Jawad Khan - 10 Steps to Effective SEO

10 Steps to Effective SEO & Great Rankings
How to make SEO work for your business?

In Feb. 2011, Google said they
had 2 Billion+ searches/day!
Global Search Volume Growth
Millions of Searches (Monthly)

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html
Data via Comscore Qsearch: http://www.comscore.com www.JawadKhan.net

Search Engine Market Share
Most of the World (except
China, Russia, Korea + Czech
Republic) look like this

http://www.hitwise.com/uk/datacentre/main/dashboard-7323.html http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/2/comScore_Releases_Januar
y_2011_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings

http://www.impactmedia.co.uk/blog/search-engine-news/google/search-engine-market-share-statistics-%E2%80%93-february-2011-18271/
www.JawadKhan.net

Organic vs. Paid Search
Paid

Organic

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Organic vs. Paid Search
~20% of Clicks

~80% of Clicks

www.JawadKhan.net

Click-Through Rates

Ranking #2, #3 and #4
would send less traffic than
just ranking #1

www.JawadKhan.net

Step 1: Good Isn’t Good Enough;
Make Your Content Great.

“Good” Content vs. “GREAT” Content
Satisfies the searcher’s basic Surprises and delights the
information requirements searcher by being remarkable

Written by a human and not Produced by extraordinary
duplicated elsewhere writers/designers/producers

Long enough to fulfill basic May leverage video, audio,
needs of engines for graphics & photos to convey a
depth/uniqueness unique, shareable experience

Grammatically correct; free of Produced by extraordinary
spelling/punctuation errors writers/designers/producers

Searchers LOVE Great Content &
People SHARE Great Content

www.JawadKhan.net

A Blog Alone Doesn’t Cut It.

www.JawadKhan.net

You Must Become a Hub for Great
Answers on Q+A
Content in Your Niche Referenced
sites reference by industry
its resources Site that offers: blogs
• Unique Research
Forum discussions Mentioned in
• Informed Opinions
link to its pages news
• News/Trend Analysis publications
• Multimedia Content
Links are Tweeted People email
• Authentic Expert Contributors
links to each
• Quality Discussion/Interaction other
Liked/Shared
on Facebook Cited at conferences
+ events

www.JawadKhan.net

Step 2: Make that Great Content
Accessible to Search Engines.

Substantive, Descriptive, HTML Text Content

http://www.hipmunk.com/ is a great site, but there’s no real text content for engines to see!
www.JawadKhan.net
http://adioso.com doesn’t have a ton more, but there’s at least something for Google/Bing to grab onto.

Clean, Crawlable URLs
Better www.adioso.com/seattle/british-airways-flights
www.adioso.com/cat61/british

www.adioso.com/cat61/174

www.adioso.com/f?ID=174

www.adioso.com/f?cat=61&?ID=174

Worse cdn6.fly.adioso.com/f?cat=61&?ID=174&CustID=5afsdf21

www.JawadKhan.net

Logical, Shallow Information Architecture

www.JawadKhan.net

No Duplicate Content

www.JawadKhan.net

Rel Canonical to the Rescue (Sometimes)

www.JawadKhan.net

Proper Redirects (301 v. 302, etc.)
Good for Users

301 = Permanent Redirect Good for Search Engines

Good for Web Servers

Fine for Users

302 = Temporary Redirect Bad for Search Engines (treated as temporary)

Good for Web Servers

Fails for non-JS Users (including many mobiles)

Javascript Redirect May not be counted by Search Engines

Slower on Web Servers

Fine for Users

Meta Refresh Search Engines Don’t Always Treat as Permanent
Slower on Web Servers

Effective Error Handling

www.JawadKhan.net

Step 3: Delight Your Visitors with
Phenomenal Design + Usability.

Search Engines Finally Care About Design

www.JawadKhan.net

Panda/Farmer Update was a First Step

www.JawadKhan.net

Many Usability Basics are Intuitive

www.JawadKhan.net

Use Your Analytics to Establish Baselines
and Measure Progress

www.JawadKhan.net

Step 4: Use Words Your Customers Use;
Do Keyword Research.

The Best Keywords Are:

High Volume
(many searches/month)

Low Competition
(weak sites/pages in the top 10)

High Value
(large % of visitors convert)

www.JawadKhan.net

Keyword Research Starts w/ the Right Brainstorming Process

www.JawadKhan.net

Researching Keyword Volume:
Google’s AdWords Tool

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Microsoft AdCenter Keyword Data

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Determining Keyword Difficulty

Number of results is
meaningless

We want to know how “strong”
these sites/pages are

And how our site’s/page’s
metrics compare

Determining a Keyword’s “Value”
1,000 200
Visitors Searched “Usability Visitors Searched “User Testing
Testing” and Arrived at the Site Software” and Arrived at the Site

20 40
Visitors Took the Product Tour Visitors Took the Product Tour

Conversion Rate:
2 0.2% 5% 10
Visitors Bought the Software Visitors Bought the Software

www.JawadKhan.net

Buying PPC is a Great Way to Test

How do these
visitors perform?

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Put the Data Together and Start with
Low-Hanging Fruit

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Step 5: Optimize your Pages Properly;
Get Keyword Targeting Right.

