introducing Offline Crash Course – Organic SEO Discussion

1. Our Comprehensive Step-by-Step Training Series to Help You Succeed with Local Marketing - Google Places, SEO, Facebook, and much more! introducingOffline Crash Course – Organic SEO Discussion A Collaborative Effort by Two Real World Local SEO Experts Brian Anderson Mario Brown

2. Transforming Your Offline Consulting Business 1 3 2 Business Foundations Technical Expertise Identifying and Selling New Clients Quality Content and Local Marketing Training to Guide You Every Step of the Way

3. 1 3 Technical Expertise Technical Expertise Laying the Groundwork For Your Success

4. Agenda • Intro • Why Organic SEO? • Keyword Research • Meta Tags • Content • Linking

5. Keys to Success • Focus on Basics with Organic SEO • Strong on-page SEO for the clients website • External SEO (link building) • Content is King – now more than ever

6. Why Organic SEO • Don’t assume that the “Maps” have nothing to do with organic SEO and the clients website. • Google Places algorithm now heavily incorporate local SEO factors into where your customer will rank • Follow basic SEO strategies – don’t waste your time on the latest craze

7. Step 1: Keyword Research The process: • Open a text document. • Start creating keyword combinations using the city/town and the industry. • Here is my list: • Cleveland Plumber • Plumber Cleveland • Cleveland Plumbing Service • Plumbing Service Cleveland • Plumber in Cleveland

8. Step 1: Keyword Research • Head to the Google Keyword Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal • Paste the list from above into the keyword tool’s Word or Phrase box, type the captcha (the weird string of letters), and click search. • When the tool finishes doing what it does, you will see a list of keywords, and some data about the keywords. By default, the keywords are sorted by how relevant they are to the keyword list you created in step 2. • Grab a few keywords (3-5) that have enough searches to drive traffic to your client’s website. Click the check box next to the keywords you want to select, then click the ‘view as text‘ button to get a text list of the keywords

9. Step 1: Keyword Research *notice* You are not going to find large numbers in the ‘monthly searches’ column when searching for local terms. Just remember, if you can get a client ranked for a keyword that is searched 100 times per month, statistics say that you will drive 40 unique visitors to their website that month. When we say statistics, usually about 40% of all Google traffic goes to the website that holds the number 1 ranking. Obviously, statistics only tell a story about the past and can’t predict the future, but they are still good to follow for estimations.

10. Meta Tags Depending on how the website is built (straight HTML site, WordPress, etc...), you will have to go about setting up the meta tags differently. If you use WordPress, you can download a plugin called All In One SEO, Headspace2 or Platinum SEO to set the meta tags. If the website is built with html, you will have to edit each individual page’s meta tags with a text editor.

11. Meta Tags – Title Tag The title meta tags will control what shows up as the pages title in the browser. You want this to have 3 main keywords that you are targeting. Going back to my example list I created earlier, I would set my title tag to something like this: ‘Cleveland Plumber | Plumbing Service Cleveland | Plumber in Cleveland’ Keep it short and sweet, and don’t use any more than 3 keywords. (65/70 characters max)

12. Meta Tags – Keyword Tag Set the keyword meta tag • This is where we list our keywords. Again, don’t get out of hand here. I have great results using only 3-5 keywords here. • If you use a WordPress plugin, you can just insert the keywords separated by commas using the plugin. Cleveland Plumber, Plumbing Service Cleveland, Plumber in Cleveland • If you need to edit the code, the meta tag will look like this: <meta name="keywords" content="Cleveland Plumber, Plumbing Service Cleveland, Plumber in Cleveland" />

13. Meta Tags – Description Set the meta description • The meta description is what will show up in the google search results as the description of the website. • You want to write a short, keyword rich description of the site. I would shoot for using 2 of your main keywords in the description. • For my example, I might use something like: ‘Looking for a Cleveland Plumber? Joe’s Plumbing service in Cleveland can handle any job, big or small. Check out our website and give us a call today.’ • Notice, I used two keywords (Cleveland Plumber, and Plumbing Service in Cleveland), but I didn’t make it look unnatural or like I was trying to stuff them in.

