Transcript Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search

Search Engine Secrets:
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Samsunshine Levy
www.thenetcave.com
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Search Engines – Who Needs ‘em?
• Ever heard of these…
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
If you do this…
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
You can get this
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Great!
• Where do I sign?
• How much do I pay?
• Who do I trust?
• How is it done?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
The Secret Questions
1. Who Wants You?
2. What To Cultivate?
3. When To Change?
4. Where Does It All Go?
5. Why No No-Nos?
6. How is Your House Built?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Who Wants You?
• You want people…
• But Who Wants You?
• You want people who:
– need you; but
– don’t yet know that you exist
(Yes, that would be new customer acquisition)
(Don’t use jargon in a presentation)
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Keyword Research
• Wordtracker : www.wordtracker.com
– Free Trial (unlimited uses)
– Uses MSN daily data
• Google Adwords adwords.google.com
– Pretend to want to sign up as a new
advertiser, and research keywords for your
campaigns
Non-Targeted
Marketing:
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
ROI, KEI, SEO & KWP
(Don’t use acronyms in PowerPoint presentations)
• To target a niche market, and achieve
best SEO potential:
– Maximize Searches &
– Minimize Competition
• Content of site will
address normal, more
competive keywords
and keyword phrases
• Narrow down to 15-20 w/ best potential
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
What To Cultivate?
Factors to raising your search engine
rankings and relevancy are:
• Useful TITLE & META tags on each page
• Keyword-rich, sole-source, expanding,
plain HTML textual content
• Footer, Site Map & Linked Text
• Longevity of site & domain name
Plus…
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Search Engine Friendly URLs
• Happy
• Unhappy
www.greatskin.com/loccitane/shaving-cream.html
www.nmipa.org/members/join
Query Strings / database generated pages:
www.skin.com/store/pr.asp?cID=42B&pID=6x5Q&14=z
Unfriendly Spaces:
www.skin.com/online%40store/my_great_product.html
Abbreviated or too-long pages/directories:
www.skin.com/s/c/d/g/areallygreatpagetolookatnowforyou.htm
Domain Parks:
www.skin.com / www.myskin.com / skin.com / myskin.com
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
If you have unhappy URLs
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Subdirectories are nice
Hyphens for spaces, 25 chars
301 redirects on domains
Map old pages to new pages with
– Symbolic links
– URL rewriting (mod_rewrite)
• XML / RSS feeds
• GoogleBase / Product data feeds
One more thing to cultivate…
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Inbound Links
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Keyword-rich
Textual
To authorized domain
Deep-Linking OK
Accompanying description
Reciprocate
Only from “respected” sites
Check originating domain
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
When To Change?
Change What?
Change The King!
Do You Know The King?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
When To - Be The King
• The C Word
(and linking is Queen)
• Nothing ranks
higher at
Search Engines
than a lot of content
about a term that
someone is
searching for
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
With Content, Just Like With:
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Health
Wealth
Happiness
Hedonism
Time
Brains
Brawn
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
More
(and more often)
Is Always
Better
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
When Writing, who are you writing for?
• Primarily Humans, not search engines
– Who are the search engines working for?
• Use keywords (more to come)
• Keep pages a minimum length
• Use tools to make it readable
– Lists, columns, headers
• Write about what you do
– Related terms will come up naturally,
and in context
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Unhappy Content
• Petrogroup?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Happy Content
• Joan?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
OK, So back to the Question
Q: When To Change (content)?
A: As often as you can
Frequent new content additions:
• Create visitor “stickiness”
• Make search engines happy
• Creates valuable depth of content
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Deep Content
• KF articles?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Frequent Content
• BB nls
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
And Now…
• For the slide you’ve all been waiting for
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
But First
• A word from our sponsor?
• A dance break?
• Cowgirl ribs?
• More caffeine?
