The Free, Not-So-Free Traffic
Todd D. McPartlin
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
iMarketing Leader’s R4
Marketing System
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Chapter 8 In My Book.
“The Free, Not-So-Free Traffic”
How to Stand Out! in the Search Results and Drive Qualified Customers to Your WebsiteSuccessful SEO Strategies For Small Business
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Why care about SEO?
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Popularity
• 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine
• 97% of consumers search for local businesses online
• The majority of web traffic is driven by the ‘Big Three’ search engines—Google, Bing and Yahoo
Source: Search Engine Journal
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Organic vs. Sponsored
77%CHOOSE ORGANIC
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Organic vs. Sponsored
25%HIGHER CONVERSION
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
The “Golden Triangle”
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Is SEO legit?
• Black magic? • Dark art?• Snake oil?
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
“Black Hat”
• Unethical• Spammy• High-risk
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
“White Hat”
• Ethical• Google-approved• User-focused
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
How search engines workFirst things first
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
DISCLAIMER
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Crawling and Indexing
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Relevance and Importance
• Does the page address the query?• Is the page popular? • Popularity = importance (according to
Google)
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
What Google wants
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
How people use search engines
Know thyself
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Empathy
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
The Process
1. Need for answer, solution or piece of information
2. Formulate need in words and phrases
3. Enter keyword/search term into search engine
4. Browse through the results for a match
5. Click on a result
6. Scan for a solution, or a link to that solution
7. If unsatisfied, return to the search results
8. Perform new search with new keyword/search term
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Keywords
• Think like your customer• “massage” vs. “spa” or “salon”• Intention?
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
“Build for people, not search engines.”
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Designing + Developing for SEO
How to be a good host
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
What the spider saw
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
How spiders get around
Illustration from SEOmoz
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Robots!
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Sitemaps
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Auto-pinginghttp://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
URL structure• Short (exception blog article titles)• Static (not dynamic)
• No: www.mywebsite.com/blog?id=123
• Yes: www.mywebsite.org/descriptive-readable
• Descriptive • Hyphenated (not + or _)
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Content creationFeeding the spiders
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Who is your buyer?
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
“Write for users, not search engines.”
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Create compelling content
• Not “link bait”• Always value!• Entertain• Educate
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Keyword research
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Keyword competitiveness
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Frequency
• Keep Google coming back for more• You can’t move up the ranks if your site is
ignored
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Video• Jump ahead• Great for competitive
verticals• No need to be
Scorsese
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
List-mania
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Title and meta tags
<html><head><title>This Is an Example of a Title Tag</title><meta name="Description" content="Here is an example of what a snippet looks like in Google’s SERPs. The content that appears here is usually taken from the meta description tag." />
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Alt text
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Off-page optimization
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Link building
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Social sharing
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Start a blog
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Directories
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
One step at a time
• SEO is a process, not an event
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Action Steps1. Go in alone or hire an SEO company?2. Research SEO companies• Ask for referrals• Cheaper may indicate lower quality
(think black hat)3. Do keyword reach for buyer keywords4. Claim all local directories• AutomationDominationBook.com/
topdirectories5. Implement your plan
Contact us if you have any more questions or if you’d like help!
[email protected] 979-314-7213
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com
Todd McPartlin | iMarketing Leader | imarketingleader.com | 979-314-7213
Questions?