Search Engine Optimization By Andy Smith | Art Institute of Dallas

Internet Marketing and SEO What is SEO? Brief history of the Search Engines How Google changed everything How sites are ranked Site optimization (technical) Search Engine Ranking Success

Internet Marketing marketing (autoresponders, newsletters) Affiliate marketing (ecommerce commissions) Online Viral marketing (social and brand awareness) Pay per click advertising (AdWords, Overture) Paid inclusion (Directory listings) Search engine optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization A technical discipline involved with organic search rankings

Search Engine Optimization Involves a variety of components: HTML coding Content and information Media (photos, videos) Region and local specific listings The purpose is to increase a site’s web presence in the search engines, thus receiving more traffic

Search Engine Optimization Use to be a separate discipline Becoming more integrated with web dev Requires technical insight Becoming more integrated with: Content development Traditional online business and marketing Other forms of marketing Ecommerce

History of SEO and The Engines Search Engines catalogue and organize the web, making it easier for web users to find sites Engines “crawl” or index websites to identify an identity or a theme of a site Before Google, engines had simple algorithms for accessing site relevancy Meta tags, keywords in URLs, body copy Unfortunately, it allowed people to spam the engines

Then Came Google Google revolutionized the search engine industry Mathematical algorithm to assess the relevance of a website (the core to Google’s database ranking structure called PageRank) This “PageRank” methodology changed the strategies webmasters and developers used to optimize sites, thus SEO was born Soon other leading search companies created their own algorithms

How Engines Assess Rankings Consistent content or words throughout the page “Keywords” located in the copy and in the tags: Title tag Header tags Body copy (paragraph tags), lists Alt tags Links (inbound and out) Sites with high keyword relevance are ranked in the top

Proving Relevance to the Engines Establish a site or page theme (using keywords and copy) Use coding to express your design, layout, copy, and user functionality Receive theme validation from other websites with a similar topic Update and enhance the site

The Code

Site Optimization Clean HTML code (valid XHTML, CSS)

HTML and CSS Web coding expresses info to a browser HTML and CSS = Grammar and Spelling Certain structures and wide spread formats need to be followed to ensure effective communication Code only serves as one variable however

Importance of Content The code containing the content is essential Headers, paragraphs, lists, etc. (H1, P, UL) “Optimized” code and relevant content = search engine ranking success Only one component to the entire puzzle as well

Linking Inbound links from other websites is pivotal The more “relevant” links, the more relevancy points the engines will award your site Proper anchor tags: Keyword Phrases

PageRank Analysis Google’s link analysis algorithm is called PageRank Measures the relevancy of a web site Links pointing to a website are considered a “vote” The more votes a website has the more probability it has as being relevant, especially if all the links are from similar themes or topics/categories

Ranking Success

Getting Top Rankings Analyze the competition (current ranking sites) Number of pages indexed in Google Number of links pointing to the site Categories and sections of content Supersede the competitors! Make your site more relevant and prove it to the engines Provide more content Get more links

Misconceptions about Rankings The important things you need to achieve top rankings are optimized content and relevant inbound links (not submission strategies or quick “jump-to-the-top” methods) You don’t need to submit your site to the search engines if you are already included Fancy SEO techniques and tricks might gain you temporary ranking positions but can ban your site from the search engine databases in the long run

Misconceptions about Rankings Successful search engine marketing comes down to relevancy – prove to the search engine your site is more relevant than the current ranking websites and you will achieve long term success If you have a new website, expect that your website will be listed for top positions within six to eight months in Google

Tips for Designing an Optimized Site How you represent your site (design, functionality, etc.) to the user is crucial, but it is just as important to present your site’s coding and page layout to the search engines. Make sure you understand the importance of correct coding! It is imperative that effective HTML, CSS, Javascript, ASP, coding is used to construct the pages

Tips for Designing an Optimized Site All coding should be validated Content is king in the search engines, ensure you understand the importance of designing for content (tailored for the search engine) Functionality is important, but when it inhibits your ability to rank in the search engines, consider achieving a balance of functionality and effective search engine optimization

Q and A! Andy Smith