BigWing's Senior SEO Manager, Ruth Burr Reedy, gave this talk at StaffingWorld 2015. In it, you'll learn some fundamentals of SEO as well as some ways recruiters and staffers can use content marketing to compete with industry juggernauts like Monster.

1. Search Engine Optimization
and Your Online Brand
Ruth Burr Reedy
BigWing Interactive
www.bigwing.com
@ruthburr

2. 11,944,000,000 Google searches per
month
Source: Digital Marketing Ramblings
93% of online experiences begin with a
search engine
64% of web traffic comes from
organic search
@ruthburr

3. Do You:
@ruthburr

4. Have a website?
@ruthburr

5. …that you want people to
come to?
@ruthburr

6. ..and complete an action?
(Like: buy/sell something, sign up for
something, read/learn something, share
something, or go somewhere?)
@ruthburr

7. “If You Build It, They Will
Come” Won’t Work Here.
Baseball Field, Sprague, Washington by Curtis Cronn on Flickr
@ruthburr

8. You Need Digital Marketing.
@ruthburr

9. But Isn’t That…
SPAM by AJ Cann on Flickr
@ruthburr

10. It’s Called Marketing.
Look it Up.
“Marketing is the process of
communicating the value of a product or
service to customers, for the purpose of
selling that product or service.”
That’s from Wikipedia, y’all.
@ruthburr

11. It’s Called Marketing.
SEO is about figuring out how people
are searching for what you have, so you
can show them – and Google – that you
have what they want and you’re the best
place to get it.
That’s from me.
@ruthburr

12. Let’s Get Started.
@ruthburr

13. If You Do Nothing Else…
@ruthburr
If you’re going to do one thing for your website, install tracking
software like Google Analytics – what gets measured, gets
improved!

14. Metrics to Track
• Form completions
• Signups
• Phone calls
• Time on page/site
• Visits to specific pages
• Bounce rate
…What is important to you?
@ruthburr

15. Extra Credit: Google Tag
Manager
Go the extra mile with tracking using Google Tag Manager,
which will allow you to put tracking code on your site without
needing a web developer’s help. @ruthburr

16. How People Search
$@ruthburr
The online decision-making process involves multiple
searches, content pieces and social media channels – every
step of that process is an opportunity to reach your audience
Go the extra mile with tracking using Google Tag Manager,
which will allow you to put tracking code on your site without
needing a web developer’s help.

17. Local SEO
@ruthburr
Local SEO impacts map results, including the 3-pack or “snack
pack” of local results at the top of many local search results
pages.

18. How Local SEO Works
Name
Address
Phone number
@ruthburr
Be as consistent as possible with your name, address and
phone number, and make sure they are present and consistent
in as many places as possible on the web.

19. @ruthburr

20. Local SEO Tools
There are a number of tools you can use to update your local
information easily. These are some of my favorites.
@ruthburr

21. Google’s Pigeon Update
@ruthburr
The “Pigeon” update in summer of 2014 started counting
organic SEO ranking factors, such as the ones we’ll discuss in
the rest of the presentation, as more important than they
previously were for local reuslts.

22. Organic SEO
@ruthburr
Organic search results are all the results that are not paid ads.
The highlighted non-local results on this page are organic
results.

23. Let’s Have a Party!
@ruthburr

24. Condemned Houses by LHOON on Flickr
…Not Here.
@ruthburr
Nobody wants to come to a party in a condemned house – but
by trying to market a broken-down website, that’s what you’re
doing.

25. Clean Up Your House!
@ruthburr

26. A Website Should Be:
@ruthburr

27. Fast
@ruthburr
Ideal page load time: 2
seconds
Realistic page load
time: 5 seconds
You can view page load times and recommendations for
improving them under “Site Speed” in Google Analytics.

28. Public
@ruthburr
Any content behind a login or paywall is content Google can’t
see. Think about what you want to be visible in search engines.

29. Mobile-Friendly
@ruthburr
Tap points
are ~7 mm
square
Tap points
are ~5 mm
apart
Font is readable
(~12 CSS pixels)
and wraps
properly
Use the meta viewport tag
Use relative
widths (100%)
instead of fixed
widths (360 px)

30. Mobile-Friendly
To check if your site is mobile-friendly, search for your site on
your phone and look for the “Mobile-friendly” tag. @ruthburr

31. Easy to Navigate
@ruthburr
Don’t confuse people – make it clear where they’re supposed
to go to complete the task they want to complete.

32. Time to Decorate!
@ruthburrNow that you’ve got your site working properly, let’s put some
content on there.

33. @ruthburr

34. @ruthburrThis is what the Cattlemen’s website looks like to Google.
Make sure you’re using text, not pictures of text – Google can’t
read words in an image.

35. Keywords Are Important.
It doesn’t matter how you talk about what you
do. It matters how your users look for what
you have, so you can show them that you
have it.
@ruthburr

36. “Marketing specialist”
1600 monthly searches
“Marketing guru”
260 monthly searches
@ruthburr
Keyword research shows you how your audience is talking
about what you have, so you can better connect with them.