Title Tags
Better Usability Testing Software | UserTesting.com
UserTesting.com | Usability Testing Software

Usability Testing Software

Usability Testing, Usability Test, User Testing, User Software

UserTesting.com

Worse NA

www.JawadKhan.net

Keywords in the URL Help, Too
Better www.adioso.com/seattle/british-airways-flights
www.adioso.com/cat61/british

www.adioso.com/cat61/174

www.adioso.com/f?ID=174

www.adioso.com/f?cat=61&?ID=174

Worse cdn6.fly.adioso.com/f?cat=61&?ID=174&CustID=5afsdf21

www.JawadKhan.net

Meta Description
TITLE: Low Cost Usability Testing - UserTesting.com

META DESCRIPTION: Usability testing has never been easier.
UserTesting.com's online usability testing is the cheapest, fastest
way to find out why visitors leave your website.

www.JawadKhan.net

Meta Keywords?

The search engines don’t use these at
all (and haven’t since the early 2000s)

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Body Text Keyword Usage

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Keyword Density vs. TF*IDF vs. Topic Modeling

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Images & Alt Attributes

Keywords in alt attributes are
surprisingly well correlated
with higher rankings


H1, H2, H3 Headlines

Keywords in H(x) tags are not
particularly well correlated
with high rankings, but may
provide some, minor value.

www.JawadKhan.net

Step 6:
Make Search Engine Tools & Protocols
Work for You.

XML Sitemaps

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HTML Sitemaps

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RSS Feeds

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Google Webmaster Tools

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Crawl Errors & Error Sources

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Bing Webmaster Tools

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Step 7: Earn Citations Engines Can See;
Build Links, Tweets, Likes & Shares.

From 1999 – 2008, What Page Ranked #1
for the Queries “Exit” and “Leave”?

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Ahh… The Power of Links

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What Makes a Great Link?

Editorially given

From a trusted source

Uses descriptive anchor text

Points to the right page

www.JawadKhan.net

Google + Bing Now Counting Facebook & Twitter

Danny Sullivan: If an article is retweeted or referenced much in
Twitter, do you count that as a signal outside of finding any non-
nofollowed links that may naturally result from it?

Google: Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our
organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news
universal by marking how many people shared an article

www.JawadKhan.net

SEO Properties of Classic HTML Links
URL Rel=“Nofollow”
(the link target) (a tag that indicates search engines
shouldn’t trust/count this link)

<p><a href=http://www.seomoz.org rel=“nofollow”>
SEOmoz’s Website </a> is a good resource for those seeking
to learn more about search engine optimization.</p>

Anchor text Surrounding Text
(tells the engine what (may provide context on
this link is about) the link’s relevance)
www.JawadKhan.net

SEO Properties of Facebook Shares

URL
(the link target)

Shares
(how many users have
shared the link)

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Step 8: Don’t Go it Alone;
Help Your Community Help You.

Spread Your Message Across the Web
News/Media/PR
SEO Email
Blogs + Blogging Research/White Papers

Infographics
Comment Marketing

Social Networks
Online Video
INBOUND MARKETING! Webinars
Forums
(Find Your Audience Organically on the Web)
Document Sharing

Social Bookmarking Word of Mouth

Direct/Referring Links Podcasting
Type-In Traffic Q+A Sites

Blogs & Blog Comments


Forums & Discussion Boards

www.JawadKhan.net

Social Profiles & Interaction
Facebook Company Page Google Profile SlideShare Profile

Twitter Profile Crunchbase Page Reddit Account

LinkedIn Company Page Quora Profile StumbleUpon Account

YouTube Account About.me Page StackExchange Account

Crunchbase Page Scribd Profile Wikipedia Profile

www.JawadKhan.net

Answer Questions on Q+A Sites

www.JawadKhan.net

Syndicate Your Content

Dozens of sites syndicate
SEOmoz’s blog helping to
send links and traffic
back to the site

www.JawadKhan.net

Step 9: Get Analytics Set Up Right;
Track What Matters.

Key SEO Metric #1:
Visits / Search Engine

These ones here!

www.JawadKhan.net

Key SEO Metric #2:
Keywords Sending 1+ Visits / Search Engine

This One!

www.JawadKhan.net

Key SEO Metric #3:
# of Pages Receiving Traffic from Each Engine

This One!

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Tracking Keyword Rankings

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Critical: Set Up “Goals” / “Conversions”

www.JawadKhan.net

Understand Your Website’s Conversion Funnel

Home Page List of Cheeses Hours + Directions
15% 10%
Hopefully, this means a
customer is going to
come buy some cheese!

www.JawadKhan.net

Step 10: The Web is Not Static;
Test & Improve

More Traffic

15% 10%
More visits to the home page means
more people will decide to visit

www.JawadKhan.net

A Better Funnel

25% 20%

A better “conversion rate” means more people
who already visit the site will come to the store!

www.JawadKhan.net

A/B Split Testing Resources:
http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/ - Awesome tool – easy
to use, popular, good plugins

http://www.optimizely.com/ - Another great option with
excellent visuals

http://unbounce.com/ - Hosted, so no dev required!
Very easy to use and well made

http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer - Free, but
sometimes complex/confusing

http://www.sitespect.com/ - Don’t personally have
experience with this one

Test Marketing Channels
Step #1: Discover
Find inbound marketing paths that look promising and make a list.

Step #2:Test
Invest a few days/hours building authentic value in that niche/sector.

Step #3: Measure
Use your web analytics to track primary + second-order impact

Step #4: Repeat
Throw out low ROI projects; repeat high ROI ones.

We Must DESERVE to Rank in Order to
Win in the Long Run

www.JawadKhan.net

Jawad Khan - 10 Steps to Effective SEO

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Jawad Khan - 10 Steps to Effective SEO