This document discusses search engine optimization (SEO) and outlines a seven step process for effective SEO. It begins by defining SEO, distinguishing it from paid search advertising, and discussing important search engines. It then details the seven steps as getting a site fully indexed, making pages visible in search results, building links and PageRank, leveraging PageRank, encouraging click-throughs, tracking the right metrics, and avoiding worst practices. The overall goal of SEO is to influence search engine rankings through relevant, optimized content and links.

1. Search Engine Optimization
(SEO)
 Mark Branom
Continuing Studies CS 22

2. Agenda
 What is SEO?
 The Seven Steps to SEO
 GetYour Site Fully Indexed
 GetYour PagesVisible
 Build Links & PageRank
 LeverageYour PageRank
 Encourage Clickthrough
 Track the Right Metrics
 AvoidWorst Practices

3. Part 1: What Is SEO?

4. Search Engine Optimization
 6 times more effective than a banner ad
 Delivers qualified leads
 Most user sessions begin at the search
engines
 Most online purchases are made on sites
found through search engine listings

5. SEO is NOT Paid Advertising
 SEO – influence rankings in the “natural”
(a.k.a. “organic”, a.k.a. “algorithmic”) search
results
 PPC – paid search advertising on a pay-per-
click basis.The more you pay, the higher your
placement. Stop paying = stop receiving
traffic.
 SEM – encompasses both SEO and PPC

6. Natural
Paid
Paid

7. Most Important Search Engines
 Google – 67.6% market share
 Bing – 18.7%
 Yahoo – 10%
 Ask – 2.4%
 AOL – 1.3%
Source: searchenginewatch.com:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/study/23458
37/google-search-engine-market-share-nears-68

8. What Are Searchers Looking
For?
 Keyword Research
 “Target the wrong keywords and all your efforts
will be in vain.”
 The “right” keywords are…
 relevant to your business
 popular with searchers

9. Keyword Research
 Tools to check popularity of keyword
searches
 http://WordTracker.com
 http://KeywordDiscovery.com
 http://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
 http://www.google.com/trends/
 http://ubersuggest.org/

10. SEO. A Moving Target.
 Lots is changing…
 Personalization & customization
 Vertical search services (Images,Video, News, Maps, etc.)
 “Universal Search”
 Fortunately, the tried-and-true tactics still work…
 Topically relevant links from important sites
 Anchor text
 Keyword-rich title tags
 Keyword-rich content
 Internal hierarchical linking structure
 The whole is greater than the sum of the parts

11. The Search Engines Are Your
Friend
 Sitemaps.org
 Webmaster tools (e.g. GoogleWebmaster, Bing
Webmaster)
 Rel=“nofollow” tag

12. Part 2: Seven Steps to SEO

13. Begin The 7 Steps
1) GetYour Site Fully Indexed
2) GetYour PagesVisible
3) Build Links & PageRank
4) LeverageYour PageRank
4) Encourage Clickthrough
6)Track the Right Metrics
7) Avoid Worst Practices

14. 1) Get Your Site Fully
Indexed
 Search engines are wary of “dynamic” pages - they
fear “spider traps”
 Avoid stop characters (?, &, =) ‘cgi-bin’, session IDs and
unnecessary variables in your URLs; frames; redirects;
pop-ups; navigation in Flash/Java/Javascript/pulldown
boxes
 If not feasible due to platform constraints, can be easily
handled through proxy technology (e.g. GravityStream)
 The better your PageRank, the deeper and more often
your site will be spidered

15. 1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
 Page # estimates are wildly inaccurate, and include
non-indexed pages (e.g. ones with no title or
snippet)
 Misconfigurations (in robots.txt, in the type of
redirects used, requiring cookies, etc.) can kill
indexation
 Keep your error pages out of the index by returning
404 status code
 Keep duplicate pages out of the index by
standardizing your URLs, eliminating unnecessary
variables, using 301 redirects when needed

16. Not Spider-Friendly
 GET http://www.bananarepublic.com --> 302 Moved
Temporarily
 GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do --
> 302 MovedTemporarily
 GET
http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do?targe
tURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bananarepublic.com%2Fbr
owse%2Fhome.do&CookieSet=Set --> 302 Moved
Temporarily
 GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/cookieFailure.do --
> 200 OK

17. 2) Get Your Pages Visible
 100+ “signals” that influence ranking
 “Title tag” is the most important copy on the page
 Home page is the most important page of a site
 Every page of your site has a “song” (keyword theme)
 Incorporate keywords into title tags, hyperlink text,
headings (H1 & H2 tags), alt tags, and high up in the page
(where they’re given more “weight”)
 Eliminate extraneous HTML code
 “Meta tags” are not a magic bullet
 Have text for navigation, not graphics

