The presentation I gave the

1. SEO
What it is and
what you need to know.
John Doherty
Distilled NYC JOHN DOHERTY
http://www.distilled.net
DISTILLED NYC

2. @dohertyjf
John Doherty
SEO Consultant – Distilled
john.doherty@distilled.net
http://twitter.com/#!/dohertyjf
SEO Consultant at Distilled NYC.
Company Blog: http://www.distilled.net/blog/
Personal Blog: http://www.johnfdoherty.com/

3. @dohertyjf
Before we talk about SEO, we need to talk
about the online marketing landscape.

4. @dohertyjf
Inbound Marketing
SEO is not a full marketing
strategy. Rather, it is an integral
part of the online, and more
precisely, inbound marketing
landscape, which encompasses
social, email, SEO, webinars,
content, and so much more.
This infographic illustrates it well: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-noob-guide-to-
online-marketing-with-giant-infographic-11928

5. @dohertyjf
What is SEO (search engine optimization)?

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SEO is:
The process of improving the visibility of a website
or a webpage in the search engines via “natural” or
unpaid means. SEO involves using relevant
keywords on a page and working to rank for those
terms that are typed into the search engine.

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In short, SEO is the way content gets found
on the Internet

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Better yet, SEO is the way that GREAT
content gets found on the Internet.

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Search Engine
Statistics

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Current spread of search engine market share according to netmarketshare.com.
Google owns 84% of the US search market.

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Over 100 billion searches per month in 2009, according to Comscore

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Many of the queries on Google are not “head terms”, but are rather longtail searches.
So, we need strong domains and a lot of quality content to really win.

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There are two kinds of listings in the search
engines.

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Paid and organic

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But there are multiple verticals of search as
well, and each requires different (yet related)
tactics to rank well.

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Regular organic (which is slowly getting less visibility)
http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

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Local listings (restaurants, doctors, etc)
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml

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Ecommerce search

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Ecommerce in the search results

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Images
http://searchengineland.com/library/seo/seo-image-search

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Video SEO
Presentation
Articles

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News
Tips and Tricks

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Blogs

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And sometimes they all collide

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And some more on the next page.

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There are author photos showing.
http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/how-to-implement-rel-author

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And review stars and related searches.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99170

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And now, search is both universal and
personal.

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Familiar with Google+?
https://plus.google.com

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It is creeping into the search results.

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You receive “normal” organic when you toggle the switch, or are not logged in.

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But even then, they track you by IP address and other factors, like web browsing
history.

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In short, SEO has become complicated.

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The best place to get started
http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

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So why bother
with SEO/online
marketing at all?

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Ranking high is quite important

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If you build it, they won’t necessarily come.
Image source

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First position (usually) gets the traffic
The first position gets on average,
according to this study by Slingshot SEO,
18.2% of the clicks for that search. Then
the number decreases:
Position 2: 10.05%
Position 3: 7.22%
Position 4: 4.81%
Position 5: 3.09%
Position 6: 2.76%
Position 7: 1.88%

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The SEO industry is growing.

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The SEO Industry
According to Forrester Research,
interactive (online) marketing
spend will grow from $34.5 billion
in 2011 to $76.6 billion in 2016.
Currently, about $3.2b per year is
spent on SEO/inbound marketing,
and will grow to $5.1b by 2014..
Said simply, it’s growing fast because people are seeing an increased ROI.
According to this: http://bit.ly/IuM8pc

41. @dohertyjf
Online Marketing Spend
According to this survey of 939 marketing professionals, over 90% of businesses plan to
maintain or increase their online marketing spend. This includes paid search as well.
Said simply, it’s growing fast because people are seeing an increased ROI.
According to this: http://bit.ly/IuM8pc

42. @dohertyjf
Online Marketing Spend
Over half plan to
increase SEO/PPC spend.
Almost 60% plan to
increase email marketing
spend, and almost the
same amount plan to
increase spend on social
media.
http://www.strongmail.com/pdf/SM_Trends2012.pdf

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How does SEO
work?

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Many different areas on and around a website
affect SEO/traffic from organic means.

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In short, the more and better links you have
from other websites to your site, the
stronger your site will be and the better your
content will rank.

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Google operates off Pagerank
Pagerank is the link analysis algorithm off of which
Google bases its rankings. Other search engines have
similar algorithms. The higher your Pagerank, the
stronger your site is considered and the better
chance your content has of ranking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

47. @dohertyjf
But we do not know Pagerank
Domain Authority is SEOmoz's calculated metric for
how well a given domain is likely to rank in
Google.com's search results. It is based off of the
Linkscape web index and includes link counts,
mozRank, mozTrust, and dozens more. The stronger
the site, the better content will rank.
So we use Domain and Page authority
Domain Authority Definition

48. @dohertyjf
Page Authority
Page Authority is SEOmoz's calculated metric for
how well a given webpage is likely to rank in
Google.com's search results. It is based off of the
Linkscape web index and includes link counts,
mozRank, mozTrust, and dozens more. The stronger
the page, based off the different metrics, the better it
could rank.
Page Authority definition

49. @dohertyjf
But all this means nothing if you do not have
quality content on your site that can rank for
these terms AND that keeps your customers
happy when they find your site.

