Basics of search engine optimization. Presented at Drake University, April 9, 2013.

1. SEO basics
Chris Snider | @chrissnider

2. About Chris
• Instructor of Practice in Multimedia @ Drake
• Former digital editor @ Des Moines Register
• Former editor @ Juice magazine
• Designer at St. Louis Post-Dispatch
and Baltimore Sun

4. Who played
Mr. Belding on
Saved By The Bell?

5. Who invented
the toilet?

6. How would we find out?

11. What if you
needed
a plumber to
fix that toilet?
How would you
find one?

13. Then what?

14. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the
visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the
"natural" or un-paid search results.
In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page),
and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the
more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users.
SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search,
local search, video search and news search.
Source:Wikipedia

15. 92% of internet users conduct searches.
59% say they conduct searches on a daily basis.
Most popular Internet activity (tied with e-mail).
pewinternet.org - May 2011

16. Google processed 114.7 billion searches in Dec. 2012.
Yahoo! processed 8.6 billion searches in Dec. 2012.
Microsoft processed 4.5 billion searches in Dec. 2012.
Source: Comscore Dec. 2012 ... http://searchengineland.com/google-worlds-most-popular-search-engine-148089

17. drake relays is searched 12,100 times each month
drake university is searched 60,500 times each month
iowa state fair is searched 74,000 times each month
des moines is searched 2,740,000 times each month
Source: Google Keyword Tool

18. Imagine if your site were at (or near)
the top of those search results.
Search is a great
way to drive traffic to your site.
And very likely the best way
to drive traffic to your site.

19. What you see when you perform a search...

20. paid search results
paid
search
results
organic search results

23. top 3 spots are seen 100 percent of time

24. Eyetrack and search...

25. 10x traffic difference for 1st vs. 10th position

26. How people search
• Users no longer scroll down the page
• Instead, they submit multiple queries
to narrow information
• sandals > men’s sandals >
men’s nike sandals >
blue men’s nike sandals

28. How does SEO work?
And how can it work for you?

29. Simplified SEO
• Build a quality site with great content
• Find the right keywords – and put them in
the right places
• Get other quality sites to link to you

30. The more useful, relevant
and compelling your content,
the greater chance someone
will link to you (and increase
your rank in SERPs).
A couple things to avoid...

31. Hidden text
Keyword stuffing

32. Finding the
right keywords

33. Figure out what words people should
search to find your site.
Remember:The goal is to be helpful
to readers, not to trick them.
Then: Research those words.

34. Why research?
• To find words people actually search
• To make sure you’re not trying to optimize
a word you will never get ranked for
• To find alternative words in case our words
are not searched or are too competitive

35. Great resource tool is Google Keyword Tool
looking for low competition and high search volume

37. Google will
make search
for “heating
and air” local.

40. Where to use those keywords
In your page Title (at the front).
In your URL.
In your headlines <h1> and <h2>.
In the first <p> of your post.
In your meta data (not as important for SEO).
In links to your site.
Target one keyword per page.

41. title
URL
H1
text

42. And also your source code...

43. What Google shows...
title
meta description
URL
Reviews
sitelinks
70 characters
156 characters

44. Case study

49. Google trends is your friend

50. Get links

51. Links & Google Page Rank
• PageRank is a link analysis algorithm, named
after Larry Page and used by Google, that
assigns a numerical weighting to each
element of a hyperlinked set of documents,
such as the World Wide Web, with the
purpose of measuring its relative
importance within the set.

53. Chrome
extension
“SEO
Site
Tools”

54. Tools such as opensiteexplorer.org and
majesticseo.com can tell you what sites link
to your site (and your competitors).

55. .edu sites have more link authority.
So hire more Drake University students
and get Drake Marketing to write a story.

56. Good link:
Bad link:

57. Link to your own site.That has value too.

58. Try to get other credible sites/blogs to link to you.
Best way to do that is to have great content.
Next best way to do that is to link to them.
But no tricks. Google wants things to make sense.

59. Write articles/posts that people will want to link to.
Look closely at your metrics to see what is popular.

60. Write posts that people will want to link to:

61. Chris Brogan’s most-linked-to posts:

62. Promote your best work on:
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Tumblr
• Digg
• Guest blogging
Just don’t overdo it.
It’s always better to promote other’s best work.

63. Occasionally dip into Google Trends to see
what topics people are suddenly searching.
If those topics are relevant to your site/blog,
take advantage of that fact (and optimize appropriately)

65. More tips
• Make sure images have alt tags.
• Have text on your page (100+ ideally).
• Google Webmaster Tools will alert you to problems.
• marketing.grader.com gives good overview of site.
• Claiming your name on SM will help in search results.
• Google Authorship will add your photo to search.
• Google+ is important (Search + your world).

67. If you only do one thing...
Create good content.
The rest will follow.

68. Questions?
Resources:
seomoz.org/blog
seobook.com/blog
mattcutts.com/blog
googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com
blog.hubspot.com (then click on SEO at bottom)
twitter.com/chrissnider