WordPress SEO Success

Search Engine Optimization for Your WordPress
Website or Blog
Find the following presentation & others referenced
here on www.slideshare.net/jakeaull
Jake Aull has written WordPress SEO Success for
Pearson Prentice-Hall – their first book of its kind
(http://bit.ly/1fxIQzu). He has also been GSU’s first
Social Media Marketing and SEO course writer and
instructor since 2010, directing students to create
new social channels driving measurable traffic to
major brands. He was a reviewer of, and wrote the
instructor’s manual for, Pearson-Prentice Hall’s first
social media marketing text book.

Contents
I.  What is SEO?
II.  Do I really need SEO?
I.  15 WordPress SEO Success
principles
III.  The Stages of SEO
IV.  WordPress, SEO tools & plugins
I.  Is WordPress better or
worse for SEO?
II.  SEO plugins
V.  SEO & content
I.  Research & audits
II.  Keywords & strategy
III.  SEO strategy
VI.  SEO architecture
I.  Social media integration
II.  SEO checklist
VII.  Analytics
I.  JetPack & plugins
II.  Google Analytics
VIII.  Mobile & Local
I.  Mobile search engine
submission
II.  Local channels
III.  Reviews ````````

I. What is SEO…
•  SEO (search engine optimization) is “making your business come up
in Google” (& other search engines – organically)
•  What does that mean?
•  Consumers are looking for something - they need something
- a solution to a problem.
•  How do they attempt to solve it? With info - by going to
Google - or Bing - or Yahoo.
•  They enter their search terms - their question - their
problem.

Sample SERP (search engine results page)

II. Do I Really Need SEO?
Jake Aull | Zen Fires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding

"   Goals?
"   SEO
"   Marketing/digital
"   Content/social
"   Strategy
"   Tactical
implementations
"   Content channels
integrations
"   Analytics
"   Proving goals results
Driving Questions

"   Nature of WordPress site
" Brochureware
" eCommerce
"   Blog/magazine
"   Forum/social site
"   Mobile
"   **(Note: Plenty more website types in the book WordPress SEO Success)
Driving Questions

1)  Identify your objectives: Awareness?
Sales leads?
2)  Do more for SEO via your digital
footprint architecture
3)  SEO is complex enough – keep it simple.
4)  Search Engines like SMEs (“the little
guy”).
5)  There are no guarantees in SEO, & #1
takes time.
6)  Social media & reputation management
are critical.
7)  Start deep & progress broad (from niche
long-tail keywords to short-tail).
8)  Content is king (but no duplication!).
9)  Traditional meta-tags don’t work.
10)  Write for readers not search engines.
11)  The search engines tell you everything
you need to know (e.g., keyword research
& support docs).
12)  SEO is independent, but must work with
other channels also.
13)  Canonicalization is critical.
14)  WordPress evolves. So should you –
update themes & plugins.
15)  You have the ability to make the search
engines your friends – or enemies. This
is within your control.
15 Success Principles

III. The Stages of SEO

"   Strategy & Discovery
"   Keyword Analysis & discovery
"   Marketing strategic alignment
"   SEO plan
"   Keyword/copywriting plan
"   Implementation & Programming
"   Coding keywords & tags
" Robot.txt file
"   Search engine integrations
"   Analytics integrations & auto-reporting
"   Geo-local integrations
"   Google Images, video, etc.
III. The Stages of SEO

"   Off-site Activities
"   Local directories set-up
"   Submission to social sites & social search engines
"   Articles & PR publishing
"   Obtaining links
"   Ongoing Maintainance
"   SEO new content
"   Reviewing analytics
The Stages of SEOIII.

Digital Marketing & SEO
Objectives

-  Page rank
-  Top/first page results goals
-  PPC and first-page real estate
-  Competitive
-  Suppress bad reviews
-  Local SEO
-  First-time search or new site
-  Social Media Optimization
SEO (& PPC) Objectives

IV. WordPress SEO Plugins

-  Plugins
-  Updates
-  SEO-friendly templates
-  SEO-friendly integrations
Is WordPress Better or Worse for SEO?

1.  Objective? Are you experimenting
or completing a site?
2.  Know the specific functionality
you seek.
3.  Look at stars & reviews &
quantity of those.
4.  Is the plugin new or old?
5.  How frequently has it been
updated?
6.  Don’t add a plugin if you already
can achieve that with an existing
plugin.
7.  Is a plugin really necessary?
(Could you do it easily manually?)
8.  Install plugins only one at a time,
keep a log of what was installed
when.
9.  QA the site after plugin installs.
IV. Choosing Plugins

-  Yoast WordPress SEO
-  All-in-One SEO
-  SEO Ultimate
-  SEO Pressor
IV. WordPress & SEO Plugins
-  Akismet
-  Pinterest
-  Simple 301 Redirects
-  JetPack

V. Keyword Research &
SEO Strategy

"   Technology:
"   Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool (best data)
"   Bing Webmaster Tools
"   Other keyword/SEO research tools such as SEMrush (good
spy data) and KeywordSpy (easy, but less accurate data)
"   Competitive analysis/keywords
"   Competitors
"   Industry thought-leaders/bloggers
"   Comparable industry digital marketing leaders
"   Organic, PPC and social
Keyword Research Inputs

"   Your website historical analytics
"   Past organic keywords
"   Favorite pages of your site
"   Blog categories/tags
"   Your past PPC performance
"   (even if flawed)
"   Your social media top clicks/likes/shares
Keyword Research Inputs

Google Keyword Research
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________

V. Content Strategy & SEO
Process

The importance of good Keyword drivers
•  Good copywriting is vital – and can be used in conjunction with
good keywords!
•  Copywriting can be built on primary keywords for a page/post.
•  Find the junction of readability, SEO, copy hooks and website
usability
•  Link bait:
•  Good writing intrigues readers
to read on and share your link
•  CTAs:
•  You need good calls-to-action –
ensure your reader takes the next step
and links to where you drive them!*
*(for more see the aforementioned webinar)

"   Web page titles and relevant copy (semantic content)
"   You can search for your blog phrase in search engine…
"   Web writing with keywords
"   Writing for audience or writing for search engines?
"   Tone and positiveness
"   No stealth blogging
"   Clickstream and customer journey
"   Why Blog?
"   “Blogging” for both search engines and purchase decisions
"   Social media content and relevance†
†(for more on this, see my WordCamp Atlanta 2014 presentation on Social Media Uses for
WordPress Sites)
Writing & Keywords

Strategic content managers
•  The emphasis on content, and link,
quality has helped drive the new
generation of “content managers.”
•  Whether using social media, copywriting,
video or SEO technology, content to meet
digital marketing goals is the strategy.
•  And today, it’s a strategy more of quality
than quantity – for Google and for social
media engagement.
•  So today we want “link engagement;” backlinks from social engagement strategies,
relevant content and referral sites – everything we’ve discussed here.†
†(for more on this, see my WordCamp Atlanta 2014 presentation on Social Media Uses for
WordPress Sites)

VI. SEO & Site Architecture
WordCamp Raleigh 2014
Jake Aull | ZenFires Digital Marketing | SEO & Websites | Social Media & Branding

SEO
Sitemap
guide
for
20-‐25pg
website
Home

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main
naviga,on
Floor
Services
Success
Stories
Who
We
Serve
About
Acme
Floor
Floorwork
Photos
Contact
News
&
Blog

|
|
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Hardwood
Floor
Case
Studies
Commercial
Floors
Hardwood Experts Hardwood Photos Direc,ons
Press

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Home
Carpet
Tes,monials
Home
Flooring
Carpet Experts Carpet Images Decor
Blog

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Oﬃce
Floors
Decor
Partners
Mission/vision Business Floors
(footer

menu):
Home

-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐
-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐-‐
-‐-‐
Legal?

LEGEND:

Box
item

=
menu/sub
menu
item

Do.ed
box

=
possible,
future
menu
item?

Green
&/or
italic
text

=
Descripter
text
not
going
on
website

Site architecture planning
•  Plan your website upfront for keyword-driven pages
•  The power of the Footer navigation
•  Linking throughout the site:
•  It sounds cumbersome, but plan links through every
page and blog post of your site if possible. When you
write up your sitemap, plan which pages you want to
link to the next, and so on and so on.
•  Link planning doesn’t require a long list of links on
your website’s pages!
•  Target a primary link (maybe 2 or 3)
to show, and push web users
continually through your site.

