SEO tactics and tools get people to your page. Great content makes them stay, take action, and share on social media. Presented at Content Strategy Seattle Meetup Jun 14, 2012
2. WHAT IF MARK TWAIN OPTIMIZED FOR SEO?
“I have been complimented many times
and they always embarrass me; I always
feel that they have not said enough.”
I have been complimented many times
and compliments always embarrass me;
I always feel that compliments have not
said enough.
3. SEO & CONTENT SYNERGY
SERP
Image Headline
Keywords &
Social signals
URL Paragraph
4. KEYWORDS + KEY CONTENT = OSCAR
WINNER
Director URL
•Most important for SEO
Best Actress Headline
•Grabs Attention
Supporting First Paragraph
•Makes them stay
Audience Social Signals
•Recommends to friends
6. FIND OUT HOW YOUR CUSTOMERS THINK!
• Do the keyword research
• Lots of keyword tools
• Lots of ways to listen to customers
conversation
• Lots of ways to listen to the competition
7. THREE-SECOND RULE FOR
HEADLINES
• Set tone: Funny, personal, authoritative,
inspiring
• Know who you‟re talking to
• Make people curious: I want to learn
that. Click.
• Stay true: Make a promise and keep it
11. POSE A CHALLENGE BY ASKING A QUESTION
Daniel Russell
LifeHacker
Via SearchResearch.com
12. 1ST PARAGRAPH HAS SUPPORTING ROLE
SERP
Image Headline
Keywords
URL Paragraph
13. FIRST PARAGRAPH AMPLIFIES
HEADLINE
• Keeps the headline‟s promise
• Engages audience, keeps them reading
• Further explains purpose of content
• Further identifies audience
• Matches tone of headline
17. DON‟T MISS OUT ON URL
OPPORTUNITY
• Most important element for SEO
• Concise way to say what the topic‟s
about
• Opportunity for branding
• Synergy with SERP title & meta-
description
18. PUT KEYWORD IN TITLE + URL + 1ST PARAGRAPH
“Millions of people using Excel don't get why they see the
„circular reference‟ error message right after they've
entered a formula.”
URL adds branding and avoids spamming
/circular-references-excel-error-message.aspx
24. TRUSTWORTHY = SOCIAL MEDIA AUTHORITY
• Trust is built on reputation
• Quality of content builds reputation
• People evaluate & recommend content
via Twitter, bookmarking, FB Likes, FB
posts, etc.
If Mark Twain was vain and searched Google for compliments about himself, he might resort to keyword abuse and ruin his prose.
SEO Tactic and tools get people to your pageGreat content makes them stay, take action, and share on social media
The Cast:The Directors: URLs—the most important thing for SEOSupporting actors: First paragraphs make headlines & URLs shineBit players: other headers, body copy, alt image, title tag, meta description, and moreGreat Content + SEO Tactics – Number One at Box Office & Gossip Sites
SEO Tactic and tools get people to your pageGreat content makes them stay, take action, and share on social media
Headlines are often all that people read to decide to stay…To grab people’s attention they need to set tone, identify audience, tell people what they’re going, a promise the content has to keep
Pokes fun at oneself while promising to deliver useful information to users at specific levels of expertise.Tone: Empathetic + humorous + humbleAudience: Beginning & intermediate Excel usersLearn: What a circular reference isPromise: Demystify a confusing error message
Surprise subject (overtime the audience never knows what to expect from you, so checks back often) that identifies audience yet funny enough to reach beyond it. Uses word playTone: Funny, smart, hipAudience: Grammarians, writers, and rap loversLearn: A grammar tip from a rapper
The best visuals supply a missing piece of information when combined with the headline. It answers the question
Tone: Challenging + Entertaining + ScientificAudience: People who are interested in search, but just about anybodyLearn: The answer to the question. Find out the connection between fish and football by searching
Continues empathetic and humorous tone of headlineFurther explain “popular”Further explains “circular reference” by defining itRepeats “circular reference” in first and third sentencesStates purpose of post—CTA—to get people to read a newly written help topicKeeps readers engaged
Branded URL, much closerto what people search on than the title
Story in yesterday’s NY Times.Borders on keyword abuse….
SEO Tactic and tools get people to your pageGreat content makes them stay, take action, and share on social media
Links were way Google determined whether content is trustworthy. Still have their place but social signals beating them as means to establish trustworthiness.
First is a tweet that is meant people to drive people to post. Word play. #amwriting is large group, Direct reply to Mac Lethal so he’ll potentially tweet it to his following.Speechwriterguyis someone Cynthia Hartwig met via twitter. Also met him in person. Now they trust each other and recommend each other.
Landing page for the campaign is FB Tab. Where real content is delivered to be. Funny movie about getting a tattoo that gets screwed up. Blog’s role repeat the message write content suitable for blog.