Search Engine Optimization Strategies The Basics of SEO Offered to you by Mary Anne Donovan Vice President, SEO Literacy Consultants

What We Will Cover 1.Factoids 2.What is SEM? 3.What is SEO? 4.How Do Users Access Sites? 5.Facets of SEO? 6.How Are Pages Ranked? 7.Business Goals 8.Usability 9.Site Design 10.Content 11.Linking 12.Keywords 13.Measurement 14.SEO Steps 15.How to Assess Your Site

Factoids Over 8 billion pages indexed by Google ( 20% of all searches now for local resources (Kelsey Group) In 5 years, local search market worth $3.4 billion 24% increase in 2005 holiday shopping, but 8% of shoppers walked away from sale (ClickZ) $5.75 billion spent on SEM in 2005: 44% increase over 2004 (SEMPO)

What is Search Engine Marketing? The practice of marketing and advertising through the search engines

Facets of SEM Digital public relations Pay-per-click SEO

What is Search Engine Optimization? Search engine optimization is the work required for your web site to achieve high rankings with the search engines when people search using selected phrases or search terms.

Facets of SEO Business goals Keywords Document relevance Usability Site design Content Linking Measurement

How Do Users Access Sites? Search engines Typing the URL Link from other site Bookmark

How Are Pages Ranked? SE spiders crawl and measure: Content Keywords Links Site Design These measurements are turned into algorithms

Business Goals Write a formal business plan and determine measurable goals: To improve branding To increase direct sales To get more leads To increase web site traffic

Keywords Keyword analysis Competitive analysis Select those search terms used frequently but with the least competition Optimum page placement 4 – 9% page frequency Use phrases vs. words

Document Relevance Google determines document relevance by looking at: How people find information What they do when they access a document Which document in a site they tend to land on How long users spend on that document How much time does a user spend exploring information in a domain, ( 72) 72

Usability Intuitive site navigation Easy to find content Consistent use of terms and icons Use of Alt tags with images Chunked and bulleted text Short sentences, grammatically correct World Wide Web Consortium W3C

Site Design Title tag Meta keyword tag Meta description tag Body text H1 and H2 headings Internal links Alt tags

Content Content elements Digital rhetoric Audience Purpose Style and format

Linking Significance -- Link popularity: PageRank® Votes Link building On-page vs. Off-page

Why Are Links Important? The visibility of your site is affected by: How you link to other sites How other sites link to you How your web pages link to each other

Getting Valuable Links Distinguishing between one-way vs. reciprocal links Making your web site attractive Improving your link popularity Finding relevant, credible websites Determining link popularity for incoming links Arranging for the link

Linking Strategy Benefits Ranking Traffic Network Credibility Content

Measurement Monitor site performance Customer feedback (CRM) Web tracking systems

Overview of Steps in SEO 1.Select and assign keywords 2.Develop and post quality content 3.Get quality inbound links using a good link strategy 4.Use your on page elements correctly 5.Make your site usable for visitors 6.Design and implement a comprehensive PR plan

How to Assess Your Site Google Toolbar: (how many errors) es/analyze/ (speed and size etc, see our Scanreport) es/analyze/ (link popularity)