1. The document provides tips and best practices for search engine optimization (SEO) to improve organic search engine results. 2. It emphasizes writing unique, keyword-rich content and optimizing page titles, descriptions, URLs, link text, and site architecture. 3. Follow-up actions include optimizing title tags, description tags, headings, link text, submitting an XML sitemap, and using a content delivery network to speed up site loading.

1. Using SEO for fame,
fortune,and social change
Debra Cleaver
@debracleaver
Jim Pugh
@dr_pugh

2. presented by
and

3. Why should you listen to Debra?
❖ Debra founded
vote.org and Long
Distance Voter
❖ LDV and vote.org
dominate Google
search results
❖ Debra has a nice
smile

4. Debra leads vote.org's SEO work
❖ 50% of vote.org's traffic
over the past 2.5 years has
come from organic search.
❖ Only 13% was via paid
search, vote.org being
able to spend $40,000 per
month on Google
Adwords (we got a grant)
❖ This is why we pay
attention to SEO

5. Why should you listen to Jim?
❖ He’s got a PhD in Robotics
❖ He’s the founder of
ShareProgress and knows
more than almost anyone
about virality
❖ He’s who Debra calls when
she has SEO questions
❖ He’s got a great smile

6. SEO is a dark and mysterious art practiced by
internet wizards

7. Ha, ha, no, just kidding
❖ SEO is a series of best-practices designed to ensure that Google
and other search engines can find your content.
❖ Ignore SEO at your own peril: the vast majority of internet users
turn to search engines when trying to find content on the internet.
❖ The web properties that are near the top of search results get the
most traffic.
❖ You can use online advertising to make up for poor SEO, but
that’s an expensive solution to a relatively straightforward
problem.
❖

8. SEO is easier than you think
❖ SEO is about making small changes to existing parts of your
site, and about adhering to best practices when adding new
content.
❖ The small changes add up to big results.
❖ You’re already familiar with all the aspects of SEO (URLs,
page titles, meta tags, etc), but you’re probably not making
the most out of them.
❖ Don’t worry: the basics of SEO are easy to master and you’ll
be up and running in no time.
❖

9. Write awesome and unique content

10. SEO is about content
❖ Listen, people will tell you to keyword stuff the hell out of your
content. We won’t tell you to do that because it’s douchey and lame
(and because we don’t work for the Huffington Post).
❖ We will tell you that one of the best things you can do to improve
SEO is write awesome content that users can’t find anywhere else.
❖ This will all but ensure you’re the only useful site that appears in the
search engine results.
❖ How you write that content is another story. There are some best
practices you should follow to ensure that Google indexes your
content properly.
❖

11. Best practices for writing search engine friendly content
❖ Use proper headings (H1s, H2s, etc).
❖ Only one H1 per page, and make sure this is used for the actual Title of
your content (the human readable title, not the title meta-tag)
❖ Don’t capture vital information in images or flash files that some users
might not see or be able to access
❖ Always provide “alt” and “title” tags for images. This is useful for both
SEO and people who are browsing the internet using a braille reader
❖ Use your keywords in your text (and especially in your headers) —
more on this in a minute
❖

12. Keywords, keywords, keywords
❖ Use keywords in your awesome and unique content.
❖ Search engines measure how keywords are used on pages to help
determine the relevance of a particular document to a query.
❖ One of the best ways to optimize a page's rankings is to ensure
that the keywords you want to rank for are prominently used in
titles, text, and metadata.
❖ Obviously, if you want your page to have a chance of ranking in
the search results for "dog," it's wise to make sure the word "dog"
is part of the crawlable content of your document.
From the Moz.com “Beginner’s Guide to SEO”

13. Best practices for keywords
Use your keywords often.
❖ In the title tag at least once. Try to keep the keyword phrase as close to
the beginning of the title tag as possible.
❖ Once prominently near the top of the page, preferably in the H1 tag
❖ Once in the URL.
❖ At least once in the meta description tag.
❖ At least two or three times in the body copy on the page.
❖ At least once in the alt attribute of an image on the page.
Don’t go nuts, however: Google will know if you’re keyword stuffing.

14. Pay attention to meta-tags

15. Specifically title and description tags
❖ The <title> and <description> tags live in the <head>
section of the HTML.
❖ The title tag is what appears on the first line of a Google
search result.
❖ The description is below the first line
❖ Google tends to bold the parts of the title tag that match
the users search query.
❖

17. Best practices for title tags
❖ Keep your title tag short and descriptive. 50-60 characters is ideal
❖ Put the most important words first in the title tag — Google will cut off long
tags
❖ Use a unique title tag for each page
❖ Google will penalize you if your title tags are repetitive.
❖ Use a consistent format for the title tags. I’d recommend {{title}} - {{site name}}
❖ Don’t lead with the name of your site
❖ Putting the site name first won’t help you if people are searching for
anything other than your site
❖ If you can’t think of a good title tag, just reuse whatever you put in the <h1>.
So the main heading of the page that the user sees onscreen
❖

18. Best practices for description tags
❖ Keep them short, human readable, and keyword rich.
Shoot for between 150 and 170 characters
❖ Make them unique — each page should have a different
description
❖ Write copy that makes people want to click on your
link.
❖ Google doesn’t actually use the description in its
rankings, so you’re writing these for actual humans.

