Search Engine Quality Guidelines
All major search engines have documentation
Bing: www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/webmaster/archive/2009/09/03/search-engine-optimization-for-bing.aspx
Google: www.google.com/support/webmasters
Yahoo: help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/basics/basics-18.html

Google Webmaster Guidelines
What To Do
Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link
Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it
Make sure that your <title> elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate
Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site
Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server

Google Webmaster Guidelines
What To Avoid
Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users
Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank
Avoid hidden text or hidden links
Don't use cloaking or sneaky redirects
Don't load pages with irrelevant keywords
Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content
Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content. If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#1

How Search Engines Work
Indexing
Ranking
Crawling
Discover & follow links
Check robots rules
Bandwidth considerations
URL issues (infinite, redirects, dynamic)
Duplication
Content extraction
Topic association
Web-wide value
Relevance
Value
Uniqueness
Display

SEO comes down to 2 Aspects
Discovery
If your pages don’t get discovered, you won’t get any search traffic
If you block access to your site, crawlers won’t discover your content
Relevance
How relevant is your content to the query a user is searching for
If your cooking site ranks for Credit Card, you might be considered a spammer

Google is changing…Fast…
Back-end Infrastructure
Caffeine
MayDay
Panda
Front-end UI
One-Box
Left Rail
Instant Search
Personalized
Local
Social

Front End UI Changes

SEOmoz Ranking Factors
Yearly survey and data analytics to construct how search engines rank websites
Survey among 130+ SEO professionals -> Opinion!
Data study on 10K+ randomly sampled keywords
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

SEO Ranking Factors

SEO Ranking factors framework
Discovery
Relevance
Tactic
Projects to improve
Linking
Internal links
External Links
URL structure
Canonical URL
Keyword rich
Meta Tags
Page title
Verification
Page Content
Unique content
Semantic mark up
Feeds
Sitemaps

Links – Internal & external Links
Links are still major ranking factor in SEO
Internal Links; Site hierarchy & Taxonomy
External Links; hard to get, no control over Anchor text
Don’t buy Links! Earn editorial Links by being remarkable!
22

Webmaster Guidelines
Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links
Use text instead of images to display important names, content and links
Next step:
Which pages have incoming links?
Webmaster Central
Referral traffic
Rank pages with links from high to low
Group pages on topics
Interlink relevant pages
Build strong hierarchy in site structure
Use keyword rich anchor tags

Link research Google Webmaster Tools

Referral traffic = External Link

Link Research Using Tools
Yahoo Site Explorer
Open Site Explorer
MajesticSEO

Yahoo Site Explorer
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
Demo

Open Site Explorer
http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/

Open Site Explorer

MajesticSEO
https://www.majesticseo.com/

MajesticSEO

Internal Cross Linking
Wordpress SEO smart links
Let’s you set up keywords that will automatically link to a location on your site
http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-plugins/seo-smart-links

Link Magnets; using remarkable content to pull more links
Sorts of link bait:
Contests
Lists
First time
Give value
Cool
Design
Shock
Controversy
Insult
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/long-exposure-photography
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/01/24/the-day-250000-people-showed-up-at-my-blog-case-study/

Link Magnets
90 links
1,210 links
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/long-exposure-photography
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/01/24/the-day-250000-people-showed-up-at-my-blog-case-study/

Link Building through Pictures
http://thenextcorner.net/sydney-night-photos/

Google Alert in GReader

Link Building through Pictures

Guest Blogging
Build links through guest blogging
Use your best content
Link to relevant resources
Pay attention to your Bio
http://www.twitip.com/why-twitter-will-go-mainstream-in-2009/

Discovery
Relevance
Tactic
Projects to improve
Linking
Internal links
External Links
Internal Link (Plugins)
External links
Link bait
Guest blogging
URL structure
Canonical URL
Keyword rich
Meta Tags
Page title
Verification
Page Content
Unique content
Semantic mark up
Feeds
Sitemaps

URL structure – Control through Permalink settings
http://thenextcorner.net/5000-miles-journey-of-a-keyboard/

common words like “what”, “you” or “can” out of your post slug to make it more search engine friendly
http://www.vretoolbar.com/news/2007/04/01/seo-slugs-wordpress-plugin/

URL structure – Control through Permalink settings
http://www.thenextcorner.com/2010/03/fish-free-wifi.html
VS
http://thenextcorner.net/men-macro/

Date based URL’s vs keywords
Through Advanced segments in Analytics, I can break out all traffic on publication dates

Date based URL’s vs keywords

Canonicalization
Each page should only have one URL
Each specific combination of content should only have one URL
http://www.example.com/?id=1&p=2
http://www.example.com/?p=2&id=1
55

Rel Canonical
If you cannot prevent duplicate content, pick a canonical version, and use Rel Canonical to point duplicates to the Canonical URL
<link rel=“canonical” href=“http://example.com/canonical-url/”/>
Solution: Canonical URL in Plug-in
http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/
56

Discovery
Relevance
Tactic
Projects to improve
Linking
Internal links
External Links
External links
Link bait
Guest blogging
URL structure
Canonical URL
Keyword rich
SEO-slug plugin
Canonical tag plugin
date vs. non date URL’s
Meta Tags
Page title
Verification
Page Content
Unique content
Semantic mark up
Feeds
Sitemaps

Meta tags

Meta Tags
Meta tags are HTML elements used to provide structured metadata about a web page
<head>
<title>eBay Daily Deal: Great items, deep discounts, and free shipping</title>
<meta name=“description” content=“Attention dealhunters: Save money on eBay with the Daily Deal. Check back every day for great items, deep discounts, and free shipping.”>
<meta name=“keywords” content=“deal, deals”>
</head>

Meta Tags
Does the result inspire to click?

