IntroductionWelcome| 00:03 | Hi! I'm Jill Whalen and I'm excited to
introduce you to search engine optimization.
| | 00:09 | Throughout this course, I'll
show you what SEO is and is not.
| | 00:12 | I'll also detail the exact SEO process
that I have developed and refined over
| | 00:17 | the past 15 years, which when
implemented correctly on websites can work to
| | 00:22 | substantially increase the number
of targeted search engine visitors.
| | 00:26 | We'll start by learning how to
research and choose keyword phrases that are
| | 00:29 | relevant to what you offer on your web site.
| | 00:32 | I'll explain why content is key for
your web site visitors as well as search
| | 00:36 | engines, and teach you how to write
effective content using keyword phrases
| | 00:40 | while still sounding natural, as well
as how to measure the success of your
| | 00:44 | overall SEO endeavors.
| | 00:46 | Even if you think you already know SEO,
you may be surprised that the in-depth
| | 00:50 | knowledge you'll obtain in this course.
| | 00:52 | My methods do not involve tricks and are
always well received by search engines.
| | 00:56 | So, as a pioneer in the field of
search engine optimization, I'm proud to be
| | 01:01 | able to present my SEO process to you.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you're a premium member of the
lynda.com Online Training Library, you have
| | 00:05 | access to the exercise files
used throughout this title.
| | 00:08 | I've placed certain documents that
we use throughout this title in the
| | 00:12 | corresponding chapter folder, so that
you can use the same data I'm using.
| | 00:17 | If you're a monthly or annual
subscriber to Lynda.com, you don't have access
| | 00:21 | to the exercise files, but that's
okay since in this course they aren't
| | 00:25 | necessary to follow along.
| | 00:27 | Let's get started.
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1. Getting Started on an SEO ProgramUnderstanding how search engines work| 00:00 | When learning SEO, it's much easier
and clearer if you understand the whys
| | 00:05 | behind the techniques.
| | 00:06 | To help understand the whys, you have to
know a bit about how search engines work.
| | 00:11 | In very simplistic terms, there are two
main components to the search engines,
| | 00:16 | the crawler and the algorithm.
| | 00:18 | The crawler, which is sometimes
referred to as a spider or a robot or simply
| | 00:23 | just a bot, is what goes out
on the web and fetches the info.
| | 00:27 | The algorithm is basically the ranking
formula that each search engine uses to
| | 00:32 | determine the relevancy of
any page that the spider finds.
| | 00:35 | Basically, what happens is that the
crawler follows links, gathers info, and
| | 00:41 | adds that info into their database, or
in other words, they find pages, read
| | 00:47 | what's on them, and index
that info into their database.
| | 00:50 | If you simply remember that they find,
read, and index, you'll get the gist of things.
| | 00:55 | As you can imagine, since crawlers are
just little robots, there will always
| | 00:59 | be technical issues that affect whether they
can find, read, or index your pages correctly.
| | 01:05 | So it's important to design your pages
in such a way as to make it as easy as
| | 01:09 | possible for them to do their job.
| | 01:11 | The search engines use an algorithm or
algo to decide what pages to show for
| | 01:16 | which keyword phrases.
| | 01:18 | While it's sort of a formula, it's
not something you can reverse-engineer.
| | 01:22 | The search engines look at hundreds of
factors and weigh them all differently.
| | 01:26 | The search engines have moved way past
the days when you could use any sort of
| | 01:30 | automated SEO software and be able
to get rankings, which is why I never
| | 01:34 | recommend even trying software like that.
| | 01:37 | In essence, the hundreds of factors
that go into the relevancy algorithm boil
| | 01:42 | down to two major things:
| | 01:44 | what you say about yourself
and what others say about you.
| | 01:48 | What you say about yourself on the page is
basically the words or the copy that you write.
| | 01:54 | The Internet is mostly a word-based medium.
| | 01:57 | And every single page has a story to tell.
| | 02:00 | Each page's story helps the search
engine to understand what it should be
| | 02:04 | considered relevant for.
| | 02:06 | What others say about your site or
company is also called the off-page criteria.
| | 02:12 | It's typically done through links.
| | 02:14 | That is, another site owner likes what
you have to say in your site, so they
| | 02:18 | want to tell their own site visitors about it.
| | 02:21 | They do this by linking to your
site or a specific page on your site.
| | 02:26 | The search engines take these into
account, because it can be more trustworthy
| | 02:30 | to them than using only what
you say about your own site.
| | 02:33 | Given how search engines work and
what they are looking for, what search
| | 02:37 | engine optimization or SEO does for
you is help you to steer clear of any
| | 02:41 | technical issues that can impede
the crawler from finding, reading, and
| | 02:46 | indexing the pages of your website.
| | 02:49 | And it helps you create pages that
conform to the search engine's algorithms by
| | 02:54 | making sure your site is relevant
to what people are looking for, and
| | 02:57 | interesting or unique enough
for other people to link to it.
| | 03:01 | SEO will help your audience find your website.
| | 03:06 | Unfortunately, neither the search
engine's crawling ability nor the relevancy
| | 03:10 | algorithms are perfect.
| | 03:12 | So the easier you make it for them to
do their job, the better chance you'll
| | 03:16 | have of showing up for relevant searches,
which means you want to bake your SEO
| | 03:21 | work into your web site from the beginning.
| | 03:23 | You're going to need lots of upfront
research on keywords and other elements
| | 03:28 | which is best done before
you develop your web site.
| | 03:31 | You'll also need to avoid or fix
any technical issues that might impede
| | 03:35 | crawling, plus you can make sure that
your content is written to appeal to both
| | 03:40 | your users and the search engines.
| | 03:43 | While all of this can be done later,
| | 03:45 | you'll save yourself tons of time if
you plan your SEO right from the start.
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| What is SEO?| 00:00 | There are hundreds of myths
surrounding the topic of SEO, with many
| | 00:04 | mainstream media articles calling it
black magic or voodoo, because they
| | 00:08 | don't understand what it really is.
| | 00:10 | The reason for this is that people
have the impression that's it all about
| | 00:13 | tricking search engines,
yet nothing could be further from the truth.
| | 00:17 | Wouldn't be nice if there
were some magic formula for SEO?
| | 00:21 | You could just mix the secret
ingredient, wave your magic wand and voila!
| | 00:25 | Instant rankings! But of course if
it were that easy, anyone could do it.
| | 00:30 | Then the search engines would change
their ranking formula, which they do
| | 00:33 | anyway, and everything you did would be lost.
| | 00:36 | For long time, that's how some people did SEO.
| | 00:39 | They would figure out the
ranking formula of the day
| | 00:42 | and when it didn't work anymore,
they'd figure out the new one.
| | 00:45 | But they were constantly chasing their
tail with this method. Rather than you
| | 00:49 | chasing your tail or the latest magic formula,
| | 00:53 | if you really understand what SEO is, it
will make things a whole lot easier for you.
| | 00:58 | So what is SEO really?
| | 01:00 | All it is, in very simple terms, is
making your web site the best it can be for
| | 01:05 | your site visitors and the
search engines. Simple, right?
| | 01:09 | To best understand this concept, think
about who your web site's target audience is.
| | 01:15 | In a nutshell, it's the people, not the
search engines, who are looking for what
| | 01:20 | you have to offer on your website.
| | 01:22 | Think about those people at the other
end of Google who are doing a search.
| | 01:26 | They have some reason to be
at Google in the first place.
| | 01:29 | Perhaps they have a question they want
answered or maybe they have a problem
| | 01:32 | they want solved or some sort of
other need that they need to be filled.
| | 01:36 | Keep this user in mind constantly
as you try to understand what SEO is.
| | 01:41 | Think about what they would want to see
on your page after clicking over to it
| | 01:45 | from a search engine with
their question, problem or need.
| | 01:49 | What you'll ultimately be trying to do
with your SEO program is provide those
| | 01:53 | people, your target market,
with exactly what they want.
| | 01:57 | The way you'll do that is by making
your content accessible to them and to the
| | 02:02 | search engines as well as by answering
their questions, solving their problems,
| | 02:07 | and fulfilling their needs.
| | 02:09 | When you look at it this way, there is no
need for any sort of magic formula or tricks.
| | 02:14 | The beauty of this method of SEO,
which I have developed over the years, is
| | 02:18 | that it's long lasting.
| | 02:20 | The search engines can change
their algorithms as much as they want
| | 02:23 | and it shouldn't affect the targeted
traffic you get to your site, because you're
| | 02:27 | shooting for relevancy rather than tricks.
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2. Keyword Phrases: The Cornerstone of an SEO ProgramIntroducing keyword phrases| 00:00 | Keyword research is the cornerstone to
your SEO program, because it doesn't do
| | 00:04 | your website any good if you optimize
it for keywords that nobody is searching
| | 00:08 | for in the search engines.
| | 00:10 | Keywords are not actually single
words, but groups of words or phrases.
| | 00:15 | They're really just the search
queries people might use to find the
| | 00:18 | information on your website.
| | 00:21 | The idea is to find out what those keywords are.
| | 00:24 | Keyword research is key, because
people type keywords into a search engine's
| | 00:29 | Search box to try to fill their needs.
| | 00:31 | The search engine's goal is to show the
best pages to those people, that is,
| | 00:36 | the pages they think have exactly
what the searcher is looking for.
| | 00:40 | If that searcher needs what you offer,
you want your page to be one of those
| | 00:45 | which the search engine deems the best.
| | 00:46 | So, knowing which keywords your target
audience types into search engines is critical.
| | 00:52 | Luckily, there are keyword research
tools that provide us with this information.
| | 00:56 | Here are three of the more popular
keyword research tools on the Internet.
| | 01:00 | There's Wordtracker at
wordtracker.com, Keyword Discovery at
| | 01:04 | keyworddiscovery.com and then
there's Google's Keyword Tool.
| | 01:08 | I like the Google Keyword Tool and it's
basically the one we use exclusively now.
| | 01:12 | You're getting data straight from Google.
| | 01:14 | It works quickly and accurately and it's free.
| | 01:17 | In this course, we'll be
using Google's Keyword Tool.
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| The keyword research process| 00:00 | Keyword research is the
cornerstone to your SEO program.
| | 00:04 | So, let's walk through the basic steps
you'll perform when doing your keyword research.
| | 00:09 | There are seven steps to
finding the right keyword phrases.
| | 00:13 | First, you want to brainstorm,
then you're going to categorize.
| | 00:17 | Next, you'll do the research.
| | 00:19 | Then you're going to compile them,
winnow them, determine the competitiveness,
| | 00:25 | and choose the ones you want to use.
| | 00:27 | Step one of your keyword research
strategy is to brainstorm your keyword phrases.
| | 00:32 | To get you started with
brainstorming, you should think about who your
| | 00:36 | target market actually is.
| | 00:38 | Where do they live?
| | 00:39 | Does your web site target only a
specific geographical area or the entire nation
| | 00:45 | or even the whole world?
| | 00:47 | What about their demographics?
| | 00:48 | Are they mostly male or
female? How old are they?
| | 00:52 | What's their income?
| | 00:53 | All of this will make a difference in
the keyword phrases you'll target, because
| | 00:57 | there may be different
keyword phrases for each segment.
| | 01:00 | For instance, if you were a dentist
in Boston, you're likely to only be
| | 01:05 | targeting the Boston area.
| | 01:07 | Your keyword phrases will have the word
Boston and perhaps some other towns in
| | 01:11 | close proximity within the keywords.
| | 01:14 | For those of you who think
your target market is everyone,
| | 01:17 | while this may be somewhat true,
| | 01:19 | try to narrow it down to who your
best customer might be and define your
| | 01:23 | target market that way.
| | 01:25 | To continue with the brainstorming of
keywords, listen to how other people talk
| | 01:29 | about your products or services.
| | 01:31 | What keywords would they use?
| | 01:33 | Don't be shy about asking your
customers, or your salespeople, or even your
| | 01:38 | friends and your relatives.
| | 01:40 | You can even go visit blogs and forums
online that might relate to your industry
| | 01:45 | and learn the words they are using.
| | 01:47 | You may be surprised that it's not
the technical terms that you might use
| | 01:50 | internally to describe what you offer.
| | 01:53 | You'll also want to visit your
competitor's web sites and see what sorts of
| | 01:57 | phrases they use to describe themselves,
but don't put too much stock in how
| | 02:01 | they've optimized, as they may not
actually know what they're doing nor have
| | 02:05 | researched their keywords.
| | 02:07 | Put all this brainstormed
information into a list.
| | 02:11 | Don't worry about whether
it's good or bad at this point.
| | 02:14 | Now take your brainstormed
list and categorize it by themes.
| | 02:18 | If you sell lots of different items,
the individual products or services
| | 02:22 | themselves might each be a specific category.
| | 02:25 | Sometimes you can't accurately do
this step until you've done the next step,
| | 02:30 | your keyword research first.
| | 02:32 | It's sort of a chicken and egg thing,
where you may need to know more about the
| | 02:36 | actual keyword phrases people are
using before you can categorize them.
| | 02:40 | If so, it's okay to reverse
this step with the next one.
| | 02:43 | Now you're ready to hit
the keyword research tools.
| | 02:46 | You can start with a seed phrase
from one of your main categories, or
| | 02:50 | if you've already got a website up and
running, you can just plug your website's URL
| | 02:56 | into the Google Keyword Research
Tool and let it do the work for you.
| | 03:00 | The next step is to compile your research.
| | 03:03 | All keyword research tools allow you
to export the phrases into spreadsheets.
| | 03:08 | Once you download the spreadsheets, you
may need to re-categorize things a bit
| | 03:13 | or do your initial categorization if
you weren't able to do that before you
| | 03:17 | started the research.
| | 03:19 | While your spreadsheets are open, you'll
want to also remove the keyword phrases
| | 03:23 | that are obviously not good for your website.
| | 03:25 | These include ones that are not
relevant at all to what you offer, as well as
| | 03:30 | some phrases that have extremely low
search counts, meaning they just aren't
| | 03:34 | searched upon all that
much by your target audience.
| | 03:37 | For this winnowing phase, you'll need to
make sure you're very familiar with the
| | 03:42 | nature of the business.
| | 03:43 | If you're doing this keyword research
for a client, make sure to have them
| | 03:47 | involved in this process as they will
know their business better that you will.
| | 03:51 | At this time, you should now have a
pretty decent list of relevant keyword
| | 03:55 | phrases, but you'll also want to
know how competitive or not they are.
| | 04:00 | When I talk about competitiveness, I'm
talking about how many other websites are
| | 04:04 | targeting those same keyword phrases.
| | 04:07 | Each phrase can be broken down into a
specific level of competitiveness, from
| | 04:12 | highly competitive to fairly
competitive, to non-competitive.
| | 04:16 | Once you've determined the level of
competitiveness, you're ready to choose
| | 04:20 | which keyword phrases you'll
actually use in your SEO program.
| | 04:24 | Basically, you'll be choosing them by
looking at the number of searches they
| | 04:28 | receive, the relevancy to what
you offer on your website, and
| | 04:32 | the competitiveness level.
| | 04:34 | That's the keyword
research process in a nutshell.
| | 04:38 | Now that you've learned about the
process, let's see it in action.
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| Performing keyword research| 00:00 | In this course, we'll be researching
keywords for a site called My Kindle
| | 00:05 | Reviews, which provides information
on Amazon's Kindle electronic reading
| | 00:09 | device, its accessories and books
that can be read via the Kindle.
| | 00:14 | The goal of the site is to provide
information and reviews as well as to sell
| | 00:18 | related products through
Amazon's affiliate program.
| | 00:22 | The first step in the keyword research
process is to brainstorm keyword phrases.
| | 00:26 | I've already brainstormed some
keywords that relate to this site.
| | 00:30 | I try to think of phrases that are
mostly what I'll be talking about on the
| | 00:33 | website, like Kindle reviews and
Kindle accessories and book reviews.
| | 00:38 | For this site, rather than categorize
our keywords first, we'll do the keyword
| | 00:42 | research first as it will help in
the categorization process later.
| | 00:47 | So let's head over to the Google
Keyword Tool and start our research.
| | 00:51 | The idea is to come up with many more
keyword phrases than we started with,
| | 00:56 | as well as to learn which keyword
phrases are actually being searched for at Google.
| | 01:01 | So the tool gives us two ways of
generating keywords. We can put brainstormed
| | 01:06 | keywords into the box or we can put the URL in.
| | 01:10 | We can click Website content and put
the URL of the website into this box here.
| | 01:16 | If you are stumped during your
brainstorming sessions, then using the website's
| | 01:20 | URL is a good way to give you some ideas.
| | 01:23 | Since I've already brainstormed a list
of descriptive terms, I'm going to use
| | 01:27 | those by pasting them into the Keyword box.
| | 01:30 | So we'll click on Descriptive words or
phrases and then we're going to enter
| | 01:34 | our words in here.
| | 01:35 | We can take our worksheet.
| | 01:37 | We're going to select all
the keywords we've got here.
| | 01:41 | Then we're going to right-click, click
Copy, go back to Google Tool, click in
| | 01:46 | the box, right-click and say Paste.
| | 01:49 | They're in there.
| | 01:50 | We're going to keep this box, Use
synonyms, checked because that will give
| | 01:55 | us even more ideas.
| | 01:56 | Then we're going to click Get keyword
phrases and let Google do its thing.
| | 02:00 | Once you get your list, we're
going to scroll down and here it is.
| | 02:07 | The first thing we want to do is go
over to Match Type here and we want to
| | 02:11 | switch Broad to Exact by clicking on Exact.
| | 02:14 | We want to switch to Exact Match
because it's much more accurate.
| | 02:18 | The Broad Match allows for variations
in your search terms, so it's finding
| | 02:22 | words that are like your search terms
but not necessarily the exact terms, which
| | 02:27 | makes the numbers much higher.
| | 02:29 | The Exact Match shows just the
exact number of searches and is somewhat
| | 02:33 | more accurate.
| | 02:34 | So let's look at the keywords for a
minute before we go any further and make
| | 02:38 | sure that they're relevant.
| | 02:39 | And they look like they are. We've
got kindle and ebook reader and book
| | 02:43 | reviews, electronic books, yup, these
look very relevant to what the site's all
| | 02:48 | about, so that's good.
| | 02:49 | Now the next thing to do is I
usually remove this Advertiser Competition
| | 02:54 | column, because I have my own
preferred method of judging competitiveness,
| | 02:58 | which I'll cover.
| | 02:59 | Google's numbers for this are
geared more towards the paid search side
| | 03:03 | rather than SEO.
| | 03:05 | So we go here to the Show/hide
columns box and we can just get rid of it by
| | 03:10 | clicking Hide Advertiser
Competition and that disappears.
| | 03:14 | I also removed the Local Monthly
Searches column unless I'm looking up seasonal
| | 03:19 | keywords, this one here.
| | 03:21 | So let's go to choose hide columns
and get rid of that one, Hide Local Search Volume.
| | 03:28 | So now we're left with just the Global
Monthly Search Volume and the Keywords,
| | 03:33 | which is good, because that tells us
how many keyword phrases were searched on
| | 03:38 | average in a given month.
| | 03:40 | Then all we want to do is
export them into spreadsheets.
| | 03:44 | So we scroll down and then we
go download all the keywords.
| | 03:49 | I usually just choose csv (for excel)
and we just click on that, and we can
| | 03:55 | save the file.
| | 03:57 | Now, Google also gives us
additional keywords to consider here.
| | 04:01 | Now what we can do is scroll through
some of these and see if they are worth
| | 04:05 | downloading as well.
| | 04:06 | We've got cell phone cases, not
relevant, but ereader, free e books,
| | 04:11 | e book reader, ebook download, some of
these seem to be relevant and some of them aren't.
| | 04:17 | So for now, they're good enough to download.
| | 04:20 | So let's scroll down, click on the
csv for Excel and we'll save that.
| | 04:28 | So here's the download that Google gives us.
| | 04:31 | So having these spreadsheets on hand
will provide the basis for the rest ofyour SEO work.
| | 04:36 | If you think of other phrases to
research along the way, don't hesitate.
| | 04:40 | Keep coming back to the tool.
