There are many out there that would have SEO appear to be a source of voodoo magic. The reality, however, is that building great SEO is about hard work, attention to details, community engagement, and understanding how it works. The beauty when using WordPress is that WordPress and many of it’s plugins are designed to help make your site stand out on search engines. In this talk, we will look at the basics of SEO and how you can excel at the search engine optimization for your site.

1. Demystifying SEO

2. What is SEO?

Search Engine
Optimization

The process of
improving visibility of
a website in search
engines with 'natural'
or unpaid search
results.

3. Why Do We Care?

The higher & more
frequently that your site
appears in search result
lists, the more visitors it
will receive.

Basically, SEO is the
'secret sauce' that gets
your site showing up on
the first page of a
search engine (i.e.
Google) search.

6. How Does SEO Work?
 Basically search engines,
like google, have little
robots crawling the web
for content.
 Their job is to find out &
catalogue who is talking
about what to make
content searchable on the
web.
 They also determine
relevance of material.
Photographer: Mark Strozier

7. The More Relevant the Robots Decide
Your Material is the Higher it Ranks in
Search Engines
 The Robots determine
relevance by:
− Determining if site
content matches
keywords that you
have tagged,
− The number of
incoming links from
other sites on the
web.
Photographer: Andy Field

8. Optimizing Your Site with
Search Engines

Make it easy for the robots to find you.

Be linkable.

Pay attention to titles.

Tag, Tag, Tag!

Add metadescriptions.

Use tools that play well with search engines.

Post regularly.

Perform regular maintenance on your site.

9. Be Bot Friendly

Make sure robots
can find all pages of
your site easily.

This is especially
important for sites
with dynamic access,
like Adobe Flash or
Java Script. Photographer: @gerlos

Basically you need a
good site map. Plugin: Google XML
Site Map

10. Be Linkable

Share your posts on
social networking
sites.

Comment on other
people's blogs.

List your site in
relevant communities
on the web & interact
Courtesy of LJinteractive.com
there.
Plugins:

Create crosslinks Socialable,
within your site. CommentLuv

11. Pay Attention to Titles

If you want your post to be found in a search
for a particular word or phrase, be sure to
include that word or phrase in the title.

Titles are one of the first thing the robots look
at.

12. Tag, Tag, Tag!

After writing, tag all
web content with
relevant keywords.

Tagged words need
to be in the post.

Use long-tail tags.

Use Keyword
Targeting Tools, like
Google Keyword.

Plugin: Scribe

14. Add Metadescriptions

Paragraph that search engines will post under
your link.

Normally, search engines will make the first
paragraph your metadescription & will pay
extra close attention to the words listed there.

SEO Plugins will allow you to tailor this &
target specific key words. ex. All-In-One SEO,
Scribe, WordPress SEO

Some themes are also designed SEO ready,
like those using Genesis.

16. Post Regularly
Every time you post something new to your site, you are
inviting the robots back for another visit.

17. Perform Regular Maintenance
on Your Site
 Check for broken
links.
 Check for possible
exploits.
 Plugins: Broken Link
Checker, Exploit
Scanner

18. Follow Best Practices

Don't get discounted by search engines, play
by their rules.
− You can quote others, but don't repost entire
articles on multiple sites.
− Make sure your tags are relevant.
− Avoid becoming a link farm (spamming your
audience with unnecessary links to
products ... etc.)
− Don't hide words within your site for tagging
purposes.

The result will be getting banned from search
engines

19. Questions?

If you have a follow up
question, feel free to:

Email
erica@ahimsamedia.com

Tweet @AhimsaMedia
or @EricaHargreave

Facebook us at
/AhimsaMedia

ericahargreave.com
Thank You!