Rand Fishkin's presentation at InfusionCon March 2011 on the fundamentals of SEO.

1. 10 Steps to Effective SEO & Great Rankings A checklist web marketers can use to build a foundation in strong, white-hat SEO and inbound marketing. Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz CEO, March 2011

2. SEOmoz Makes Software! We don’t offer consulting.

3. Why is SEO so Important?

4. 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 ComscoreQsearch: http://www.comscore.com

5. 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_January_2011_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.impactmedia.co.uk/blog/search-engine-news/google/search-engine-market-share-statistics-%E2%80%93-february-2011-18271/

6. Organic vs. Paid Search Paid Organic http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-disconnect-in-ppc-vs-seo-spending

7. Organic vs. Paid Search ~20% of Clicks ~80% of Clicks http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-disconnect-in-ppc-vs-seo-spending

8. Click-Through Rates Ranking #2, #3 and #4 would send less traffic than just ranking #1 http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/google-organic-seo-click-through-rates/

9. How Can My Website Compete?

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

11. “Good” Content vs. “GREAT” Content Satisfies the searcher’s basic information requirements Surprises and delights the searcher by being remarkable Written by a human and not duplicated elsewhere Produced by extraordinary writers/designers/producers Long enough to fulfill basic needs of engines for depth/uniqueness May leverage video, audio, graphics & photos to convey a unique, shareable experience Grammatically correct; free of spelling/punctuation errors Produced by extraordinary writers/designers/producers

12. OK Cupid Dating Blog http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/

13. Oyster.com Hotel Reviews http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.oyster.com/new-york-city/hotels/the-gem-hotel-chelsea/

14. Unbounce Marketing Guide http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://unbounce.com/noob-guide-to-online-marketing-infographic/

15. Searchers LOVE Great Content &People SHARE Great Content http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-social-networking-sites-dominate-sharing-2009-7

16. A Blog Alone Doesn’t Cut It. http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.wirthmoorerealty.com/real-estate-articles-greater-new-orleans-area

18. Informed Opinions

19. News/Trend Analysis

20. Multimedia Content

21. Authentic Expert Contributors

22. Quality Discussion/InteractionMentioned in news publications Forum discussions link to its pages People email links to each other Links are Tweeted Liked/Shared on Facebook Cited at conferences + events Sometimes, a single piece of content or just a few, can yield these results but, more often, it takes dozens to hundreds of attempts to become a resource hub. http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

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

24. Substantive, Descriptive, HTML Text Content http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.hipmunk.com/ is a great site, but there’s no real text content for engines to see! http://adioso.com doesn’t have a ton more, but there’s at least something for Google/Bing to grab onto.

25. Google’s “Cached Snapshot” is a Great Way to Check http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Using the “Cached” link on any search result, you can see what Google’s seen.

26. 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 http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html More on good URL structures here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/11-best-practices-for-urls

27. Preferably All on a Single Sub/Root Domain http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites

28. Logical, Shallow Information Architecture http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/diagrams-for-solving-crawl-priority-indexation-issues

29. No Duplicate Content http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Duplicate content causes problems beyond just rankings – it can hurt your esteem/trust in the engines’ eyes: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-block-redirect-or-canonical

30. Rel Canonical to the Rescue (Sometimes) http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/canonical-url-tag-the-most-important-advancement-in-seo-practices-since-sitemaps

31. 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 http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Slower on Web Servers

32. Effective Error Handling http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/06/crawl-errors-now-reports-soft-404s.html

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

34. Search Engines Finally Care About Design http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=5168

35. Panda/Farmer Update was a First Step Generic design is one of the features highly correlated with lost traffic in Panda/Farmer. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-farmer-update-analysis-of-winners-vs-losers http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

36. Great Design is Surprisingly Easy & Affordable http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Using the search query “CSS Gallery” will bring up tons of sites like http://www.cssbeauty.com/gallery/

37. Many Usability Basics are Intuitive http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.usability.gov/basics/index.html

38. Buy “Don’t Make Me Think.” Memorize It. http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html A great sample chapter is here: http://www.sensible.com/chapter.html

39. Use Your Analytics to Establish Baselines and Measure Progress http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Google Analytics is totally free! http://www.google.com/analytics

