TRAINING GOOGLE TO LOVE YOUR WEBSITE An Brief Introduction to SEO4/9/2010
About Me SEO Information Architecture Wordpress & Omeka Website & Software Development Jeanne Kramer-Smyth MLS, University of Maryland
What is SEO? SEO = Search Engine Optimization Fancy way to say making your web content findable by search engines
Analytics Page Construction Building Blocks of SEO Site Organization Topic & Keyword Research
What are people looking for? Analytics Page Construction Site Organization Topic & Keyword Research
World War II or World War 2? Keyword research can show you how people actually search – official vs popular version. Google Insight into Search: world war 2 world war ii
Tools for Keyword Research Google Insight for Search Google Trends Google AdWords Keyword Tool Google Search-based Keyword Tool SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool KeywordDiscovery ($) KeywordDiscovery WordTracker ($) and Free Version WordTrackerFree Version SEO Books Keyword Tools Page
This site was built for crawling! Analytics Page Construction Site Organization Topic & Keyword Research
Tree Gives Content Clear Home PlantsFlowering PlantsShade Loving Flowers
Gain Authority Via Internal Links Red Flower Hub BegoniasRosesTulips
XML Sitemaps A list of pages available to be indexed by search engines – an index for robots that crawl your site. Types of Sitemaps: General Sitemap News Sitemap Video Sitemap
SEO Checklist: Site Level All content can be found via crawling Current XML sitemaps submitted to search engines Leaf pages point to hubs Child pages point to their parents Good anchor text, usually matches target page title
Target each page! Analytics Page Construction Site Organization Topic & Keyword Research
Before you start building a page Physical home & URL Primary keyword target
Title & Description Macmillan: Robot Dreams: Sara Varon: Books TiITLE META DESCRIPTION SERP
Example: Many Pages – One Title
SEO Checklist: Page Level Clear primary keyword target phrase One URL per page Unique page title, less than 65 characters tag containing keyword target Unique meta description, less than 164 characters Content rich text Images have alt text
After the launch Analytics Page Construction Site Organization Topic & Keyword Research
Questions to ask after launch Traffic Sources Bounce Rates SERP position for target keywords
Free Tools Google Webmaster Tools: Register your sitemap Google Analytics: Traffic sources & statistics Google Feedburner: Tracking RSS subscriptions Google Website Optimizer: A/B testing
Next Steps for YOU! Look at sites you like – could you improve their SEO? Bake SEO into your web site design and development process Follow some SEO blogs (RSS is your friend!) SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog SEO Book Search Engine Land Google Webmaster Central Blog
Questions? Looking for me? Google Jeanne Kramer-Smyth! LinkedIn: Blog: SpellboundBlog.comSpellboundBlog.com Portfolio: SpellboundProjects.comSpellboundProjects.com Audio Book Reviews: BooksForEars.comBooksForEars.com