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| Winnowing out ineffective keyword phrases| 00:00 | While Google's Keyword Research Tool
is very helpful in giving us a lot of
| | 00:04 | raw data to work with,
| | 00:06 | it'll also provide as with a lot of
keywords that don't truly relate to what
| | 00:09 | we offer on our website.
| | 00:11 | What we need to do is ask ourselves for
every phrase, does it very specifically
| | 00:16 | relate to what I offer on my website,
and also, if someone typed this into a search
| | 00:21 | engine, will they be happy to find my
site, and then will my site fulfill the
| | 00:26 | needs of the searcher if they
came through on this keyword phrase?
| | 00:29 | Then we're going to delete the phrases
that don't relate or are not specific enough.
| | 00:34 | So let's look at each of these phrases
and see if they are relevant to our website.
| | 00:38 | Kindle, yes, that's obviously relevant.
| | 00:42 | It relates to what we offer.
| | 00:43 | ebook reader, yes, because we're going to
be looking at ebook readers on our site.
| | 00:48 | Book reviews, yes we're doing book reviews.
| | 00:50 | Electronic books, yes, that's what Kindle has.
| | 00:54 | It looks like a lot of these
first ones meet the criteria.
| | 00:57 | Let's just scroll down a little bit.
| | 00:59 | Kindled, that doesn't
really relate to what we offer.
| | 01:02 | So what we'll do is just highlight
this row, right-click and hit Delete and
| | 01:09 | basically just keep on going like that.
| | 01:11 | Book review digest, that doesn't relate
to what we do, so we'll delete that one.
| | 01:15 | And you just want to get rid of the words
that don't really relate, go through the whole thing.
| | 01:20 | Now that we've gone through a few of
these, you get the idea of what to look for.
| | 01:24 | We want to winnow this list down to just
the search terms that will work for our site.
| | 01:30 | As you go through the terms, if
you're not sure about any particular ones,
| | 01:34 | just keep them for now.
| | 01:35 | You can always remove them later.
| | 01:37 | In fact, once you're done with this
step, the next step is determining the
| | 01:41 | competitiveness, when we'll remove
additional words that have too many other
| | 01:44 | websites for you to realistically rank highly.
| | 01:47 | In addition, once you've got your
winnowed list, be sure to go back to the
| | 01:51 | Keyword Research Tool to find more
keywords for each category of your site and
| | 01:56 | winnow those as well.
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| Performing additional keyword research| 00:00 | Once you have got a general list of
keywords which you've winnowed down to only those
| | 00:04 | relevant to your website, it's time to
research even more keywords based on each
| | 00:09 | individual category that your site contains.
| | 00:12 | Look at your general list of phrases
and choose a phrase or two that are highly
| | 00:16 | specific to what you offer.
| | 00:17 | So, let's look at our
phrases, electronic book readers.
| | 00:22 | Since that's an all-encompassing phrase
for what the Kindle actually is, that's
| | 00:26 | probably a good one for us to research further.
| | 00:28 | So, we will highlight it
and right-click and copy.
| | 00:33 | Now I am going to go to Google Keyword
Research Tool, use Descriptive words or
| | 00:37 | phrases, and click it and then paste it
in, click Use synonyms as checked and
| | 00:45 | click Get keyword ideas.
| | 00:49 | Okay.
| | 00:50 | Let's scroll down.
| | 00:51 | It looks like we have some more keywords now.
| | 00:53 | We don't want to forget change this
from Broad to Exact or you'll have do it
| | 00:58 | all over again and then we also want
to hide Advertiser Competition and Local
| | 01:04 | Search Volume.
| | 01:05 | So, we go up to here, hide Advertiser
Competition, hide Local Search Volume.
| | 01:12 | And let's also not forget to sort by
Global Monthly Search Volume just so we
| | 01:16 | don't have to do it in our spreadsheets later.
| | 01:18 | All right, there we go!
| | 01:20 | Now, we have some more words.
| | 01:23 | We'll download these.
| | 01:25 | Save the file.
| | 01:26 | So, here is our list of new keyword
phrases that are specific to electronic book readers.
| | 01:34 | And what we are going to do with these
now is paste them into our previous list,
| | 01:40 | so we select the sheet, click Copy,
come back to our other sheet, select the
| | 01:46 | sheet and click Paste. There we go!
| | 01:50 | So, now we just need to rename the
sheet and we will call it Electronic Book Readers.
| | 01:56 | Rename. okay.
| | 02:03 | And we will rename this one as
well to just General keywords.
| | 02:08 | Right-click, Rename, there.
| | 02:14 | The next step is to winnow this list
and remove the phrases that aren't highly
| | 02:18 | relevant to your site.
| | 02:20 | And then you'll just keep going back
and forth to the Keyword Research Tool,
| | 02:23 | research each category of stuff on your
site, and create a new worksheet within
| | 02:28 | your Excel file accordingly.
| | 02:30 | In the end, you should end up with a
multiple tabbed sheet that contains highly
| | 02:34 | relevant keyword phrases
for each section of your site.
| | 02:38 | You'll need this as you move
forward and start determining the
| | 02:41 | competitiveness of each phrase.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Determining competitiveness of keyword phrases| 00:00 | I've gone ahead and done some addition
keyword research for some of our main
| | 00:04 | topics on the Kindle site.
| | 00:05 | We now have a spreadsheet with
multiple tabs for Electronic Book Readers,
| | 00:10 | Classic Books, Kindle
accessories and ebook readers.
| | 00:13 | Now it's time to start figuring out the
competitiveness of each phrase so that
| | 00:18 | we have a better idea of which
we should we should optimize for.
| | 00:21 | Every keyword phrase that you
research has a specific level of competitiveness
| | 00:25 | tied to it.
| | 00:26 | Competitiveness is simply how difficult
or easy it would be to see results when
| | 00:31 | you optimize for that particular phrase.
| | 00:33 | What makes a keyword phrase competitive
or not is the number of other pages that
| | 00:38 | are optimized for the phrase.
| | 00:40 | So you might think that you could learn
this by typing your phrase into Google
| | 00:44 | and seeing how many pages
show up for that phrase.
| | 00:47 | So, let's put one of our research phrases.
| | 00:50 | Let's take kindle reviews.
I'll just copy and paste it.
| | 00:54 | Copy and go over to Google.
| | 00:58 | I'll paste it in here and it's okay if
we have the brackets in there, they just
| | 01:03 | ignore them and we'll do a
Google search and see what happens.
| | 01:07 | So, it looks like there are
28,800,000 other pages that show up.
| | 01:14 | But these are pages that use any of
those words, kindle and reviews, on their
| | 01:20 | page somewhere or it could even
be in links pointing to the page.
| | 01:25 | This doesn't mean that those other
pages are actually optimized for the phrase.
| | 01:29 | So we don't have to let
that number scare us quite yet.
| | 01:31 | So, now let's put the phrase kindle
reviews in quotes, I'll get rid of the brackets
| | 01:36 | and put quotes and do a search for this.
| | 01:41 | This is an exact match search and
what it tells us is how many pages Google
| | 01:46 | knows about that are using this
exact phrase somewhere on the page.
| | 01:50 | So, now we see 70,300
for kindle reviews in quotes.
| | 01:56 | Still looks like a lot of
competition, but even the exact match doesn't
| | 02:00 | necessarily mean that those
pages are optimized for the phrase.
| | 02:04 | It means they have that phrase
somewhere on the page, but it doesn't mean
| | 02:07 | they are optimized.
| | 02:08 | So, there is one more little trick I have
up my sleeve that gives me a better idea
| | 02:12 | of the competitiveness of any keyword phrase.
| | 02:15 | What we do is it's an advanced
command operator called all in title.
| | 02:20 | So right before we have our phrase in
quotes we put, allintitle, one word and
| | 02:25 | a colon and then the phrase in quotes.
| | 02:28 | Let me search for that.
| | 02:30 | This little command will tell us how
many pages Google knows about that are
| | 02:34 | using the keyword phrase in their title tag.
| | 02:36 | Title tags are one of the most
important places to use keywords.
| | 02:40 | So, if the page is using a phrase there
then it's likely to be your competition.
| | 02:44 | Now this search shows 6,060 pages with
the exact phrase of kindle reviews, which is
| | 02:52 | still a lot, but not as
daunting as those other numbers we saw.
| | 02:55 | Since that phrase, kindle reviews,
is really exactly what our website is about,
| | 03:00 | it's within reach.
| | 03:02 | So you'll also want to browse with the
other pages that show up when searching
| | 03:06 | for that keyword phrase to
determine if you want to use it.
| | 03:09 | How we do that is go back and just do
the regular search for kindle reviews,
| | 03:13 | because regular people don't search with quotes.
| | 03:16 | So, it looks like we are competing
with CNET, which is going to pretty tricky
| | 03:20 | because they've been around a long time,
and sites that have been around a long time
| | 03:24 | get pretty entrenched
in the search results.
| | 03:27 | I have got iReaderReviews,
CrunchGear, so there is some pretty tough
| | 03:32 | competition. PCWorld.
| | 03:34 | So, I mean, there is definitely some
competition here, but that doesn't mean
| | 03:38 | that we don't have a chance for it.
Since it's very specific to our site that's
| | 03:42 | a good keyword phrase and
we're still going to use it.
| | 03:44 | You can also take a look at the sites
themselves and see how optimized they
| | 03:48 | are for the phrase and click through
and see if it says kindle reviews on here.
| | 03:52 | We can do a search.
| | 03:57 | See they don't even have
that phrase on the page at all.
| | 04:00 | So, most likely this page has a
lot of links pointing to it that say
| | 04:03 | kindle reviews.
| | 04:05 | So, we could have a chance
to show up for this phrase.
| | 04:09 | What you want to look at when you
look at these pages is to see are they optimized.
| | 04:13 | Are they on topic?
| | 04:14 | Can you make your page more
relevant than those others?
| | 04:17 | These are different questions to
really answer and sometimes it just comes
| | 04:21 | down to experience.
| | 04:23 | It's important to also remember
that this is just one keyword phrase.
| | 04:27 | We are going to make you go
through our process with almost all our
| | 04:31 | relevant keyword phrases.
| | 04:32 | So, I want to go down our list of
previously researched keywords and do
| | 04:36 | allintitle searches for them.
| | 04:40 | I find it easiest to add another
column in my keyword spreadsheet for
| | 04:43 | allintitle, then later I review the entire
list comparing the allintitle numbers to
| | 04:49 | the number of searches each keyword has.
| | 04:52 | So we can change this, just call it
Searches, and then we are going to put
| | 05:00 | in Allintitle here.
| | 05:07 | And we just did for kindle reviews here,
so I am going to put this one in here.
| | 05:13 | These can take a long time as you can
see to put all of these allintitles in.
| | 05:17 | So, you might want to be
discriminatory about which ones you choose.
| | 05:21 | Make sure you choose those that are
highly relevant to your site, because
| | 05:24 | otherwise, it could take you many weeks
of work just to add allintitles in for
| | 05:29 | each keyword phrase.
| | 05:31 | So knowing how to assess the
competitiveness of your targeted keyword phrases
| | 05:36 | will help you spot keyword gems later,
for which you should optimize the
| | 05:39 | pages of your website.
| | 05:42 | Knowing how to assess the
competitiveness of your targeted keyword phrases
| | 05:46 | will help you spot keyword gems for
which you should optimize the pages of
| | 05:50 | your website.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Finding keyword gems | 00:00 | I have gone ahead and done allintitle
searches for our ebook reader category, so
| | 00:04 | now we can start to decide
which keyword phrases to choose.
| | 00:08 | We are viewing the approximate number of
searches a phrase receives and how much
| | 00:12 | competition there is for the keyword phrases.
| | 00:15 | You can start looking for the
keyword gems, which you will optimize the pages
| | 00:18 | of your site for.
| | 00:19 | A keyword gem is basically any relevant
keyword phrase that has a high number of
| | 00:24 | searches versus a low number of
pages with that phrase in the title tag.
| | 00:29 | So, let's look at to get our sheet
here and here, this one sticks out at us.
| | 00:33 | We have got electronic book reading
device with 880 searches and only 147
| | 00:40 | allintitle searches, so that's pretty good.
| | 00:44 | 880 searches a month is a decent
amount of searches and we are only competing
| | 00:49 | with 147 other pages.
| | 00:51 | So, let's highlight that as a keyword gem,
we just select it and then we'll give
| | 00:57 | it the color green for gem.
| | 01:00 | Now here, this one is even better.
It has 480 searches and only six allintitle.
| | 01:06 | So, that means there's only six other
pages out there that Google know about
| | 01:09 | that have that exact phrase in the title tag.
| | 01:12 | So, we should be able to compete on
that and it's electronic books device.
| | 01:16 | So, that's pretty relevant to our site is about.
| | 01:19 | So, let's highlight that as a gem as well.
| | 01:22 | Conversely, you'll also notice some
phrases, which I will call warning words.
| | 01:26 | These are the opposite of keyword
gems in that they have a low number of
| | 01:31 | searches and a high number of pages
that may already be optimized for them as
| | 01:35 | determined by allintitle.
| | 01:36 | So, let's look.
| | 01:38 | And it looks like this one here is a
good example, electronic books online.
| | 01:44 | And here, it's got only 480 searches
a month which is an okay number, but
| | 01:48 | look at this crazy amount.
12,300 other pages that are using that keyword
| | 01:54 | phrase in the title.
| | 01:55 | It's hard to explain why these
warning words exist other than it's probably
| | 01:59 | phrases people who don't do any
keyword research just assume are good ones to
| | 02:03 | optimize for, which is why it's
so important to do your research.
| | 02:08 | Why waste time optimizing for highly
competitive phrases that will be unlikely
| | 02:12 | to bring you much traffic anyway?
| | 02:14 | So, let's highlight these types of
warning words with a red highlight.
| | 02:19 | So we know not to bother with them.
| | 02:21 | So what we will really going to do
now is just highlight all the gems that
| | 02:24 | stand out to us.
| | 02:26 | And once you have them highlighted, you
may want to then resort by allintitle to
| | 02:30 | see if any other stick out.
| | 02:32 | We can do that now.
| | 02:34 | Let's click on here to select the worksheet.
| | 02:37 | Click on Data, come to Sort
and we will sort Allintitle.
| | 02:41 | Now this time we want to sort by
smallest to largest, not largest to smallest,
| | 02:46 | and we'll click okay.
| | 02:48 | So now we can see these keyword
phrases sorted by the lowest number
| | 02:51 | of allintitles.
| | 02:53 | Now we have to decide how
competitive we can go with our particular site.
| | 02:57 | Under 1000 allintitle searches are non-
competitive, so those are really good
| | 03:02 | ones for us to choose.
| | 03:03 | A 1000-3000, those are fairly competitive.
| | 03:07 | 3000-5000, those are competitive and
then as you get to 5000 and over,
| | 03:13 | they are highly competitive.
| | 03:14 | If your site is a very popular one
that's been around for a long time, you can go
| | 03:18 | higher with your allintitle
numbers and choose more keyword gems.
| | 03:22 | If your site is brand-new, you may
want to stay to the under 1000 mark for
| | 03:26 | your allintitles.
| | 03:28 | You'll need to go through this same
process of marking off keyword gems with
| | 03:32 | each set of keyword phrases for your site.
| | 03:35 | After you have done this for all your
relevant phrases, you should be left with
| | 03:39 | a list of keyword gems.
| | 03:40 | These are the keyword phrases for
which you will start optimizing the pages
| | 03:44 | of your site.
| | 03:45 | As you can imagine, if you choose the
right gems and do a good job of your
| | 03:49 | optimization, you'll start to see
targeted traffic fairly quickly.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Creating a Search-Friendly Site Architecture What site architecture means to SEO| 00:00 | The architecture of your web site,
that is, the way pages are linked together, is
| | 00:06 | often overlooked as an SEO tactic.
| | 00:08 | Instead, the task is often left
to website designers to figure out.
| | 00:12 | Yet when search engines are not
thought about when creating the site's
| | 00:15 | navigation, other SEO techniques that you
implement will have less chance of success.
| | 00:20 | Site architecture, which is sometimes
referred to as information architecture,
| | 00:25 | is basically how the pages of
a web site are linked together.
| | 00:29 | The way you as a site owner link to
them within the navigational structure,
| | 00:33 | tells people and search engines which
pages are important as well as which aren't.
| | 00:38 | It makes a lot of
sense when you think about it.
| | 00:41 | If you link to pages in your main
navigation on every page of your website,
| | 00:45 | you're making a
statement that they're important.
| | 00:47 | On the other hand, if other pages are
buried because they take four or five
| | 00:51 | clicks to even find on your site,
you're saying they're not important and
| | 00:55 | the search engines will give them less
weight accordingly, because they have link
| | 00:59 | popularity or as we like to say
in the SEO biz, less "link juice."
| | 01:04 | In putting together the Kindle
reviews site, you needed to think about what
| | 01:08 | types of pages would be important
enough to link to in the main navigation.
| | 01:12 | Here's my Kindle reviews site.
| | 01:14 | There were a few different places
within the site's template to link to
| | 01:17 | important categories.
| | 01:18 | The top navigation of the page is
one place, but there's also another
| | 01:22 | navigational section for reviews, which
is linked to from every page of the site.
| | 01:27 | That's another good place to link to top-
level important categories and subcategories.
| | 01:31 | You probably have some idea of what
pages are important enough to link to
| | 01:35 | within your main navigation, but you
should also use your keyword research to
| | 01:39 | help with this task.
| | 01:40 | Your keyword research can tell you what
people are most interested in, because
| | 01:44 | of what they're seeking out at search engines.
| | 01:47 | Use that information to
create category links accordingly.
| | 01:50 | Of course, you'll want to make sure that
they relate to what your site is all about.
| | 01:54 | As you'll find, it's pretty impossible
to squeeze new categories into a site if
| | 01:58 | they don't really belong there.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Brainstorming main categories and subcategories for the web site| 00:00 | While you should already have a good
idea of what categories you want on your
| | 00:04 | site and in your main navigation, now
is a good time to take another look at
| | 00:08 | your keyword research to make sure you
haven't missed any important areas that
| | 00:12 | relate to what you offer on your site.
| | 00:14 | It's sort of a chicken and egg thing,
which can be somewhat maddening.
| | 00:18 | You need to know your categories
before you can do your keyword research.
| | 00:21 | But you'll also need keyword research
to help determine areas that people are
| | 00:25 | interested in that you may
want to include on your website.
| | 00:28 | To show an example of how a site
might categorized, here's a document
| | 00:33 | I brainstormed to determine the possible
categories for My Kindle Review site.
| | 00:38 | My first thought was to have a section
for general Kindle information, which
| | 00:42 | is number one.
| | 00:43 | I also wanted a section for Kindle accessories,
| | 00:47 | as I noticed in my keyword research
that there were a variety of searches for
| | 00:51 | the various accessories
one can buy for the kindle.
| | 00:54 | While you don't want to let your
keywords drive your site architecture
| | 00:57 | completely, it's helpful to review it
for areas of interest that you may not
| | 01:01 | have otherwise thought about.
