Learn the 4 must-have SEO pillars to get discovered online in 2014. These slides were presented in a webinar by Christine O'Kelly and Bernie Borges January 22, 2014.
The full webinar playback is available on demand here: http://www.findandconvert.com/resources/webinar-archives/
8. A Clean Website!
After careful planning you launch a clean website that is
“clutter free.”
9. One Year Later….Still Clean?
After a year or more online, new and revised content has impacted your
site.
10. How Cluttered Architecture Impacts Your
Website
No website can avoid clutter building up over time. Website clutter
buildup can negatively impact incoming traffic leading to less leads and
sales.
11. Speed & Performance
Optimization
More than 80 factors to study in website architecture optimization.
Are URLs SEF friendly/optimized?
Can URLs be accessed by Upper Case & Lower
Case versions?
Are there WWW & Non WWW versions of the
site?
Are titles optimized?
Are meta descriptions optimized?
Are H1s optimized?
Are 301 redirects set up properly?
Is the site using 302 redirects?
Are there 404 pages?
Is the site organization intuitive (silo’d)?
Is there a logical category / subcategory
hierarchy?
Are there related links in each category?
Are all pages crawlable by robot without a
sitemap? Orphan Pages?
Are there broken links?
Is there an HTML sitemap?
Is there an XML sitemap?
Are URLs duplicated in the sitemaps?
How does the site function when you turn off CSS, JavaScript?
Is Flash used for important elements?
Does the site use AJAX pages?
Is content in PDFs also in HTML?
Is there duplicate content within the site?
Is there duplicate content between subdomains?
Is there duplicate content with other sites?
What internal pages do they link to the most?
What is the quality of outbound linking?
Are there too many links on a page?
Speed and Code
Is the HTML minified & compressed?
Is the CSS validated?
Are JavaScript and CSS linked to external files?
15. The Two Critical Jobs of Content in
SEO
Content serves
2
Critical Jobs
in terms of SEO and website ranking
16. The Two Critical Jobs of Content in
SEO
JOB #
1
OPTMIZED CONTENT
JOB #
2
EARN INBOUND LINKS
17. 1st Critical Job of Content in SEO
JOB #
1
OPTMIZED CONTENT is a
crucial element that
determines the ranking of
a web page
People won’t find your
content in a search if it is
not optimized for the
terms for which they are
searching
19. On Page Content Optimization: Past vs.
Present
Stuffing exact match
keywords on pages –
even at the cost of
readability
Creating pages with a
variety of related and
relevant keyword
themes
Using the same
keyword phrase
again and again to
achieve a specific
density
Using semantically
related terms that
“anchor” and give
contextual relevance
to your target
keywords.
20. “Intent” Is More Important than “Exact”
Google’s goal has
remained consistent
since inception. Their
ability to interpret
patterns and signals
has improved.
21. We’ve Talked About Optimizing YOUR Website…
But that’s not where online discoverability ends
A “Hidden” Fact That Many People Overlook…
Your own website isn’t the ONLY place where you can publish optimized
quality content to gain search engine visibility
22. Different Search Terms Have Different Result
Types
“How to Bind a Book”
“Spiral Binding Machines”
24. Multi-Platform Publishing
Publish Different Types of Content on Appropriate Platforms
After analyzing the SERPs of various keywords, create valuable optimized
content and publish on the content platforms that tend to rank the best.
25. Multi-Platform Publishing
Why appear just once in
the SERPs When you
can dominate multiple
positions?
By publishing optimized content
on various platforms, your
content can dominate more
than one position in the search
results
28. Content Creation Recap
Identify your keywords
Produce useful, information rich, contextually
relevant content for your website
Analyze the search engine results for your
keywords
Create an optimized presence on 3rd party
sites that have search presence
30. The Two Critical Jobs of Content in
SEO
JOB #
2
INBOUND EARNED LINKS are
another crucial element that
determines a website’s ranking
The way to earn valuable
influential links and social shares
is to create unique, quality content
that people feel COMPELLED to
link to
31. Link Building: Past vs. Present
Publishing user
generated content
anywhere and
everywhere to build
links back to a
website.
Creating quality content
that people feel
compelled to link to –
thus generating earned
links from a wide variety
of places around the
web
Embedding links in
exact match keywords
QUANTITY
SELF-CREATED
Links embedded in a
range of natural
keyword phrases
VS
QUALITY
EARNED
32. Link Earning Vs. Link Building
In the SEO days of old, we asked…
How Can
I Build
Links?
33. Link Earning Vs. Link Building
Today we need to ask…
What would
compel others to
How Can
talk about us?
I Build
Links?
34. Link Earning Vs. Link Building
• What proprietary “trend” data can analyze and
interpret?
• How can you poll your customer base?
• Are there any trending news stories that you
can respond to?
• Do you have predictions about what is up and
coming in your industry?
35. Link Earning Vs. Link Building
Today we need to ask…
What can I create
for others that will
How Can
help THEM
I Build
increase their
Links?
authority?
36. Link Earning Vs. Link Building
• Which magazines, trade journals, and blogs
can you contribute content to?
• Which podcasts and radio shows cover topics
to which you can contribute?
• What types of awards or certifications can you
issue?