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Make It Easy with CMS
A Content Management System (CMS):
• Let’s you add, edit and delete pages
without special knowledge
• Can automatically create META tags
• Can automatically update site maps
• Is built to be fool-proof
• Can auto-create SEO friendly URLs
• Auto-adjusts site-wide navigation
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
CMS
• SFB t3
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
And Now, Really…
• For the slide you’ve all been waiting for
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Where Does It All Go? 3 Rules of 3
• Choose about 6-8 main, friendly-URL
pages
• Choose 3 unique keywords/phrases to
use on each page
• Use each phrase 3 times in the page
• Have at least 250 (normal HTML text)
words on each page
• Use the 3 terms in TITLE and META tags
• Link from footer and site map
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Example Optimized Content
• HG – 3 terms are
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Example - Content
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Example - Tags
• HG – Title & META
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Keep In Mind
• Use “reasonably-natural” language
– You will enjoy our unique, authentic Adobe
homes and the finest in vacation rentals,
especially southwestern homes, in New
Mexico.
– Real Estate New Mexico vacation rentals
Santa Fe shown on website with villas for
rent. Santa Fe New Mexico rental properties
and New Mexico Real Estate.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Also Keep In Mind
• Human usability and readability
are still the most important:
– Bulleted lists
– Fixed width text columns
– Section headers
– Easily readable paragraphs
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Why No No-Nos?
What Not To Do
- or –
How to quickly and easily get blacklisted
by search engines
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Black Hat SEO
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Keyword Stuffing
Invisible Text
Doorway Pages
Non-linked Pages
Cloaking (Browser detection)
Scraping
META REFRESH or off-site Redirects
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
How Is Your House Built?
No-No Tools & Technology
(if you want to be found in search
engines or linked to from anywhere)
• Flash Animation (Intros or Whole Site)
– Alternative: Use Flash as an accent
• Frames or iFrames
– Alternative: Use CSS
• Non-text Text (Flash or images)
• Javascript or DHTML drop-down menus
– Alternative: Use CSS nested list drop-downs
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
CSS Frame Function
• KF FF page
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
CSS Nested List Drop Down
• SFB screenshot
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Good Tools For House Building
• Use URL Rewriting for important or
content-rich pages of database
generated sites
• Also use XML / RSS Feeds
• For ecommerce sites, send product
datafeeds to GoogleBase
– And consider Amazon merchant or your own
affiliate program – but that’s another show
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Example XML / RSS feed
• NMCN Calendar
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
GoogleBase Example
• KFM screenshot and GoogleBase Listing
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
In addition to 3 keywords
Title Tag Guidelines
• Use a short page title (in addition to keywords)
• Limit to 65 characters
META Description Tag Guidelines (Honest 90s)
• some search engines display in results
• Limit to 25 words
META Keyword Tag Guidelines (why not)
• Do not repeat words
• Limit to 10-12 words
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Titles and Tags Example
• Keli E B-B one page
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Footer and Site Map
• Replicate page titles as linked pages in
site-wide footer (Server Side Includes)
• Link to a Site Map page in Footer
• Do not use Google’s Site Map creator
• The Site Map page should replicate the
titles, linked to pages, with the META
descriptions next to the titles
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Footer Example
• HG screenshot
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Site Map Example
• HG
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Bonus Points
Beyond plain content, title and META tags,
you should also use these techniques
within site content:
• Use HTML header (h1, h2, h3…) tags
• In-page cross-linked text (link to other
site pages, especially where descriptive
text appears)
• Bold (b, strong) may be given some extra
weight when used judiciously
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Bonus Points Example
• A new KF page
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
In Review
PREPARE
• Research Keyword Rankings &
Relevancy. Choose 15-20 of the best
• Assign 3 keywords to each of 6 pages,
then write 250+ words each page
• Use the copy for title and meta tags for a
persistent footer and site map
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
In Review
BUILD
• Cultivate inbound textual links, preferably
using your chosen keywords
• Content is King. More, better, often, CMS
• TITLE and META tags, linked text
throughout, maybe bold/strong
Thursday, April 12, 2007
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
In Review
CHECK
• No Flash. No non-HTML text. No
Frames. No Javascript or DHTML menus
• Friendly URLs, URL rewriting and no lost
and found visitors
• XML / RSS / GoogleBase / Data Feeds
(and podcasts, video and Web 2.0 – but
that’s also another show)
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Search Engine Secrets:
NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site
Samsunshine Levy
www.thenetcave.com
Thursday, April 12, 2007