| | 01:03 | Accessories, as a category, makes a lot
of sense for me with this site as I plan
| | 01:07 | to buy some over time anyway.
| | 01:09 | The next section I had was Books.
| | 01:12 | Since the main purpose of my Kindle was
to read more books, posting book reviews
| | 01:16 | to the website makes a lot of sense.
| | 01:19 | And there were tones of different
book review keyword showing up in
| | 01:21 | our research.
| | 01:23 | Along with book reviews,
I noticed searches for free kindle books.
| | 01:27 | It seemed to me that reviewing and
listing free books could really be a good
| | 01:32 | draw to the website and also come in
handy later on for attracting links to
| | 01:36 | the website.
| | 01:37 | People love free lists and are more
likely to link to them than things that
| | 01:41 | cost money.
| | 01:42 | The kindle also allows you to
subscribe to magazines, as well as to blogs
| | 01:46 | and newspapers.
| | 01:47 | So, I added them into the site architecture.
| | 01:50 | After the main categories were
brainstormed, I went back and added the
| | 01:54 | sub-categories such as various
accessories, here like the Kindle protectors,
| | 02:01 | cases, covers and the like, reading
lights, stands and that sort of thing.
| | 02:06 | I also tried to decide which
types of books I would be reviewing.
| | 02:11 | I put children's books in, even though
my kids are older and I probably won't
| | 02:16 | be reading any of them right now,
because it's a huge opportunity as part of the
| | 02:20 | keyword research.
| | 02:21 | I thought that perhaps at some point in
time, I might open up the site so that
| | 02:25 | others could post their own reviews,
which would provide me with some good
| | 02:29 | content in that area.
| | 02:31 | That's basically all there is to it.
| | 02:33 | Put down the categories you know you
need in your site and review your keyword
| | 02:37 | research to help you find
possible missed opportunities.
| | 02:40 | Now, I'll show you how I've implemented
some of this into the site architecture
| | 02:44 | of My Kindle Reviews site.
| | 02:46 | Here across, the top navigation,
I have added the main categories of Kindle
| | 02:51 | Accessories, Book Reviews and The Kindle.
| | 02:55 | Then down here within this
section I have got this nice spot to add
| | 03:00 | my sub-categories in.
| | 03:02 | Since this website is still a work in
progress, I don't have all the categories
| | 03:06 | and sub-categories for my brainstorming,
but only those that I have content for.
| | 03:11 | I am sure you'll agree
there's nothing worse than seeing under
| | 03:14 | construction pages.
| | 03:16 | So, it's better to leave
anything off that you are not ready for.
| | 03:18 | So, you can see I've got the Books
Reviews category laid out and I have Classics
| | 03:24 | and Science Fiction and Short
Stories and Romance Novels there so far.
| | 03:30 | These are the types of books I have
had a chance to read and review so far
| | 03:33 | with my Kindle.
| | 03:34 | Then I have the Kindle section and a
couple of sub-categories plus the Kindle
| | 03:38 | Accessories section.
| | 03:40 | So far, I have only purchased a case
for my Kindle and none of the other cool
| | 03:44 | accessories, so I am leaving them off for now.
| | 03:46 | Now remember, the key here with our site
architecture is to repeat each of these
| | 03:50 | categories and sub-categories on every
page of the site, which tells the search
| | 03:55 | engines they are important. This in turn
will give those pages a lot of internal
| | 04:00 | link popularity and therefore
more rating with the search engines.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a keyword phrase-to-page map| 00:00 | In order to optimize your website,
you have to choose which keyword phrases
| | 00:04 | you'll be using for which pages of your website.
| | 00:07 | Every page has a different focus
and should therefore be optimized for
| | 00:10 | different keyword phrases.
| | 00:12 | While we highlighted some keyword
gems previously, we haven't necessarily
| | 00:16 | figured out which pages of the
site on which they will reside.
| | 00:20 | I've created a new spreadsheet as a
sitemap and added headings across the top,
| | 00:24 | which correspond with each of
our top-level main category pages.
| | 00:28 | You can lay your sitemap out in
any tool you're comfortable with.
| | 00:31 | I'm just used to Excel, so this works for me.
| | 00:33 | I've also got our keyword gems spreadsheet.
| | 00:36 | You should put the pages that are in
the main navigation of your website which
| | 00:40 | are linked to from every page of the site.
| | 00:42 | This sheet will ultimately
be your keyword phrase map.
| | 00:46 | Eventually, you would want to do this
for every page of your website, but it's
| | 00:49 | fine to start with just the main category pages.
| | 00:53 | We'll start with choosing the Homepage keywords.
| | 00:55 | Since homepages are usually given the
most weight by search engines, because
| | 00:59 | they have the most link popularity, you
can choose the somewhat more competitive
| | 01:04 | and general phrases.
| | 01:05 | So you want to review your keyword
phrase list you previously compiled and find
| | 01:10 | a few of them that are competitive,
but also highly relevant to what your
| | 01:13 | business and website is all about.
| | 01:15 | These will be the phrases
you'll target on your homepage.
| | 01:19 | So let's take a look at our
General tab and choose a keyword phrase.
| | 01:24 | Kindle reviews we know is a good one
for this website, because that's what
| | 01:28 | it's called, My Kindle Reviews.
| | 01:30 | So let's put that in here and we'll
just type it in, kindle reviews, and then
| | 01:37 | we'll put the number of searches and
the allintitle as well, just as reference
| | 01:43 | so we know it later.
| | 01:44 | Kindle reviews, 2,900
searches, 6,060 allintitle.
| | 01:52 | You should also mark which page
you're putting them on in your
| | 01:55 | original spreadsheet.
| | 01:56 | Let's add another column for
Page and put home for these ones.
| | 02:03 | And this is the homepage.
| | 02:05 | Look through other relevant
worksheet tabs for the homepage to find
| | 02:09 | additional keyword gems.
| | 02:11 | When you're done with the
homepage, go on to a category page.
| | 02:14 | The idea is to review the keyword gems
you previously chose that relate to that
| | 02:19 | category and choose the best that
describe the category as a whole.
| | 02:23 | Don't worry about all the phrases that
relate, because you'll eventually use
| | 02:26 | them for your deeper pages.
| | 02:28 | So if we were to do the Classics Book
page, we'd go back to that tab on our
| | 02:33 | keyword gems spreadsheet and take these
highlighted gems and copy them into our sitemap.
| | 02:39 | So let's find the Classics, here we
go and we'll just put good classic books here.
| | 02:50 | 140 Searches.
| | 02:53 | 520 Allintitle.
| | 02:55 | Now, these we know are on the Classics
page, so if you want to skip the step of
| | 03:00 | putting the page here, you can.
| | 03:03 | Note that in the end, you'll
probably still have lots of extra words that
| | 03:06 | are relevant.
| | 03:07 | For now, you don't have to worry about them.
| | 03:09 | They may go nicely in other pages or
you can save them for later content pages
| | 03:14 | such as articles or blog posts.
| | 03:16 | Creating your keyword phrase map will be
time-consuming to do all the pages, but
| | 03:21 | you'll find it will make the rest of
your SEO program run smoother, as it will
| | 03:25 | be clear which keywords to
use in your content and tags.
| | 03:29 | It provides you with a clear picture of
what each page will eventually be about.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using keywords in domain names and URLs| 00:00 | Once you've researched relevant
keyword phrases, your next step is to work
| | 00:04 | them into your website.
| | 00:05 | One of the very first places where you
may want to consider placing your keyword
| | 00:09 | phrases is within your
domain names or your URLs.
| | 00:13 | Your domain name is basically
the address of your webpage.
| | 00:16 | I've got the domain name of
MyKindleReviews.com. You can type it directly
| | 00:20 | into your browser, as you can see it
is right here, and that will take you to
| | 00:24 | the website.
| | 00:25 | You'll notice that my domain name has
the keyword phrase of Kindle reviews
| | 00:28 | contained within it.
| | 00:29 | For this site, it makes sense to have
chosen a domain name that used those
| | 00:34 | keyword phrases, since that's what
this site is all about, Kindle reviews.
| | 00:38 | For other sites, however, it doesn't
always make sense to have a keyword
| | 00:41 | contained within the domain, but that's okay.
| | 00:44 | If you have an existing business
that's not just online, it's usually best to
| | 00:48 | use your company name as your domain name,
| | 00:50 | as that's how people who have heard of
your company will be looking for you.
| | 00:53 | Don't feel that you need to have a
keyword phrase as part of your domain name.
| | 00:57 | You'll also have the opportunity to
add keywords to your URLs that go beyond
| | 01:01 | the domain name.
| | 01:02 | The dynamic nature of websites makes
it so the URLs for any page of your site
| | 01:07 | can often be named
whatever you want to name it.
| | 01:11 | You may be constrained by whatever
CMS your website is using, however.
| | 01:15 | With WordPress, which we're using for
MyKindleReviews.com, we have the ability
| | 01:19 | to configure our own URL names.
| | 01:22 | The best use of this is to simply
match up your URL with the main keyword
| | 01:26 | phrases for the page.
| | 01:28 | You can see for our accessories page
I've got Kindle-accessories as the URL, and
| | 01:34 | for the main book reviews page,
I've got book-reviews as the URL.
| | 01:39 | While you could run the words together
without a hyphen, it's easier for the
| | 01:43 | search engines to understand that
they are separate words if you separate
| | 01:46 | them with a dash.
| | 01:47 | You'll want to avoid underscores, as
the search engines may not parse the
| | 01:51 | words individually.
| | 01:53 | It's definitely not critical to have
keywords in your URLs, but it does provide
| | 01:57 | contacts to the search engines as to
what each page of your site is about.
| | 02:01 | It can also be a cue to potential
visitors to your website when they see your
| | 02:05 | URL in the search results, as Google
will bold the search query keywords there.
| | 02:10 | I'll show you what I mean.
| | 02:12 | Let's head over to Google
and type in 'my Kindle reviews.'
| | 02:19 | See how they bolded the domain name
as well as those in any other parts of the URL?
| | 02:24 | There's Kindle bolded and
My Kindle and this other page.
| | 02:27 | Let's see what they show for 'my Kindle case.'
| | 02:29 | Let's see if we can find our site.
| | 02:33 | Here it is, My Kindle Reviews.
| | 02:35 | So see, they have bolded my Kindle
case here and Kindle there as well.
| | 02:40 | So you can see how this can improve the
usability as well as the clickability
| | 02:45 | of this site in the search results.
| | 02:47 | When a person sees the exact phrase
they were using in their search is in the URL,
| | 02:52 | they are more likely to click the link.
| | 02:55 | Think about these things when you're
deciding upon the name of your website as
| | 02:57 | well as when you name each page of it.
| | 03:00 | Always try to provide the most
relevance that you can in your URLs, ideally
| | 03:05 | using a research keyword phrase
which best describes the information
| | 03:09 | contained on the page.
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4. SEO in HTML TagsSEO in HTML tags| 00:00 | There are many HTML tags used
when any web page gets coded.
| | 00:04 | However, there are some tags where
using keyword phrases within them can help
| | 00:08 | the search engines to
determine the relevancy of your page.
| | 00:12 | Here are the HTML tags that
can be useful for SEO purposes.
| | 00:16 | Title tags. These are the most useful
of all HTML tags, because search engines
| | 00:21 | give them lots of weight.
| | 00:23 | Meta description tags. These should
describe your page so that it entices people
| | 00:28 | to click on your listing at the search engines.
| | 00:30 | Now, before I continue with the rest of
the useful HTML tags, I wanted to say a
| | 00:35 | few words about the meta keywords tag.
| | 00:37 | It's not included in my list because
not only is the meta keywords tag not the
| | 00:43 | key to SEO nor has it ever been,
it's not even looked up by Google.
| | 00:48 | Its main use today is to help
your own on-site search engine
| | 00:52 | determine relevancy.
| | 00:53 | While some search engines still index
the information contained within the meta
| | 00:57 | keywords tag, this info will only help
your site in the rankings of those search
| | 01:01 | engines if you use technical terms or
misspellings that are nowhere else on the page
| | 01:06 | and no or very few other websites
are using those terms on their pages.
| | 01:13 | With that out of the way,
let's continue with the useful tags.
| | 01:16 | Header tags, for example, H1, H2 tags.
| | 01:20 | These are great places for you
to use keyword-rich headlines.
| | 01:24 | Anchor text. This is the words you'll
use in the clickable part of any text link.
| | 01:29 | Image alt attributes. These are also
known as alt tags and should be used when
| | 01:33 | you have image navigation on your website.
| | 01:36 | Remember this when you're thinking about
using keywords within your HTML content.
| | 01:40 | While there are many places you can put
them, be sure that you use your judgment.
| | 01:45 | In other words, just because you can put
them everywhere, it doesn't mean you should.
| | 01:50 | Only use them where it makes the
most sense for each page, nothing more,
| | 01:55 | nothing less.
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| Title tags| 00:00 | So let's talk about title tags.
| | 00:02 | Title tags are one of the most
important components to your SEO campaign.
| | 00:07 | It is weighted very
heavily by all search engines.
| | 00:11 | So it's important to use the most
important keyword phrases for each page of the
| | 00:15 | website in the title tag.
| | 00:17 | Make sure that your website allows you
to customize title tags for every page
| | 00:21 | of your site.
| | 00:22 | If it doesn't, talk to your website
developer immediately to have them
| | 00:25 | implement this.
| | 00:27 | Let's look at the various places
where your title tag can show up.
| | 00:32 | One of the places where the title tag
can show up is in the source code of your page.
| | 00:36 | So let's take a look at the source
code of the My Kindle Reviews site.
| | 00:39 | We'll go to View > Page Source.
| | 00:44 | Here's what the title tag
looks like in the source code.
| | 00:47 | You can see the title text
in between the title tags.
| | 00:51 | Here is one place where the
information contained in your title tag shows up
| | 00:58 | visibly to people, right
at the top of your browser.
| | 01:03 | In addition, the information contained
in title tags is the clickable link to
| | 01:07 | your site when it shows up
in the search result pages.
| | 01:10 | Let's do a Google search
for My Kindle Reviews and see.
| | 01:19 | Here's the title tag in the
clickable part of the link.
| | 01:22 | Now notice here that
Google has truncated our title.
| | 01:25 | This doesn't mean that they have only
indexed this many words of the title.
| | 01:29 | They index many more than they actually display.
| | 01:32 | So don't worry about the number of
characters you use in your title.
| | 01:35 | Do make sure that the most important
ones are near the beginning, however, if you
| | 01:39 | don't want them to cut off in the display.
| | 01:42 | Since title tags are given so much
weight by search engines and they are visible
| | 01:46 | in so many places, be sure to use your
most important keywords in a way that
| | 01:51 | entices people to click your
link in the search engines.
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| Meta descriptions| 00:00 | The meta description tag is another
place where you'll want to use your
| | 00:03 | targeted keyword phrases.
| | 00:05 | Keywords contained within it will
get bolded by the search engines in the
| | 00:09 | results pages, if they're part
of the search query someone used.
| | 00:13 | Let's see what the meta
description looks like in the source code.
| | 00:20 | Here it is within the meta description tag.
| | 00:24 | Now let's see how meta descriptions
might be displayed in the search results.
| | 00:28 | I'll type 'my kindle reviews' into Google,
and here's our result and here is the
| | 00:39 | meta description showing as our description.
| | 00:42 | Now, I say "might" be displayed in
the search results, because the search
| | 00:45 | engines don't always show your meta
description as the snippet of text under
| | 00:49 | your clickable title.
| | 00:50 | If the search query a user typed
in isn't contained within your Meta
| | 00:54 | description, chances are the search
engine will instead pull a snippet of copy
| | 00:59 | from your page that does
have the search keyword phrase.
| | 01:03 | So if you want your well-crafted
description to show, make sure it's using
| | 01:07 | keyword phrases, or else
you'll be writing it for nobody.
| | 01:11 | The main thing to remember about meta
descriptions is that like title tags,
| | 01:16 | you want to use keyword phrases in it, but
you also want to write it as a compelling
| | 01:20 | marketing statement.
| | 01:21 | The idea is to entice people to click
on your listing at the search engine
| | 01:26 | rather than your competitors.
| | 01:28 | If both your title and meta descriptions
do this, how could they not click on yours?
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| Header tags| 00:00 | Header tags or H1, H2s, H3s should
generally be used within your headlines, and
| | 00:07 | headlines should often use keyword phrases.
| | 00:10 | It's possible, although it's difficult
to find exact evidence of this, that
| | 00:14 | headlines are given extra
weighting with the search engines.
| | 00:17 | It does make sense, however, if they
did, since headlines are traditionally
| | 00:20 | places where one might point
out important aspects of a page.
| | 00:25 | Let's see what the header tag
looks like in the source code.
| | 00:32 | Here's our tagline contained in the
h1 tag and here's our main headline
| | 00:42 | contained in an h2 tag.
| | 00:45 | Now let's see what the headlines
look like on the web page itself.
| | 00:49 | Here's our h1, it's our
tagline, and this headline is our h2.
| | 00:57 | Don't get too wrapped up in headlines
for SEO purposes and especially don't
| | 01:01 | worry whether they are using h1s or
h2s or even if they are just bolded.
| | 01:06 | Write them for your users and use
them when necessary and that will typically
| | 01:10 | be all you need to do.
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| Anchor text| 00:00 | Anchor text is a fancy name for the
words contained in the clickable part of a link.
| | 00:06 | While you often see call to action
words like "click here" or "more info" as
| | 00:10 | link anchor text.
| | 00:12 | That's not usually the best use of it.
| | 00:14 | Anchor text is important to SEO because
it tells people and search engines what
| | 00:20 | the page they are about
to click on is all about.
| | 00:23 | Use it to succinctly
describe the resulting page.
| | 00:27 | Often it makes sense to use an important
keyword phrase within your anchor text.
| | 00:31 | Search engines put a lot
of weight on anchor text.
| | 00:34 | So be sure to use your
keyword phrases accordingly.
| | 00:40 | Let's see what anchor text looks
like in the source code of the page.
| | 00:47 | Here are the anchor text
words within the a href tags.
| | 00:54 | You can see Kindle Accessories, Book
Reviews, The Kindle, and Contact Us,
| | 00:59 | and Subscribe.
| | 01:00 | Now let's see how they
show up on the webpage itself.
| | 01:06 | Here's the same links we were just looking at.
| | 01:08 | Kindle Accessories, Book
Reviews, The Kindle, and Contact Us.
| | 01:12 | Those are all anchor text links.
| | 01:15 | Then there's also call to
action links within the page itself.
| | 01:19 | And here this navigation is
all made up of anchor text.
| | 01:22 | We are trying to use good
keyword phrases within each of them.
| | 01:26 | You have control within your
web site to describe each page that you're
| | 01:30 | pointing people to, by using the best
keyword phrase possible throughout the
| | 01:34 | use of your anchor text.
| | 01:36 | Make sure you write these as
descriptively as you can since they are so
| | 01:39 | important to your overall SEO program.
