The slide deck from an introduction to WordPress SEO, covering basic search engine optimization, onsite and offsite factors, keyword/topic and content strategy, WordPress SEO by Yoast and a few recommendations to help people learn more about SEO in general.

1. SEO BASICS
Chris Burgess
@chrisburgess
chrisburgess.com.au

2. What I’ll Cover…
• What Is SEO?
• What Are SERPs?
• Why Should I Care?
• Getting Found
• Onsite and Offsite
• Keyword Research
• Content
• Page Anatomy
• Essential Tools
• WordPress SEO by Yoast
• SERPs of Tomorrow
• Resources

3. What is SEO?

6. Can Anyone Do SEO?

7. What Is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization

9. Search is Everywhere

10. What Are Algorithms
• Search engines use a program called an algorithm (think of it like a
secret recipe) to determine what pages to suggest for a search
query by a user.
• Algorithms are constantly being updated which means that rankings
are constantly changing.

11. What Is SEO?

12. What are SERPs

14. Search Queries vs Keywords
WordPress plugins
WordPress SEO plugins
Yoast plugin
best plugins
how do I install a plugin
plugin
SEARCH QUERIES KEYWORD

16. Why Should I Care?

17. Because you get more visitors, leads, clients,
customers to your website…

18. Getting Found

19. Getting It Right

20. Getting It Wrong

21. Put Your Visitors First

22. Write for Your Followers

23. Profile Your Visitors
• What gender?
• What age?
• What interests?
• What do they need?
• What is the purchase cycle like for them?
• What pain points can I alleviate?
• What competitor sites do they also visit?
• What can I provide that no other site does?

24. What do you want to be found for?

25. What are you main goals?
• More visitors?
• More leads?
• More customers?
• More online sales?
• To provide a superior onsite experience?

26. Onsite and Offsite

27. The Evolution of SEO
http://www.slideshare.net/randfish

28. Onsite SEO
• Optimise your pages content
• Titles, headings, images, text, meta descriptions
• Keywords and content strategy
• Site speed
• Site security
• XML sitemaps and Robots.txt
• Schema markup
• Overall site configuration

29. Aim for…
• Fast site speed (good theme, good hosting, site configuration - aim
for load time 3-4 seconds)
• Focus on keeping visitors on your site and viewing multiple pages
(use internal linking)
• Keep your bounce rate down if more than
Image: http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/search-engine-optimization/normal-bounce-rate/

30. Offsite SEO
• Links (context, anchor text), citations, mentions
• You want links from high authority sites
• Links from low authority or low trust sites can be harmful
• Social media
• Blogs, forums, etc.
• Examples of good links: mainstream news site or blog, natural
• Example of bad links: spammy, unnatural
Your best strategy should be to encourage natural linking.
Create stuff people like, people share stuff they like 

31. How do I get links?
• Inbound Marketing – create high quality and unique
content and lots of it!
– Blog, news, articles, surveys, interviews
– Social media
– Podcasts
– Video
– eBooks
– Newsletters
– Infographics
– Whitepapers
– Apps

32. Keyword Research

33. Topic/Keyword Research
• Knowing your audience
• What they search for
• What keywords to focus on
• Competitor analysis
• Look for words that have high search volume and low competition, they will
be easier to rank for
• Many tools and methods available
• Looking for keywords with:
– high traffic value
– low competition
– make great titles
– make great content

34. Google Keyword Planner
http://adwords.google.com/keywordplanner

35. Google Trends – Keyword research
https://www.google.com.au/trends/

36. Content

37. Content Structure
• Heading Tags (e.g <h1> </h1>) in hierarchal order
<h1>Only 1 Heading 1(with target topic/keyword)<h1>
<h2>Sub Heading 2</h2>
<h3>Heading 3</h3>
<h2>Sub Heading 2</h2>
<h3>Heading 3</h3>
<h4>Heading 4</h4>
<h4>Heading 4</h4>
<h5>Heading 5</h5>
<h6>Heading 6</h6>
<h6>Heading 6</h6>
<h3>Heading 3</h3>

38. Content Structure
• Descriptive Filenames
• Image ALT Tags

39. Content Structure
• Page Titles – Unique Title Tag for each page combination of target
keywords
• Page URLs – Try to use keyword with hyphens as separators
• Meta Description – Used in SERPs, try to include chosen keyword
Page URL
Meta Description
Page Title

40. Content Structure

41. Page Anatomy

47. H2
H2
H3

48. External
Links
Internal
Links

49. Images

53. Essential Tools

54. Essential Tools
• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools)
• Google Keyword Planner
• Excel/Google Docs
• WordPress ;)
I’d highly recommend starting off using these free tools.
Specialists will use a variety of tools, however the above are more than
enough to get started.

55. Google Tools
Google Analytics
Google Search Console
(formerly Webmaster Tools)
Google Keyword Planner

56. WordPress SEO
By Yoast

57. https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/

60. The SERPs of Tomorrow

65. The Internet of Things (IoT)

70. Recommended Resources
• WordPress Native Help
• Beginners Guide to SEO - https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
• SEO Meetup - https://www.meetup.com/Melbourne-SEO/
• Search Engine Ranking Factors - http://moz.com/search-ranking-factors
• Google Webmaster Resources - http://www.google.com/webmasters/

71. Thanks!
Chris Burgess
@chrisburgess
chrisburgess.com.au