40. Employ Usability Testing Software to Get Specific http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/information-gathering-a-roundup-of-ux-applications/

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

42. The Best Keywords Are: High Volume (many searches/month) Low Competition (weak sites/pages in the top 10) High Value (large % of visitors convert) http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html The tricky part is finding these terms/phrases

43. Keyword Research Starts w/ the Right Brainstorming Process http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Graphic via Elliance: http://www.elliance.com/aha/infographics/keyword-research-part-2.aspx?page=1&category=ROI

44. Researching Keyword Volume: Google’s AdWords Tool http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

45. Microsoft AdCenter Keyword Data http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html https://adcenter.microsoft.com

46. 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 http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

47. SEOmoz Has a Tool to Help With This http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/keyword-difficulty

48. Determining a Keyword’s “Value” 200 Visitors Searched “User Testing Software” and Arrived at the Site 1,000 Visitors Searched “Usability Testing” and Arrived at the Site 20 Visitors Took the Product Tour 40 Visitors Took the Product Tour Conversion Rate: 2 Visitors Bought the Software 10 Visitors Bought the Software 5% 0.2% http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Keyword volume is initially appealing, but conversion rate is critical to the evaluation!

49. Buying PPC is a Great Way to Test How do these visitors perform? http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Just be aware that PPC behavior isn’t always the same as organic click behavior

50. Put the Data Together and Start with Low-Hanging Fruit http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html I like to use heat indices based on estimated value: Excel can do this automatically

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

52. 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 http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/title-tag

53. 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 http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Not only is there direct benefit, but people who link using the URL will pass good anchor text, too

54. 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. A good meta description acts like ad copy and draws the searcher in: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/meta-description http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

55. Meta Keywords? The search engines don’t use these at all (and haven’t since the early 2000s) http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://searchengineland.com/meta-keywords-tag-101-how-to-legally-hide-words-on-your-pages-for-search-engines-12099

56. Body Text Keyword Usage Not only do search engines like to see keywords in copy, but visitors will be comforted to see that you have content that addresses their query, too. http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

57. Keyword Density vs. TF*IDF vs. Topic Modeling http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lda-and-googles-rankings-well-correlated

58. Images & Alt Attributes Keywords in alt attributes are surprisingly well correlated with higher rankings http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

59. H1, H2, H3 Headlines Keywords in H(x) tags are not particularly well correlated with high rankings, but may provide some, minor value. http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/_H35n.html

60. The Trouble with Domain Names http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited

61. Rel=Canonical on Every Page? http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/dispelling-a-persistent-rel-canonical-myth

62. Step 6:Make Search Engine Tools & ProtocolsWork for You.

63. XML Sitemaps http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html This program can help - http://gsitecrawler.com/

64. HTML Sitemaps http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html The Sitemap Page from http://nymag.com/sitemap/

65. RSS Feeds http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Feedburner - http://feedburner.google.com – is a great tool for setting up and monitoring feeds

66. Google Webmaster Tools http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html It’s Free! Available at http://google.com/webmasters

67. Crawl Errors & Error Sources http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Most of the time, you’ll want to fix these up.

68. SEOmoz Does a Good Job of This, Too http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Via the PRO Web App: http://pro.seomoz.org

69. Bing Webmaster Tools http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/bings-duane-forrester-on-webmaster-tools-metrics-and-sitemap-quality-thresholds

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

71. From 1999 – 2008, What Page Ranked #1for the Queries “Exit” and “Leave”? http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://searchengineland.com/google-kills-bushs-miserable-failure-search-other-google-bombs-10363

72. From 1999 – 2008, What Page Ranked #1for the Queries “Exit” and “Leave”? http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://searchengineland.com/google-kills-bushs-miserable-failure-search-other-google-bombs-10363

73. Ahh… The Power of Links http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-vs-bing-correlation-analysis-of-ranking-elements

74. What Makes a Great Link? Editorially given From a trusted source Uses descriptive anchor text Points to the right page http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links

75. 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 http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://searchengineland.com/what-social-signals-do-google-bing-really-count-55389

