SEO & Personal Brand in 2012 - WebFest.me Presentation

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My presentation for WebFest 2012, covering SEO basics and personal branding strategies.

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SEO and Personal Brand in 2012

@ruthburr

Why is SEO Important?

@ruthburr

Organic vs. Paid Search

Ads

Organic Results

@ruthburr

Why Organic Search is Important

• 36.4% of searches click the first organic result

• 60% of clicks go to the top 3 organic search results

• 80%+ of clicks go to organic results• Average click-through rate of page 1: 8.9%

– Average click-through rate of page 2: 1.5%

@ruthburr

The SEO Process

@ruthburr

Basic SEO Process

Accessibility

Content

Link Building

Conversion

Crawlability

Site ArchitectureUnique Content

URLs

Errors

Text Content

Keyword Research

Page Copy

Meta Tags

Internal Linking

Content Strategy

Link Research

Scalable Links

Conversion Path/ Shopping Cart Optimization

Social Media

Online PR

@ruthburr

Accessibility

• Can a search engine:– Find your content?– Read your content?– Move from one page to the next?

• Are there errors on site?• How many pages can a search

engine find in one visit?

@ruthburr

Site Architecture

• Each page should be less than 5 clicks away from the home page

@ruthburr

• Unique• Serves user intent• Shareable• Good keyword usage• Link-friendly URL

– www.example.com/keyword not www.example.com/page/145976

• Build content for users, not search engines!

What is Good Content?

@ruthburr

People See: Search Engines See:

Text Content

@ruthburr

• 300-500 words: 2-3 phrases

• 500+ words: 3-4 phrases

• Use in headlines, image file names, image alt text

• Be natural!

SEO Optimized Content

@ruthburr

• Common culprits– http://example.com vs http://www.example.com– Dynamic URLs (look for ?)

• Ex: www.example.com?campaign=email

– Pagination

• Solutions– 301 redirects– Canonical tag:– <head><link rel="canonical" href="http://www.example.com" /></head>

?

Avoiding Duplicate Content

@ruthburr

• Let search engines and other robots know “here is what this is.”

• Some things you can tell robots with Schema.org:– This is my address– Here is who wrote this piece of content (rel=author)– This is all the reviews for this product/average # of stars it

received– …and much, much, MUCH more!

Semantic Markup: Schema.org

@ruthburr

• A link is a message to Google: “this page is good”• Link volume: Lots of other people tell you I’m good > me just saying it

• Link authority: Barack Obama says I’m good > crazy man says it

• Link breadth– Lots of people tell you I’m good > one person says it over and

over– People who don’t know each other tell you I’m good > my mom

and dad say so

>

Link Signals for Search

@ruthburr

• Anchor text: The text containing the link– Ex: “We are a leading provider of cookies.”

• Keyword-rich anchor text sends a stronger signal– “Read more about cookies” > “Read more

about cookies.”

Anchor Text

@ruthburr

• Find influencers & conversation-starters and engage– Build relationships– Create quality content & encourage sharing:

the best links build themselves!

• Find who links to whom:– www.OpenSiteExplorer.org

Finding Link Targets

@ruthburr

How Search Engines Make Money

@ruthburr

You Are the Product

“I don’t know…just Google it.”

+

=

@ruthburr

Relevancy is About User Satisfaction

@ruthburr

SEO in 2012

@ruthburr

Battle: White Hat vs Black

@ruthburr

Ad

Personalized Result

Rich Snippet

News Results

Universal Search

@ruthburr

Universal Search

Map & Local Results

YouTube Video

Shopping Result

Universal Search

@ruthburr

Social Media and SEO

@ruthburr

Inbound Marketing

@ruthburr

Google Panda: Early 2011

• Target:– Thin content– Keyword-stuffed content– i.e. content for search

engines, not users

• Result: Increased focus on deep, unique content creation (no more eHow & About.com domination)

@ruthburr

Google Penguin: Spring 2012

• Target:– Too many keyword-rich links– Links not matching normal link

profile for your niche– i.e. links probably not earned

naturally

• Result: Increased focus on natural-appearing link profile

• Decreased focus on anchor text

@ruthburr

Changes to the Google Algorithm

www.mozcast.com

@ruthburr

How Effective is Exact-Match Domain?

www.mozcast.com

@ruthburr

How Effective is Partial-Match Domain?

www.mozcast.com

@ruthburr

What Does All of This Mean?

@ruthburr

Inbound Marketing

#RCS

@ruthburr

Personal Branding and SEO

@ruthburr

What Shows Up When Someone Googles You?

me

me

me

me

me

me

not me

@ruthburr

• Twitter• Facebook• LinkedIn• Google+• Company Team Page• Speakers Pages

Own Your Name

• Guest blogging• Your own site

– .com– .me

• Tumblr, Flickr, Instagram, EVERYWHERE.

• www.knowem.com

@ruthburr

Own Your Image

NOT

@ruthburr

Target Connections

@ruthburr

How I Got My Job

@ruthburr

Some Useful Resources

http://www.seomoz.org/dp/tools-for-inbound-marketing

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

http://www.seomoz.org/community

http://www.seomoz.org/mozcation

@ruthburr