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| Alt tags| 00:00 | Images on your website can be
described using alt attribute text, also known
| | 00:05 | as alt tags.
| | 00:07 | For SEO purposes, it's especially
important if you're using images as your
| | 00:11 | navigation rather than text links.
| | 00:13 | Basically, you'll want to use the same
descriptive words you put into the anchor
| | 00:18 | text of a text link as the
alt attribute information.
| | 00:22 | It's fine to use image
navigation as long as you do that.
| | 00:26 | So let's look at what the alt attribute
looks like in the source code of your page.
| | 00:31 | This time we're going to use the
Kindle Case page to look at the source code.
| | 00:37 | And since we have so much here,
it's going to be hard to find.
| | 00:40 | So we'll do a Ctrl+F and
search for alt and there it is.
| | 00:47 | Kindle Case is our alt attribute
text that describes the picture of the
| | 00:52 | Kindle case.
| | 00:54 | So let's see if we can see
what it looks like on the page.
| | 00:59 | Now this says My Kindle Case.
| | 01:01 | In this case, because we're using
Firefox, we see the link title attribute text
| | 01:06 | showing up instead, which says My Kindle
Case rather than what I have in the alt tag,
| | 01:11 | which was just Kindle Case.
| | 01:13 | Search engines, however, will index
the alt attribute text and not the
| | 01:17 | link title attribute.
| | 01:19 | And then for non-clickable images,
you should just describe what the image is in
| | 01:24 | your alt attribute text.
| | 01:26 | It's typically not helpful for SEO
purposes on these images as the search
| | 01:30 | engines only usually index
information in the alt tags of clickable images.
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| Writing effective title tags | 00:00 | Now that we have the static introductory
content on our Classic Book Reviews page,
| | 00:05 | it's time to create its title tag.
| | 00:08 | To do this, let's go back to our
document where we wrote the content and
| | 00:12 | still have the keyword phrases at the top.
| | 00:15 | You want to be able to see the page
content as well the keyword phrases that
| | 00:18 | you've optimized it for when
creating your title tags whenever possible.
| | 00:22 | We want to try to string together
just 10-12 words using our most important
| | 00:28 | keyword phrases but while also having it
make sense to anyone who will see it as
| | 00:32 | a clickable link in the
search engine results page.
| | 00:35 | Let's start out by just
putting our three major phrases in.
| | 00:39 | We'll start with Great Classic Books to
Read, which combines two of our phrases
| | 00:44 | just like we did within the copy.
| | 00:46 | Learning to combine words this way is
especially handy for title tags since our
| | 00:50 | space is so limited.
| | 00:51 | So let's see.
| | 00:53 | We also have must read classic books.
| | 00:57 | Let's add a hyphen, which is ignored
and treated as a space by the search engines,
| | 01:02 | and then add Must Read Classic Books.
| | 01:04 | You'll notice I'm typing
these in with initial caps.
| | 01:08 | Well it doesn't matter to search
engines if you use caps or not, as they are not
| | 01:12 | case-sensitive, it typically looks
better to have your titles use initial caps,
| | 01:16 | just like any kind of title uses.
| | 01:19 | Okay, so we have one, two, three, nine
words here and it looks pretty repetitive
| | 01:25 | with Classic, Read, and
Books all being used twice.
| | 01:28 | Let's see if we can figure out a way to
use those phrases, but more succinctly.
| | 01:33 | Since Classic Books is contained within
both phrases, let's see what happens if
| | 01:38 | we move the Must Read to the front and
remove the last instance of Classic Books altogether.
| | 01:47 | So we have Must Read Great Classic Books.
| | 01:50 | Since Classic Books is contained within
both phrases, let's see what happens if
| | 01:55 | we move the Must Read to the front
and remove the last instance of Classic
| | 01:59 | Books to read altogether.
| | 02:01 | So we have Must Read Great Classic Books.
| | 02:06 | It's not quite using our exact phrases.
| | 02:09 | That might be okay but let's
see what else we might try.
| | 02:12 | How about this?
| | 02:13 | Great Classic Books to
Read - Popular Classic Books.
| | 02:23 | Again okay but now we're not making
use of the second-most entirely searched
| | 02:27 | phrase of Must Read Classic Books.
| | 02:31 | Let's try something different.
| | 02:32 | Just like hyphens, search engines
ignore most punctuation such as periods,
| | 02:36 | commas, and exclamation points.
| | 02:38 | So you can sometimes use
those to your advantage.
| | 02:42 | How about this?
| | 02:43 | Must Read! Classic Books to Read.
| | 02:48 | That might be a good start.
| | 02:49 | It gives us the Must Read Classic
Books phrase plus the Classic Books to Read
| | 02:55 | phrase all in just six words.
| | 02:58 | So we have room for at least
another phrase. Maybe we can do some
| | 03:02 | more combining.
| | 03:03 | Let's add a hyphen.
| | 03:05 | As an aside, I prefer hyphens
instead of commas in titles.
| | 03:09 | It doesn't matter to the search
engines but it just looks better to me.
| | 03:13 | You can also make good use of colons
in some title tags as those are also ignored.
| | 03:18 | So let's see.
| | 03:19 | We have Popular Classic Books and
Recommended Classic Books still left to use.
| | 03:26 | Let's try to combine them into
Popular and Recommended Classic Books.
| | 03:34 | So now we have Must Read! Classic Books to
Read - Popular and Recommended Classic Books.
| | 03:41 | While this isn't using both exact
phrases, it's using Recommended Classic Books
| | 03:46 | and since there are only eight other
pages out there which have that exact
| | 03:49 | phrase in their title tag, we may stand
a good chance of ranking for that phrase
| | 03:53 | if we use that one in an exact manner.
| | 03:57 | For the popular one, while it's not
exact, it still in close proximity to two
| | 04:02 | uses of the words Classic Books,
where it may help by just being there.
| | 04:06 | I think we're good to go!
| | 04:08 | Let's see what it looks like on the website.
| | 04:10 | So now we can see our title tag
here at the top of our browser.
| | 04:15 | Must Read! Classic Books to Read -
Popular and Recommended Classic Books, and
| | 04:23 | then the My Kindle Reviews is just
added automatically by our template, which is fine.
| | 04:28 | So just remember that your title
tags don't have to be set in stone.
| | 04:32 | You can always tweak them later if
they don't seem to be working for you.
| | 04:36 | But I usually suggest giving them at
least a month or two to really get a feel
| | 04:40 | for how they're working.
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| Writing meta-description tags| 00:00 | Once you've created your page content
and your title tags, the next step is the
| | 00:05 | meta description tags.
| | 00:07 | They're given some weight by the
search engines and they can often show up as
| | 00:10 | the description of your page in the
search results if they're using the keyword
| | 00:13 | phrase that our searcher used.
| | 00:15 | This makes them one of the best ways
of controlling the description that Google uses.
| | 00:20 | If you don't have a meta description tag,
Google will pull some content from the
| | 00:24 | page that best matches the searcher's query.
| | 00:27 | So now let's create a meta
description tag for our Classic Books page.
| | 00:32 | What we want to do is write one or two
sentences that sum up what the page is
| | 00:36 | all about and also uses the keyword
phrases we think people will be using to
| | 00:40 | find it, so it will show up.
| | 00:43 | Keep in mind it's often a good place
for those extra keyword phrases that you
| | 00:47 | may not have been able to fit in
your title tag if you are optimizing for
| | 00:51 | more than three phrases.
| | 00:53 | In this document, we've got our keyword
phrases, our title tag, and our content.
| | 00:59 | In our title tag, we never got the exact phrase
| | 01:02 | Great Classic Books in there, nor
did we quite get the phrase Popular Classic Books.
| | 01:08 | In addition, I do have some classic
science fiction book reviews to add to
| | 01:12 | this section.
| | 01:13 | So the phrase we
originally left out might work here.
| | 01:16 | I often like to start meta
descriptions with the company name or name of the
| | 01:20 | website, especially for not using it
at the beginning of the title tag as
| | 01:24 | with this page.
| | 01:26 | So let's do that.
| | 01:28 | My Kindle Reviews' great Classic Books
section provides reviews of some of the
| | 01:32 | most popular classic books available
including science fiction book reviews...
| | 01:37 | No, wait.
| | 01:38 | It should be books, plural.
| | 01:41 | We'll change that to including
reviews of classic science fiction books.
| | 01:46 | Yes, that's better.
| | 01:49 | It says the same thing but
uses our exact keyword phrase.
| | 01:54 | Let's keep going.
| | 01:56 | Old-fashioned classic romantic fiction
and everyone's favorite great classic
| | 02:01 | books like Dracula and The Phantom of the Opera.
| | 02:06 | It looks like I put great classic
books in there again just naturally.
| | 02:10 | But you know what, I think it fits
better in that second spot than at the
| | 02:14 | beginning where I said
great Classic Books section.
| | 02:17 | Since it doesn't help to have the
phrase in there twice as far as the search
| | 02:21 | engines go and since it does sound
a bit awkward in the first instance,
| | 02:24 | let's edit it again.
| | 02:26 | It looks like we can just remove great
Classic Books section from the beginning.
| | 02:31 | So now we have "My Kindle Reviews
provides reviews of some of the most popular
| | 02:36 | classic books available including
reviews of classic science fiction books,
| | 02:41 | old-fashioned classic romantic fiction
and everyone's favorite great classic books
| | 02:45 | like Dracula and The Phantom of the Opera."
| | 02:48 | I think we've got it.
| | 02:49 | Let's see how it looks in
the Google search results.
| | 02:51 | We'll just search for "my kindle reviews
classic books," just to make sure that it
| | 02:56 | shows up in the Google results so
we can check out the description.
| | 03:00 | So there it is!
| | 03:02 | My Kindle Reviews provides reviews of
some of the most popular classic books.
| | 03:05 | Yup!
| | 03:06 | That's the meta description that we
just wrote and put on the website.
| | 03:09 | While meta descriptions aren't
given the kind of weight that the search
| | 03:13 | engines give to title tags,
| | 03:15 | they can reinforce the keywords for
which you've optimized in the searcher's mind
| | 03:19 | as they will be bolded on
the search results page.
| | 03:22 | Meta descriptions provide one more way
of boiling down each page's content into
| | 03:27 | specific, focused keyword phrases.
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|
|
5. Writing Effective Web Site ContentWhat good content is and why it's needed| 00:00 | Every page of your web site needs some
sort of content, but not all webpage
| | 00:05 | content is created equal.
| | 00:06 | The search engines and your site visitors
want good content that fills their needs.
| | 00:12 | Good content is the regular pages of your site.
| | 00:16 | It speaks to the target audience, solves
their problems, answers their questions,
| | 00:21 | and provides information.
| | 00:23 | Bad content is usually written just
for search engines and not for people.
| | 00:29 | Writing content that isn't really
intended for people but just for search
| | 00:32 | engines may still bring you search
engine rankings and some search engine
| | 00:36 | visitors, but it's usually not going to
convert your site visitors into taking
| | 00:40 | action on your website.
| | 00:42 | You don't have to fake real content.
| | 00:45 | You can edit the content you already
have on your site to make it more appealing
| | 00:49 | to both search engines and users.
| | 00:51 | Stay away from creating fake pages,
sometimes called doorway pages, that aren't
| | 00:56 | an actual part of your website.
| | 00:59 | Instead, just think about what your
target audience is looking for at the search
| | 01:03 | engines and write it down clearly
and descriptively on your pages.
| | 01:08 | Content that is king is written
for your users while also keeping the
| | 01:13 | search engines in mind.
| | 01:14 | It's definitely a balancing act.
| | 01:16 | The key thing to remember is that you
can write content that your users will
| | 01:20 | appreciate while also using your
researched keyword phrases that will get them
| | 01:24 | to your site in the first place.
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| The different types of content pages| 00:00 | There are different types
of pages on every website.
| | 00:03 | Each of the different types needs a
different type of content and often a
| | 00:07 | different keyword focus.
| | 00:10 | When you surf the web, you'll notice
many businesses seem to assume that anyone
| | 00:14 | who lands on their website must
already know who they are and what they do.
| | 00:18 | So they don't bother explaining this anywhere.
| | 00:20 | However, when people find web sites
through search engines, this may not be true.
| | 00:25 | You have to assume that all site
visitors know nothing about you.
| | 00:29 | Each and every page of your site must
let visitors know at a glance that they're
| | 00:34 | in the right place and that
they found what they need.
| | 00:36 | By using keyword phrases in the content
on all your pages, they'll notice them
| | 00:41 | when they click through from the search
engines and see right away that you have
| | 00:44 | what they're looking for.
| | 00:46 | Any given website might have any or
all of these types of content pages.
| | 00:51 | And each of these types of pages will
use different types of keywords with
| | 00:54 | differing competitiveness levels.
| | 00:58 | Since the home page is given the most
weight by the search engines, this is the
| | 01:02 | one where you can use your most
general and most competitive keyword phrases.
| | 01:05 | You want to be sure to also use a
nice succinct keyword-rich tagline if
| | 01:10 | you can.
| | 01:11 | The home page is where you can also
direct people to the important main
| | 01:14 | categories of your web site, which
gives you an opportunity to focus an
| | 01:18 | additional keyword phrases.
| | 01:20 | Your top-level category pages, those that
are linked to from your main navigation,
| | 01:25 | are also given a lot of
weight by search engines.
| | 01:28 | So, on these pages, you'll want to
write broadly about the category in
| | 01:31 | general while also introducing some
of the subcategories or some important
| | 01:36 | products or services.
| | 01:38 | If you sell hundreds or thousands of
products on your site, you may need to also
| | 01:42 | create subcategory pages, which will
have similar content to category pages,
| | 01:46 | just somewhat more specific.
| | 01:49 | As you go deeper into your site,
you'll need to provide content for your
| | 01:52 | individual product or services pages.
| | 01:54 | These are where you will get very
specific and write as much copy as necessary.
| | 02:00 | You can base your content around the
keyword phrases that are less competitive
| | 02:03 | such as the actual product or service's name.
| | 02:07 | Peripheral pages of your web site are
those that aren't necessarily trying to
| | 02:10 | sell anything, but they
provide additional information.
| | 02:14 | News pages, articles, blog posts and
the like would fit into this category.
| | 02:19 | These are usually longer than
other pages of your site and need to be
| | 02:22 | very informative.
| | 02:23 | They're also a great way to
show your company's expertise.
| | 02:27 | Typically, these pages can be found in
the search engines for keyword phrases
| | 02:31 | that you just happen to
naturally use within them.
| | 02:33 | Although it doesn't hurt to do a
little keyword research in advance before
| | 02:37 | sitting down to write them.
| | 02:39 | I love About Us pages for search engine
optimization purposes because they are
| | 02:43 | nearly always linked from the main
navigation and can therefore be optimized for
| | 02:47 | some general keyword
phrases that describe what you do.
| | 02:51 | They're also great credibility enhancers.
| | 02:53 | So be sure to promote all the awesome
things your company has done on this page.
| | 02:58 | Many sites also contain Help-type pages.
| | 03:01 | While they don't always need to be
optimized for keywords, some of them can be
| | 03:05 | such as FAQ pages or glossaries.
| | 03:08 | Those provide great keyword opportunities.
| | 03:11 | Others such as contact forms or
download pages may not need to be optimized for
| | 03:15 | keywords as you may not want people to
land on them straight from the search engines,
| | 03:20 | since they might confuse people
when they've viewed out of context that way.
| | 03:24 | After all, the idea is to ensure that
when someone finds any page of your site
| | 03:28 | from a search engine, they should
immediately know that they're in the right
| | 03:32 | place and be easily able to drill down further.
| | 03:35 | As you sit down to write content for any
page of your web site, remember to think
| | 03:40 | about what type of page it is, what
sorts of keyword phrases belong on it and
| | 03:44 | what type of content would be most appropriate.
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| Using keywords in existing content| 00:00 | Now that you know what good content is,
and which sorts of keyword should go on
| | 00:04 | which pages, I'll show you how to get
those pesky keywords into your content.
| | 00:08 | These techniques can be used if you've
already get well-written content on your web pages,
| | 00:13 | and also when checking
newly written content from a copywriter who
| | 00:16 | might be just learning to write
for both search engines and users.
| | 00:20 | Search engines traditionally can't
read and index words that are contained
| | 00:24 | within graphics or Flash.
| | 00:25 | So be sure to keep your keyword
phrases out of those, if at all possible.
| | 00:30 | If you must use them, be sure to use
alternative text or image alt attribute.
| | 00:35 | You can also place your content in
what's called a Noscript tag for content that
| | 00:40 | is on your pages, but not
visible to search engines.
| | 00:43 | But your best bet is to simply keep
keyword-rich content out of those areas that
| | 00:47 | search engines can't read.
| | 00:50 | Often, web designers like to make fancy
taglines or headlines, so they do so by
| | 00:54 | placing them in images, where
they can use interesting fonts.
| | 00:58 | The problem with this is that many
taglines and headlines have keyword phrases
| | 01:02 | contained within them.
| | 01:03 | The My Kindle Reviews example
web site has a nice keyword-rich tagline,
| | 01:08 | Electronic Books - Devices,
Kindle Accessories and eBook Reviews.
| | 01:13 | It would be a shame for that
to be a graphic, which wouldn't
| | 01:16 | be search-friendly.
| | 01:17 | One thing that I cannot stress enough is
that your web site users always come first.
| | 01:22 | You absolutely have to make sense to people.
| | 01:25 | Using keywords in your content is not
about sprinkling keywords all around the
| | 01:29 | web site like you may have heard before,
and it's not about stuffing keywords
| | 01:34 | anywhere and everywhere.
| | 01:35 | The trick, if you will, is in being creative.
| | 01:38 | If you look at your existing web site
and think like a reporter by asking
| | 01:42 | questions such as who, what, and where,
you'll be able to answer those questions
| | 01:47 | by using a descriptive keyword phrase.
| | 01:49 | I'll show you what I mean.
| | 01:50 | So, let's say the existing content
of the site talks somewhere about our
| | 01:56 | reviews or says the device.
| | 01:58 | Those are very non-
descriptive or generic type words.
| | 02:02 | By thinking like a reporter, you can ask,
what kind of review or what is the device?
| | 02:09 | The answers will often be a nice
descriptive keyword phrase, which you have
| | 02:15 | previously researched.
| | 02:16 | For instance, our reviews becomes
our short story reviews. The device?
| | 02:21 | It's an electronic
reading device. Simple, right?
| | 02:24 | Here is another example of
good, but generic content.
| | 02:31 | So this paragraph from the Kindle site says,
| | 02:33 | "Straight out of the box,
you'll receive the Kindle."
| | 02:36 | What kind of Kindle are we talking about here?
| | 02:39 | You'll receive the
Kindle itself and the charger.
| | 02:41 | Well, what kind of charger is it?
| | 02:43 | It's a plug, again a generic word, that comes
apart like an iPhone charger, in that you
| | 02:48 | can separate the USB adapter from
the plug. Again, just a generic word.
| | 02:53 | What kind of plug are we talking about here?
| | 02:55 | Well, let's see how we can take this
one small paragraph, what is it?
| | 02:59 | Two sentences, and turn it into a nice
keyword-rich paragraph, still two sentences.
| | 03:05 | Straight out of the box, you'll receive
not just the Kindle, but the electronic
| | 03:10 | book reading device itself, and the,
not just a charger, but a Kindle charger.
| | 03:15 | Then we say, the Kindle plug,
because it's not just a plug.
| | 03:19 | It's a Kindle plug.
| | 03:20 | It comes apart like an iPhone charger,
in that you can separate the USB adapter
| | 03:25 | from the, what kind of plug? Kindle plug.
| | 03:27 | It's as simple as that to get lots of
keyword phrases into just a couple of
| | 03:32 | sentences, just by being more descriptive.
| | 03:36 | Also remember that single keywords
aren't what you're optimizing for.
| | 03:40 | So when you find them in your existing
content, and you will, if you go back and
| | 03:44 | look at your content right now,
change them into keyword phrases instead.
| | 03:48 | For instance, if the single word "case," let's
say, is within the content for our Kindle site.
| | 03:56 | We're going to review our existing
keyword research and see what phrases mean
| | 04:01 | the same thing as case.
| | 04:03 | In this instance, a case for the
Kindle could also be called a Kindle case,
| | 04:08 | a Kindle cover, or even Kindle protection.
| | 04:11 | So we'll go back to the website, find
the instances of where it says case and
| | 04:15 | then use these keyword phrases instead.
| | 04:19 | Another way to make sure your content
provides you with the most search engine
| | 04:22 | benefit is to be sure to use all
different forms of your words, such as past
| | 04:27 | tenses, ing(s), etcetera.
| | 04:30 | You probably noticed in your keyword
research that all different forms of your
| | 04:33 | phrases are searched upon at the engines.
| | 04:35 | While search engines do what's called stemming,
| | 04:38 | that is, they will bring up plurals when
someone searches for singulars and vice versa,
| | 04:43 | it's best not to rely on this.
| | 04:45 | Instead, just choose all the
different variations on the page.
| | 04:49 | The great thing about writing this
way is that it makes your copy read
| | 04:52 | naturally as it's not as repetitive as
it would be if you were using just one
| | 04:57 | form of the phrase.
| | 04:59 | I'm often asked how people can use both
plurals and singulars of a phrase on the same page.
| | 05:04 | I'm not quite sure why people think it
would be difficult as we do it all the
| | 05:07 | time when we're speaking or writing.
| | 05:09 | So here's just a quick example of two
different sentences from a page that use
| | 05:13 | singular and plural versions.
| | 05:16 | You could say on the page, I ordered my
Kindle case, the singular, at the same time.
| | 05:21 | And then somewhere else on the page you
might say check out the Kindle cases now.
| | 05:25 | It's pretty simple to use
both forms within the same page.
| | 05:30 | So the content really, really matters.
| | 05:33 | Good web writing can bring extremely
targeted visitors from the search engines,
| | 05:37 | and then convert them into
customers by what you say on the page.