18. Pretty good title

19. Not so good title –
where’s the phrase
“credit card”?

20. Good link text
and body copy

21. Good link text
and body copy

22. No link text or
body copy

23. No link text or
body copy

24. Take a peek
under the
hood

25. The “meta
tags”

26. Unnecessarily
bloated HTML

27. 3) Build Links and PageRank
 “Link popularity” affects search engine rankings
 PageRank™ - Links from “important” sites have more
impact on yourGoogle rankings (weighted link popularity)
 Google offers a window into your PageRank
 PageRank meter in the GoogleToolbar (toolbar.google.com)
 Google Directory (directory.google.com) category pages
 3rd party tools like SEOChat.com’s “PageRank Lookup” &
“PageRank Search”
 Scores range from 0-10 on a logarithmic scale

28. Google’s Toolbar –
with handy PageRank
Meter

29. 4) Leverage Your PageRank
 Your home page’s PageRank gets distributed
to your deep pages by virtue of your
hierarchical internal linking structure (e.g.
breadcrumb nav)
 Pay attention to the text used within the
hyperlink (“Google bombing”)
 Don’t hoard your PageRank
 Don’t link to “bad neighborhoods”

30. 4) Leverage Your PageRank
 Avoid PageRank dilution
 Canonicalization (www.domain.com vs. domain.com)
 Duplicate pages: (session IDs, tracking codes, superfluous
parameters)
 http://company.com/Products/widget.html
 http://company.com/products/widget.html
 http://company.com/Products/Widget.html
 http://company.com/products/Widget.html
 In general, search engines are cautious of dynamic URLs
(with ?, &, and = characters) because of “spider traps”
 Rewrite your URLs (using a server module/plug-in) or use a
hosted proxy service (e.g. GravityStream)
 See
http://catalogagemag.com/mag/marketing_right_page_web/

31. Duplicate
pages

32. Googlebot got
caught in a
“spider trap”

33. Search engine
spiders turn
their noses up
at such URLs

34. Thus, important
content doesn’t
make it into the
search engine
indices

35. 5) Encourage Clickthrough
 Zipf’s Law applies - you need to be at the top of page 1 of
the search results. It’s an implied endorsement.
 Synergistic effect of being at the top of the natural
results & paid results
 Entice the user with a compelling call-to-action and value
proposition in your descriptions
 Your title tag is critical
 Snippet gets built automatically, but you CAN influence
what’s displayed here

36. Where do
searchers
look?
(Enquiro, Did-it,
Eyetools Study)

37. Search
listings –
1 good,
1 lousy

38. 6) Track the Right Metrics
 Indexation: # of pages indexed, % of site
indexed, % of product inventory indexed, # of
“fresh pages”
 Link popularity: # of links, PageRank score (0 -
10)
 Rankings: by keyword, “filtered” (penalized)
rankings
 Keyword popularity: # of searches,
competition, KEI (Keyword Effectiveness
Indicator) scores
 Cost/ROI: sales by keyword & by engine, cost per
lead

39. Avoid Worst Practices
 Target relevant keywords
 Don’t stuff keywords or replicate pages
 Create deep, useful content
 Don't conceal, manipulate, or over-optimize
content
 Links should be relevant (no scheming!)
 Observe copyright/trademark law & Google’s
guidelines

40. Spamming in Its Many Forms…
 Hidden or small text
 Keyword stuffing
 Targeted to obviously irrelevant keywords
 Automated submitting, resubmitting, deep
submitting
 Competitor names in meta tags
 Duplicate pages with minimal or no changes
 Spamglish
 Machine generated content

41. Spamming in Its Many Forms…
 Pagejacking
 Doorway pages
 Cloaking
 Submitting to FFA (“Free For All”) sites & link
farms
 Buying up expired domains with high
PageRanks
 Scraping
 Splogging (spam blogging)

42. BMW.de
hosted many
“doorway
pages” like
this one

43. “Sneaky
redirect” sent
searchers to
this page

44. Not Spam, But Bad for
Rankings
 Splash pages, content-less home page, Flash
intros
 Title tags the same across the site
 Error pages in the search results (eg “Session
expired”)
 "Click here" links
 Superfluous text like “Welcome to” at beginning
of titles
 Spreading site across multiple domains (usually
for load balancing)
 Content too many levels deep

45. What Next? Conduct an SEO
Audit!
 Is your site fully indexed?
 Are your pages fully optimized?
 Could you be acquiring more PageRank?
 Are you spending your PageRank wisely?
 Are you maximizing your clickthrough rates?
 Are you measuring the right things?
 Are you applying “best practices” in SEO and
avoiding all the “worst practices”?

46. Before
SEO

47. Before
SEO

48. After
SEO

49. After
SEO

50. In Summary
 Focus on the right keywords
 Have great keyword-rich content
 Build links, and thus your PageRank™
 Spend that PageRank™ wisely within your
site
 Measure the right things
 Continually monitor and benchmark