Advanced SEO Techniques

Advanced SEO Techniques:
Putting It In Play

Sanger & Eby
29 June 2011

About Sanger & Eby

• Strategic design & technology firm focused on specialized
business communications
• Services Include:
– Strategic planning and research
– Social media strategy and execution
– User experience planning
– Print and interactive design
– Interactive and multi-channel marketing
– Content development
– Search marketing (SEO & SEM)
– Website development
– Custom business and web applications
– Mobile applications and sites

Advanced SEO Techniques Copyright 2011 Sanger & Eby
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Quick Facts about Sanger & Eby

• Founded in 1988 by Lisa Sanger & Donna Eby (certified WBE)
• All strategy, design, programming done in-house
• 15 years experience creating websites
• 700+ Sites designed and developed
• 95% client retention rate year over year
• Clients include:
– Macy’s
– Fifth Third Bank
– Luxottica
– AT&T
– RotoRooter
– Crayons to Computers
– Children’s Hospital
– Turner Construction

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How Important Is Search?

• 57% of Internet users search the web every day
• 46% of daily searches are for info on products or services
• 20% of Google searches are for local companies
• 50% of consumers start purchase with online research
• 63% of B2B buyers start with online research
• 85% of B2B buyers do online research during purchase cycle
• To buy from you, they have to find you
• 1 trillion websites and not counting any more
• 75% don’t look beyond the first page of results
• Rankings 1-5 10 times more likely to be clicked on than 6 & 7
• 70% of links clicked on are on organic (natural) links

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What Effective SEO Can Do for Business

• Increased visibility and awareness
• Strengthened credibility and leadership perception
• Powerful branding
• Long-term visibility
• Increased targeted traffic
• Increased conversion rates for call to action
• Decreased cost per lead and cost per sale
• Increased sales
• Measurable

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Defining SEO: What It Is…and Isn’t

• The process of improving the visibility of a website or specific
page in search engines through natural or organic search
• Uses search engine algorithms to elevate sites to top rankings
• Considers how search engines work and what people search for
• Thousands of criteria in algorithms, with constant change
• Trend toward more human-oriented results
• Key techniques include:
– Editing content and HTML within a site
– Increasing relevance for specific keywords and phrases
– Removing barriers to search engine indexing
– Building inbound links
• Related negative category: Black Hat SEO

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How Do Search Engines Work?

• Automated site crawlers(AKA “spiders” or “bots”)
• Index content in search engine database
• Return results from index based on user search queries
• Utilize specialized algorithms to determine relevance
• Continually adjust and refine algorithms
– Better user experience
– More relevant search results for users
– More traffic for search engines
– Level playing field for quality sites

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How to Get Started

• Determine your objectives
• Determine how search fits into overall marketing strategy
• Develop a search strategy based on targeted objectives
• Identify strategic keywords (including long-tail keywords)
• Develop quality content featuring identified keywords
• Promote it
• Don’t wear a black hat (more on that later)

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SEO Techniques and Best Practices

• Well-written, value-added content
• Strategic keywords including long-tail keywords
• URLs
• Page titles
• Headings
• Body text
• Alternate text for images and interactive components
• Accessibility
• Meta tags
• Social media
• Inbound links

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How to Choose Keywords

• Relevant to your business
• Leverage for both PPC and SEO…but in different ways
• Brand keywords
– What is our brand about?
– What is our equity?
– What products/services do we want to be known for?
– What are our business goals?
• Non-brand keywords
– Think like your audience
– “Footwear” v. “shoes”
– “low fares” v. “cheap flights”

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Do Your Research!

• Relevant blogs and blog comments
• News sites, trade and industry sites
• Media contacts and press releases
• Discussion boards and forums
• Trade associations and chambers of commerce
• Suppliers and partners
• Competitive sites and related category sites
• Groups on social media sites
• Start over (keep looking for new news!)
• Bookmark the links (we’ll use them again later)

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Building Your Keyword List

• Long-tail keywords: 44% of clicks are for 2-3 word phrases
• Keyword identification tools
– Google AdWords
– Microsoft AdCenter Labs
– Google Analytics
– WordTracker
• Think about intent: what is the user trying to accomplish?
• Don’t forget frequently misspelled words

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Writing Effective Content

• People buy. Search engines don’t.
• Search engines are getting “smarter” about content
• The primary purpose of your content is to inform, inspire, and
engage your audience
• Ensure your content adds value—understand target needs
• Write for the target audience and the search traffic will follow

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Blogging and SEO Results

• Search engines love rich, frequently updated content
• Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages
• 97% more inbound links
• 55% more website visitors
• Blogging B2C companies get 88% more leads per month
• Blogging B2B companies get 67% more leads per month