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Onsite factors

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Content
Better content, often times
content that is not timely (we call
it evergreen), tends to get more
visits. If you want to rank better
for more, create better content.
The better your content is, the
better the search engines will rank
it, and the more links you will be
able to get to it.

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Mixed forms of media get the most links as well.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-makes-a-link-worthy-post-part-1

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The site structure determines how well search crawlers can access your content.

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Page titles

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Design has a correlated effect (not causative, but influences user happiness)

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No one wants to look at this.

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All of this influences the share-ability of your site on social networks.

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Social Signals are well correlated to
rankings
While social might not influence rankings directly, it can drive traffic and is present in a
lot of sites that rank well.
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

59. @dohertyjf
Winning online today takes
creating real value for your customers.
To do this in a way that also benefits
your SEO by earning you high-quality
links, high quality linkable assets must
be created.

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The content
that does well
online

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Unique (http://www.dollarshaveclub.com/)

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Comprehensive
(http://www.salesforce.com/uk/socialsuccess/social-media/)

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Funny (http://fuckyeahcowboyboots.tumblr.com/)

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Instructional (http://www.distilled.net/linkbait-guide/)

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Types of content
that do well online
today

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Awards
http://adage.com/power150/
This page has 1,112 linking root domains. That’s a powerful page!

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Data Visualizations
http://www.thomson.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/infographic/interactive-music-
map/index.html
This visualization got 14.3k tweets, 26k likes, and 316 linking root domains.

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Infographics
http://aytm.com/blog/research-junction/angry-birds-addiction/
This infographic has received at least 210 linking root domains.

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Whitepapers
The Hubspot whitepapers page has received 95 linking root domains, and each
whitepaper has gotten more of its own.
http://www.hubspot.com/internet-marketing-whitepapers/

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Resource Guides
This online safety guide (http://kids.getnetwise.org/safetyguide/), which is not even that
attractive, has received 246 linking root domains.

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Everything can be an asset today
Our Distilled people page flips the person’s photo when you mouse over it.
http://www.distilled.net/about/people/

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Everything can be an asset today
Our Distilled 404 page went hot on Reddit in September and drove almost 100k visits
to our site.

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Guess which day it was popular.

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The point is, everything can be linked to. Creating
content that is unique and buzzworthy is the way
forward, in every industry, online.

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Offsite factors
(link
acquisition)

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You have to do outreach
And usually, outreach is a combination of allcan the above.different forms. Sometimes
Outreach of take many
it is through emailing bloggers, sometimes it is PR,
sometimes it is through interviews, sometimes it is
through guest content.

77. @dohertyjf
The kinds of links you want
The general rule of the links you want is:
From reputable domains;
In article is better than sitewide;
Relevant text in the link back to your site;
The harder the link is to acquire, the more valuable it
is (harder to replicate, and from stronger domains)
And usually, outreach is a combination of all of the above.

78. @dohertyjf
Think of linkbuilding as branding too
If you care about your company and your brand, you
should think about where you want links placed. The
best links are the ones that not only pass strength to
your site, but also get you referral traffic and get you
in front of your target audience.
Think to yourself: where is your ideal link from?
A good post on it: http://brandintellect.com.au/branding-vs-link-building/

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Linkbranding takes work
I would rather have one link from Time.com than
100 links put into the comments of websites by an
automated process.
The Time link will get you:
• A very strong link
• Brand visibility
• Referral traffic

80. @dohertyjf
Spamming is risky
Not only is spamming comments and buying links
from sites becoming a less effective strategy, and it is
more expensive long-term than building high-quality
linkable assets, it also puts you at risk for penalties
from Google which can literally kill your search
engine visibility.
Read about what happened to JCPenney in 2011.

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You want to be proud of your brand, right?

82. @dohertyjf
What does SEO get
you?

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Inbound marketing has a lower cost per lead than outbound marketing
http://www.hubspot.com/Portals/53/docs/resellers/reports/state_of_inbound_marketin
g.pdf

84. @dohertyjf
This is why companies are decreasing spend on outbound marketing, and spending
more online.

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The more you invest in SEO, the better your leads and conversion rates are.
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/2012SearchMBRSEOExcerpt.pdf

86. @dohertyjf
Not to mention more traffic

87. @dohertyjf
And ultimately more business

88. Thank You
Questions?
John Doherty
Distilled NYC
http://www.distilled.net
JOHN DOHERTY