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| Writing new content for users and search engines| 00:00 | When SEOing a website, most will need
new keyword rich content added to pages.
| | 00:05 | It doesn't necessarily have to be a
lot of content, but there should always
| | 00:09 | be some information that tells the
user and the search engines exactly what
| | 00:13 | this page is all about.
| | 00:15 | Here is our Classics Book Review page,
which is a subcategory page of the Book
| | 00:20 | Reviews main category.
| | 00:21 | As you can see, while we have some
content, it's only little blurbs taken from
| | 00:26 | the book reviews contained within this category.
| | 00:35 | Other than the headline of Classics
Book Reviews, there is no real focus to the
| | 00:40 | content on this page.
| | 00:42 | While a real person can get the gist of
it through visual cues, typically,
| | 00:45 | the search engine needs a bit more info.
| | 00:48 | The good news is that adding a
descriptive introduction to this page will also
| | 00:52 | be helpful to the site visitors.
| | 00:54 | The key is to provide them with the
information as to what this page is all about.
| | 00:59 | Remember when a person finds a page
from the search engines, it may or may not
| | 01:03 | be what they're looking for.
| | 01:04 | By providing some introductory
content, you have the ability to tell them
| | 01:08 | right away that they're in the right
place and that you have exactly what they
| | 01:12 | were seeking.
| | 01:13 | What we need to do is write some
descriptive content and add it right under the
| | 01:18 | headline right over here.
| | 01:22 | We've got seven related keyword gems
previously chosen for this page from our
| | 01:27 | page to phrase document right here.
| | 01:31 | So we take those and I've pasted
them into a Word document where I'll be
| | 01:38 | writing the content.
| | 01:39 | I've also got the number of
searches there as well as the allintitle numbers,
| | 01:44 | which is the number of pages
indexed, which use that phrase within
| | 01:48 | the title tag.
| | 01:50 | Any or all of these would be good to
use within the content of this page.
| | 01:54 | So now it's more of a question of how
much content we want or need on the page
| | 01:58 | and which ones we can work
into it in a way that makes sense.
| | 02:02 | Since classic books to read has a
much higher search count than most of the
| | 02:05 | other phrases, and it's highly relevant
to what this page of our website is all
| | 02:10 | about, plus it has a lower allintitle
count than most, we should be sure to use
| | 02:14 | that one when we're writing.
| | 02:17 | Classic science fiction books also
has a high search count, although its
| | 02:21 | allintitle is also higher.
| | 02:23 | But we only want to use this one if
we have reviews on that type of book.
| | 02:28 | Must read classic books has the
next highest number of searches.
| | 02:32 | And with only a 10 allintitle, I'd
say hat it's also a must used keyword
| | 02:37 | phrase for this page.
| | 02:38 | It should even fit nicely with the
first phrase, classic books to read, because
| | 02:43 | they have the same word order.
| | 02:44 | In other words, we could easily
combine those two phrases into one long one,
| | 02:49 | great classic books to read, and
receive the benefit of both shorter phrases,
| | 02:54 | great classic books and classic books to read.
| | 02:57 | In fact, let's rearrange them so that
they're in the order of importance to us.
| | 03:03 | So now, we've ended up with this.
| | 03:05 | Let's see how we did for keyword phrases.
| | 03:08 | We've got "Are you looking for great
classic books to read," which has those
| | 03:13 | couple of keyword phrases.
| | 03:14 | Then we've got great classic books,
and must read classic books, and here is
| | 03:27 | popular classic books, and then
here again, must read classics.
| | 03:33 | We also have different
variations of these words in here.
| | 03:37 | They're not necessarily
the exact phrases in there.
| | 03:39 | There are plurals and different forms
of the word, which is also good because
| | 03:42 | the search engines will pick up
that the various words are in here.
| | 03:46 | Like the word classic is in here at
different times without being part of a phrase.
| | 03:51 | That's good to do.
| | 03:52 | You don't have to always make
everything be the exact keyword phrase as long as
| | 03:56 | you are using your exact keyword phrases also.
| | 03:59 | So let's see what this looks like
on the Classics Book Reviews page.
| | 04:03 | Here is without it and
here we have the new content.
| | 04:08 | So if people get to this page now,
they know that's a page about classic books
| | 04:13 | to read and then there are
book reviews that follow.
| | 04:15 | It reads naturally, tells the user
what they'll find on the page, and makes an
| | 04:20 | emotional connection with the reader
while also making good use of keyword
| | 04:24 | phrases and keeping a good keyword focus.
| | 04:27 | Using these techniques on your site
will help your pages be not only found in
| | 04:31 | the search engines but also keep
your content relevant and compelling for your users.
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|
|
6. Link Popularity and PageRankUnderstanding link popularity and why it's important| 00:00 | Once you have your on page SEO in good
shape, you can't just rest on your laurels.
| | 00:05 | It's time to get some links.
| | 00:07 | In simplistic terms, link popularity
is simply the measure of links that
| | 00:12 | point to your website.
| | 00:13 | It goes beyond the number of pages however.
| | 00:16 | It also includes the importance and
quality of the pages that link to yours as
| | 00:20 | well as the anchor text
they are using to link to you.
| | 00:23 | Anchor text as you may recall are those
words within the clickable part of any link.
| | 00:28 | In addition, the search engines link
popularity algorithms also take into
| | 00:33 | account the age of the link, meaning
that older links will most likely have more
| | 00:37 | power than newer ones.
| | 00:40 | Search engines also try to take into
consideration how relevant the content on
| | 00:44 | the page that links to yours is.
| | 00:45 | But this is difficult for them
to do, as it's very subjective.
| | 00:50 | Search engines put at least as much
weight in what others sites say about
| | 00:54 | your link popularity as they do in what you
say about your own site through your content.
| | 00:59 | The main reason they do this is, in very
simple terms, because you can't be trusted.
| | 01:04 | Well, not necessarily you,
but web masters in general.
| | 01:09 | It's human nature to try to gain
every possible advantage in the search
| | 01:12 | engines and because of that some people
try to trick them with the information
| | 01:16 | they put on their pages.
| | 01:18 | In other words, they spam the search engines.
| | 01:20 | With link popularity as a major
component in the search engines ranking
| | 01:25 | formulas, it adds an
additional layer of protection for them.
| | 01:29 | Traditionally, when someone linked to a
website, they did it because they liked the
| | 01:33 | web site and wanted to recommend
it to their own site visitors.
| | 01:37 | Therefore, the sites with the most
links were likely to be the best sites.
| | 01:41 | Links to search engines are considered a vote.
| | 01:45 | After all, would someone
link to something that was icky?
| | 01:48 | The bottom line for search engines is
that lots of links pointing to a site is a
| | 01:52 | signal that the site is probably good.
| | 01:56 | Unfortunately, as link popularity
became such a large factor in search engine
| | 02:00 | algorithms, like on page SEO it too got gamed.
| | 02:04 | This makes it even more difficult for
many web sites to get links, because people
| | 02:08 | are sometimes linking for the wrong reasons.
| | 02:11 | That is, they are linking just
because someone else will link back to them,
| | 02:14 | rather than linking because they like the site.
| | 02:17 | Despite having being gamed throughout
the years, link popularity is still an
| | 02:22 | important component to how the pages of
your website will rank in the search engines.
| | 02:27 | This is not going to change since
it's been proven to help search engines
| | 02:30 | determine the relevancy and
importance of any given web page.
| | 02:35 | Having a great website that goes above
and beyond what others are doing is a
| | 02:39 | critical component to gaining link popularity.
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| Introducing Google's PageRank | 00:00 | There are many misconceptions
when it comes to Google PageRank.
| | 00:04 | Some people think that PageRank is
how Google ranks pages within their
| | 00:07 | search results.
| | 00:08 | Others think it's a number from one
to ten that can be measured by a little
| | 00:12 | green graph on a toolbar.
| | 00:14 | Both of these have bits of truth
to them, but aren't quite right.
| | 00:17 | So let's dig right into what Google
PageRank actually is and isn't, and what you
| | 00:22 | need to know and do to
get some for your website.
| | 00:24 | Google PageRank is not how or where
your page ranks in the search results.
| | 00:29 | That's their algorithm.
| | 00:31 | PageRank is also not easily
measurable, at least not by anybody outside
| | 00:36 | of Google itself.
| | 00:37 | While you can see a representation of
PageRank if you have the Google toolbar
| | 00:42 | installed on your browser,
| | 00:43 | it's not really PageRank in the
sense of what Google really considers
| | 00:47 | PageRank to be.
| | 00:48 | Let's take a quick look at the
toolbar PR of our example site.
| | 00:53 | We've installed the Google toolbar on
here with the PageRank bar, and if you
| | 00:57 | mouse over it, you can see that Google is
saying that this page has a page rank of one.
| | 01:02 | Since this is a fairly new page and
I haven't implemented any link building
| | 01:06 | techniques on it yet, it only shows
a page rank of one on the homepage.
| | 01:13 | The inner pages aren't showing any
PR at all, but don't despair when you see that.
| | 01:17 | Even though the Google toolbar shows
no PR or very little PR, the pages are
| | 01:22 | usually still indexed and can also
rank for their targeted keyword phrases.
| | 01:26 | This is why I say do not put too much
stock in toolbar PageRank, as it's not
| | 01:31 | the same as real PR.
| | 01:34 | If you're worried about toolbar
PageRank having dropped or just not showing up
| | 01:38 | at all, keep this in mind.
| | 01:40 | It's not accurate.
| | 01:42 | It's only a visual representation.
| | 01:44 | It's only updated a few times a year,
so newer pages can take many months to
| | 01:49 | show any toolbar PR, but that
doesn't mean they don't have any.
| | 01:53 | The deeper into a site you go,
the lower the PR you'll see.
| | 01:57 | That's normal, as those deeper pages
really do get less link popularity, which is
| | 02:02 | similar to PageRank.
| | 02:03 | Since so many people stress over their
toolbar PR, it wouldn't surprise me if
| | 02:08 | some day in the not too distant
future, we see Google remove the toolbar.
| | 02:12 | There have been signs of it updating less often.
| | 02:15 | Don't make the mistake of thinking of
PR as the goal of SEO in and of itself.
| | 02:20 | It's not.
| | 02:21 | Your SEO goal is to obtain visibility
in the search results when people are
| | 02:25 | seeking what you offer.
| | 02:27 | Having PageRank is something you need
in order to fulfill that goal, but your
| | 02:31 | site will obtain page rank naturally
by having a link-worthy site and by
| | 02:35 | getting the word out about it.
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| Knowing the best way to get links| 00:01 | In the 15 years I've been doing SEO
there have been a variety of methods people
| | 00:05 | have tried in order to
gain links to their web sites.
| | 00:08 | Some work for a while, some never did.
| | 00:11 | Since many of the old ways are still
discussed online in many articles, forums,
| | 00:15 | and blog posts, I wanted to explain why
they're not worth your time and effort.
| | 00:18 | First, you need to remember why
you want links in the first place.
| | 00:24 | Long before Google was a search engine,
and it was Google that first popularized
| | 00:28 | link popularity, web masters marketed
their website by trying to get links.
| | 00:33 | But they did it because of the
targeted traffic those links could bring.
| | 00:37 | This is still the reason today why
you should be trying to get them.
| | 00:42 | While exchanging links with other
sites isn't bad in and of itself and won't
| | 00:46 | cause the search engines to
penalize your website or anything,
| | 00:50 | it can cause people to make bad decisions
with which sites they end up linking to.
| | 00:54 | I have seen websites that are so
desperate for links they will link to any
| | 00:59 | web site which agrees to
link to theirs in exchange.
| | 01:02 | This is not the way to get links
and more so not the way to give links.
| | 01:07 | The search engines do look at what
sites you're linking to and if you link to
| | 01:11 | ones that they know are bad or spammy,
those links will only hurt your site.
| | 01:15 | But more than that, why would you
want to point your website visitors to
| | 01:19 | web sites you don't truly recommend?
| | 01:22 | As links became more difficult to obtain,
web masters have resorted to paying for links.
| | 01:28 | The problem with this is that search
engines dislike them, because if you pay
| | 01:32 | for a link, it's not really a vote now, is it?
| | 01:35 | So if the search engine can a spot a
link as paid, they will disregard it and
| | 01:39 | not count it towards your link popularity score.
| | 01:42 | In fact, they even request that you
label paid links as sponsored by marking them
| | 01:47 | with what's called a nofollow link attribute.
| | 01:50 | This helps them filter
them out of their algorithm.
| | 01:52 | While you can certainly buy ads, which
provide a link to you site if you would like,
| | 01:57 | just remember that they may or may
not count towards your link popularity score.
| | 02:02 | If you decide to buy links, be sure
they are ones that will bring targeted
| | 02:06 | visitors to your site who are
interested in what you sell.
| | 02:10 | In general your best bet is to always avoid
any sort of link building tricks and schemes.
| | 02:15 | While you can submit your site to
websites that will accept any link,
| | 02:19 | it's doubtful it will count for
much with the search engines,
| | 02:22 | dince they understand it's not a vote.
| | 02:24 | Stay far away from anything that could
be considered a link farm, which is just
| | 02:28 | a ring of sites that are agreed to
link to each other in order to increase
| | 02:32 | their link popularity.
| | 02:34 | You should also put the idea of buying
a whole slew of sites just so you can
| | 02:39 | link them altogether and increase your
link popularity right out of your head.
| | 02:43 | It's one of the oldest tricks in
the book, which eventually get caught.
| | 02:47 | That said if you own a few sites and
it make sense to link between them,
| | 02:51 | you don't have to be afraid of doing so.
| | 02:53 | Just be sure that the links makes
sense within the context of the web site
| | 02:57 | and you'll be fine.
| | 02:59 | There are no shortcuts when
it comes to link building.
| | 03:01 | If something seems too good to
be true, it's likely that it is.
| | 03:05 | As with everything you're learning
about SEO, it's going to come back to having
| | 03:09 | something worth linking to.
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| Content creation and promotion as "link bait"| 00:00 | Most websites have content about their
products and services, which is of course
| | 00:04 | a key component to SEO as well as
servicing the needs of their customers.
| | 00:09 | However, in today's Internet
marketplace in order to gain a competitive
| | 00:13 | advantage, websites often have to go
beyond their products and services, so that
| | 00:17 | people flock to the site even when
they're not planning to purchase anything.
| | 00:21 | This is typically done through
some form of informative, interesting
| | 00:24 | web site content.
| | 00:26 | The secondary benefit of creating
this sort of content is that when done
| | 00:30 | correctly, it has the potential
to gain links from other web sites.
| | 00:35 | Gone are the days when you could
request links without having something
| | 00:38 | worth linking to.
| | 00:39 | The gist of link building in the 21st
century is to create comprehensive content
| | 00:44 | in multiple forms, which goes
above and beyond what already exists.
| | 00:49 | Make yourself or your company an
authoritative go-to source, when anyone is
| | 00:54 | looking for information
in your area of expertise.
| | 00:57 | Then get the word out to your
various target markets about what you have.
| | 01:02 | Different people like
different types of content.
| | 01:05 | By using all forms of content,
you have a better chance of reaching all the
| | 01:09 | people who might be interested in yours.
| | 01:11 | You'll find the most success when you
go beyond just articles and blog posts,
| | 01:15 | but also create videos, slide
demos, podcasts, and newsletters.
| | 01:20 | Different target audiences are
seeking out different types of content.
| | 01:24 | For those who are researching a
purchase, create general info and reviews.
| | 01:29 | For those who are looking to get the
most out of an already purchased product or
| | 01:32 | service, like how-to's.
| | 01:34 | For other specific demographics such
as parents, teachers or techies, creates
| | 01:39 | specialized content or promotions just for them.
| | 01:43 | To create link-worthy content,
start by brainstorming it.
| | 01:47 | Then create it in multiple formats
and promote the whole thing as a set.
| | 01:51 | When things are packaged as a set,
it suddenly becomes more link-worthy than
| | 01:55 | just a typical piece of content.
| | 01:57 | Once your content is created,
it's not going to gain links without any
| | 02:01 | promotion on your part.
| | 02:03 | You'll need to be research online
venues where you can provide your content.
| | 02:07 | You'll also want to write press
releases to announce it and also submit it to
| | 02:10 | specialized directories.
| | 02:12 | Then seek out bloggers who have a
proven track record of discussing and linking
| | 02:16 | to content such as yours.
| | 02:19 | Submit Press Releases to services
that will distribute it to related online venues.
| | 02:24 | Some popular ones include
24-7pressrelease.com, Prweb, and Marketwire.
| | 02:30 | Be sure that the content within your
press release links back to the content
| | 02:34 | on your web site.
| | 02:36 | Some specialized directories include
article directories, video directories,
| | 02:41 | RSS feed directories, podcast
directories, and software directories, if you
| | 02:46 | offer downloads.
| | 02:49 | When reaching out to bloggers,
it's critical to do your research first.
| | 02:53 | Look for those who write about
your industry and try to make a
| | 02:56 | personal connection.
| | 02:57 | Make sure you know their name.
| | 02:59 | Whatever you do, don't send any
automated requests or e-mails to bloggers and
| | 03:04 | most bloggers aren't really
interested in press releases either.
| | 03:08 | As you can see, link building is not a
stand-alone procedure, but requires the
| | 03:12 | creation of something worth linking to.
| | 03:15 | While it's difficult to come up with
the great ideas for unique and interesting
| | 03:19 | content, as well as to promote it to the
appropriate people, when done correctly
| | 03:23 | it has the potential to pay-
off big dividends in three ways:
| | 03:27 | increased web site traffic, increased
links and increased search engine rankings.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Real-world link bait ideas | 00:00 | Let's talk about some
real world link bait ideas.