41. What Type of Award or Certification Can You
Give?
“Successful Outstanding
Blogger” Award
Liz Strauss awards regularly to
bloggers that she feels are
outstanding
Best Family Safety Blog
Chose what they felt were the “best
family safety blogs divided into
various categories
HubSpot Certified
Defined certification
criteria and program and
awards pride badges to
those who achieve this
certification.
42. Link Reclamation
Gather the Low Hanging
Fruit
Search for mentions
Check links for validity
Ask for link inclusion / link repair
43. Link Earning Recap
Write/contribute useful, original, interesting
content that people naturally want to
reference and share
Ask “How can I compel others to naturally
want to link to me,” vs. “Where can I place
links”
Find places where people are talking about
you online but not linking and ask them to
include a link
49. Key take-aways:
Why website architecture matters
Quality content that is optimized for
search
Link earning, not link building
Social signals are important
50. Tune Into The ….
https://www.youtube.com/user/socialbusinessengine
Watch the full episode at thesocialbusinessengine.com.
The first pillar we’ll cover today is the one that is the most often overlooked by marketers and that’s the architecture of your website.
Marketers devote energy and budget to designing a website that looks good, just like we want our homes to look good. But, there is more to a home than curb appeal, and likewise there is more to a website than meets the eye.
In a home, it's imperative that the plumbing and wiring infrastructure work well. If it doesn't, there can be big problems that are very costly.
It may seem like a silly analogy, but a website is exactly the same. When we speak of a website's "plumbing and wiring" we are generally referring to many factors that are not visible to the human eye. But, they are very important. To explain this concept, let's just call it "clutter." A new website is free of clutter.
But, over time as the website is maintained, we generally make changes to it. We add new content, we edit content. We might move the location of content from one area to another. And, we might delete content. All of these changes can result in website clutter usually in the form of code bloat and also out of date URLs, just to name a few of the clutter details.
Let's look at how this can impact your website. In this one year chart you can see the blue line represents growth in website traffic. That's good right? But, the orange line shows how this clutter affect also grows in time. The real damage is in the loss in traffic represented by the red bars. Notice how the clutter grows, the loss of traffic also grows. This is because the website loses authority with search engines and loses rankings. This is exactly what we all want to avoid.
So, in order to monitor this issue, we need to look at the factors Google cares about. There are more than 80 factors to monitor in your website. I know this can seem a little overwhelming. But, the reality of website marketing, or online marketing, or if you prefer search engine optimization, has not gotten simpler. The reality is that it has gotten more complex. We prefer to say it has become more scientific. After today’s webinar, we’ll email you a link to download an e-book that covers more than 80 factors marketers need to know to improve website performance.
Another factor that you must pay close attention to is the URL structure in your website. This is often a common problem depending on how your website was developed. If you follow this seo friendly URL path, you'll be fine. You'll get a copy of these slides, so don't worry about capturing these details right now.
So, just to recap, just like you do your spring cleaning each year, you should schedule a website audit once per year. No website is immune from the clutter that can build up and cause negative affects to your search engine discoverability. Also, sweat the URL structure because search engines want easy to find content on your website. And, lastly although I didn't mention it in the previous slides in the interest of time, but the load speed of your website also matters. A slow load speed can negatively impact your search engine optimization results.
And, now I'll turn it over to Christine to cover pillar #2, original, quality, optimized content.
Social sharing has been increasingly on the rise as one of the signals used by search engines. Let's look at this closer.
In 2013 Google re-engineered their entire search algorithm. It is known as Hummingbird. At Pubcon, considered one of the biggest conference in the U.S. for search marketers, Matt Cutts, the face of Google for search marketing said that Google is not currently using social signals extensively, but they intend to use them in the future. Frankly, Google has been saying this for two years now. So, our advice is to be ready today. Don't wait for Google to announce they are using social signals more extensively.
Creating social signals is actually very simple. It's simply a matter of sharing your content through social channels such as a status update in your LinkedIn account either from your profile, or from your LinkedIn company page as shown here.
Or, sharing content through Google+ which is of course a Google property and widelybelieved to be influential in search signals. Even sharing content through Facebook, although Facebook content is not currently indexed by Google. But, maybe that will change too, so I wouldn't exclude it at least for the possibility of your content reaching the audience you want to reach.
Be sure to have social media sharing options on your website or blog to make it easy for people to share your content through social media.
So, to recap today's webinar. The key take away's Christine and I covered today are:1. The architecture of your website is too often overlooked. It matters. If it's not audited and maintained it can negatively impact your search marketing results.2. The quality of your content is huge. Not only can it help you get discovered in search engines, but it can also be amplified across other digital channels to be discovered by your target audience.3. Inbound links remain an important element in organic seo, but instead of thinking how you can build links, think about ways you can earn links. Christine covered several great ideas on this topic.4. And, last but not least the social signals are an important factor. Search engines are improving their ability to measure how others vote up your content by sharing it across digital channels.Together, these 4 factors make up the 4 pillars of online discoverability in 2014.
Before I turn it back to Michelle to open it up for Q&A I want to invite you to visit my YouTube channel the Social Business Engine where you can get subscribe and inspired by the interviews I conduct with companies enjoying success on their social business journey.