19. Write better link text

20. For the love of all that is holy, do
NOT use “here” or “click here” as
your link text.

21. ❖ Link text should be descriptive.
❖ The user should know almost exactly what is going to
happen when she clicks on the link.
❖ The link text taken out of context should still make
sense. Here’s why:
❖ Google pays more attention to link text than regular
text.
❖ Some people actually do use braille readers to surf
the internet, and “click here” is especially unhelpful
to those users.

22. Best practices for link text
❖ Never, ever, ever user “click here” or “here” as anchor text.
❖ If you really must use “click here” make the entire sentence the link. Ex:
Instead of “click here” to adopt a kitten you could write “click here to adopt a
kitten ”
❖ Make sure the anchor text accurately describes what will happen when the
user clicks on the link.
❖ If you’re having trouble figuring out what the link text will be, ask yourself
what you would write after “click here” and then use that text.
❖ So “click here” to see adorable kittens would become “see adorable kittens”
❖ Try to use keywords in your anchor text
❖ Google pays more attention to anchor text than regular text, so you’ll want
to use your keywords in your anchor text whenever possible
❖

23. Create great URLs

24. Google loves URLs.
URLs matter A LOT. This is why people will pay tens of thousands of dollars for a
good URL (ask Debra how much vote.org cost).
❖ Use keywords when possible in the URL
❖ Use dashes instead of underscores when connecting multiple words.
❖ like this: www.adorablekittens.com/adorable-tabby-kittens
❖ not like this: www.adorablekittens.com/adorable_tabby_kittens
❖ Only use lowercase letters in your URLs.
❖ If you have a directory structure, make sure it makes sense and includes only
human-readable terms.
❖ Good URL :www.adorablecats.com/house-cats/kittens
❖ Bad URL: www.adorablecats.com/2342308/23423342/2342323.html

25. If you change a URL, please remember to
301 redirect it using .htaccess.
❖ Be a decent person.
❖ Do not be like the government.

26. Help Google find your site.

27. Make your site crawl-able
❖ Mandatory: Create an XML sitemap and submit it to
Google’s webmaster tools (webmaster.google.com)
❖ Suggested: Create an HTML sitemap and stick it in the
footer of your website
❖ No-orphaned pages. Make sure every page in your site is
linked to at least one other page. Preferably, many other
pages.
❖ Google finds new web pages by crawling existing pages.
Google will never, ever, ever find your orphaned pages.

28. Get some inbound links
❖ Inbound links are your friends
❖ The best inbound links are from reputable websites
❖ sites that end in .gov, .edu, or .org are generally
considered more reputable
❖ Link to your website from social media — facebook,
twitter, etc
❖ Consider creating a blog on Medium. This is a great way
to get quality inbound links

29. Architectural considerations

30. Google likes fast and modern sites
❖ It’s 2018. People surf using their phones.
❖ If you’re site isn’t responsive, Google will penalize you.
❖ Updating isn’t as hard as you think. All modern CMSs
come with responsive themes (WordPress, Squarespace,
Wix, etc)
❖ Do not let anyone rob you blind for a new website.
Seriously, this isn’t hard.

31. Make your site faster
❖ Pay for better hosting. This one is important. $7 a month
shared hosting isn’t going to cut it. Let’s set $30 a month as
the minimum for hosting.
❖ Get set up on a CDN.
❖ We use cloudflare at vote.org
❖ It makes our site fast and hacker proof
❖ You can get setup today for $20
❖ No, they’re not paying us for this referral. They’re just great.

32. Wrapping this all up

33. Your action items
Here is a prioritized list of action items.
1. Makes sure every page has a <title> tag — 55 characters
2. Ditto the <description tag> 150-160 characters
3. Rewrite all the H1s on your site — insert keywords throughout
4. Rewrite all your link text — I will kill you dead if you have
“click here” as the link text past Sunday
5. Create an XML sitemap and submit it to webmaster.google.com
6. Set up Cloudflare — make your site go faster for $20 a month

34. Super simple ways to have great SEO
❖ If you use wordpress, install either Yoast SEO or All-in-
one SEO. The free versions should be fine
❖ Follow their suggestions.
❖ Profit!
❖ If you use Squarespace, follow their suggestions as well
❖ I’ve never used Wix, but I bet it’s solid for SEO

35. Some great resources
❖ The internet can teach you way more about SEO than
we can.
❖ https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/
7451184
❖ https://moz.com/learn/seo
❖ https://academy.hubspot.com/courses/seo-training