| | 00:04 | I asked my colleague and link building
guru, Debra Mastaler from Alliance-Link,
| | 00:09 | for some tips in this area as
it's what she specializes in.
| | 00:12 | So the rest of what you'll hear in this
video comes from Debra's brainstorming
| | 00:16 | for our example Kindle site.
| | 00:18 | The first thing Debra suggested was to
create a step-by-step blog post on some
| | 00:24 | technical aspect of using the Kindle.
| | 00:26 | For example, how to find and
download free books without using Amazon.
| | 00:32 | We would want to supply screenshots for
each step and also explain a bit about
| | 00:36 | copyright law and why these books are free.
| | 00:38 | Then it would post this sort of content
in the Kindle category of the web site.
| | 00:43 | The idea is to appeal to those people
who would be seeking this information.
| | 00:48 | Another idea was to provide step-by-step
video on the same topic, embed it on our
| | 00:53 | website and then upload it to
YouTube and other video sites.
| | 00:56 | This would probably be something like
these courses here at lynda.com and would
| | 01:00 | appeal to those visual people
who like to learn through videos.
| | 01:05 | How about doing a step-by-step podcast
on the same topic and posting it to our site
| | 01:09 | then uploading it to
various podcast directories?
| | 01:13 | Can you see where we are going with this?
| | 01:14 | It's all multiple forms of the same
content, which provides us with the
| | 01:19 | opportunity to reach a wider audience
as well as gain links from different
| | 01:23 | types of directories.
| | 01:26 | Once all those different forms of
content are created, we should issue a press
| | 01:30 | release announcing the new articles,
video, and podcast series through a press
| | 01:34 | release service such 24-7PressRelease.
| | 01:38 | Another thing we could do is add our
blog's RSS feed to RSS blog directories such
| | 01:43 | as Feedage and Feedzilla.
| | 01:45 | There is a great list at the top-rank
blog of these types of blog directories,
| | 01:50 | which take submissions.
| | 01:52 | Once we have our main content produced, we
could write abbreviated version of the articles.
| | 01:57 | We will want to keep these down to 400
words or less, then submit them to top
| | 02:02 | article directories such as ezinearticles,
articlebase, goarticles, Article Alley,
| | 02:07 | and articledashboard.
| | 02:10 | Next, we will want to seek out Kindle
bloggers and find out if they might be
| | 02:14 | interested in any guest articles or posts.
| | 02:17 | This will get our stuff on their
site with a nice link back in the bio.
| | 02:22 | We can also add Amazon promotions to our site.
| | 02:25 | They have an Amazon deal of the day
where we could write post on deals that are
| | 02:30 | relevant to the Kindle or to books.
| | 02:32 | This creates even more linkable content.
| | 02:35 | How about writing a post on free
Kindle books in foreign languages?
| | 02:39 | We could focus on one language at a time,
start with 15 to 20 books and then add
| | 02:44 | more languages later.
| | 02:45 | Then we would announce the new content
in English and in the foreign language.
| | 02:50 | Again, it's all to go above and beyond
the norm of what's already around and to
| | 02:54 | gain more market share.
| | 02:57 | We could also write a post on charging a
Kindle and downloading books outside of the US.
| | 03:02 | This too could appeal to a larger demographic.
| | 03:04 | We would want to focus on couple of countries
then post as a step-by-step with photographs.
| | 03:10 | With these photos we could create a
Flickr stream and tag each photo with keywords.
| | 03:15 | In essence we want to build a
little Kindle community right on Flicker.
| | 03:19 | All of these things can apply to
whatever your site is about as well.
| | 03:23 | You just have to think of the right topic.
| | 03:26 | Another suggestion would be to
interview a well-know journalist who has written
| | 03:30 | about Kindle and then ask
for an update on his/her opinion.
| | 03:33 | We would add the interview to our blog
and issue a press release plus send an
| | 03:38 | email announcement to interested bloggers.
| | 03:41 | Just substitute Kindle here for
whatever you offer and you get the idea.
| | 03:46 | Debra came up with these ideas for my
Kindle sites in less than 10 minutes.
| | 03:50 | There are hundreds of more types of content
and promotion that could be done for this site.
| | 03:55 | It's really a matter of how much time
and energy or money I am willing to invest
| | 04:00 | in order to become an authority site.
| | 04:01 | Since this is just a hobby site,
I'll try to do some of these things over time,
| | 04:05 | but that will not have the same impact
as if I was constantly churning out this
| | 04:10 | type of great content and then
getting the word out about it to the
| | 04:13 | appropriate channels.
| | 04:14 | For a business web site where it's
imperative to be known as an authority and
| | 04:18 | where there are hundreds or thousands of
competitors, it's usually worthwhile to
| | 04:22 | put these ideas into action.
| | 04:24 | In fact, it's imperative to do
so if you want to try to rank for
| | 04:28 | competitive keyword phrases.
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|
|
7. Social Media Marketing and How It Works with SEOIntroducing social media marketing| 00:00 | Social media is sometime referred to as
Web 2.0 as if it were a new phenomenon.
| | 00:06 | The truth is however that the Internet has
been a social medium right from the beginning.
| | 00:11 | By its very nature the Internet is
social, as in a community or tens of
| | 00:15 | thousands of communities.
| | 00:17 | Let's go over some of the various
forms of social media as well as how to use them
| | 00:21 | and not use them for
marketing your website and your business.
| | 00:25 | Social media is very simply just online
communities where people interact with one another.
| | 00:30 | These communities can be forums, chat
rooms, blogs that allow for comments, and
| | 00:35 | other types of Web 2.0 communities.
| | 00:37 | By Web 2.0 communities I just mean things
like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etcetera.
| | 00:42 | Now that you know what social media
is let's talk about what social media
| | 00:47 | marketing or SMM is.
| | 00:50 | In a nutshell SMM is a way of
marketing that reaches people who are part of
| | 00:54 | your target audience by becoming an active
participant in relevant communities and conversations.
| | 01:00 | Think about social media marketing this way.
| | 01:04 | We all know that people tend to
do business with those they like.
| | 01:07 | When others like you, they'll be more
apt to promote you, purchase from you, and
| | 01:12 | recommend you to others.
| | 01:14 | So the idea with social media marketing
is really just to get to know people online.
| | 01:19 | You can think of it as online
networking, if that's easier to understand.
| | 01:24 | By now you might be
wondering how SMM relates to SEO.
| | 01:28 | In some ways it's actually the
opposite of SEO, because rather than people
| | 01:32 | finding you, like through a search engine,
you have got to go out and find the people.
| | 01:37 | Social media marketing has become a
bit of a buzzword as of late and I have
| | 01:41 | seen marketers who think they can just
promote their websites using only SMM while
| | 01:46 | forgetting about their
traditional SEO altogether.
| | 01:49 | This is not smart at all since
they are very different things.
| | 01:52 | While SMM should be part of your
SEO campaign, it's definitely not a
| | 01:56 | substitute for SEO.
| | 01:59 | It's also important to remember that
the goal of SMM is not to receive direct
| | 02:03 | links as you might in a link building campaign.
| | 02:06 | For one thing most social media links
say through Twitter or forum or blog
| | 02:11 | comments have a nofollow attribute on
them which means they aren't counted by
| | 02:16 | search engines in their
link popularity algorithms.
| | 02:19 | That said, you can definitely get some
decent traffic spikes when you market
| | 02:23 | appropriately through social media.
| | 02:26 | And if you have created a lot of great
link-worthy content, you can gain links
| | 02:29 | indirectly through your SMM efforts.
| | 02:33 | The other key part of SMM is
using it as a brand monitor.
| | 02:37 | It's very important to keep tabs on
what others are saying about you or your
| | 02:40 | company online these days.
| | 02:42 | Is it positive or negative?
| | 02:44 | You'll need to decide if
you should respond or not.
| | 02:46 | While you can't control the conversation,
you may be able to guide it to be more
| | 02:51 | favorable to you and all of
this affect your online presence.
| | 02:55 | As an example Comcast has a huge
presence on Twitter where if anyone mentions
| | 03:00 | Comcast, someone from the
company asked if they can help.
| | 03:04 | It's great for customer service
and also for Comcast's reputation.
| | 03:08 | I am sure it's also created a ton of
links for Comcast as people discuss their
| | 03:12 | experiences with having received
immediate help straight from Twitter.
| | 03:16 | While it sounds all new fangle-y and
scary, social media and social media
| | 03:21 | marketing is nothing to be afraid of.
| | 03:23 | You are probably already a part of it
if you'd been online for any time at all.
| | 03:26 | Do you have a Facebook account?
| | 03:29 | Have you ever chosen a hotel or
restaurant based on an online review?
| | 03:32 | Have you sorted out technical info from a forum?
| | 03:36 | If so, you've participated in
social media even if only to view it.
| | 03:40 | Just remember that when you are ready to
participate, the key is to be yourself.
| | 03:45 | Your authentic self.
| | 03:48 | You have to be willing to be
somewhat open for it to work best for you.
| | 03:51 | Remember that social media marketing
is just a new twist on an old tactic.
| | 03:56 | It's not scary and it's not very
different from any of the other forms of
| | 03:59 | online marketing you're probably already using.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Getting started with social media marketing| 00:00 | Like many things in business, sometimes
the hardest part of learning and doing
| | 00:04 | something is simply the getting started part.
| | 00:07 | Let's go over some of the ways you
can get over that hump when it comes to
| | 00:10 | getting started with social media marketing.
| | 00:13 | First you want to research what already
exists in your market. Can you join in?
| | 00:18 | Look for blogs, articles,
videos, tweets, and forums.
| | 00:22 | Start by doing searches on your topic
at Google, then branch out to specific
| | 00:27 | blog engines such as
Technorati and Google's blog search.
| | 00:31 | Twitter and Facebook also have their
own search engines, which are great places
| | 00:34 | to start finding where people in
your target market are hanging out.
| | 00:37 | Once you've found some places,
you start creating social media profiles.
| | 00:42 | You will have a few decisions to make
along the way such as should you use your
| | 00:46 | own name, or that of your brand.
| | 00:48 | The answer to that depends on whether
you need a more personal face or if you
| | 00:52 | are trying to brand your company.
| | 00:53 | You might also consider having
multiple profiles within your organization if
| | 00:57 | it's large enough to support them.
| | 00:59 | For the most part though, you'lll want to
start off with just a few of the major
| | 01:03 | social media outlets such as
Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
| | 01:07 | When you're ready to branch out
further, there is a great site called
| | 01:10 | knowem.com that lists hundreds of
social media sites where you can create a
| | 01:15 | profile and participate.
| | 01:17 | You want to be sure to customize your
profiles as much as you can with your logo,
| | 01:21 | brand colors, and the like.
| | 01:23 | As an aside, even if you don't
participate in tons of communities, because who
| | 01:27 | really has that much time, some social
media profiles allow you to link back to
| | 01:32 | your site which can give you
a quick link popularity help.
| | 01:35 | It's also good for reputation management,
as your profiles should start to show
| | 01:39 | up when people search for your
name at regular search engines.
| | 01:43 | Now you're ready to start
making some social media friends.
| | 01:47 | Start by following people you know,
then follow their friends, then begin
| | 01:51 | observing conversations of interest to you and
follow the interesting people are participating.
| | 01:56 | Most web 2.0 communities also allow
you to upload your contact list to see if
| | 02:01 | any of them are already
participating, so you can follow them too.
| | 02:04 | One thing to remember with social
media is that while you can set up profiles
| | 02:08 | on numerous sites, if you are not
participating in the conversation it won't do much for you.
| | 02:14 | When you first get started, you may
not get it, as nothing will seem to be
| | 02:17 | happening but when you really start to
participate, assuming you found the right
| | 02:21 | communities, it will
eventually start making sense.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Participating in social media communities| 00:00 | Participating in the various online
communities that you find is a bit of
| | 00:04 | tricky balancing act.
| | 00:06 | While we all want to promote our
businesses and websites, you can't or at least
| | 00:10 | shouldn't go into these
communities with that goal.
| | 00:13 | In fact, I would suggest that it's
better to stay out of them altogether unless
| | 00:18 | you are fully committed to
being a good community member.
| | 00:21 | As a forum owner myself for many years,
every day I see people coming into our
| | 00:26 | forum for no other reason than to
try to gain links or to self promote.
| | 00:30 | Most good forums can spot this
behavior from a mile away and won't allow it.
| | 00:35 | That said, there can be
benefits to participating for real in
| | 00:38 | online communities.
| | 00:40 | Just like offline networking can
provide you with business connections, so
| | 00:43 | can online networking.
| | 00:45 | I've personally made many business
friendships and partnerships by participating
| | 00:49 | in online communities.
| | 00:50 | So, let's look at some of the dos and
don'ts of participating in online social media.
| | 00:56 | Most forums and some blogs and other
types of social media communities have
| | 01:00 | specific rules or guidelines posted about
proper netiquette and use of their service.
| | 01:05 | In order to register, you are
typically supposed to read these.
| | 01:08 | I highly suggest that you do because
they're often very strict guidelines when
| | 01:12 | it comes to self-promotion and
dropping links in your posts.
| | 01:16 | This is because due to the fact that
Google put so much emphasis on links
| | 01:20 | within their ranking formula,
online marketers have abused social media
| | 01:24 | communities for their own benefit.
| | 01:26 | The admins of these communities can
easily spot those communities spammers and
| | 01:30 | will ban them fairly quickly.
| | 01:31 | For instance, if you're a new member
of the community and your first post or two
| | 01:36 | you go in and start telling
everyone how great your website or product or
| | 01:39 | service is and especially if you add a
link to it, there is a good chance your
| | 01:43 | post will be deleted or worse, ridiculed.
Plus your account could be terminated.
| | 01:49 | While most social media communities
allow you to create a profile and/or add
| | 01:54 | a signature that appears next to
your name when you post a comment,
| | 01:57 | these days most of them will have
what's called a nofollow attribute on any
| | 02:02 | links that you may place there.
| | 02:03 | The nofollow attribute is a signal to
Google that the link is not a typical vote
| | 02:08 | for the site, like links that a site
owner may place themselves, which means
| | 02:13 | that Google may not give it as much or
any rating in terms of link popularity.
| | 02:17 | Google says they don't count these links at
all but that's not necessarily the whole truth.
| | 02:22 | At any way, the takeaway here is that
while you may be able to add link and
| | 02:27 | even get people to click through and
visit your website, just understand
| | 02:31 | that these links may or may not help
your link popularity, which is okay.
| | 02:35 | It's still good marketing.
| | 02:37 | Be sure that you very carefully review
what people are already talking about
| | 02:41 | within the social media
communities that you join.
| | 02:44 | This will give you a good sense of how
you might fit in and start participating.
| | 02:48 | Are they talking about things that
you're interested in and knowledgeable about?
| | 02:51 | Are they part of your target market?
| | 02:54 | What's their community culture like?
| | 02:56 | Are they polite to each other or
are discussions heated and/or nasty?
| | 03:00 | Neither is necessarily better than the
other, but some people aren't cut out to
| | 03:04 | be part of a community that gets nasty.
| | 03:07 | If you thick skin and don't mind some
heated debate, you may be fine but if you don't
| | 03:11 | you may want to stay
out of the controversial topics.
| | 03:13 | Post and comments within most social
media communities will have many asking
| | 03:19 | questions about the topic at hand.
| | 03:21 | This is where you may be
able to start participating.
| | 03:24 | Look for questions that have gone
unanswered or have been partially answered and
| | 03:28 | select your knowledgeable
muscles by answering them.
| | 03:31 | If you are brand-new to a forum,
do be careful of stepping on the
| | 03:34 | well-established members toes.
| | 03:37 | In other words, don't try to
show them up or make them look dumb.
| | 03:40 | But if there is a place you can
help, feel free to step in and do so.
| | 03:44 | When you do this, you also want to be
100% sure you've got the right answer.
| | 03:49 | All of your efforts will be for nothing
if you go in and start providing wrong
| | 03:53 | or bad advice to people.
| | 03:55 | You can be sure that the other members of the
community will let you know this very quickly.
| | 04:00 | If you are not prepared to start
answering others' questions yet or even if you are,
| | 04:04 | another way of participating in social
media communities is to ask your own questions.
| | 04:09 | You can do this via existing threads
that has some aspect you are unsure about
| | 04:14 | or just feel there could be further
discussion, or if the community is such
| | 04:18 | that allows new posts, you can start a
new topic with some questions you have on
| | 04:22 | the subject at hand.
| | 04:23 | The caveat here is if you're supposed
to be an expert on something, you want to
| | 04:27 | be careful of going in and asking
some basic question that someone of your
| | 04:31 | ability should know.
| | 04:32 | But there is nothing wrong with asking
advanced questions or just asking for
| | 04:37 | further clarification on other peoples' posts.
| | 04:39 | This is a good way to start to
establishing rapport with the other community members.
| | 04:44 | The bottom line to your participation
is to have fun and make some online friends
| | 04:48 | with people who might be interested in
what your company offers, or even just to
| | 04:52 | be able to recommend you to others who might be.
| | 04:55 | But you do have to be careful
of getting lost in social media.
| | 04:58 | In other words, having too much fun
that you participate a little bit too much.
| | 05:03 | It's very easy for social media to be a
total time suck and keep you away from
| | 05:07 | other work that you may need to accomplish.
| | 05:10 | Not everyone is comfortable or wants
to participate in online communities.
| | 05:13 | If you don't have the time or
inclination to be a true participant, then
| | 05:17 | perhaps you can see if there is
someone else in your company who is better
| | 05:20 | suited for the task.
| | 05:21 | There seems to be two kinds of
people in the world, those that enjoy
| | 05:24 | communicating with others
online and those that don't.
| | 05:28 | Oftentimes, you can even hire an
intern who has been participating in social
| | 05:31 | networks for years in their own
personal endeavors who will be happy to become
| | 05:35 | part of the community on your
behalf if it's not your cup of tea.