How to construct titles
61

Short inspiring titles70 Characters
Google Title only shows 70 characters
Viral spreading easier if you leave room for RT
Canon 5200mm F14 SLR DSLR Lens http://bit.ly/8v140T What a BEAST! @problogger
Think about:
Short URL: 20-26 characters
RT @username: 12-15 characters
Twitter only allows 140 characters

Important Meta Tags – Page Title & Meta Description
63

SEO for Wordpress by Yoast
64

Site Verification

Discovery
Relevance
Tactic
Projects to improve
External links
Link bait
Guest blogging
Linking
Internal links
External Links
URL structure
Canonical URL
Keyword rich
SEO-slug plugin
Meta Tags
Page title
Verification
SEO for Wordpress from Yoast.com
Site verification
Page Content
Unique content
Semantic mark up
Feeds
Sitemaps

Content & Elements

People Scan Pages

Content Elements
Use H1 – H6 where relevant
Use Images
http://customblogging.com/seomike/archives/seo-tips-tricks/strategically-placed-faces-help-conversion

Learn from Newspapers
http://thenextcorner.net/uploads/2009/02/new-york-times-21-january-obama.jpg

Review Content through SEO-Plugin

Accidental Blogging Success

Provide Value

Keyword Analytics

Follow up on Success

Content Planning
Unique for travel industry in The Netherlands

Image Optimization

Image Optimization
File name: Graffiti-New-York_Usual-Suspects.jpg
Alt text: Graffiti New York Usual Suspects New York fotos
Text on page
http://thenextcorner.com/2007/10/new-york-fotos/

Discovery
Relevance
Tactic
Projects to improve
External links
Link bait
Guest blogging
Linking
Internal links
External Links
URL structure
Canonical URL
Keyword rich
SEO-slug plugin
Meta Tags
Page title
Verification
Site verification
Page Content
Unique content
Semantic mark up
Unique quality content
Be remarkable (what is your purple cow)
Feeds
Sitemaps

Sitemaps

XML Sitemap

Discovery
Relevance
Tactic
Projects to improve
External links
Link bait
Guest blogging
Linking
Internal links
External Links
URL structure
Canonical URL
Keyword rich
SEO-slug plugin
Meta Tags
Page title
Verification
Site verification
Page Content
Unique content
Semantic mark up
Unique quality content
Be remarkable (what is your purple cow)
Feeds
Sitemaps
Google sitemap (plugin)

Keyword research

Keywords
Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it

Keyword ResearchGoogle Webmaster Central

Keyword ResearchGoogle Analytics

Long Tail Keywords
http://www.seo-orlando.com/long-tail-keywords-seo-budget/

Hittail
Real-time keyword analytics tool
Gives KW suggestions
Actionable To-Do list

Social signals
103

Social Media SuccessNick Reese story
http://trafficandtrust.com/
http://nicholasreese.com/
104

Convergence SEO & Social
Social Signals move into SEO territory
Drive traffic & Brand mentions
Link Building tool
Reputation monitoring
105

Get you content in front of social friends

StumbleUpon
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/stumbleupon-drives-more-us-web-traffic-facebook-133207
http://gs.statcounter.com/#social_media-US-monthly-201007-201107

The Gift that keeps on Giving
Since 2011, SU traffic has exploded

What does a StumbleUpon Outbreak look like?
- Motors Blog, received +180K Visits in 1st month
Endless opportunities to tell stories based on eBay data

Get started with StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon URL ShortnerSU.PR

Facebook, Exploding Referral Traffic
http://www.alexschultz.co.uk/weblog/2011/04/the-traffic-impact-of-facebook-social-plugins-on-my-cocktail-site.html
113

Google+ Promising
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/05/google-plus-sharing/

Google+
http://searchengineland.com/report-google-ceo-page-ties-bonuses-to-social-success-reorganizes-google-mgmt-team-72197

Add the G+ button
http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/

Google+ WMC

G+ in G Analytics
http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-engagement/google-analytics-now-tracks-social-engagement-011868.php

Social Engagement in G Analytics

404-errors

Spot 404 in G Analytics
http://thenextcorner.net/how-to-use-google-analytics-to-look-for-404-errors-on-your-site/

Find the 404-errors

301 Redirect
3
0
2
Bad for SEO
302 Redirect
Sign on the front door reads:
We Temporarily Moved to
534 High Street
Keep coming back to our
old address each visit before going to 534 High Street to
see if we’ve returned
124 Main Street
534 High Street
Post Office NOT notified
No history, New Page
PageRank Stays Here
3
0
1
Good for SEO
301 Redirect
Sign on the front door reads:
We Moved to
534 High Street
Post Office notified
Please update your address book
124 Main Street
534 High Street
PageRank Transfers

Redirect Plug-in
http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/

Twitter: @TheNextCorner
Blog: TheNextCorner.net
StumbleUpon: DennisGNL.stumbleupon.com
Flickr: dennis_goedegebuure

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SEO for Bloggers for EVO 2011

by Dennis Goedegebuure

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SEO for Bloggers for EVO 2011 Presentation Transcript