37. Can I Rank for That?
@ruthburr
Before you target a keyword, do some research to see if you
could realistically rank for it.

38. It’s very difficult to compete for jobs keywords because you’re
competing with aggregators like Monster and Indeed. @ruthburr

39. @ruthburr
Instead, look for terms that people might be searching on
earlier in their job search process, to build a relationship with
them before they get to the decision-making stage.

40. What Problems Can I
Solve?
“I don’t know what I should do after college”
“I’m ready for the next step toward my dream job”
“I hate the place I work now”
“I want a higher salary to support my family”
@ruthburr
Think about the reasons someone might want a new job. What
problems might they be trying to solve?

41. What Do People with These
Problems Search For?
“Best jobs marketing grads”
“Marketing career planning”
“Top workplaces OKC”
“Highest paying marketing jobs”
@ruthburr
Now, do some keyword research keeping in mind the kinds of
things someone with these problems might be searching for.

42. Creating in-depth resources not only builds a brand relationship with
your consumer, it also positions you as an expert and protects you
from “thin content” penalties like Google’s Panda update.Panda by George Yu on Flickr
Build Rich Content
Avoid Penalties and Connect with Users at Top of Funnel
@ruthburr

43. Google Keyword Planner
https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
@ruthburr

44. Don’t Hit Enter
Get content ideas by typing your core keyword into Google and
seeing what Google suggests before you hit “Enter”. @ruthburr

45. Keywordtool.io
@ruthburr
KeywordTool.io will automate this process for you.

46. Title tag: ~60
characters including
spaces
Description tag:
~150 characters
including spaces
@ruthburr
Use your target keywords in the <title> and <description> tags
of the page. These should be editable in most content
management systems.

47. Description tag!
@ruthburr
Your description tag won’t help you rank any better on Google,
but it does provide a description in search results and on social
media that you can control.

48. “Marketing specialist jobs: Your marketing
specialist jobs source for marketing specialist
jobs, marketing specialist job description,
marketing specialist careers.”NO.
Use Your Keywords
@ruthburr
You don’t have to stuff your keywords in everywhere, to the
point that it sounds unnatural.

49. Use Your Keywords
Just say what you were going to say, using
your keywords.
AND:
Let keyword research drive your content
strategy.
@ruthburr

50. Robot Spaceman Party Invitation by Nancy Dorsmer on Flickr
Invite People Over
@ruthburr

51. Search Traffic
Search Traffic
Your
Website
Competitor
Website
CTR Social
Blog
Guest
Posting
Links
ReferralsPR
Events
Dwell
Time
Online Presence
@ruthburr
Your online presence is bigger than just your website – it
includes everything you do on social media and elsewhere on
the web.

52. Why Links Are Important
@ruthburr @ruthburr
A link pointing to your website is like a “vote” from that website,
in Google’s eyes, so building links is important. However, not
all links are created equal.

53. Quantity
20 People Saying I’m Good > Me Saying it
@ruthburr
The first factor in link building is volume. Having a lot of links is
better than having very few.

54. Diversity
Unrelated People Saying I’m Good > My Friends and Family
@ruthburr
The second factor is diversity. It’s better to have links from a lot
of different websites, rather than a lot of links from just a
handful of websites.

55. Authority
Barack Obama Saying I’m Good > Crazy Man Yelling Into a Bag
@ruthburr
The third factor is authority – links from websites that are
credible, established authorities in your niche are better than
low-quality or unrelated links.

56. DON’T BE SHADY.
@ruthburr
Do NOT buy links. You could get penalized by Google. Also,
don’t engage in link spam – driving your total number of links
up by accruing a lot of low-quality, irrelevant links won’t work.

57. Who Are Your Friends?
@ruthburrWhat other businesses is your business already associated with?
Try asking your partners and associations to link back to you.

58. Track Backlinks
http://majestic.com
@ruthburr

59. Followerwonk -> TagCrowd
@ruthburr

60. Followerwonk -> TagCrowd
Use FollowerWonk to find people who list your target term in their
Twitter bio – then paste your Followerwonk search results into
TagCrowd to find overlapping interests for new content ideas.
@ruthburr

61. Facebook Graph Search
@ruthburr
You can also find overlapping interests using Facebook search.

62. Additional Resources
• Nielsen PRIZM
• Focus groups
• Surveys
• Interviews
• Example personas:
http://academy.hubspot.com/examples/customer-
examples/?Tag=Buyer+Persona
Here are some additional resources to help you build user
personas that you can target with content. @ruthburr

63. The 15-Minute Social
Strategy
Replying Sharing
Talking
@ruthburr

64. Track Everything
@ruthburr

65. Some More Useful Tools
• http://www.google.com/analytics
• http://moz.com/products/pro
• http://raventools.com
• http://majesticseo.com
• http://semrush.com
• http://simplymeasured.com
@ruthburr

66. Questions?
@ruthburr