SEO 101: Tips and Tricks for Search
- 1. SEO 101: TIPS AND TRICKS FOR SEARCH Dennis Goedegebuure, Natural Search Marketing Specialist
- 2. AGENDA What is SEO? Search Trends How Search Engines Work Ranking Factors Free Tools
- 3. WHAT IS SEO? Free traffic More visitors More downloads More transactions More successful S earch E ngine O ptimization
- 5. WHAT IS SEO? (CONT’D) All major search engines have documentation Webmaster Guidelines Bing: help.live.com/help.aspx?mkt= en-us&project=wl_webmasters Google: www.google.com/support/webmasters Yahoo: help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/basics/basics-18.html
- 6. AGENDA What is SEO? Search Trends How Search Engines Work Ranking Factors Free Tools
- 8. SNIPLETS PRESENTATION Enhance your site presentation through structured metadata Yahoo Search Monkey Google Rich Sniplets Y! Search Monkey: developer.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/ Google Rich Sniplets: microformats.org/wiki/google-search
- 9. AGENDA What is SEO? Search Trends How Search Engines Work Ranking Factors Free Tools
- 10. SITE CRAWLING Search engine robots crawl the web to discover new content. Crawlers follow extractable links . Sitemaps can help pages get discovered. XML sitemap HTML sitemap
- 11. SITE INDEXING Search engines download and store HTML content. Only extractable content is indexed.
- 12. SITE RANKING Search engines rank websites according to relevance factors. Important ranking factors: Keyword in anchor tag to the page Links to the page and site Page title H1 tag Quality of the content
- 13. AGENDA What is SEO? Search Trends How Search Engines Work Ranking Factors Free Tools
- 14. Ranking Factors Links URL structure Meta content Page content and elements Sitemap $lumps = array ( ‘L’ => ‘Links’ , ‘ U’ => ‘URL’ , ‘ M’ => ‘Meta Tags’ , ‘ P’ => ‘Page content’ , ‘ S’ => ‘Sitemaps’ ) ;
- 16. LINKS (CONT’D) Quality of links to a page Quantity of links to a page Keyword used in the anchor tag External links: majority to home page Internal links: through site structure About page rank: www.google.com/corporate/tech.html
- 17. URL STRUCTURE Keyword rich domain Considerations for URL Avoid big number of parameters Keywords in URL
- 18. URL STRUCTURE Avoid canonical URL problems www.mysite.com/index.php www.mysite.com/ mysite.com/index.php mysite.com/ Canonical tag is a band aid to solve this problem: <head> <link rel=“canonical” href=“http://www.mysite.com” /> </head>
- 19. META TAGS Meta tags are HTML elements used to provide structured metadata about a web page <head> <title>eBay Daily Deal: Great items, deep discounts, and free shipping</title> <meta name=“description” content=“Attention dealhunters: Save money on eBay with the Daily Deal. Check back every day for great items, deep discounts, and free shipping.”> <meta name=“keywords” content=“deal, deals”> </head>
- 20. TITLE TAG FORMULAS Keep SERP listings consistent across site Reinforces branding Informational Action Words: Learn, Discover, Find, Read, See Transactional Action Words: Buy, Try, Get, Download Informative Page Tag: [Primary Keyword] – [Action Words] [Secondary Keyword or Keyword Variation] [Brand or Company Name] Product Page Tag: [Product Name] – [Action Words] [Secondary Keywords or Keyword Variation] [Brand or Company Name] Example: Nintendo Wii – Buy Wii Game Console on eBay
- 22. PAGE CONTENT & ELEMENTS Build pages for two user agents: Users Crawlers Content in HTML Prevent usage of flash or other rich media
- 23. PAGE CONTENT & ELEMENTS (CONT’D) Use semantic HTML <h1>My Article Title</h1> <p>Scientist reported Wednesday…</p> <span class=“heading1”>My Article Title</span> <p>Scientist reported Wednesday…</p>
- 24. SITEMAPS Submit a XML sitemap to all major search engines for easy discovery of your pages. Add sitemap location to Robots.txt file. XML Sitemap <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> - <sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"> - <sitemap> <loc>http://listing-index.ebay.com/sitemap_google_auction_intl_AU_2009060315_672001_1001.xml.gz</loc> </sitemap> </sitemapindex>
- 25. SITEMAPS (CONT’D) HTML sitemap Build an HTML sitemap with all links on your site For users and for search engines No more than 50 links
- 26. AGENDA What is SEO? Search Trends How Search Engines Work Ranking Factors Free Tools
- 27. Free Tools Search engine web tools Google webmaster Tools: www.google.com/webmasters/ Yahoo Site Explorer: siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com Bing Webmaster Center: www.bing.com/webmaster
- 28. FREE TOOLS (CONT’D) Free Firefox plug-in toolbar Web developer toolbar Web developer toolbar: chrispederick.com/work/web-developer
- 29. Free Tools (CONT’D) Keyword research tools Google Search Insights: www.google.com/insights/search/
- 31. FREE TOOLS (CONT’D) Microsoft excel ad intelligence plug-in Microsoft Ad Intelligence: advertising.microsoft.com/search-advertising/advertising-intelligence
- 32. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS Natural search is “free” traffic. Natural search does not require rocket science. Good rankings start with good site architecture. Natural search can make YOU more successful.
- 33. MORE INFORMATION Webmaster guidelines Bing: help.live.com/help.aspx?mkt=en-us&project=wl_webmasters Google: www.google.com/support/webmasters Yahoo: help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/basics/basics-18.html Free tools Web developer toolbar: chrispederick.com/work/web-developer Google Search Insights: www.google.com/insights/search Microsoft Ad Intelligence: http://advertising.microsoft.com/search-advertising/advertising-intelligence Search engine webmaster tools Google webmaster Tools: www.google.com/webmasters/ Yahoo Site Explorer: siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com Bing Webmaster Center: www.bing.com/webmaster
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