Site architecture planning
•  Blog/news:
•  This can especially work for the
blog section of your site – you
can continually link to/from those
posts to distribute link juice.
•  Mobile sites
•  Nav/architecture
•  Most important content
(keyword-focused)

"   Link Building:
"   Quality and relevance over quantity
"   Press release/white paper placement
"   Local SEO
"   (Never buy links!!!
And note that too much, or bad, link building will hurt you!
Be careful)
"   Brand-side SEO simplified
"   Copywriters who know your industry best
"   Keyword evaluation
"   Monitoring
"   Sharing/link building
Off-Site Links & Brand-Owned

"   Inbound web links (a.k.a. backlinks and referrals) are helpful.
Here's why:
"   They increase paths to the target – more ways and places
for visitors to find the site.
"   They create alternative entry paths for crawlers to
specific web pages (even when the target site is not
optimized for search engines).
"   Good ones do help search rankings.
Inbound & Social Links for SEO

"   Inbound links represent a solid, alternative (to in-site)
web metric. They gauge the content value and referral
traffic of a site in the online marketplace (especially
valuable if there are issues with existing in-site SEO or
analytics).
"   They also can be alternate drivers to lead-gen pages.
"   They get shared among
web users and multiplicity
of network effects occurs.
Inbound & Social Links for SEO

Relational Relevant Links
•  What Google looks for:
•  Do the sites and links relate
to each other?
•  Are the directories relevant?
•  Vertical (industry nice) vs. locational relevance
•  Local channels are very beneficial.
•  Even if you are an eCommerce, if you have a location
I would still consider optimizing location-based profiles. Because
Google loves Google+Local. And Bing loves Bing Local and Yahoo!
Local.
•  And have you ever searched for any businesses or products, only to
see Yelp and YP listings on first page of results? They’re there – use
them if you can.

VII. Analytics

"   Analytics: #1 = you win?
"   Site Integrations & Submissions:
"   Search engine submissions and verifications (Google, Bing, Yahoo!)
"   Additional search engine tools implementations (e.g., Google
Webmaster tools, Google Analytics)
"   Analytics:
"   KPI plan integration
"   Keyword monitoring
set-up (e.g., Google
Alerts, SocialMention)
"   Google analytics set-up
" Website auto reports
set-up
Analytics Implementations

Sample SEO Analytics
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________

VIII. Mobile & Local

Local SEO/directory search channel
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________

Mobile SEO
•  Highly important
•  Over 50% of web use
•  Google wants to crawl a responsive site
•  Hurts you if you don’t have one
•  You can submit a mobile site for indexing in Google Webmaster
Tools

Review

Review
I.  What is SEO?
II.  Do I really need SEO?
I.  15 WordPress SEO Success
principles
III.  The Stages of SEO
IV.  WordPress, SEO tools & plugins
I.  Is WordPress better or worse for
SEO?
II.  SEO plugins
V.  SEO & content
I.  Research & audits
II.  Keywords & strategy
III.  SEO strategy
VI.  SEO architecture
I.  Social media integration
II.  SEO checklist
VII.  Analytics
I.  JetPack & plugins
II.  Google Analytics
VIII.  Mobile & Local
I.  Mobile search engine
submission
II.  Local channels
III.  Reviews ````````

Questions?
Find this presentation & others referenced here on www.slideshare.net/jakeaull
Jake Aull, Principal of Zen Fires Digital Marketing since 2010, has 20 years
marketing, branding and digital experience in Atlanta. He takes a strategic digital
marketing and usability approach to web analysis and search marketing. He has a
Masters of Science degree in Marketing from Georgia State University where he did a
thesis research project on social media marketing.
Jake has written WordPress SEO Success for Pearson Prentice-Hall - their first book
of its kind (http://bit.ly/1fxIQzu). He has also been GSU’s first Social Media
Marketing and SEO course writer and instructor since 2010, directing students to
create new social channels driving measurable traffic to major brands. He was a
reviewer of, and wrote the instructor’s manual for, Pearson-Prentice Hall’s first social
media marketing text book.

Thank You!

WordPress SEO Success

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