Getting Started with SEO -SES New Delhi

1. Getting startedwith SEONavneet KaushalCEOPageTraffic New Delhi 4–5 December

2. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND WHO AM I?Navneet Kaushal Founder & CEO of PageTraffic 12 Years of SEO experience Editor www.pagetrafficbuzz.com Expert author on WebProNews, Search Newz, Website Notes, DevWebPronews, PromotionWorld. Regularly quoted on ET Now, Seattle Times, Hindustan Times, Livemint, BenefitIT, India Digital ReviewAbout PageTraffic Established in 2002 95 people strong, with offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chicago & London Offers SEO, PPC, Link Building, Web Design & Development services More than 1500 clients worldwide Ranking among the top SEO Companies of India Winner of Red Herring Top 100 Asia Award 2011

3. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDSome Of The Clients We Have Worked With

4. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDLEADERSHIP AND AFFILIATIONS

5. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Why is SEO important?Average Daily Queries on Google 3 Billion Searches/Day (announced Aug. 2012) Number of Searches/Day on Google

6. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDGrowth of Google Queries in Last 5 yrs 3 Billion Searches/Day (announced Aug. 2012) Number of Searches/Day on Google

7. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDState of Search- India Indian Search Engine Market Share Bing Others Yahoo 1% 1% 1% Google 97% Source: Netmarketshare and business-standard.com

8. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Organic vs. Paid SearchPaidOrganic

9. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Organic vs. Paid Search~20% of Clicks~80% ofClicks

10. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Organic vs PaidOrganic Paid• Time bound • Instant• Higher entry cost (time / Rs.) • Lower entry cost (time / Rs.)• Lower ongoing cost (time / Rs. • Dynamic cost over time• Long term strategy • Targeted • Measurable ROI • Short-Mid Term Strategy

11. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND

12. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDFacebook ads < 1% CTR Banner ads < 1% CTR

13. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDSEO from a business perspective Helps you create a better website Brings in qualified traffic Helps you create better content Measurable/Actionable

14. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDGet Your Things Straight

15. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDSet GoalsWhy do you need Search Marketing?

16. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDResearch KeywordsHow & What do people search for?

17. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDOnsite OptimizationCreate a site that search engines will loveBut create with humans in mind

18. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDOffpage OptimizationMake your website trustworthy

19. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDReportingKeep Track of Everything you do

20. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDChoosing the Right KeywordsHow to target competition better

21. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Choosing the Right Keywords• It’s necessary to do some keyword analysis…• What is the volume of traffic for the keyword combination?• Have other websites optimized for those keywords? Would it be hard to get a high ranking?• Who sits in the No. 1 spot for those keywords?• What keywords are my competitors targeting?• What do the keywords say about the searcher’s intent/mindset? • Surfers • Researchers • Buyers

22. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Tools for Keyword Researchhttp://bit.ly/keywordtool2012

23. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Tools for Keyword Research Use Google Keyword Tools to create initial list of related search terms and search volumeSelect location andlanguage

25. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Tools for Keyword Researchhttp://www.google.com/insights/search/

26. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDOther Keyword Research Tools • Wordtracker • Wordstream • Keyword Discovery

27. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND KEYWORD ORGANIZATION• Organize your keywords by: • Brand name • Languages • Product name • Locations • Model numbers, etc. • Target audiences • Purchase cycle • Importance • Legal requirements

28. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Keyword Advice• Optimise each page for a different keyword combination• Don’t choose single keywords – 3-5 word combinations are best• Don’t choose generic keywords - be specific• Don’t choose hotly-contested keywords• Use geographic qualifiers – i.e. India• Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes• Choose keywords that align with a ‘buying’ state of mind

29. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDOnsite Optimization

30. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Onsite Optimization• On-site factors play a big role in determining your search engine rankings• These are the things that you can do yourself or that you can task your web developer to do on your behalf

31. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Use of multimedia platformsBe careful when using multimedia platforms, such as Flash,particularly as navigational elementsYour website must be ‘spiderable’, otherwise it won’t get goodsearch engine rankingsText-based navigation can be ‘spidered’; links embedded withina Flash element cannot.Be careful also with Javascript, DHTML or other graphicalnavigation elementsIf you use these, provide a text based navigation bar elsewhereon the page

32. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Onpage NavigationYour navigation structure and accessibility is critical for searchengine rankings – search engines need to be able to accessyour content in order to index itKISS principleEmploy the 2 click rule (3 click rule at most)Use textual links from your home pageUse a Sitemap which can be accessed from your home pageEmploy inline / contextual links

33. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND The TITLE TagThe singularlymost importanton-site factor!

34. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDAlmost always theheading that Googlechooses for its listings.Therefore it needs to beenticing or contain a call-to-action If you do one thing to your site, then this should be it!

35. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND The TITLE Tag• Include your chosen keywords within the TITLE tag – preferably near the start of the tag• Try to keep it to 70 characters• Must be relevant to the page content• Very important - each page should have a different TITLE tag

36. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Metadata Tags• Search engines also use a series of metadata tags that reside in the header of the page to index websites• These tags can’t be seen by human visitors to your website – but they’re still interrogated by the search engines

37. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDThe Description Tag • A textual description of what the page is about • Shows up in Google search results

38. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND The Description Tag• Include keywords close to the start of the tag, but don’t repeat more than 3 times• Try to keep it to 150 characters• Must be relevant to the page content• Each page should have a different DESCRIPTION tag

39. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND The KEYWORD Tag• No longer counts

40. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Body Text• Google loves original, high quality textual content• Body text is extremely important for search engine rankings because this is what human users come to see• Keywords, synonyms and variations of the primary keyword combination should be included in the body text, but not so that it reads ‘artificially’. It should read naturally.

41. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Keywords in URLs• URLs that contain keywords are better than those that don’t• Quite easy to do if your website is static, a little more difficult for database-driven sites• Don’t make the URLs too long because this will be seen as an attempt to manipulate the search results• Good and bad: • www.mysite.com//health-insurance • www.mysite.com/search.asp?insuranceID=435&locID=32

42. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Heading Tags• Heading tags – eg. <h1>, <h2> - within the HTML identify headings within the page copy and break up the text• They are used by search engines to determine page content• Use keywords in these tags, but don’t overdo it.

43. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Link Anchor Text• The ‘anchor’ text contained within hyperlinks provides Google with an understanding of what the linked content is about• Every hyperlink on your site should have descriptive anchor text, rather than ‘click here…’• Inline links or contextual links are best• eg. • Blue Train Enterprises offers a free white paper on how to optimise your website for the search engines

44. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Link Anchor Text DiversificationA. Naked URLs: such as www.xyz.comB. Generic/junk anchors: “click here”, “this website”C. Brand keywords:PageTraffic becomes pagetraffic, page traffic or pagetraffic SEO company

45. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Image ALT Text• ALT is displayed if the image doesn’t load in the user’s browser• The ALT tag should describe the image• Keep it short and to the point• It also can have a positive effect on your website rankings• Don’t use ALT tags as a place to stuff keywords

46. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND A word on domain names…..• Domain names no longer assist in search engine rankings• If you are thinking of changing names, or planning a new business, think carefully about the domain name you choose• Best to have .in for Indian market, but if possible secure .com as well• Try to keep it short, memorable• Register the name for as long as possible

47. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Customer Assurance Factors• It is recommended that your website contains: • Business information – • Telephone number – 1800 adds credibility • A physical address • Information about your business – ‘about us’ • Policies • Privacy • Security • Terms of use / disclaimers • A sitemap with links to major pages

48. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDGetting Value from Links

50. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Getting Value from Links• Links – both inbound and outbound – are important factors for Google when assessing a website’s importance

51. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Inbound Links• These are links on other websites that link to your site• Good quality inbound links serve as a ‘vote of confidence’ for your site – if a good site links to your site, then by association, your site must be good, too• Try and get links from ‘authority’ websites to your site • Thematically-linked sites• It’s not the volume of inbound links that is important – it’s the quality

52. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Inbound Links• When requesting a link, try and engineer it so that your keywords are included in the anchor text – eg. Compare Health Insurance Deals

53. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Caution….• Reciprocal links – I’ll link to you, if you link to me • You can get some value from these only if the two sites are thematically aligned and are both high quality • Most requests for reciprocal links should be deleted, particularly three- way link swaps• Paid Links • Google frowns upon paid links – the Google algorithm is sophisticated and can detect links which seek to artificially manipulate its rankings• Link Farms & ‘Bad Neighbourhoods’ • These are sites that allow you to post your link for free alongside thousands of other sites • Being linked from these sites can damage your standing

54. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Getting listed in Directories• Being listed in major directory-based websites can boost your rankings considerably • http://www.dmoz.org - a difficult one to get into • http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html • http://www.google.com/local/add - a very important one that will see your business plotted on Google Maps

55. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Other ways to get inbound links• Articles / interviews published on other websites• Press releases• Forum posts• Blog comments• Guest Blogging• ‘Link bait’ – controversial is best!

56. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Content is king• Ever heard the saying?• Search engines are simply a means to locate great content• Does your site have great content?• Or is it ‘brochure-ware’?• Does your site ‘do’ anything else that will bring visitors back time and again?

57. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Content is king• Add content that people want to read and will pass on – top ten tips, ‘how to’ guides, free white papers• Text should be in short sentences, compact paragraphs, be well punctuated, and contain headings to break up the text – time-poor people don’t read, they scan• Pages should not scroll and scroll and scroll…• One page per theme (optimised for that theme) and cross-link

58. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Content is king• Text should be written from a WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) perspective – no fluff, just tell the customer what they want to hear.• Add content regularly – if your site remains static, then it will lose its prominence in the search engines (and visitors won’t want to come back)

59. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Add content regularly• Some ideas for new content for your website: • New products • Company activities • Special offers or discounts • Achievements – awards • New staff profiles • Case studies about your products or services • Testimonials from customers • ‘How to’ guides • General advice about products or services • Observations about the market

60. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Blogs• Blog = web log• In essence, an online journal or diary, ordered by date• An excellent way of adding content regularly to your website• You can quickly establish yourself as an expert in your field via a blog• Can be setup within minutes online: • Wordpress.com • Blogger.com • TypePad.com• But it takes dedication and patience!

61. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND RSS• RSS = ‘really simple syndication’• A ‘push’ method of distribution for new content• Allows users to receive automatic updates when content is released• RSS feeds generally viewed in RSS readers – inc. browsers, Outlook• Can also distribute to mobile devices and social networking sites

62. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Video• The biggest growth area on the web as broadband uptake and bandwidth increases• Over 20 hours of video every minute is uploaded to YouTube• Video can be done cheaply with a handheld camcorder• Viral impact can bring thousands of visitors to a website in a short space of time• Examples: • Elf Yourself • The Greatest Job in the World • The World’s Greatest Business Mind

63. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDSearch and Social

64. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Social Networking• Web based services that allow users to create online communities based on shared interests and activities – there are over 2,000 of them!

65. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Facebook• Over 175 million users worldwide• Has beaten MySpace in Australia – 41.88% of social networking traffic goes to Facebook (Source: Hitwise)• Businesses can establish a Facebook Page or Group• But many businesses still block access to Facebook in the workplace…

67. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Twitter• Fastest growing, hottest property right now – anybody using it?• Micro-blogging; 140 character limit – basically ‘SMS on the web’ (but also can be done via mobile device)• You follow people, they follow you; your ‘tweets’ are seen by your followers, you see the ‘tweets’ of people you follow• But who would be interested in this seemingly banal, nebulous information?• Business can use it as an information channel to ‘push’ information to prospects – and it helps with search engine rankings!

68. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDBookmarking / Tagging Sites

69. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Bookmarking / Tagging Sites• Consider implementing an AddThis or AddToAny button on your pages • www.addthis.com • www.addtoany.com• A simple piece of code that adds a button to your page:

70. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDSEO Best Practices

71. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESNDMOST IMPORTANT ONPAGE FACTORS WHICH WE USUALLY FORGET • H Tag Distribution • Footer Optimization • Copyright (Keyword Rich) • Sitemap (Static & XML) • Verification (google & bing)

72. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND• Content is King• Use relevant keywords or key-phrases with a density of between 3% and 5%• Bold helps 72

73. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND• Inbound • Higher ranking site • Text in link important• Outbound • Less the better • Crawler follows link• Intra site • Helps with navigation 73

74. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND• JavaScript • Some Crawlers can not navigate • Commonly found in Menus• Flash • Crawlers can not view • Use HTML version as option or SWFobject• Images • Should have alt tags 74

75. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND• Inbound • Higher ranking site • Text in link important• Outbound • Less the better • Crawler follows link• Intra site • Helps with navigation 75

76. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND• JavaScript • Some Crawlers can not navigate • Commonly found in Menus• Flash • Crawlers can not view • Use HTML version as option or SWFobject• Images • Should have alt tags 76

77. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND More things that you should do…• Monitor your server statistics – unique visitors is the key metric to track (not ‘hits’)• Set up Google Analytics on your site - http://www.google.com/analytics/• Set up Google Webmaster Tools - http://www.google.com/webmasters/• Set up Google Alerts for your business - http://www.google.com/alerts• Try out Google Adwords pay per click advertising using a trial offer - http://www.google.com.au/contactadwords

78. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND Other technical things to do…• Remove multiple ‘instances’ of your site with a Permanent 301 redirect to eliminate dilution of your website standing• Implement a robots.txt file• Implement an XML sitemap• Ensure that your pages load quickly by streamlining your code and optimising your images• Ensure that your site’s server has close to 100% uptime – if it isn’t live when the spider arrives, your rankings may be affected• Make your site W3C compliant – http://validator.w3.org

79. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND What you should NEVER DO• Hidden text• Keyword stuffing• Display duplicate content• Cloaking – displaying different content to visitors and spiders• Use Flash alone• Use Frames

80. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND A final thought• If you employ one of the strategies mentioned in this presentation, you will get some benefit in the search engine results pages• If you employ a couple, you will get much greater benefit• If you employ all of them properly, then you will most likely go to the top of the results• The little things count and, when you employ them together, they can make a big difference to your site performance

81. New Delhi | 4–5 December 2012 | #SESND THANK YOU!Website: www.pagetraffic.inEmail: nkaushal@pagetraffic.inTwitter: @navneetkaushalBlog: www.pagetrafficbuzz.com