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Domain Names and Page URLs

• Work the keyword into the URL when practical
• Domain name and subdomains
– macysdiversityleadership.com
– ecommerce.macysjobs.com
• Individual page URLs
– macysjobs.com/districtplanner
– macysinc.com/aboutus/sustainability/socially-responsible-
products-at-macys.aspx

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Page Titles

• If the keyword isn’t in the title of the page, it is going to be
tougher to rank for that keyword
• Content in the <title> tag near the beginning of the code
• Displayed by search engines as the “headline” for your site
• Inbound links often utilize titles as well
• Should be written for users and designed to engage

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Page Title Example

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Search Engine Headline Example

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Headings or Header Tags

• Section headings within a page
• Range from <H1> to <H6>, in descending priority
• H1
– H2
• H3
– H4
• Signal priority and content organization
– For search engines
– For users
– Write for the human audience

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Headings Example

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Body Copy

• Body copy is the text content on a page visible to users
• Does not include graphics, Flash, or functional code
• If the keyword isn’t on the page , it isn’t going to rank well
• Optimize for one keyword or phrase per page
• Keyword density and keyword stuffing
• Antonyms and synonyms
• Search engines include a brief excerpt in results
• Your homepage has the highest priority for search engines
• The homepage is not always the entry point

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Body Copy Excerpt in Google Results

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Alternate Text & Anchor Text

• Search engines can’t “read” images – so copy contained in an
image has no search relevance
• Alternate text (AKA alt text)
– Text associated with an image
– Displayed on mouse rollover
– Displayed when images aren’t shown
– Used extensively in accessibility compliance
– Should meet both SEO & accessibility needs
• Anchor text
– Visible, clickable text within a link
– Must link to something relevant to the keyword

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Example of Text in Images

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Meta Tags

• Informational tags describing the content of a page
• Description meta tag
– brief summary of page content
– 155 characters or fewer (shorter than a Tweet)
– Used by Bing and Yahoo!
– Used by Google in “related:” query
– Often displayed on search engine results page (in place of content
excerpt)
• Keyword meta tag
– Listing of keywords relevant to a given page
– Less relevant as it was often used for spamming
– Included as a “just in case” tactic

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Inbound Links

• Number of external websites that link to your site
• Building your inbound links boosts search engine visibility
• Develop linkable content and promote it
• Ask for links (make it easy, and give back)
• Put your keywords in your inbound links (link popularity)
• Track your efforts and results
• Check your inbound links:
– Google search
– Linkto: yoursite.com

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Building Your Inbound Links

• Existing site check (fix 301 and 404 redirects)
• Search engines for relevant keywords and topics
• Relevant blogs and blog comments
• News sites, trade and industry sites
• Media contacts and press releases
• Discussion boards and forums
• Trade associations and chambers of commerce
• Suppliers and partners
• Survey the competition
• Groups on social media sites
• Start over (keep looking for new news!)

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Social Signals and Search
• Search engines are indexing social media content
– Facebook
– Twitter (most influential)
– LinkedIn (particularly Groups and Answers)
• Increases visibility and inbound links
• Impact is increasing, fast
• Generates multiple and unique listings
• New category: social search
– Google +1 Initiative
– Bing Facebook Social Graph Tie-In (Universal “Like” Button)
– More personalized search results
– Shows users content friends have “liked”
– From page 89 to page 1
• Optimized video and images are less competitive, good targets

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Black Hat SEO (What Not to Do)

• Using unethical techniques to improve search engine rankings
• Presents content differently to search engines than to users
• Creates a poor user experience
• Violates search engine rules and policies

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What Not to Do – Black Hat SEO

• Hidden text & Hidden links: written content not visible to users
– e.g, white text on a white background
• Cloaking: presenting content differently to spiders and users
• Spamdexing: long lists of keywords without other content
• Doorway pages: little content, many keywords
– Often includes “click here to enter site”
• Link Farms: long lists of unrelated links that artificially boost
inbound links
• Link Spamming: Posting your URL on unrelated sites
• Mirror sites: the same site with a different URL
• Presenting another site’s branding or content as your own

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Why Not to Use Black Hat SEO

• “Black Hat SEO techniques are your Golden Ticket to that
infamous Google blacklist.” –Lin Wright
• Sites are penalized or even delisted when caught
• Short-sighted solution to a long-term problem
• JCPenney link buying case study
• BMW doorway pages case study

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SEO & Accessibility

• Accessibility makes websites usable for those with disabilities
– Visual impairment
– Auditory impairment
– Cognitive disabilities
• Screen readers and voice browsers
• Increasingly relevant for mobile devices
• Most SEO techniques also help achieve accessibility compliance
• Some techniques conflict with accessibility
– Use of alt text for SEO versus image description
– Screen readers read every word

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Want to Know More?

Kat Jenkins
Vice President of Strategic Planning
kjenkins@sangereby.com
513.784.9046
Twitter: sangereby
LinkedIn: Sanger & Eby

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