Search Optimization Techniques

1. Search OptimizationTechniques Dan Belhassen greatBIGnews.com Modern Earth Inc.

2. About your presenter • Dan Belhassen • Founder & President Modern Earth Inc., an Internet technology company • Website creators, online software developers, search engine consultants, elearning specialists, new media marketing specialists • Find me in my booth if you want to follow up • Presentation at Modernearth.net/lern2010

3. How large is the Internet? • Estimates vary • How many websites on the Internet?

4. How large is the Internet? • Estimates vary • How many websites? • Apr 1997 1 Million • Feb 2000 10 Million • Jul 2001 30 Million • Mar 2005 60 Million • Aug 2006 90 Million • Nov 2008 182 Million • Oct 2010 netcraft.com

5. Finding Information Online • Two main types of resources: • Search engines • Website directories (ie: yahoo directory, dmoz) • We will focus on search engines

6. Top Search Engines

7. Getting Listed • Two methods • Paid placement • Organic results

8. Organic Results • The “regular” “unpaid” results • Focus on Google • Majority of searches • Other major engines (such as Yahoo & MSN) use similar algorithms

9. The Purpose of Google • Provide relevant search results • Make it seem magical • ``Googol`` means 1 followed by 100 zeros • The largest number that the founders could imagine • Misspelled as ``Google`` “Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” http://www.google.ca/corporate/index.html

10. How Google Works • Automated software crawls the Internet reading all website content (googlebot) • Uses over 200 factors to determine ranking • So, don’t mind my generalizations…

11. How Google ranks sites • Ranking is generally based on a simple algorithm What your site is about Plus The “Importance” of your site

12. What your site is about • What your site is about

13. What your site is about • What your site is about • GoogleBot reads all content across all pages • Domain name • URL directories and file name • Page titles • Text headers • Text (regular site content) • Image alt tags • NOT “meta keywords”!

14. What your site is about • Be careful! • Looks for overall “relevance” • Knows that “important” words appear 6-7% • Tries to not be fooled by “keyword spamming” • Can’t read graphical text!

15. But Wait! • Who are you designing your website for?

16. But Wait! • Always design your website for • Visitors (prospects) first • Search engines second • Conversion (clicks) is what matters • Importance of “meta description”

17. The importance of your site • The “Importance” of your site

18. The importance of your site • The “Importance” of your site • Based on “PageRank” • PageRank determined by • Who is linking to your site • How important they are • How “relevant” they are

19. The importance of your site • The “transfer value” of a link is based on the number of outgoing links on the page

20. The importance of your site • How do you know your PageRank? • Get the Google Toolbar • Free browser plug-in • Google.com

21. Who’s out there? • Find out who is linking to your site • Use Google • link:www.mywebsite.com • Use Alexa.com

22. Who’s out there? • All links were not created equal • Relevance of the link text • Nurse continuing education vs • click here • Relevance of the anchor page content • Is it relevant to your landing page?

23. Now what? How to increase your website rankings

24. Increasing Your Ranking • Step 1: Determine your keywords • Initially focus on 3-6 keywords • Keywords are actually phrases • (e.g. nurse continuing education seattle) • Research which words are actually used in searches • https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal • http://Wordtracker.com • See keywords driving traffic to competitors • http://compete.com

25. Increasing Your Ranking • Step 2: Optimize your web pages • Domain name • URL directories and file name • Page titles • Text headers • Text (regular site content) • Image alt tags • May need to develop “landing pages” • A “home” for your keyword • Create landing pages for each keyword • Develop appropriate links to your landing pages

26. Increasing Your Ranking • Step 3: Verify keywords are found • <search term> site:www.mywebsite.com • http://www.googlerankings.com/kdindex.php • Ensure that Google knows about all your pages • Set up a google site map • http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

27. Increasing Your Ranking • Step 4: Train Googlebot to re-visit your site often • Learns how often to visit your site • Perform frequent updates to shorten “indexing wait” after major updates

28. Increasing Your Ranking • Step 5: Link building campaign • Keywords used in links • Relevance of content on the anchor page

29. Increasing Your Ranking • Step 6: Track your rankings • http://WebCEO.com • http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

30. Increasing Your Ranking • Step 7: Track your traffic • Website statistics (google.com/analytics) • Are keywords driving traffic to your site? • What are they doing when they get there?

31. Increasing Your Ranking • Step 8: Begin again! • Back to step 1.. • Keep revising your process based on results

32. What’s Next? • Resources • http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf • http://seobook.com

33. Thank you! greatBIGnews.com modernearth.net Presentation available at http://modernearth.net/lern2010