76. SEO Properties of Classic HTML Links Rel=“Nofollow” (a tag that indicates search engines shouldn’t trust/count this link) URL (the link target) <p><a href=http://www.seomoz.orgrel=“nofollow”> SEOmoz’s Website </a> is a good resource for those seeking to learn more about search engine optimization.</p> Anchor text (tells the engine what this link is about) Surrounding Text (may provide context on the link’s relevance) http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Text goes here

77. SEO Properties of Tweets Tweeter (the authority/importance of the tweeting person matters) URL (the link target) Retweets (possible signal that a link/ tweet is more important) Surrounding Text (in tweets, this sometimes seems used like anchor text) http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tweets-effect-rankings-unexpected-case-study

78. SEO Properties of Facebook Shares URL (the link target) Shares (how many users have shared the link) http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Shares, Likes + Updates must be PUBLIC or Google/Bing can’t “see” them.

79. Why Do People Link/Tweet/Share? Many of these blogs will use the badge and link to the list, because it makes them look good! http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-emotions-that-make-us-link

81. Link Building Blog Posts on SEOmoz

82. Webinar on Link Building Strategies

83. 101 Ways to Build Links from SEOBook

84. Link Building Presentations on Slideshare

85. The Science of Retweetsfrom Dan Zarrellahttp:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html These should help you get started!

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

87. Encourage & Reward Community on Your Site http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html At Moz, we’ve made community central to our site: http://www.seomoz.org/community

88. Spread Your Message Across the Web News/Media/PR SEO Email Research/White Papers Blogs + Blogging Infographics Comment Marketing Social Networks Online Video INBOUND MARKETING!(Find Your Audience Organically on the Web) Webinars Forums Document Sharing Social Bookmarking Word of Mouth Podcasting Direct/Referring Links http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Type-In Traffic Q+A Sites

89. Blogs & Blog Comments http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

90. Forums & Discussion Boards http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/headsmacking-tip-18-use-discussion-search-as-competitive-intel

91. Social Profiles & Interaction Facebook Company Page SlideShare Profile Google 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 http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html This is my top list of social sites to register with, but there’s likely more that are relevant to your niche.

92. Answer Questions on Q+A Sites http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.quora.com/Rand-Fishkin/answers

93. Syndicate Your Content Dozens of sites syndicate SEOmoz’s blog helping to send links and traffic back to the site http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-leveraging-syndicated-content-effectively

94. Find Unique Ways to Engage & Reward http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html UrbanSpoon’s Blogger Outreach Program Sparked Thousands of Links + Great Awareness in Each City: http://www.urbanspoon.com

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

96. Basic Google Analytics Installation http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=66983

97. Key SEO Metric #1:Visits / Search Engine These ones here! http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html This tells you how many searches resulted in a click on your site in the results

98. Key SEO Metric #2:Keywords Sending 1+ Visits / Search Engine This One! http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Track this over time to see if you’re ranking for more unique keyphrases

99. Key SEO Metric #3:# of Pages Receiving Traffic from Each Engine This One! http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/indexation-for-seo-real-numbers-in-5-easy-steps

100. SEOmoz PRO Can Help Here Too http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Traffic tab of http://pro.seomoz.org

101. Tracking Keyword Rankings http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-when-to-track-rankings

102. Critical: Set Up “Goals” / “Conversions” http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-setup-goals-in-google-analytics.html

103. 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! This is the weakest form of a funnel – applying actions to things like forms, emails, “buy” buttons, checkout pages, etc. is a better way to go. http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

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

105. More Traffic Home Page List of Cheeses Hours + Directions 15% 10% More visits to the home page means more people will decide to visit http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html It’s a lot of hard work to get more visits, though, and we don’t know if they’ll be the kind who love cheese!

106. A Better Funnel Home Page List of Cheeses Hours + Directions 25% 20% A better “conversion rate” means more people who already visit the site will come to the store! http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html Woo hoo! Now for every 1,000 people that visit the site, 25 are potential cheese buyers!

107. 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 http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

108. Test Content Types Blog Videos Email Newsletters Photos Webinars Embeddable Content Questions + Answers Slideshows Infographics Research/White Papers Community Forum Web Apps Some of these may resonate with you and your audience, others may not. You’ll never know until you experiment! http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

109. 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.

110. Ranking Well is Not Enough

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

113. Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog

114. Email: rand@seomoz.orgYou can now try SEOmoz PRO Free! http://www.seomoz.org/freetrial