14. Meta Tags – Description If you use a WordPress plugin, you can just add the description in the plugin. If you need to edit the code, the meta tag will look like this: <meta name="description" content="Looking for a Cleveland Plumber? Joe’s Plumbing service in Cleveland can handle any job, big or small. Check out our website and give us a call today." />

15. Meta Tags – Description Here is something you can test... In the meta description, try including a phone number or address to your client’s business. This may help with local rankings, plus they might just call straight from the Google results without even clicking to the website.  

16. Basics of SEO Friendly Content Creating SEO Optimized content is not difficult • In the title of the content, use your main keyword • In the body of the content, use your main at least 3 times, or every 100 or so words. • When creating hyperlinks that point to internal pages (pages inside of the website), be sure to use your keyword in the hyperlink title and as its anchor text. <a href=”http://www.urlhere.com/page1.html” title=”Cleveland Plumber”>Cleveland Plumber</a> • If you use images in the content, be sure to give them keyword rich alt tags <img src=”image.jpg alt=”Cleveland Plumber”> Tip: If you used a keyword 3 times in the content body, make one of them bold, another underlined, and the another italicized. This isn’t 100% necessary, but I like to do it and it has never hurt!

17. Internal Link Structure • The internal link structure helps the search engine spiders (and your client’s visitors) navigate a website and find everything. • Each page or post that you add to your client’s website should contain at least one or two links pointing to other pages or posts. • Of course, you want to give these links keyword-rich anchor text and give them a title. • <a href=”/why-our-plumbing-service-rocks.html” title=”cleveland plumbing service”>Cleveland Plumbing Service</a>

18. Off-site SEO – Linking!

19. Off-site SEO - Linking Profile Links Blog Comments Directory Sites Social Bookmarking Article Marketing Press Releases Video Marketing

20. Off-site SEO - Linking This is the part of local SEO that we happily outsource and get amazing results from doing so. Head to the Warrior Forum’s ‘for hire’ section, find a warrior who provides backlinking services, and buy a package from them. Before paying for someone’s service, always look at their reviews. Be sure that they are getting positive feedback in their profile. Here is a Warrior I use regularly. Mario gets awesome results from his most expensive package. You may not need to buy the expensive package, but the choice is yours. http://www.warriorforum.com/warriors-hire/199950-easily-best-link-building-service-wf-unbelievable-prices.html

21. Off-site SEO – Linking – What to Avoid Reciprocal Links Reciprocal links are when two websites exchange links. For example, Website A links to Website B; and Website B links to Website A. The value of reciprocal links is questionable, as you are essentially 'trading' links. Some search engines track the link patterns, and consider reciprocal links as "exchanges". Many webmasters believe that search engines place a lower value on reciprocal links than for one-way links, which is why their value is questionable.

22. Off-site SEO – Linking – What to Avoid Paid Links Paid links are just that: links that are purchased. For example, Website A gives $ to Website B; then Website B links to Website A. Compensatory links range from purchased text links to pay-per-click links, where a webmaster pays for clicks that are generated from the link. The upside to paid links is that they are not difficult to obtain if you are willing to pay. You can also control the rate in which the links increase, and how long the paid links last. The downside is that major search engines discourage webmasters from purchasing text links outright (most search engines accept pay-per-click links).

23. Off-site SEO – Linking – What to Avoid Network Links (3-Way) Network links are links that are triangulated. For example, Website A links to Website B; Website B links to Website C; and Website C links to Website A. Network links are an expansion of link exchanges, and generally make it more difficult for a search engine to discern the link patterns. As a result, search engines may assess the value of network links as one-way links rather than the reciprocal links that they really are. Excessive use of network links can be more easily identified by search engines.

24. Off-site SEO - Linking Also, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. In other words, get links from various providers. That way, you will have a wide variety of backlinks. Trust me, in the local SEO game, while backlinks are very important, you don’t need tens of thousands of them to get a top spot. A few hundred solid backlinks, and you will dominate the first page for local search terms.

25. Questions & Answers

26. Our Comprehensive Step-by-Step Training Series to Help You Succeed with Local Marketing - Google Places, SEO, Facebook, and much more! introducingOffline Crash Course – Organic SEO Discussion A Collaborative Effort by Two Real World Local SEO Experts Brian Anderson Mario Brown