@Rob Bertholf

Search Engine Optimization:FundamentalsMarketing for Robots: Part 1 of 4w/ @Rob Bertholf

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Google Search Engine Optimization Expert

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@Rob Bertholf

Search Engine Optimization Expert

Google Search Engine Optimization Expert

@Rob Bertholf | Search Engine Optimization Expertrob.bertholf.comHi, I’m @Rob on Twitter. California guy living in Honolulu, Hawaii the last 10 years. I teach at University of Hawaii’s PNM program and I am passionate about Development, Social Marketing Strategy, Web Analytics & Conversion optimization.

Search engine optimization - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

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@Rob’s Marketing Courses

HUMANS DOLLARSROBOTS

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Overview

Part 4:ValidationSearch

Engines

Part 1: Search Engines & YouPart 3:Content

Part 2:Architecture

@Rob Bertholf

● What is a Search Engine● Factors to Search Engine authority● Tools & Tactics

Desired Takeaways

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Understanding Search EnginesWhat does it do and how does it work?

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What is a Search Engine?

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Search Engines Timeline

1990: Archie - Query Form (First Search Engine)

1993: Excite / ALIWEB

1994: WebCrawler (First Crawler)

1994: Infoseek & Yahoo (Directories) / LYCOS

1996: Inktomi (Pioneered Paid Inclusion)

1997: Ask/AskJeeves (Natural Language Saearch)

1998: Microsoft launches MSN

1998/9: Google

2009: Bing

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Search Engine Market Share (US)

Statistics provided by ComScore. Updated February 2015

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Google - Browser

http://www.google.com

Search Engine Anatomy

Google

@Rob BertholfOrganic Search

Paid Search

AdsSearch Ads

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Shopping

Product Listing Ads

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Future topic: Paid Search Marketing

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Paid vs. Organic

Easy to Find

Hard to Find

Money is Being Spent Money Is NOT being spent

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Local

Local

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Images

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Videos

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Site Links

Sitelinks Search Box

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Knowledge Panel

More on Schema & Knowledge Graph in Part 2

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Answer Box

More on Schema & Knowledge Graph in Part 2

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Importance of Organic Search

On average, we conduct 12 billion searches per month on the web in the United States. (Comscore, July 2014)

44% of online shoppers begin by using a search engine.

(Interconnected World: Shopping and Personal Finance, 2012)

93% of online experiences begin with search engines.(Interconnected World: Shopping and Personal Finance, 2012)

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How does aSearch Engine FIND my site?

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Search Engines “Crawl” the Web

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Catalog or “Index” their Findings

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Query Index forSearch Results

Google

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How does aSearch Engine RANK my site?

@Rob Bertholf...so we tricked them.

I am a unicorn!

Cool!

Search Engines started out very naive and trusting…

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Misleading Text

<title>Acme Car Insurance</title><meta name="description" content="Really cute cat photos!" /><meta name="keywords" content="cat pictures, cat photos, cute cat, kittens" /><h1>Buy our Insurance</h1><p>Acme Car Insurance is the sleaziest.</p><p class="white-text-on-white-background">Really cute cat photos and pictures of kittens</p>

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PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

...then there was PageRank

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PageRank

The theory was idealistic but also quite naive. The underlying assumption was the more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.

PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is.

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Each page has a notion of its own self-importance.

That’s “PR(T1)” for the first page in the web all the way up to “PR(Tn)” for the last page

PR(Tn)

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C(Tn)

Each page spreads its vote out evenly amongst all of its outgoing links. The count, or number, of outgoing links for page 1 is “C(T1)”, “C(Tn)” for page “n”, and so on for all pages.

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PR(Tn)/C(Tn)

So if our page (page A) has a backlink from page “n” the share of the vote page A will get is

PR(Tn) / C(Tn)

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Dampening d(...

All these fractions of votes are added together but, to stop the other pages having too much influence, this total vote is “damped down” by multiplying it by the factor “d”

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PageRank is like apopularity contest. The more votes the greater the popularity.

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Friends of Popular People are Popular

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A3%

D3.9%

1.6% 1.6

% 1.6%

1.6%

F3.9%

C34.3%B

38.4%

1.6%

E8.1%

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H

F

CB

G

E

Homepage

About

Services

Blog

Contact

PageRank spreads across pages not just domains

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Page A (1.0)

Page B (1.0)

Page C (1.0)

Page D (1.0)Average PR 1.0

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Page A (1.49)

Page B (0.78)

Page C (1.58)

Page D (0.15)Average PR 1.0

PR(A) = (1-d) + d * (0)

= 0.15

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The SEO Pendulum

Trust What You Say(On-Page)

Trust What Others Say(Off-Page)

Search Engine Trust

20052010

2015

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How does aSearch Engine

CURRENTLY RANKmy site?

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Optimizing for Search EnginesWhat is their angle anyway?

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What to know about SEO...

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Forget everythingyou know about SEO

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... most of it anyway

• Meta Keywords (are not used)• Link Exchanges (can get you penalized)• Keyword Density (can get you penalized)• Page w/outbound Links (always been useless)

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Can we please let the term SEO die already

& instead focus on

content ?

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Architecture

Content

Validation

Intent

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Authority still assigned through recommendations.

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Authority validated by social signals.

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How to look at SEO...

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If it is good for Humans, it is good for

Search EnginesGoogle wants to serve relevant content wrapped in a positive user experience.

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The role of a search engine is to help a user find what they are looking for

on the web.

The search engine finds the most relevant results for based on the

user's intent.

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Successful Website Formula(Search Engines like this too)

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Reliable Website Host

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Reliable Web Host

• What is the point of a website if it's down and people can’t see it?

• Page loading speed directly affects time on site & conversion.

• Re-think shared hosting, get dedicated IP address at a minimum.

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Reliable Web Host

• Ensure your website is up when Googlebot visits your site.

• SE’s want to serve best experience, site usage matters.

• Don’t be on the same IP as spammer.

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Content Management System Edit Page - Chrome

Cat PageTitle

Publish

TextVisual

Meow.B i u

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Content Management System

• Keep your website content fresh.CMS like WordPress make it easy to publish content.

• Make it easy for your content to be shared. Add social sharing widgets from a library of plugins in seconds.

• Make it easy to remember and share your link. Dynamically create “slugs” or permalinks to construct URIs.

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Content Management System

• Fresh content brings the spiders back quicker.• Social Shares validate content.• Make it easy for SE’s to catalog your content.• Place keywords in your URL’s to increase relevance.

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Responsive Website Design

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Responsive Site Design

• Better for visitors to browse your website from any device (Desktop Computer, Laptop, Tablet, Smart Phone)

• Take mobile seriously! Quickly surpassing desktop traffic.

• Ease of navigation is important.

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Responsive Site Design

• Search engines prefer mobile friendly sites• Ease of navigation helps visitors find more content

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Attention to Detail

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Attention to Detail

• No broken links or images.• No misspellings or poor grammar.• Generate unique content.

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Attention to Detail

• If you don’t care about your content why should Google

• Duplicate content is not counted

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Compelling Content

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Craft Compelling Content

• What is the point of driving traffic to your website your visitors do not find value from the content on your site.

• Be consistent and realistic• Review analytics to check content performance

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Craft Compelling Content

• Time on site IS a ranking factor with search engines.

• Inbound links increase your search ranking.• Google’s PANDA gives “Quality Score”

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Start with Keyword Research

Create a content marketing plan!

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Earned Links

● Create compelling content○ Engaging content = Engaged visitors = Shares○ Earn inbound links by creating great content.

● Originate content from your website/blog

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Get Social

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Social Shares (Links)

● Place sharing widget/icons on your site● Share your content out to social networks● Encourage advocates to share your content

(SurroundsMe)

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Share your content

• Social Signals are largely weighted.• Without social validation, traditional link building will fall flat.

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Focus on creating a positive visitor

experience

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To be continued...

Part 4:Validation

Part 3:Content

Part 2:ArchitectureSearch

Engines

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Questions?Continued in Part 2

@RobRob@Bertholf.com

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What were your thoughts?

Please tweet:“Just finished #SEO fundamentals course with

@Rob. It was _________”