11-14

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
and Pay Per Click (PPC)
BITM 3730
Developing Web Applications
11/14

2. Purpose of SEO
• To drive targeted traffic to your website [or specific pages]
• Ideally, the traffic drives additional sales
• Most online purchases are made on sites found through search engine listings

3. SEO is Technically Not Paid Advertising
• SEO – influence rankings in the “natural” (a.k.a. “organic”, a.k.a. “algorithmic”)
search results
• PPC – paid search advertising on a pay-per-click basis. The more you pay, the higher
your placement. Stop paying = stop receiving traffic.
• PPC – pay per click
• SEM – encompasses both SEO and PPC
• Search engine marketing

4. How SEO
Looks

5. Most Commonly Used Search Engines
• Google
• Google AdWords
• Bing
• Microsoft Advertising
• Yahoo Search

6. SEO is Based on Keywords
• Keyword Research
• The “right” keywords are…
• relevant to your business
• popular with searchers
• https://ads.google.com/home/tools/keyword-planner/

7. Researching Keywords
• Tools to check popularity of keyword searches
• http://WordTracker.com
• http://KeywordDiscovery.com
• http://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
• http://www.google.com/trends/
• http://ubersuggest.org/

8. SEO – Constant Changes
• Topically relevant links from important sites
• Anchor text
• Keyword-rich title tags
• Keyword-rich content
• Internal hierarchical linking structure
• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts

9. Begin The 7 Steps
1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
2) Get Your Pages Visible
3) Build Links & PageRank
4) Leverage Your PageRank
4) Encourage Clickthrough
6) Track the Right Metrics
7) Avoid Worst Practices

10. 1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
 Search engines are wary of “dynamic” pages - they
fear “spider traps”
 The better your PageRank, the deeper and more often
your site will be spidered

11. 1) Get Your Site Fully Indexed
 Page # estimates are wildly inaccurate, and include non-indexed pages
(e.g. ones with no title or snippet)
 Misconfigurations (in robots.txt, in the type of redirects used, requiring
cookies, etc.) can kill indexation
 Keep your error pages out of the index by returning 404 status code
 Keep duplicate pages out of the index by standardizing your URLs,
eliminating unnecessary variables, using 301 redirects when needed

12. Not Spider-Friendly
• GET http://www.bananarepublic.com --> 302 Moved Temporarily
• GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do --> 302 Moved
Temporarily
• GET
http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/home.do?targetURL=http%3A%2
F%2Fwww.bananarepublic.com%2Fbrowse%2Fhome.do&CookieSet=Set --
> 302 Moved Temporarily
• GET http://www.bananarepublic.com/cookieFailure.do --> 200 OK

13. 2) Get Your Pages Visible
• 100+ “signals” that influence ranking
• “Title tag” is the most important copy on the page
• Home page is the most important page of a site
• Every page of your site has a “song” (keyword theme)
• Incorporate keywords into title tags, hyperlink text, headings (H1 & H2 tags), alt tags, and
high up in the page (where they’re given more “weight”)
• Eliminate extraneous HTML code
• “Meta tags” are not a magic bullet
• Have text for navigation, not graphics

14. 3) Build Links and PageRank
• “Link popularity” affects search engine rankings
• PageRank™ - Links from “important” sites have more impact on
your Google rankings (weighted link popularity)
• Google offers a window into your PageRank
• PageRank meter in the Google Toolbar (toolbar.google.com)
• Google Directory (directory.google.com) category pages
• 3rd party tools like SEOChat.com’s “PageRank Lookup” & “PageRank
Search”
• Scores range from 0-10 on a logarithmic scale

15. 4) Leverage Your PageRank
• Your home page’s PageRank gets distributed to your deep pages by virtue of
your hierarchical internal linking structure (e.g. breadcrumb nav)
• Pay attention to the text used within the hyperlink (“Google bombing”)
• Don’t hoard your PageRank
• Don’t link to “bad neighborhoods”

16. 4) Leverage Your PageRank
 Avoid PageRank dilution
 Canonicalization (www.domain.com vs. domain.com)
 Duplicate pages: (session IDs, tracking codes, superfluous parameters)
 http://company.com/Products/widget.html
 http://company.com/products/widget.html
 http://company.com/Products/Widget.html
 http://company.com/products/Widget.html
 In general, search engines are cautious of dynamic URLs (with ?, &, and = characters) because of
“spider traps”
 Rewrite your URLs (using a server module/plug-in) or use a hosted proxy service (e.g. GravityStream)
 See http://catalogagemag.com/mag/marketing_right_page_web/

