This document provides an introduction to search engine optimization (SEO) through a presentation given by Dan Taylor, an SEO expert with 7 years of experience. The presentation covers the basics of SEO, including defining what SEO is, discussing the value of SEO for businesses, and outlining the key components of an SEO strategy, such as keyword research, on-page optimization, and link building. The goal is to help attendees understand how to improve a website's visibility and ranking in search engines through organic or unpaid search results.

1. Introduction to SEO
Dan Taylor
@DanTaylorSEO
www.seowned.co.uk

2. About Me
• 7 years experience in Internet Marketing
• 4 years as an SEO
• Worked at Click Consult, Just Search and
MoneySupermarket as well as my own agency
SEOwned
• Have 3 lovely children and follow Everton (for
my sins)
2

3. Contents
• What is SEO?
• What is the Value of SEO
• How Do You Do SEO?
– Keyword Research
– Onpage Optimisation
– Link Building
• Wrap Up
3

4. What is SEO

5. 5

6. 6

7. Wikipedia
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of
improving the visibility of a website or a web page
in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid
("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.
In English
Getting more relevant traffic via search engines
organic listings.
7

8. What is the
Value of SEO?

9. Why is SEO Important?
Worldwide Internet Usage
• 2 billion users online
• Over 1 billion daily searches in Google
UK
• Over 82% of population are online
• UK Internet economy worth over £100m = 7.2% of GDP
Search Engine Usage
• 89% of all online purchases start with a search
• 92% of searches made in Google
• Organic results receive over 75% of clicks
• 91% of searchers never go past the first page
9

10. and here is where is all begins…
10

11. 11

12. Organic results
12

13. Paid results
13

14. Shopping results
14

15. Google suggest
15

16. Click through rates
Source:
16

17. How Do You
Do SEO?

18. SEO is About Two Things
18

19. SEO is About Two Things
19

20. SEO is About Two Things
20

21. The SEO Process
Keyword
• Find the right keywords to optimise for
Research
• Implement those keywords on the website
On-Page • Make the website search-engine friendly
Optimisation
• Build links to the website to increase its
Linkbuilding authority
21

22. Keyword
Research

23. Keyword Research
• Start with a basic set of keywords related to
the website and the industry it operates in
– Engagement Ring, Diamond Engagement Ring, Gold
Engagement Ring
• Use a keyword tool to expand the list and
research competitive info
– Wedding Ring, Wedding Band, Platinum Bands, White Gold
Engagement Rings, …
• Refine the list to set of targeted words
– Diamond Engagement Rings, Celtic Wedding Rings, Gold
Wedding Rings, Platinum Wedding Bands, White Gold
Engagement Rings
23

24. Short & Long Tail
Higher Competition Lower Competition
Lower Conversion Rate Higher Conversion Rate
Research Phase
(e.g TVs)
Action Phase
(e.g Buy Samsung E3454 32” LCD TV)
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25. Keyword Research Tools
25

26. Keyword Research Tools
26

27. Keyword Research Tools
27

28. Keyword Research Tools
28

29. Keyword Research Tools
29

30. Keyword Research
Tips & Advice
• Make sure your target keywords are relevant to the websites
business.
• Go for keywords that you can actually rank for (i.e. a new
website will not be able to rank for ‘car insurance’)
• Try to mix generic keywords (wedding ring) with long-tail
keywords (white gold engagement ring)
• Remember that keyword tool data is not 100% accurate
• Monitor your SEO results to find out which keywords perform
the best and focus your efforts there
• Remember: keyword research is one of the most important
aspects of SEO and it is an ongoing process.
30

31. On Page
Optimisation

32. On Page Optimisation
• Search Engines rank web pages – not websites
• Build your pages around one theme and stick with it:
– One page about wedding rings
– One page about engagement rings
• One subpage about white gold engagement rings
• Don’t stuff a webpage full of keywords – moderation is the
key
• Optimise for your users and the search engines will love it.
32

