Whitney Eden of GroupM joins us to share the top ten things to think about when approaching SEO. Whitney is an Organic Search Manager at GroupM, where she develops and drives organic search strategy for Fortune 500 companies. After spending the a couple years being a freelance writer, she discovered SEO as a natural means of content amplification. When she’s not throwing around five-dollar words, she likes to spend her spare time cooking, walking her Corgi, and mixing up gin cocktails. Follow: @WhitneyCEden

1. TOP 10 SEO MISTAKES AND
HOW TO AVOID THEM
1

2. TOP 8 SEO MISTAKES AND
HOW TO AVOID THEM
2

3. 1. CREATING CONTENT WITHOUT
A CONTENT STRATEGY
• Keyword Research is Clutch
• Includes:
• Business Goals
• Target Audience
• Keyword Volume
• Keyword Competition
• Website Content
• User Intent
http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research

4. 1. CREATING CONTENT WITHOUT
A CONTENT STRATEGY
• Content Gap Analysis
• What keywords are we
already ranking for?
• What are our
competitors ranking for?
• What are some frequently
asked questions we
receive from users?
• Can we leverage current
events to make our
content newsworthy?

5. 2. NOT HAVING A
ROBOTS.TXT FILE
PURPOSE OF A ROBOT.TXT FILE
Block Specific Areas of a Website
The robots.txt file is designed to allow and
disallow search engine robots access to files
and folders throughout your website.
• Allowing allows crawling
• Disallowing prohibits crawling

6. 2. NOT HAVING A
ROBOTS.TXT FILE
IMPORTANCE OF A ROBOT.TXT FILE
• Decreasing Site “Bloat”
• Discourage Crawlers from Visiting Certain Pages
• Disclaimer for Secure Information
• Search crawlers request your robots.txt by default
• Links to XML Sitemap

7. 2. NOT HAVING A
ROBOTS.TXT FILE
HOW TO CREATE A ROBOTS.TXT FILE
SEO Tools Robots.txt Generator:
http://tools.seobook.com/robots-txt/
generator/
Google Webmaster Tools Robots.txt Tester:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/
answer/6062598
SEO Tools Robots.txt Analyzer:
http://tools.seobook.com/robots-txt/
analyzer/
# robots.txt
!
User-Agent: *
Disallow:
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /style
!
User-Agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /css
!
User-Agent: Slurp
Disallow: /
!
User-Agent: msnbot
Disallow: /fun
!
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

8. 2. NOT HAVING A
ROBOTS.TXT FILE
DON’T DISALLOW
YOUR ENTIRE SITE
!
# robots.txt
!
User-Agent: *
Disallow: /

9. 3. NOT HAVING AN XML
SITEMAP
PURPOSE OF A XML SITEMAP
• Designed for Search Engines
• Provide a detailed roadmap
of each page’s
• Location
• Change Frequency
• Priority

10. 3. NOT HAVING AN XML
SITEMAP
Example of XML Sitemap: http://generalassemb.ly/sitemap.xml
(“view-source:https://generalassemb.ly/sitemap.xml”)

11. 3. NOT HAVING AN XML
SITEMAP
HOW TO:
1. Generate sitemap at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com
2. Upload to your directory of choice
• Example: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
3. Submit to Google Webmaster Tools
4. Once uploaded, add sitemap URL to robots.txt file
• Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

12. 4. NOT HAVING AN HTML
SITEMAP
PURPOSE OF A HTML SITEMAP
• Navigation Aid for Users
• Help Search Engines Find and
Index Content
• An opportunity to increase the
amount of keyword-rich links
to preferred landing pages

13. 4. NOT HAVING AN HTML
SITEMAP
EXAMPLE OF AN HTML SITEMAP - www.Apple.com

14. 4. NOT HAVING AN HTML
SITEMAP
EXAMPLE OF AN HTML SITEMAP - www.Apple.com/sitemap

15. 4. NOT HAVING AN HTML
SITEMAP
HOW TO CREATE AN HTML SITEMAP
1. Create an HTML Page for your site map
• www.apple.com/sitemap
2. Add a link to every IMPORTANT page on your site.
• Limit to under 100 pages
3. Include keyword-rich anchor text
4. Make sure there’s a link to the HTML sitemap in your footer
5. Don’t forget to update the sitemap when you add new webpages.

16. 5. CONTENT AMPLIFICATION
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
http://moz.com/blog/weighting-the-clusters-of-ranking-factors-in-google-analytics-whiteboard-friday

17. 5. CONTENT AMPLIFICATION
TYPES OF CONTENT AMPLIFICATION:
• Social Media
• Manual Outreach Link Building
• Influencer Outreach
• Ego Bait
• Broken Link Building
• Organic/Editorial Links
• Create shareable/viral content
• Be newsworthy/current
• Create an authoritative blog
http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links

18. 5. CONTENT AMPLIFICATION
HOW TO DO SOCIAL MEDIA:
• Include links in all posts
• Use a solid link shortener, like
bit.ly (301 redirects, not 302)
• Link to homepage in profile bio
• Moar social media best practices
www.socialmediaexaminer.com/
social-media-seo/
Does social media really effect rankings?
http://moz.com/blog/do-tweets-still-effect-rankings

19. 6. SKETCHY LINKING
PRACTICES
• White Hat
• Content
• Community
• Relevancy
• Black Hat
• Trying to “game the
system”
• Cloaking
• Hidden text
• Keyword Stuffing
Moz.com Beginner’s Guide to Link Building:
http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-link-building/

20. 6. SKETCHY LINKING
PRACTICES
• Buying Links
• $$$ Links
• Goods/services Links
• Sending a “free” product in
exchange for writing about
it (and linking to it)
• Excessive Link Exchange
• Guest Post Campaigns
• An increasingly spammy
practice
Linking Schemes: Google Webmaster Tools:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356

21. 7. DUPLICATE CONTENT
Problems with Duplicate
Content
1. Which version(s) to
include in indexes?
2. Direct link equity to one
page or separate it
between multiple?
3. Which version(s) should
rank?

22. 7. DUPLICATE CONTENT
Causes of Duplicate Content
• www vs non-www
• www.widgets.com/blog vs
widgets.com/blog
• If both www and non-www
versions of the URL are
200, you’re splitting link
equity.
SOLUTION
!
301 Redirect!

23. 7. DUPLICATE CONTENT
Causes of Duplicate Content
• URL Parameters
www.widgets.com/blog?ref=123
• Printer-Friendly
www.widgets.com/print/blog
• Session IDs
www.widgets.com/blog?
SESSID=123
SOLUTION
!
Canonical Tags!
<link href="http://
www.example.com/canonical-version-
of-page/" rel="canonical" />

24. 8. IGNORING 404S, ESPECIALLY
SOFT 404S
404: Not Found
• “Regular” 404
Dude, that page doesn't exist
anymore
!
• “Soft” 404 = Dead-end pages
It should be a 404. But it’s
returning a 200. I’m so
confused!
Google: “Soft 404s can limit a site’s crawl coverage by search
engines because these duplicate URLs may be crawled instead of
pages with unique content.”

25. 8. IGNORING 404S, ESPECIALLY
SOFT 404S
How to Find These Blasted 404’s

26. 8. IGNORING 404S, ESPECIALLY
SOFT 404S
How to Find These Blasted 404’s

27. TWO BUCKETS ‘O SEO
• Technical
• Robots. txt
• HTML Sitemap
• XML Sitemap
• Duplicate Content
• 404s
• Content
• Linking
• Content Amplification
• Content Strategy

28. QUESTIONS?