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|
|
8. Measuring Your SuccessWhy rankings are a poor measure of success| 00:00 | Where any page of your website shows
up in Google when someone types keywords
| | 00:04 | into Google that are related to
what you offer is obviously important.
| | 00:08 | After all, if your page doesn't
show up at all, then the searcher will
| | 00:11 | never find your site.
| | 00:13 | Because of this, most people measure
the success of their SEO efforts by seeing
| | 00:17 | where they rank in Google for the
keyword phrases for which they've optimized.
| | 00:21 | While on the surface this seems like
a good idea, it's not always a good
| | 00:25 | indicator of success for many
reasons. Let's look at why.
| | 00:28 | Google uses many different databases to
retrieve search results for any search query.
| | 00:33 | Each of these databases has
slightly different algorithms.
| | 00:36 | So, any given search can pull up any
given database, which creates a new set of
| | 00:41 | results and thus can show your site
in a different position when you check.
| | 00:45 | Sometimes, just being on a different computer
or a different browser can mix up the results.
| | 00:50 | You'll often see different search
results depending on where Google thinks
| | 00:54 | you are when you're doing the search.
| | 00:56 | They try to be helpful and show you
results that would be more relevant for your
| | 01:00 | particular location, but this means
you may see your own website listed in a
| | 01:04 | certain position, but someone in
another state or country may see it in a
| | 01:08 | completely different position.
| | 01:10 | Google has a lot of information on you.
| | 01:13 | They keep track of all the searches you
make via tracking cookies and other means.
| | 01:18 | If you use Gmail or any other Google
service where you have to log in, they know
| | 01:22 | even more about you.
| | 01:23 | So again, in an effort to try to show
you what they think you want to see,
| | 01:27 | they will personalize your result,
which of course means that your results
| | 01:32 | will be different than your boss's
or your friend's who have different
| | 01:35 | personalizations set.
| | 01:37 | Even if you log out of your
Google accounts, they still track you.
| | 01:40 | While there are ways of turning it off,
you have to assume that the average
| | 01:44 | Google searcher who might be looking
for what you sell on your web site doesn't
| | 01:48 | know anything about this.
| | 01:49 | While you may optimize for specific
keyword phrases on each page of your web site,
| | 01:53 | real people seeking out what
you offer, search in different ways.
| | 01:57 | There could be 20 or 30 or more
different variations of each keyword phrase you
| | 02:02 | optimize for that someone
might use in the Google search box.
| | 02:06 | While you can certainly try to think
of them all and then see where you rank,
| | 02:09 | you'll never quite get the whole picture.
| | 02:11 | Plus, what if you optimized for the
wrong keyword phrases? You might be number
| | 02:15 | one for them all at Google, but if
they weren't quite the right ones, all the
| | 02:19 | number one rankings in the
world aren't going to matter.
| | 02:22 | As a side note, this is a trick that
some unscrupulous SEO companies use.
| | 02:27 | They rank you number one for all
sorts of phrases that nobody's searching for
| | 02:30 | and you're none the wiser until you
realize your website traffic hasn't increased.
| | 02:35 | The bottom line is that you're really
looking for more targeted traffic to your
| | 02:38 | web site, and beyond that, you want
more conversions and typically more sales.
| | 02:43 | Checking rankings doesn't show any
of this stuff for all the reasons
| | 02:46 | previously mentioned.
| | 02:48 | Believe me, I would love to be able to
check rankings and have that tell me how
| | 02:52 | my site is doing, because it would be easy.
| | 02:54 | While seeing that your homepage has
gone from being nowhere to being on page 2
| | 02:59 | or page 1 in Google is certainly
worthwhile knowledge, looking at the specific
| | 03:03 | placement number isn't going to be accurate.
| | 03:05 | The good news is there are many great
web analytic tools that do show you how
| | 03:10 | well your web site is doing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Determining conversions and setting up goals in Google Analytics| 00:00 | Since we are not going to use ranking
reports to measure the success of our SEO
| | 00:05 | efforts, we need something more appropriate.
| | 00:07 | That something is web analytics, in
this case, the free Google Analytics.
| | 00:12 | It's easy to set up and cost nothing
other than giving away our data to Google.
| | 00:17 | This tool has really evolved since
its early days and has become the web
| | 00:21 | analytics tool of choice for
nearly every website we see.
| | 00:24 | It's also fairly easy to do a basic
setup with it as long as you or your
| | 00:28 | webmaster can add a snippet of
code to every page of your website.
| | 00:32 | A web site conversion is simply a specific
action that a visitor may take on your site.
| | 00:37 | Web site conversions are very
important metric in SEO, because they help you
| | 00:41 | learn which keywords and social
media campaigns that you are using are
| | 00:45 | actually working for you.
| | 00:47 | Almost all web sites were
created with a specific goal in mind.
| | 00:51 | Most of them have many different goals.
| | 00:53 | So a conversion happens when a web site
visitor completes a goal on your site.
| | 00:57 | Let's take a look at some of the things you
might to count as a conversion on your web site.
| | 01:01 | Things like contact from submissions,
newsletter sign-ups, or any particular
| | 01:07 | page you want people to view, and
of course the sale of a product.
| | 01:11 | Those are all considered
conversions on your website.
| | 01:14 | Every site should have at
least one conversion point.
| | 01:17 | If nothing else, nearly every site
should have a page that the contact us form.
| | 01:21 | If you don't and only have an e-mail
address, I would suggest you go and
| | 01:25 | change that immediately.
| | 01:26 | If you are just using an e-mail address, you
can never measure where those leads come from.
| | 01:31 | After all, pretty much anyone who
contacts you can be a lead for you as well.
| | 01:35 | You want to also make sure that you
are online contact form, once it's
| | 01:39 | submitted, is such that the user is
brought to a brand new URL on your website
| | 01:44 | which would be considered the thank you page.
| | 01:46 | This page then becomes a goal URL that
you can add into your Google Analytics
| | 01:47 | as a goal conversion.
| | 01:48 | You use the thank-you page because in
most cases the only time a visitor would
| | 01:49 | ever land on that page would be if
they first filled out your contact form.
| | 01:50 | Therefore, any visitor to that page of
your site has converted from being just a
| | 01:52 | site visitor to a potential lead for you.
| | 01:55 | How it relates to SEO is that you will
be able to see which keyword phrase the
| | 01:59 | people came in who converted for you.
| | 02:02 | So here is our contact
form for our example site.
| | 02:05 | Let's fill up the contact form because we
want to see what the thank you page URL is.
| | 02:10 | This page then becomes a goal URL you can add
into your Google Analytics as a goal conversion.
| | 02:15 | You use the thank you page because in
most cases the only time a visitor would
| | 02:20 | ever land on that page would be if
they first filled out your contact form.
| | 02:25 | Let's fill out the contact form because we
want to see what the thank you page URL is.
| | 02:29 | This page then becomes a goal URL that
you can add into your Google Analytics
| | 02:34 | as a goal conversion.
| | 02:37 | So there's our thank you URL.
| | 02:39 | It's /thank-you up in the
address bar of our browser.
| | 02:43 | So let's go to Google Analytics
and see how the goal URL gets added.
| | 02:49 | On your overview page, you'll want
to click the Edit link on the right.
| | 02:53 | Here's where you can see
your goals and add new goals.
| | 02:57 | Let's add our contact thank-you page as a goal.
| | 02:59 | We'll click Add goal, which will
allows us to view or change it.
| | 03:03 | Here is where you put the goal information.
| | 03:05 | We want to name your goal with
something clearly describes what it is, in this
| | 03:09 | case Contact Form Thank You.
| | 03:12 | You'll want to click On for whether it's
an active goal or else it won't show up.
| | 03:17 | You can leave the goal position
alone as the default should be correct.
| | 03:21 | For Goal Type, in this case it's a URL
Destination, which just means the goal is
| | 03:26 | a page on your website.
| | 03:27 | We are not going to get into the other
types as those are more advanced and out
| | 03:31 | of the scope of what we want to do right now.
| | 03:33 | For Match Type, you are usually safe
to do a Head Match rather than an Exact
| | 03:38 | Match or a Regular Expression Match.
| | 03:40 | A Head Match means that the URL you
put in, in our case /thank-you, you could
| | 03:46 | also have different characters that your
content management system or some other
| | 03:50 | tracking program may append to it and
it would still count as a conversion.
| | 03:54 | If you did Exact Match, then you would
have to be sure no extra parameters were
| | 03:58 | ever automatically put in.
| | 04:00 | For our Kindle site, I don't believe any
extra characters would be there, but to
| | 04:03 | be on the safe side, we'll keep it at Head.
| | 04:06 | The Regular Expression Match is for
even more complicated URLs that could be
| | 04:10 | created by your system.
| | 04:12 | Be sure to test out your own contact
form a few times to see what URL comes up.
| | 04:17 | If it's the same one each time, you
are safe with Head or Exact Match.
| | 04:20 | Then you put in your goal URL,
which in our case is /thank-you/.
| | 04:24 | We are not case sensitive, so we don't
need to check that box and we don't have
| | 04:32 |
| | 04:32 | a particular goal value.
| | 04:33 | You could however make one up here.
| | 04:35 | If you knew from prior experience
that every lead you get is worth of
| | 04:39 | certain amount of money to you,
because you are consistently able to convert
| | 04:42 | x percentage of them into customers, then
put that value there or just leave it blank.
| | 04:48 | If we were adding a goal for the
purchase of our product, we would know the
| | 04:52 | exact value and put it in there.
| | 04:54 | Now, we'll click Save Goal and that's it.
| | 04:58 | Goals and conversions will be different
for every web site depending on the type
| | 05:01 | of site and what it offers.
| | 05:03 | By creating specific conversion points
, you can have a better idea of what's
| | 05:07 | working on your web site and in
your SEO campaigns and what's not.
| | 05:11 | The idea is to see what's not
working and figure out why and also do more
| | 05:15 | of what is working.
| | 05:16 | Some things you do may
never convert your visitors.
| | 05:19 | This is especially true
for social media campaigns.
| | 05:22 | For those things, you want to decide if
it's worth continuing with them at all.
| | 05:26 | It's important to note, however, that
even visitors that don't convert are still
| | 05:30 | visiting your website and
are still learning about you.
| | 05:33 | That's always a good thing as
it helps to build your brand.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Measuring search engine traffic| 00:00 | There's so much data contained in
Google Analytics that it can be very
| | 00:04 | daunting at first.
| | 00:05 | All the information you
get from it is important.
| | 00:08 | So sometimes it helps to start
looking at just the bits of data that
| | 00:11 | are important to you.
| | 00:12 | So here is the main dashboard page
for the myKindlereviews.com website.
| | 00:17 | This provides us with a quick overview
of how many visitors we have and what
| | 00:21 | they're doing on the site.
| | 00:22 | For our purposes right now, we're going
to look at the metrics that help us to
| | 00:26 | measure the success of our SEO program.
| | 00:28 | Most of it has to do with the
search engine traffic and keywords.
| | 00:32 | And much of that data will be
found in the Traffic Sources tab.
| | 00:37 | So we see within the Traffic Sources
section we get a nice overview of where
| | 00:41 | people are coming from to visit our site.
| | 00:43 | This is good to know, because you
typically don't want any one source to be
| | 00:46 | providing most of your traffic.
| | 00:48 | One thing we want to look at is
the percent of traffic from search.
| | 00:52 | Right now, on the My Kindle Review
site, most of the traffic is from search
| | 00:57 | engines with 78.46% coming from search engines.
| | 01:02 | Now, this will be different for every
site and it will depend on whether it's
| | 01:05 | optimized or not, and what other
marketing or link building you're doing.
| | 01:09 | You really don't want it to be too high,
because if the search engines decide to
| | 01:13 | do some crazy algorithm change,
you could lose all your traffic.
| | 01:16 | And you don't want it to be too
low because that means your SEO work
| | 01:19 | isn't working well.
| | 01:20 | For us, it appears to be working, but
we probably need to do some other forms of
| | 01:24 | marketing to gain traction from
referring sites and to get some direct traffic
| | 01:28 | through brand recognition.
| | 01:30 | An average of 50% from search engines
is usually good, or even a bit higher
| | 01:35 | depending on the type of web site.
| | 01:36 | My company's web site gets around the 50% mark.
| | 01:40 | Now let's look at the Search
Engines tab, which will show us the number
| | 01:43 | of visitors.
| | 01:45 | So we have a total of 357 visitors
from search for a three-month time period.
| | 01:51 | Now again, this number will depend on
whether the site is optimized or how well
| | 01:57 | it is optimized, but also what's the
interest in what you offer on your site
| | 02:02 | and the overall size of your market.
| | 02:04 | If you're in a small niche or offering
something very high-end, you may not get
| | 02:09 | many visitors from search.
| | 02:10 | But that's okay, as the ones you
do get should be highly targeted.
| | 02:14 | If you're a small local company,
you probably won't get much traffic from search either.
| | 02:19 | On the other hand, if you have
tons of informative content that is of
| | 02:22 | interest to a worldwide or global
market, you could get thousands or more
| | 02:26 | visitors per day from search.
| | 02:28 | My company's web site receives more
than 20,000 search visitors each month as
| | 02:33 | compared to this Kindle site's 150 or so.
| | 02:36 | So just remember that all
these numbers are relative.
| | 02:39 | Now let's look at the keywords
that are driving traffic to this site.
| | 02:43 | Here is we want to see if the
keyword phrases for which you optimized
| | 02:47 | are showing up.
| | 02:48 | If you're a company that is somewhat
branded, don't be surprised to see a lot of
| | 02:52 | branded keywords here, as in
variations of your company's name.
| | 02:55 | Those are good and fine, but if you've
done SEO, you want to also be seeing your
| | 03:00 | keyword showing up here.
| | 03:01 | Google Analytics defaults to showing us
ten rows at a time, but we can review
| | 03:07 | more by clicking on the Show rows dropdown.
| | 03:11 | Now we can see all our keywords.
| | 03:14 | Since we only have 126 different
keywords for our small site, we can view
| | 03:18 | them all at once.
| | 03:19 | For larger and more established sites,
you may want to just view 100 at a time.
| | 03:24 | Scrolling through these keywords,
it looks like we're definitely being found for
| | 03:28 | many of the keywords we originally
optimized for, Kindle reviews being the main one,
[00:03:323.08]
which may also have a lot to do
with the domain name, myKindlereviews.
| | 03:37 | But we're also getting some traction
on some of the book reviews and some other phrases.
| | 03:41 | You'll notice that there are a
many variations to the keywords.
| | 03:44 | While we optimized for Kindle cases,
we get found for related phrases, such
| | 03:49 | as cool Kindle case.
| | 03:51 | That's the beauty of SEO.
| | 03:53 | Within here, some of the things to
look for are which phrases are missing
| | 03:57 | that we optimized for.
| | 03:59 | If you don't see them or variations of
them, then either your page isn't showing
| | 04:04 | up in the search results on the first
or second page for it, or perhaps it
| | 04:07 | wasn't as good of a
phrase as you thought it was.
| | 04:10 | We can also see on this page,
the number of pages per visitor based on
| | 04:15 | keyword phrases.
| | 04:16 | And we can sort by that as well.
| | 04:18 | A lot of our visitors are viewing more
than one page, which is good, and we're
| | 04:22 | keeping them engaged.
| | 04:24 | Related to that would be the average
time on site, which we can also sort by.
| | 04:30 | We have quite a range here
and also related is bounce rate.
| | 04:34 | Bounce rate means that the visitor
came to one page and never clicked to any other.
| | 04:39 | You typically want a low bounce rate.
| | 04:41 | It usually means that either the user
found exactly what they were looking for
| | 04:45 | on the page they landed on, which would
be the case for the book reviews page,
| | 04:49 | or an article of some sort. There just
may be no reason for them to click to
| | 04:54 | other pages of your site. Or the other
reason may be that your site just didn't
| | 04:58 | seem to be at all what they were looking
for and was irrelevant to their search.
| | 05:02 | Don't get too hung up on the bounce
rate numbers, but do pay attention to it.
| | 05:06 | If all your visitors were bouncing,
then something is likely to be wrong.
| | 05:10 | Now we can do something fancy here and
see which page the visitor landed on from
| | 05:14 | the search engine by
clicking on this second box.
| | 05:17 | This is a neat way of cross-referencing
different sorts of metrics with each other.
| | 05:21 | Let's click on this one
and look at landing page.
| | 05:24 | Let's also sort it back by number of visits.
| | 05:27 | When you see just a slash, it's your homepage.
| | 05:31 | As we can see, the visitors coming from
the keyword phrases Kindle reviews are
| | 05:35 | pretty much getting to the homepage.
| | 05:37 | The Kindle stands phrase is bringing
them to the accessories page, which is good,
| | 05:41 | and the phrases with Kindle
case are getting them directly to the
| | 05:44 | Kindle case page, which is exactly
how we want it, since we optimized that
| | 05:49 | page for those phrases.
| | 05:51 | On some sites, you may see that
many of the keyword phrases are landing
| | 05:54 | people on the homepage.
| | 05:55 | While this is okay in that at least
they're getting to your site, it may mean
| | 05:59 | you need to do some additional work on
your specific inner pages, meaning either
| | 06:04 | they need some more instances of the
keywords used within the content or tags,
| | 06:08 | or perhaps they're buried too deeply in
the site and don't have enough internal
| | 06:12 | link popularity or page rank.
| | 06:14 | You may also want to consider
building outside links to those pages,
| | 06:17 | if applicable.
| | 06:19 | Homepages tend to have the most
weight with the search engines, since they
| | 06:22 | usually have the most link popularity.
| | 06:25 | The idea is to spread that through
the site, so that each page can rank for
| | 06:29 | its own set of phrases.
| | 06:31 | If we click Goal Set 1, we'll
now see a different set of numbers.
| | 06:35 | Now let's cross-reference this
information with our website goals, so we can see
| | 06:39 | how we're doing in terms of conversions.
| | 06:41 | We have just one set of goals here.
| | 06:43 | If you have put in more than
that, you'll see more tabs here.
| | 06:46 | If we click Goal Set 1, we'll
now see a different set of numbers.
| | 06:51 | I set up our Contact Form Thank You page
as a goal, which you can see is Goal 1.
| | 06:57 | As expected for this site,
I didn't get any contacts.
| | 07:00 | Most business sites that are selling
products or services would likely have
| | 07:03 | people filling out their content form, however.
| | 07:05 | So you should see some numbers in here.
| | 07:07 | For us, the clicks on our Amazon
affiliate links are actually our conversion points,
| | 07:12 | which is counterintuitive
as they take people off our site.
| | 07:16 | But since the goal of this site is to
drive people to Amazon to buy the books
| | 07:20 | and products reviewed, it makes sense.
| | 07:23 | Let's sort by those who clicked on
an Amazon affiliate link and see which
| | 07:27 | keywords convert for us.
| | 07:29 | Now here is something interesting
that you'll probably notice a lot in your own stats.
| | 07:33 | The phrases that bring the
most traffic may have the lowest
| | 07:36 | conversion percentage.
| | 07:37 | While it sounds strange on the
surface, it really does make sense.
| | 07:41 | It can be because the phrases that
bring the most traffic are also the most general.
| | 07:45 | So you may not have exactly
what the user was looking for.
| | 07:49 | But it's also because if you had one
visitor for a keyword phrase, and that
| | 07:53 | visitor created a conversion, it's
going to be 100% conversion for that phrase.
| | 07:58 | But that doesn't really mean that
everyone who comes in from that phrase will
| | 08:01 | convert for you, so keep this in mind.
| | 08:04 | We can see this here with the Kindle
reviews keyword, which brought us 162
| | 08:09 | visitors, but converted at 1.85%.
| | 08:13 | Whereas electronic book accessories and
Kindle case reviews have 100% conversion rate,
| | 08:20 | but only 1 visitor for each phrase.
| | 08:24 | You have to use your own judgment
with all this data to figure out what it
| | 08:27 | means for your site.
| | 08:29 | We don't have branded keywords showing
up for this site, but if your site does,
| | 08:33 | you'll probably notice that those are
your best converters, which of course
| | 08:36 | makes sense, since people who type
your company name into the search engine
| | 08:39 | already know about you, and
are specifically looking for you.
| | 08:43 | Those folks are different from the
ones who are searching by keyword to find
| | 08:46 | companies they may not already know about.
| | 08:49 | I see this all the time with
my company, High Rankings, site.
| | 08:53 | People looking for me by name or by
my company name are great converters by
| | 08:57 | either signing up for our newsletter,
filling out our contact form, or signing up
| | 09:01 | for an in-person training class.
| | 09:03 | As far as what to do with this data,
you can do some spot checks of where you're
| | 09:07 | converting keywords or
ranking in the search engines.
| | 09:09 | Now remember that whatever ranking
position you see may be different from
| | 09:13 | what others see.
| | 09:14 | So take the info with a grain of salt.
| | 09:16 | However, if you find that you have
some keywords that are converting well for you,
| | 09:20 | but they seem to shop on page 2 of
Google, you might want to work on ways
| | 09:24 | of getting on to page 1
of Google for that phrase.
| | 09:27 | So let's do a Google search for
Kindle case reviews and see where we're
| | 09:31 | showing up.