33. On Page Optimisation
Elements to be optimised
Title tag
Meta description tag
Headline & paragraph structure
Body text
Image alt attribute
URLs
Internal links
Sitemaps (HTML & XML)
33

34. On Page Optimisation
Title Tag
<title>SEO For Small Business - SEOwned Limited</title>
• Start with your focus keyword, end with your brand name.
• Keep it short – 65-70 characters (including spaces)
• Use a unique title for every page on your site
• Usually shown in the SERPs (but not always)
34

35. On Page Optimisation
Meta Description
<meta name="description" content="Small Business? SEOwn It!
Choose an SEO Agency that delivers on Return on Investment
not just Rankings! Click Here Now to Find Out How We Can Help You!"/>
• Not a ranking factor – but a very important click through
factor.
• SERPS only show 150 characters, and there is no guarentee
they will choose your description.
• Try to include focus keyword ones (it gets bolded)
• Try and include a CTA (phone number, click here)
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36. On Page Optimisation
Body Copy
H1 Tag
H2 Tags
Paragraph text
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37. On Page Optimisation
Body Copy
• Write for users not search engines
• More content = great for search engines
Find the balance
• Less content = better for users
• Minimum amount of 200 words (typically 500+ is ideal)
• Include your focus keywords and synonyms
• Write naturally and make it readable
• Spell and grammar check your content (get someone else to
read it)
• Don’t stuff your content with keywords.
37

38. On Page Optimisation
Image alt attribute
<img src=“http://digitalmarketinginstitute.ie/files/2008/11/ireland-map.jpg”
alt=“Ireland Map with pins” />
• Make images relevant to content
• Include a relevant alt tag – preferably containing the focus
keyword (but don’t shoehorn irrelevant keywords in)
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39. On Page Optimisation
URLs
• Bad URL
http://domain.com/index.php?p=457&attr=37687&cat=hdj...
• Good URL
http://domain.com/wedding-rings/gold -wedding-ring/
• Keep URLs technology agnostic (i.e. remove file extensions such as
.html, .php, …
• Don’t overdo the use of keywords
• Use a logical hierarchical structure that makes sense to humans
39

40. On Page Optimisation
Internal links
• Link from top to bottom
• Link sideways and diagonally
• Use keywords in the link
Wrong:
To read more about wedding rings
click here
Right:
Read more about wedding rings
• Use breadcrumb links
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41. On Page Optimisation
Sitemaps (HTML & XML)
• HTML Sitemap
– Webpage listing all pages on the website
– Allows users to quickly find the page they’re looking for
– Allows search engines to index all pages on your site
– Should be linked to from the footer of every page
• XML Sitemap
– XML file containing all webpages on a website that you want to get
indexed.
– Can also include images and videos
– Gives more info to search engines: update frequency, importance,
date of last change.
– Should be linked from the robots.txt file and added to Webmaster
Tools
41

42. On Page Optimisation
HTML Sitemap
42

43. On Page Optimisation
XML Sitemap
43

44. On Page Optimisation
Tips
• Hidden text (white text on white background)
– Don’t use it, easily detectable and will get you penalised
• Meta keywords tag
– Useless from an SEO perspective and can give away your target
keywords to your competitors
• Keyword stuffing
– Doesn’t work and may get you penalised
• Flash content
– Mostly invisible to search engines so don’t use for content. Video and
animation is fine
• JavaScript
– Mostly invisible to search engines so don’t use for main content of site
or navigation
44

45. On Page Optimisation
Tools
• XENU Link Sleuth - http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
– Indexes all pages of a website, data exportable to Excel
– Use to create XML sitemaps and find duplicate titles, duplicate descriptions,
internal inking and indexation issues.
• Firebug – http://getfirebug.com/
– Use to diagnose header tags, alt images
– Use to find hidden text
• Google Webmaster Tools – http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
– See how Google sees your site
– Pay attention to warnings
– Great data straight from Google
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46. Link Building

