gistfile1.md

This came from a Digital Nashville talk on 5/17/2011. The speaker was [[http://www.viralorchard.com|Jeremy Scott]].

= SEO Basics (tl;dr) =

• Rule #1: Content Is King.
• Traditionally, Google's algorithms have focused on keywords and links (inbound and outbound)
• Recently, with Panda Updates, Google has started downrating pages that seem over-SEO'd
• Search Engines are placing far more weight on social signals (shares, likes, retweets, etc.)
• Everyone in the company should click the +1 button in the Google Search results
• On-site optimization means writing web copy that includes predefined target keywords and phrases
• Copywriters and developers should work together to strike a balance between natural copy and optimized keywords
• Utilize PR to produce content that will get linked to from reputable sources (newspapers, blogs, even site-of-the-day galleries like awwwards)
• Leverage content that Google pulls in from its other properties (YouTube, Places, Maps, etc) to get on the search results page
• Use simple, descriptive, keyword-rich URLs
• Non-Profits get an enhanced set of tools for Google and YouTube!

== Resources ==

• [[http://seomoz.com/blog|SEO Moz]]
• [[http://www.seobook.com/blog|SEO Book]]
• [[http://searchenginewatch.com|Search Engine Watch]]
• [[http://www.reelseo.com|Reel SEO]] (video SEO focused)

== 1. Keywords (On-Page Optimization) ==

• Keywords used to be the primary way Google determined rank
• After years of abuse, Google gives less weight to keywords in favor of link building

=== Official Keyword Tools ===

** [[http://trends.google.com|Google Trends]] *** Compares two keywords for relative rank (ie, "chiropractic" much more often searched than "chiropractor") ** [[https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS|Google Keyword Tool]] *** Real-number data about keywords (global monthly searches, local monthly searches, competition) *** Suggestions for other similar keywords

=== Which Keywords to Use ===

• Google looks for key phrases (not words) in your webpage called "Code Beacons" - they are all listed on Google's keyword tool ** "Keywords" (phrases people commonly use to search) ** Topic/Theme/Industry ** Location
• Check competitors websites for keywords - but don't steal or "scrape" them because Google downranks duplicated content
• Check Google Analytics for searches people are already using to get to your site (check each ranking)
• Choose different keywords for each page - "Each page is its own site as far as SEO is concerned"

=== Where To Put Keywords ===

• <title> tag

• and

  tags

• Body copy
• tags
• URL
• Domain name (domains with acronyms like "tnchiro.com" are less valuable than "nashvillechiropractic.com")

=== How Many Keywords To Use ===

• More isn't always better (especially since recent updates) - you can water down the good ones
• Don't overstuff the site with too keywords or the same keywords - Google values "keyword diversity"
• Google automatically fixes misspellings, so including them as keywords won't help
• 30-50 is common
• You can't rank #1 for every keyword so make some goals and pull out ones you won't win

=== Evaluating Keyword Updates ===

• How long does it take to see on-page changes? 2~6 weeks
• Personalized results can affect the results you see: ** Your prior search history *** Log out of Google account *** Clear cookies ** Your geographic location *** You can "fake" a geographic location on the search page ** Rankings based on social signals *** Log out of Facebook, Twitter, G+ etc.

== 2. Domains and URLs ==

• You want keywords in your domain
• Google gives weight to older, established domains
• If you have a bad domain name, create a new one and use the old one to redirect to it
• .com is always preferable
• Google is good at separating words: no difference between hello-world, hello_world, helloworld
• Use descriptive, keyword-rich URLs (pickpuck.com/about-michael-puckett over pickpuck.com/about)

== 3. Crawl Issues ==

• Check your Google Webmaster Tools for crawl errors, crawl rates, etc.
• Google downranks sites with dead links, broken images, redirect errors, etc.

== 4. Links ==

• Links are the currency of authority
• Get linked from other highly-ranked pages (New York Times) - works with PR mindset
• Stay away from bad links - you don't want your site linked from spam sites, adult sites, directories
• Keywords in anchor text is preferred - example best advertising agency in Nashville
• How to get linked? ** Sometimes you can simply ask other website owners to get links ** Link Bait DOES still work - ie, Top 10 Lists - see http://bit.ly/KuKpyM - maybe because it often has a viral social aspect
• Anything automated, Google usually picks up on and will downgrade the connection
• Links have decreasing value in Google's algorithm because of abuse (linkfarms, exchanges, etc.) ** Avoid... *** Inbound links on website footers (including "Built by iostudio") *** Links from unrelated sites *** Too many links are pointing back with the same exact anchor text as each other *** Too many exact match keyword links *** Consecutive Sponsored Links *** Specific keywords that have recently dropped in ranking added to site (Google Keyword Tool stalking) *** "Basically what we have spent the last 5 years doing"
• Link shorteners seem to be OK

== 5. Fresh Content ==

• Google will return to your site more often if there is consistent conversation
• Make sure to have a blog! Link to an archive on every page so Google can crawl more easily
• Redesigns/recoding sites rarely have a negative effect - unless you change your page URLs
• Google prefers the newest technologies (HTML5 semantic structure)
• Basically: Content Is King so if you keep that in mind your site will rank well

== 6. Social Signals ==

• The future of SEO is tied to social media ** Likes/Plus Ones ** Discussion - Comments ** Shares/Retweets ** Ratings ** Reviews - Google Places, Yelp, Google Maps are a "magic bullet" for local businesses - include every location ** Fans/Friends/Followers ** Embeds ** Video subscriptions, etc

• Google started Google+ because it couldn't get social data about likes/shares from Facebook/Twitter ** Google+ integration is key to every brand website because that's where Google is getting most social data ** Everyone in your company should be +1'ing any website you launch ** Facebook data is used in Bing searches (thanks Thomas!)

= Don'ts =

• Do Not ** Keyword stuff ** Duplicate content (Do your Mobile Website and Desktop Website have the exact same content? Both will be downrated) ** Shady server IPs (porn/poker/etc) ** No shady tricks, scripts, "Black Hat SEO" ** Shady inbound links

= Leveraging Video Search Results =

• YouTube gets 40 billion video views a month vs. Google's 12.5 billion monthly searches
• Most video hasn't been optimized to show up on Google's (default) Universal Search (regular search but other content is thrown in)
• 80% of users click on a video if it shows up in Universal Search (40% higher clickthrough rate)
• Also consider YouTube ads (TrueView system is cheap and efficient)

=== How to Get Your Video to Show Up in Google Search ===

• Create a video (can be simple) ** Product demos, etc with lots of SEO-friendly VO copy ** Create an instructional video that (audibly) mentions lots of key search terms ** Write out a piece of content that could go on your website and create a text-based video ** Basically just have someone read a page of your website into a microphone and add visuals to it
• Transcribe the video as a .txt file and upload the caption file and the video to YouTube
• Provide appropriate title, keywords, description, etc for the video - but again, don't overstuff keywords - focus on 1 or 2
• Upload video sitemap (XML) to Google Webmaster Tools
• Embed the video on your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc