SEO & You: The Journey and Importance of Writing for Search Engines
1. SEO & You:
The Journey and Importance of
Writing for Search Engines
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2. What is SEO?
SEO = search engine optimization
• The practice of improving and
promoting a web site in order to
increase the number of visitors the site
receives from search engines (Moz)
• Elements of SEO
• words on your page
• the way other sites link to you on
the web
• site is structured in a way that
search engines understand
• not just about "engines" It's about
making your site better for people
too
3. 3
• 90% of men and 91% of women use search engines to find information
• Google, Bing, & Yahoo
• You want to show up in search engines
• Helps the engines figure out what each page is about
• 70% of users don’t go past 1st page!
• Search engines are smart, but still need help
Why is SEO important?
5. Google Algorithm
Google was founded September 4th, 1998
What are algorithms? - Algorithms are computer programs that look for clues to give
you back exactly what you want.
Automated programs called spiders or crawlers travel the Web, moving from link to
link and building up an index page that includes certain keywords. Google references
this index when a user enters a search query. The search engine lists the pages that
contain the same keywords that were in the user's search terms.
What does this mean?
You have to write for both humans and computers to read.
6. Google Hummingbird
Release date August 20th, 2013
Biggest Changes
• Keywords are [Not Provided] by Google
Analytics
• Focus has shifted to the content and
keyword meaning rather than exact
phrases
What to do?
• Aim for long tail keywords
• Build an audience on Google+
• Monitor keywords on Webmaster Tools
• And write naturally!
Finds meanings behind the search string to provide better results
7. Google Penguin (5) 4.0
Release date May 19th, 2014
The Penguin update was mainly an anti-spam
update and embedded with the new
Hummingbird algorithm.
New Update affected ~7.5% of all queries.
Old 2.1 update hurt 1% of the sites
• Paid links
• Web Forum Spam
• About the Author Spam
• Site is Located on Blogrolls
• Low Quality & Spammy Directories
• Blog Comment Spam
• Excessive Exact Match Anchor Text in Links
9. Process
• Discovery-
• research, gathering data, keyword lists, variety of how people
search
•Building out groups
•categorizing and making themes
•Understanding
•trying to find insight, then value them with offerings with
brands/products
•realize what the data means
•Use it!
10. Focus with Keywords in Mind
You know about our clients.
• Services
• Location
• What the article is about
Question: What if I have questions about the client I’m writing for?
Answer: Ask Dianna or Jeff
11. What are Long Tail Keywords?
Aim for longtail keywords but remember to write natural
12. A Few General Keyword Rules
1. Don’t over saturate your blog
with different keywords
2. Don’t stuff keywords into your
posts
3. Keep the keywords relevant to
your article.
4. Your post is more than just
keywords. Keep it natural.
13. Please Use Proper Anchor Text
Good Example
• If you need to consult about SEO services, visit chatterbuzzmedia.com
Bad Example
• If you need to consult about SEO services, visit chatterbuzzmedia.com
Good
• Need to learn the best SEO practices? Visit our Chatter Buzz Blog
Bad
• Need to learn the best SEO practices? Visit our Chatter Buzz Blog
Other Bad Ways to Use Anchor Text
• Don’t link ever other word in a sentence.
• Linking words to irrelevant content. If it’s a blog about real estate don’t link to story about
healthcare
• Don’t link the entire paragraph of text. This NOT only looks terrible but Google will
devalue your website. This also is hurting everyone’s eyes and ears by having me read this
super long hyperlink. It’s also distracting from the presentation so please please please do
NOT do this.
14. Call to Action!
Add a Call to Action to the End of Each Post
Once a reader finishes the blog you wrote, what do you want them to do?
Do you want them to register, call a phone number, buy something, download your
guide, share with a friend on social media, etc.
15. Writing for SEO Tips
Choose keyword phrases
•include keywords 2-3 times in body
•variations of keyword
•use synonyms
•use exact term
•don’t over optimize!
•longer copy = better opportunities
•1000+ words is ideal
Place keywords in:
• Title tag
• URL
• Headlines/sub headlines
• call to action links
• main body text copy
17. www.chatterbuzzmedia.com
321.236.BUZZ (2899)
Google Keyword Planner
• Find what people are searching for
• Provide suggestions on new keywords
• Tell you how competitive these keywords are
• Approximate how many people are searching for these keywords per city
18. Google Analytics
We Know All! (Except for Some Keyword Data)
• Track where visitors are coming from
• What they do on our client’s site
• Compare Organic, Paid, and Referral traffic
• And Much more!
21. Use Google Authorship to Get Your Picture Next
to Your Content
2 Options to setting it up
1. Link your content to your Google+ profile using a verified @domain email address
2. Linking your content to your Google+ profile and making sure you edit your
“Contributor To” section of your Google+ profile
22. Need Help Generating Blog Topics?
Hubspot Blog Topic Generator
• give three words you want to blog about
• get ideas!
Del.icio.us
• Provides specific tag pages that are timely
Quora
• Ask questions and get answers - can see what people are asking/what
content they are interested in
Content Idea Generator
• Spreadsheet that pulls in latest content from around the web related to
whatever given topic you choose
Topsy
• Can search for keywords/ get info about current trending topics
• Can filter based on time
23. 23
Google trends
• See what’s trending right now
• can compare keywords to see which has higher search volume
• Google Trends Hot Searches - displays top 20 searches any given day
Wordtracker
• provides two lists of the top 500 most searched keywords within the last 48
hours and 365 days
• looking out for upcoming trends for you to capitalize on
Trends Map
• Shows latest trends on twitter for anywhere in the world
What Keywords are Trending?
24. www.chatterbuzzmedia.com
321.236.BUZZ (2899)
SEO Overview
• Content is king
• Write for your audience
• Speak the searcher’s language
• Optimize site content - where to put your keywords
• Get quality links - how search engine looks at it
• Need to show up on search results
• Over 82% of all product research begins with a web search
UNDER UNDERSTANDING PART
Realizing what data means -search suggest (when you start typing what pops up, google fills in guesses - this shows us google’s inventory and what they have the most answers for!)
Relates searches - (at bottom of google page) = volume, these are more related to searcher behavior and how people search and what the search funnel looks like, much different from suggested searches; many times related searches will show different brands of something similar to what you are searching
bring in recent blog working on and “seo” it up!
teaching someone how to figure out topic all the way to posting and being optimized
once optimized, go inside moz and see if it is optimized enough (a,b, or c)
Keyword research - investigating the way people search, what people type into search box, how do they search, what do they look for, how can we position ourselves to be there
Example - “Chicago Deep Dish Pizza” rather than “Pizza”
long tails are less competitive and you will be more qualified
helps you rank for difficult terms
70% of search is from long tail search terms
higher conversion rate and higher ROI
long tail keywords often convert better, because they catch people later in the buying/conversion cycle
search shoes - browsing stage
search “best price for loubiton size 8” - more ready to buy!
Needs to be on a page with relevant content! Wouldn’t put targeted keyword “dogs” on a page about digital marketing
Anchor Text is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink
SEO-friendly anchor text is succinct and relevant to the target page.
helps determine the subject matter of the linked-to document
Link relevancy is determined by both the content of the source page and the content of the anchor text
If many links point to a page with the right keywords in their anchor text, that page has a very good chance of ranking well
Include 3-4 times is a suggestion from a Moz (depends on keyword)
if it is something very specific, it might sound unnatural or too forced in your content, and users and google don’t like that