47. Link Building
• Links determine the authority of a page
• Higher authority = higher rankings
• More links = higher authority
• Not all links are equal
– 1 valuable link from the BBC will be more powerful that over 100 links
from low authority sites.
• Link (anchor) text is very important
– Branded link: Salford University
– Brand + Keyword: Salford University SEO Course
– Keyword rich link: SEO Course
• A website needs all of these types of link
47

48. Link Building
How to spot a valuable link
• PageRank
– A measure of how authoritative Google thinks the page is
– Only updated sporadically but gives a general idea
– 0 is bad (a new site or penalised sitemay have this), 10 is awesome
(Facebook is a PR 10)
• mozRank
– Developed by SEOmoz and it a little more accurate than PageRank and
updated more often
• Not ‘nofollowed’
– If a link has a rel=“nofollow” attribute then search engines will not
pass any value from that link to the page
• Common sense
– Spammy sites = low quality
– Popular site = high quality link
– Relevant site = valuable link 48

49. Link Building
Different types of link
• Reciprocal links
– Site A links to site B, and site B links back to site A
– Try not to link to the same page i.e if they link from their homepage
don’t link to their homepage
– Not very valuable
• Link wheel
– Site A links to site B, site B links to site C, site C links to site A
– A spam signal, avoid if you can
• One-way link
– Site A links to site B
– Most valuable type of link, get as many of these as you can from
relevant or powerful sites.
49

50. Link Building
How to build links
1. Directory submissions
2. Press releases
3. Article marketing & guest blogging
4. Link bait
50

51. Link Building
1. Directory Submissions
• Business Directories such as:
– Dmoz.org
– Business.com
– Best of the web (botw.org.uk)
• The best directories are usually paid
• Always check if a directory link is valuable
– What is the PageRank of the page where your link will end up?
– Is that page indexed by Google?
– Is the link nofollowed?
• Good for building foundational brand links
• Try and find relevant directories to an industry
51

52. Link Building
2. Press Releases
• Great way to build valuable links
• Make sure your press release…
– Is newsworthy, relevant and interesting enough to be read
– Contains a links back to your site (preferably with a keyword rich link
text)
• Use professional PR distributers
– PR Web: £40 to £200 per press release
– PR Newswire UK: pricing per article
– BusinessWire: pricing per article
– MyNewsDesk: £0 to £590 per month
• There is no guarantee it will be picked up by news outlets
– The more money and time spent on the press release generally leads
to more and better links
52

53. Link Building
3. Article Marketing & Guest Blogging
• Write relevant articles/blog posts
• Links in article & in author bio
• Use pseudonyms to create more authors
• Article sites:
– Ezinearticles.com
– Goarticles.com
– Articledashboard.com
– Articlecity.com
– Articlesbase.com
• Guest Blogging
– Approach blogs and websites directly and offer content
– Only link when relevant, link to other sites too
– Myblogguest.com is a popular place to find blogs and bloggers 53

54. Link Building
4. Linkbait
• Linkbait is:
– Content published on your website that is so
interesting/funny/newsworthy/shocking that people will link to it
withoutr being asked
• Type of linkbait:
– Great articles with valuable insight
– Infographics
– Breaking news stories
– Top n lists
• Spread via social media
– Share on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Stumbleupon, …
– Submit to social news sites such as Reddit
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55. Link Building Tools
• SearchStatus Firefox Plugin
– http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/
– Shows a webpages PageRank and mozRank and highlights nofollowed
links
• SEOMoz Open Site Explorer
– http://www.opensiteexplorer.org
– Analyse your competitors links and see if you can get some of them as
well
– Don’t just copy be inspired
• Google Webmaster Tools
– See some of the links that Google counts for your website and strive to
get more of the same
55

56. Questions?
Dan Taylor
dan@seowned.co.uk
http://twitter.com/DanTaylorSEO
View deck at: http://slidesha.re/zQxp1G http://www.seowned.co.uk