17. 5) Encourage Clickthrough
• Zipf’s Law applies - you need to be at the top of page 1 of the search results.
It’s an implied endorsement.
• Synergistic effect of being at the top of the natural results & paid results
• Entice the user with a compelling call-to-action and value proposition in your
descriptions
• Your title tag is critical
• Snippet gets built automatically, but you CAN influence what’s displayed here

18. 6) Track the Right Metrics
 Indexation: # of pages indexed, % of site indexed, % of product
inventory indexed, # of “fresh pages”
 Link popularity: # of links, PageRank score (0 - 10)
 Rankings: by keyword, “filtered” (penalized) rankings
 Keyword popularity: # of searches, competition, KEI (Keyword
Effectiveness Indicator) scores
 Cost/ROI: sales by keyword & by engine, cost per lead

19. Avoid Worst Practices
• Target relevant keywords
• Don’t stuff keywords or replicate pages
• Create deep, useful content
• Don't conceal, manipulate, or over-optimize content
• Links should be relevant (no scheming!)
• Observe copyright/trademark law & Google’s guidelines

20. Spamming in Its Many Forms…
• Hidden or small text
• Keyword stuffing
• Targeted to obviously irrelevant keywords
• Automated submitting, resubmitting, deep submitting
• Competitor names in meta tags
• Duplicate pages with minimal or no changes
• Spamglish
• Machine generated content

21. Spamming in Its Many Forms…
 Pagejacking
 Doorway pages
 Cloaking
 Submitting to FFA (“Free For All”) sites & link farms
 Buying up expired domains with high PageRanks
 Scraping
 Splogging (spam blogging)

22. Not Spam, But Bad for Rankings
 Splash pages, content-less home page, Flash intros
 Title tags the same across the site
 Error pages in the search results (eg “Session expired”)
 "Click here" links
 Superfluous text like “Welcome to” at beginning of titles
 Spreading site across multiple domains (usually for load balancing)
 Content too many levels deep

23. In Summary
• Focus on the right keywords
• Have great keyword-rich content
• Build links, and thus your PageRank™
• Spend that PageRank™ wisely within your site
• Measure the right things
• Continually monitor and benchmark

24. Pay Per Click
• Bid on the search terms
you want
• You only pay when
someone clicks to get to
your website

25. Positives of PPC
• Immediate placement
• You can control budget and positioning
• Only pay if traffic is produced
• You can use inexpensive keywords

26. Negatives of PPC
• Requires a lot of research
• Can cost you a lot of money if done wrong
• Requires you to know about the industry

27. Google
AdWords

28. Google
AdWords

29. Podcast Assignment
Write a one-to-two-page response paper answering the following questions after listening to a
podcast associated with web design or website development.
• What concepts were discussed that you learned about in BITM 3730? Identify the topics
discussed.
• How did the podcast present these topics differently than the course lectures? Explain how.
• Did the podcast make you more comfortable in using certain technologies? Explain how.
Also detail the name of the podcast, the “edition” of the podcast, and a link to the podcast.

30. Example of Podcast Detail
• Web Design Business with Josh Hall
• 219 - Using YouTube To Grow Your Design Business with Pat
Flynn
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/219-using-youtube-to-grow-your-
design-business-with/id1484689808?i=1000581383565

31. Apple Podcasts Link
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/genre/podcasts-technology/id1318

32. Some Podcasts
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/web-design-business-with-josh-
hall/id1484689808
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/launchers-build-a-successful-web-
design-business/id1453476639
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-responsive-web-design-
podcast/id910013523
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/design-details/id947191070

33. More Podcasts
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/html-all-the-things-web-
development-web-design-small/id1412209136
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/designerless-web-design-made-
easy/id1262922797
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/self-made-web-
designer/id1498724299
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/learning-web-
design/id1614404959?i=1000554065788

34. More Podcasts
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/start-here-web-
development/id898026456
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/forge-web-design-
podcast/id1476838772
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-website-
magic/id1566171685
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/web-design-and-
development/id1434872843?i=1000575922723

35. More Podcasts
• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/web-design-brisbane-
podcast/id1470829649

36. Google for Others?