| | 09:34 | Don't see us on page 1. It doesn't look
like at the moment we're on the first
| | 09:39 | two pages of Google.
| | 09:41 | It would probably be a good idea
for me to beef up my content about
| | 09:44 | Kindle cases.
| | 09:45 | Perhaps I could buy some other
cases and write reviews on them.
| | 09:49 | I really need it to be something more
link-worthy, which it would be if it
| | 09:52 | were more comprehensive.
| | 09:54 | Even if I didn't want to go out and buy
all the different cases, I could still
| | 09:57 | showcase different types of cases.
| | 09:59 | If I wanted to get even fancier,
I could try to get some user-generated content
| | 10:04 | by asking people to post their own
reviews of their cases in my comments.
| | 10:07 | We'd basically want to look at other
phrases in the same way and see how we
| | 10:11 | might improve our
website and links to do better.
| | 10:14 | It's important to note here that if
you've just finished your SEO work,
| | 10:18 | don't make too many snap judgments.
| | 10:20 | You'll want to collect at least a few
months' data to get a feel for how you're
| | 10:23 | doing and what's working and what's not.
| | 10:26 | To sum up, what you want to look for in
your analytics over time is look for the
| | 10:31 | phrases for which you SEOed.
| | 10:33 | Traffic should steadily increase over time.
| | 10:36 | If not, why?
| | 10:37 | Are you not ranking?
| | 10:39 | Are you ranking, but not showing up high enough?
| | 10:41 | Are you ranking, but nobody is searching on it?
| | 10:44 | Also, look at which keywords
people are coming in from that are not
| | 10:47 | driving conversions.
| | 10:49 | You might want to rethink them.
| | 10:50 | Are they too general?
| | 10:52 | Not really what you offer?
| | 10:53 | Or perhaps, your site has poor usability.
| | 10:55 | So people who might be interested
can't find what they need or just don't
| | 10:59 | like your site.
| | 11:00 | Try to look at your analytics at least
once a month to assess what's going on.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Measuring success beyond the search engines| 00:00 | While search engine traffic is the
ultimate goal of your SEO campaign,
| | 00:05 | everything you do to increase that
especially writing link-worthy content and
| | 00:09 | getting the word out about it to your
target audience, can and should also be
| | 00:13 | measured via your web analytics.
| | 00:16 | Let's look at how to do
that in our Google Analytics.
| | 00:19 | Here we are at our Google Analytics Dashboard.
| | 00:21 | We want to click to the Traffic
Sources area. We want to be looking at
| | 00:25 | referring sites to see which sites
that have links to us are bringing traffic
| | 00:29 | and then we'll be looking at the
Campaigns to see how our social media
| | 00:32 | campaigns are doing.
| | 00:34 | So let's click Referring Sites first.
| | 00:36 | If you don't have a lot of traffic or
links, you may want to choose a longer
| | 00:40 | time period than just one month.
| | 00:42 | Since this is the case with the My
Kindle's Review site we're looking at the
| | 00:45 | 3 months of data.
| | 00:47 | It looks like twitter.com
is our biggest referrer.
| | 00:50 | This would show up when someone is
using twitter.com and clicks on a link
| | 00:53 | that points to our site.
| | 00:55 | What doesn't show up here are all those
people on Twitter who're using different
| | 00:59 | applications with Twitter
rather than their web site.
| | 01:02 | But don't worry.
| | 01:03 | We'll be able to see
those links via our campaigns.
| | 01:07 | If we click on the twitter.com link in
our analytics, we now see which pages on
| | 01:12 | Twitter are links we are on.
| | 01:13 | Most of ours were from the Twitter
homepage, which is the page most users would
| | 01:17 | be on when using Twitter.
| | 01:19 | Let's go back to the rest of the referrers.
| | 01:24 | There're some visits from highrankings.com,
which is my company's SEO website.
| | 01:28 | I had mentioned the Kindle site a few
times where it made sense in order to
| | 01:32 | build up a few links to it.
| | 01:33 | Don't be afraid to do this with
your sites if you own more than one.
| | 01:37 | And you can see we're really
lacking in links here, at least that bring
| | 01:41 | any traffic.
| | 01:42 | Since those are the ones that we really
want, I need to find some time to start
| | 01:45 | implementing some of the
linking ideas that we had.
| | 01:48 | It's going to be very important to do
if I don't want this site to languish,
| | 01:52 | because without these links we won't
get much referring traffic and we'll also
| | 01:55 | lose favor in Google for our keyword phrases.
| | 01:58 | Now let's see if our social
media presence is any better.
| | 02:02 | Let's click on Campaigns.
| | 02:04 | Now this is where you're having
added a tracking links to any URL you are
| | 02:08 | promoting in your social media efforts
such as Twitter or Facebook will pay off.
| | 02:12 | The Campaign area of Google Analytics
is where you'll find the associated data.
| | 02:17 | We only have social media campaigns in
here, because we're not doing any paid
| | 02:21 | advertising like Google AdWords.
| | 02:23 | If we were, this would show up here as well.
| | 02:25 | Here as we're being consistent
in our tracking links pays off.
| | 02:29 | As you can see I must have created some
campaigns using a capital S for social
| | 02:33 | media rather than all lower case.
| | 02:35 | So my analytics has counted
them as separate campaigns.
| | 02:38 | Ideally, you want to be
consistent and always use lowercase.
| | 02:42 | We can cross-reference the source or
medium here too if we want by clicking
| | 02:46 | on this other box.
| | 02:47 | We'll click on Source.
| | 02:49 | Our only source right now was Twitter,
but if we had done any other social media
| | 02:53 | outreach we'd see other sources here.
| | 02:55 | If we change Source to Medium,
we can see which pages we were promoting.
| | 03:00 | So we've got some visits to the Fanny
Hill review, some to the Kindle case page
| | 03:04 | and some to the Giving Chase review.
| | 03:06 | These numbers are very small as you
can see which all comes down to the fact
| | 03:10 | that I haven't really been as active
as I should be in social media for this site
| | 03:13 | and also that most of the
campaign tweets we're made through my personal
| | 03:17 | Twitter account which is geared more
towards SEO info than Kindle stuff.
| | 03:22 | Let's take a quick look at what
the campaign traffic looks like for a
| | 03:25 | well-established site that's up and
running with their social media marketing.
| | 03:29 | My company's web site, High Rankings.
| | 03:31 | We'll switch profiles here to High
Rankings, then click Traffic Sources,
| | 03:36 | then Campaigns.
| | 03:39 | Now this site tells a different story.
| | 03:40 | These hra campaigns are our High
Rankings advisor newsletter campaigns where I
| | 03:47 | set up each newsletter, which
is numbered like hra273, hra272.
| | 03:55 | Then any links within the newsletter
are also given analytics tracking codes
| | 03:59 | so they show up here.
| | 04:00 | Here you can see a
campaign labeled as socialmedia.
| | 04:04 | That's where I have all
of our social media links.
| | 04:06 | Let's click on that one.
| | 04:09 | Here we see a quick dashboard of the
activity in the social media campaign,
| | 04:13 | which will go up and down depending
on when you implement your campaigns.
| | 04:17 | Let's click the dropdown box to see the Source.
| | 04:21 | Basically, the source is all Twitter
as that's the main form of social media we use.
| | 04:26 | That one that says twitter-goog was
probably me mislabeling a tracking link
| | 04:31 | somewhere, which again shows you
the importance of being consistent.
| | 04:35 | Then we can also click on Medium, which
is where I typically put the name of the
| | 04:40 | article or piece of content I'm promoting.
| | 04:43 | What we're seeing here is all the
people that clicked on links to articles
| | 04:47 | which I tweeted.
| | 04:48 | We can also see the conversions of our
social media campaigns just like we can
| | 04:52 | measure our search engine
visitors's conversions.
| | 04:55 | A word of warning here before I click,
social media visitors are typically
| | 05:00 | very poor converters.
| | 05:01 | They come to read an
article and then they leave.
| | 05:04 | That is to be expected.
| | 05:06 | It doesn't mean your social media
marketing isn't working, because remember
| | 05:10 | the goal of that is creating
awareness about what you do and offer.
| | 05:13 | So the more times people keep coming
back to read another great article you
| | 05:17 | mentioned on Twitter, the more chance
they will eventually take more action
| | 05:21 | on your website.
| | 05:22 | With that said let's click the Goal
tab and see what sort of conversions
| | 05:26 | High Rankings gets from social media.
| | 05:29 | On this site I've a number of
conversions, our Request Info Thank You page,
| | 05:34 | our Forum Registration Completed page,
our Newsletter Subscribe page, Submit a
| | 05:40 | Question form page and also the
Request Info Page itself to see how many
| | 05:45 | check it out.
| | 05:46 | So the main conversion here is
newsletter sign-ups with 5.68% conversion.
| | 05:52 | I would expect Twitter people to be
likely to sign up for my newsletter rather
| | 05:56 | than request info on services.
| | 05:58 | A lot of my Twitter followers are
already newsletter subscribers, so that's
| | 06:02 | something to keep in mind also.
| | 06:04 | The thing to note on this however is
that at High Rankings we've learned
| | 06:07 | over time that our best long-term
prospects for services are subscribers of
| | 06:12 | the newsletter.
| | 06:13 | So driving people to subscribe
is very important in the long run.
| | 06:17 | As you can see, tracking our social media
and referring traffic can be helpful to
| | 06:21 | measuring success beyond
just the search engines.
| | 06:23 | Ideally, once your social media
marketing and link building efforts take shape
| | 06:28 | and you focus on them every day, your
referring and campaign traffic will reach
| | 06:32 | levels equal to search
engine and direct traffic.
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|
|
9. Overall SEO StrategyReviewing top techniques for SEO success| 00:00 | Let's review the top techniques for SEO success.
| | 00:04 | Optimize your site for your
target audience, not search engines.
| | 00:08 | Yes, I know that sounds
counterintuitive, but as you've learned in the rest
| | 00:12 | of this course, the search engines
are looking for the best site for their users,
| | 00:16 | the searchers.
| | 00:17 | So always keep this in mind with
everything you do on your website.
| | 00:21 | Always research keywords and choose
the most relevant ones that best describe
| | 00:25 | the focus of the page, get actual
searches, and aren't too competitive.
| | 00:30 | Categorize your site architecture and
navigation based on what's most important
| | 00:34 | and use descriptive anchor text or alt
attributes in your links that correlate
| | 00:39 | with your keyword phrases.
| | 00:41 | Program your site to be crawler-friendly.
| | 00:44 | Don't hide important keyword-rich
information or links in Flash or JavaScript or
| | 00:49 | anything else that chokes
the search engine spiders.
| | 00:52 | Pay close attention to title tags, meta
descriptions, and page headlines and
| | 00:57 | make sure they're always using
targeted keyword phrases.
| | 01:01 | Create a link-worthy site. Be sure that
you go beyond what everyone else in your
| | 01:05 | industry is doing and create
comprehensive content in multiple forms.
| | 01:10 | Don't worry too much about rankings, as
they're not your true measure of success
| | 01:14 | and may be different at any given time.
| | 01:18 | Build and maintain online link
partnerships with others, such as your
| | 01:21 | customers, your partners and other
companies you have a stake in and
| | 01:25 | communities that you participate in.
| | 01:28 | Get out into the social media world
and start promoting all your great stuff.
| | 01:33 | Review your web analytics on a regular
basis to see what's working and what's not.
| | 01:38 | If something's not working,
figure out why and try to fix it.
| | 01:41 | With stuff that is working,
try to repeat it elsewhere.
| | 01:44 | All of these things I've reviewed
are the basics of SEO in a nutshell.
| | 01:49 | You can read about it and watch training
videos on it all day and all night, but
| | 01:53 | it's only going to work for you if you
roll up your sleeves and start doing it.
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| Additional resources| 00:00 | There are an overabundance of
SEO blogs and articles out there.
| | 00:04 | A lot of them in my opinion are not very good.
| | 00:07 | Be very, very careful when reading or
trying to learn more about SEO online.
| | 00:12 | You may very well read outdated
material or learn stuff that can actually hurt
| | 00:16 | your web site more than help.
| | 00:18 | The resources I'm providing here are
mostly ones that I've personally read and
| | 00:23 | in many cases they are from people
whom I actually know and respect.
| | 00:27 | There is much more than these,
but these are the very best.
| | 00:30 | Of course the first resources I'd
recommend you would be my High Rankings
| | 00:35 | newsletter, the High Rankings Advisor,
which comes out every other week for
| | 00:39 | free and is chockfull of the same
kinds of tips and techniques you've
| | 00:42 | learned in this course.
| | 00:45 | We have to have the High Rankings forum,
which is good for more advanced issues.
| | 00:49 | There're a bunch of moderators on
duty to help answer your technical SEO
| | 00:53 | questions as well as people to chat
with on every other aspect of SEO.
| | 00:57 | Search Engine Land has the latest
search marketing news and numerous columnists
| | 01:03 | who write daily on every
aspect of search marketing.
| | 01:06 | While I write a monthly article for the
100% Organic SEO column, all of the other
| | 01:12 | search marketing topics may
be of interest to you as well.
| | 01:15 | Be careful, as there is an enormous
amount of information here, which can
| | 01:19 | be very overwhelming.
| | 01:20 | Plus, not every columnist is as good as
every other, but definitely read through
| | 01:25 | the ones in the category you're
interested in and see which authors you like.
| | 01:30 | Kim Krause Berg writes about the latest
in website usability and how it relates
| | 01:34 | to SEO at the Cre8pc blog.
| | 01:37 | You'll find other tips and tools
there plus Kim's warm welcoming writing.
| | 01:42 | The great thing about Kim is that she
puts herself out there when she blogs.
| | 01:46 | After reading a few posts you'll feel
like you know her and possibly even her
| | 01:50 | family as she talks about them a lot too.
| | 01:53 | The Outspoken Media blog is headed up
by Lisa Barone, who has quickly become one
| | 01:58 | of my favorite bloggers.
| | 01:59 | I'm a sucker for great
writing and Lisa is a great writer.
| | 02:03 | She draws you in from the start and
keeps you there until the very end.
| | 02:07 | Lisa and her Outspoken colleagues'
blog mainly about social media, online
| | 02:12 | reputation management, branding and
SEO, but there are always all the great
| | 02:16 | topics that relate as well to
online marketing in general.
| | 02:19 | A definite must read.
| | 02:22 | There's no one better to learn
link building techniques from than
| | 02:25 | Debra Mastaler.
| | 02:26 | While her blog could certainly be
updated more frequently, there're so much good
| | 02:30 | stuff archived there that you will
learn plenty of actionable ways of building
| | 02:34 | links for your site while
you're waiting for the next post.
| | 02:37 | Debra is truly a linking genius.
| | 02:40 | Another amazing writer is Karon Thackston.
| | 02:43 | She writes about SEO copyrighting in
her Marketing Words blog and often as a
| | 02:48 | guest author in our High
Rankings Advisor newsletter.
| | 02:51 | If you're confused about writing for
your specific target audience, Karon has
| | 02:55 | lots of great articles on that.
| | 02:57 | She's also an expert at teaching
people how to write about their products and
| | 03:00 | services, while stressing the
benefits not just the features.
| | 03:04 | When Aaron Wall talks about
SEO, you'll need to listen.
| | 03:08 | Aaron is one of the few voices in
SEO that are not simply parroted from
| | 03:12 | others in the industry.
| | 03:13 | He is a true original thinker and it
shows in the types of SEO articles and
| | 03:17 | information he provides.
| | 03:20 | Brian Clark and his team of guest
writers do a great job of writing about
| | 03:25 | writing at copyblogger.com.
| | 03:28 | Michael Gray aka Graywolf, while often a
tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist when it
| | 03:35 | comes to Google, he does make you think.
| | 03:37 | You don't always agree with him, but
I love that he puts forth different and
| | 03:41 | new ideas about SEO.
| | 03:43 | He is one of the few speakers I've
heard at the search marketing conferences
| | 03:46 | that I go to who I actually felt I learned from.
| | 03:50 | If you're looking for the latest
information on what Google is up to, then
| | 03:53 | you'll want to keep tabs
on the Official Google Blog.
| | 03:56 | They often break news of new
products and services there.
| | 04:00 | Avinash writes about anything and
everything Google Analytics. You can
| | 04:04 | learn about new features and how to
use existing features in interesting
| | 04:08 | ways at Occam's Razor.
| | 04:10 | So there you have it.
| | 04:11 | The top-notch search marketing
resources that you know you can trust to provide
| | 04:15 | good, honest information and advice.
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| The future of SEO| 00:00 | SEO is changing all the time.
| | 00:03 | The relevancy formulas are
especially changing as the search engines get
| | 00:06 | more sophisticated.
| | 00:08 | Let's look at where they're headed
now and how it may affect how you
| | 00:11 | execute your SEO strategy.
| | 00:14 | While I expect the search engines will
continue to get better and better and be
| | 00:17 | able to find everyone's web sites'
important information, it will never hurt to
| | 00:21 | keep their jobs simple by ensuring your
web site is created with good, valid HTML
| | 00:27 | code that's easy to crawl through.
| | 00:29 | Search engine spiders are
designed to be somewhat dumb creatures.
| | 00:33 | So while they will evolve in the next
few years, I would still not recommend
| | 00:38 | creating all Flash sites or sites that
are completely image-based, if you want
| | 00:42 | to be sure to be found for the keyword
phrases that relate to what you offer.
| | 00:47 | The search engines are now showing news
results, video results, shopping results
| | 00:52 | and even real-time social media results
right in their search results pages for
| | 00:56 | many search queries.
| | 00:58 | They plan to do a lot more of
this type of thing in the future.
| | 01:01 | This means that in order to compete,
the more ways you drive people to your
| | 01:05 | content, the more ways you'll
have of being found through search.
| | 01:09 | If you're participating in social media,
your tweets and other updates may be
| | 01:13 | seen in the first page of Google,
right alongside some industry news.
| | 01:18 | If you have videos embedded on your site,
they can show up right there in the
| | 01:21 | search results as well.
| | 01:23 | Creating all different types of content
on a regular basis will keep your site
| | 01:27 | front and center for all
types of searches. Let's face it.
| | 01:32 | The search engines want you to click on
the sponsored ads, not the free search
| | 01:35 | results, as that's how they get paid.
| | 01:38 | While they don't mind providing you
with lots of great informational content in
| | 01:42 | the free listings, they would prefer
to show you product and service types of
| | 01:46 | results in the sponsored links.
| | 01:48 | This is a key element to think about,
because it means more than ever you'll
| | 01:52 | need to go above and beyond just having
product and services pages if you want
| | 01:56 | to show up in search.
| | 01:58 | All that great link-worthy content
you create may at some point be the only thing
| | 02:02 | showing up for many search queries.
| | 02:04 | So you'll need to continue to create
it and promote it and use it to drive
| | 02:09 | people to your paid offerings.
| | 02:11 | While that's true that SEO changes a
lot all the time, what's interesting to
| | 02:15 | note is that in all the time that I've been
doing SEO, since 1995, one thing has never changed.
| | 02:23 | And that is the fact that having
outstanding relevant content will always be the
| | 02:28 | number one key to search engine success.
| | 02:31 | I recently went through my SEO articles
for the past ten years and that was the
| | 02:36 | one consistent theme throughout all of them.
| | 02:39 | That aspect of SEO will never change.
| | 02:42 | As long as you keep the search engine's
goal in mind, finding the best content
| | 02:46 | for their users, and use that as your
SEO mantra, your site will be resistant to
| | 02:52 | whatever the algorithm
changes of the day might be.
| | 02:56 | This was true in 1995 and it's still true today.
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