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Fundamentals of Findability

Fundamentals of Findability. Troy Wise Principal, TreefrogSEO.com. Overview. What is Findability? How does Search work? SEO Analytics and PPC Q&A Session. What is Findability?. Find-a-bil’-i-ty ( n) The quality of being findable.

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Fundamentals of Findability

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  1. Fundamentals of Findability Troy Wise Principal, TreefrogSEO.com

  2. Overview • What is Findability? • How does Search work? • SEO • Analytics and PPC • Q&A Session

  3. What is Findability? Find-a-bil’-i-ty (n) • The quality of being findable. • The degree to which a particular object or piece of information is easy to discover or find. • The degree to which a particular system supports navigation and retrieval.

  4. Exercise: Where are my…?

  5. Exercise: Where are my…? Step 1: What do I need? Step 2: Where to start looking? Step 3: What are my criteria? Step 4: What if I can’t find what I’m looking for? • Go back!

  6. Findability and the Web Who has a search engine as their home page?

  7. Findability and the Web Search is integrated in browsers, phones, our cars, operating systems…even in televisions and some refrigerators!

  8. Findability and the Web • Search has been established as the central necessary function on the Internet. • With the maturity of the personal web (iGoogle, My Yahoo!, etc.), the power of search ranking will increasingly be placed in the hands of the search consumer.

  9. The “Big Three” Engines • Yahoo!: Winner of the first round • Decreasing share of search, key demographics are primarily female, 30 or older, and looking for a search/news/entertainment portal. • Bing: Upstart evolution of search • Currently a 7.8% share of search (quickly gaining on Yahoo!), some forecasters are predicting 20% by year end. Microsoft has replicated Google’s model, then added morphing focus as users drill down their search criteria to specialized results sets. • Google: Reigning Heavyweight Champion • Still over 80% of search market.

  10. What is Google’s Objective? “Google’s goal is to organize the world’s information” -Larry Page, Google Co-Founder

  11. Search: Understanding the Environment • Provide relevant search results to users’ search requests. • The biggest mistake online marketers make: • Working against the search engines! • Working against the searcher!

  12. SEO 101: What is SEO? SEO (n) • Search Engine Optimization • Strategies undertaken to lift the “organic” rank of a website or online content in SERP rankings for given keywords.

  13. SEO 101: Understanding SERP Rankings • Relevance!!! • Factors include: • Text Content • Page Title • H Tags (Content in <h1>, <h2>, and other <hx> tags • A Tags (Link text) • ALT Tags • Page Rank • Incoming Links • Filename • Title and Keyword Tags • Content and Site Popularity • Flash Data Framework • Etc.

  14. SEO 101: Understanding Page Rank • Page Rank is a measure of the authority (or importance) of a specific page on the Internet. • More precisely, Page Rank represents the statistical likelihood of arriving on a particular web page from any random starting point on the Internet.

  15. SEO 101: Actual Page Rank The Page Rank for any page (pi) can be expressed as the dominant eigenvector of the entire Internet within an adjacency matrix where d = the residual probability of random clicks, L is the number of outbound links on a given page, M is the number of pages that link to pi , and N is the number of web pages on the Internet (or within the system under consideration) where pj is any other page in the system being measured. In other words:

  16. SEO 101: Practical Page Rank • In which of the photos below does Robert Downey, Jr. appear more credible, and why? Sheriff vs. Wife

  17. SEO 101: Practical Page Rank • Page Rank depends on the Page Rank of the sites that link to your site. • It’s about the company you keep, and how credible they appear and MAKE YOU APPEAR. • Page Rank is a logarithmic scale: • 1x10=2 • 2x10=3 • 8x10=9

  18. SEO 101: Algorithms • Mathematical formulae that rank relevance automatically for each search engine • Elements (keywords, keyword density, page rank, etc.) remain the same • Relative importance of elements is constantly changing and different for each search engine • Algorithms are not published!

  19. SEO 101: How do I Optimize to Improve My SERP Rank? • Standard elements can be optimized to increase relevance and importance to the search engines for keywords and keyword phrases. • These keywords and keyword phrases MUST be researched and relevant TO THE SEARCH AUDIENCE, NOT NECESSARILY TO YOUR MARKETING PLAN!!!

  20. SEO 101: Relevance to the Search Audience • What terms are significant to your target audience? • Are they actually doing searches on these terms? • Research tools like Keyword Discovery can answer these questions.

  21. SEO 101: Relevance to the Search Audience • If your site shows up at #1 for Blurite Ore Processing and you make snowshoes, does the SERP ranking matter? • If you get one million visitors per day for Blurite Ore Processing, does the traffic help build your snowshoe brand or bottom line? • If you rank #1 for cardboard snowshoes and nobody is searching for cardboard snowshoes, does it matter?

  22. SEO 101: Elements of Optimization • Robots.txt: Tells search spiders (or “bots”) what to index and what NOT to index • Sitemap.xml: Provides a map for the search spider to follow in crawling and digesting your site. • META Description: Keyword-rich phrase that will help search users to understand your content before clicking through to your site.

  23. SEO 101: Elements of Optimization • META Keywords: Help to describe the main thrust of the content on the page—these should be matched to individual pages and should be in order of importance • PRO TIP: Keywords should be <1024 characters and do not repeat specific words consecutively. • Low importance, but every page you want to show in SERP should have ‘em!

  24. SEO 101: Elements of Optimization • Title Tags: Page titles should also be keyword-rich and relevant to page content • Keywords first, then company name! • ALT tags: Parameters within other HTML tags (images, links, etc.) that provide an alternate description (keyword rich!) of content.

  25. SEO 101: Elements of Optimization • “H” Tags: Headlines are the topic of news stories, describing content—these are weighted more heavily than standard-level content. • “A” Tags: The text that you choose for your links is also weighted for both the linking page as well as the content to which it links. • Page Content: The king—make your copy relevant to the search you expect will arrive at the page.

  26. SEO 101: Keyword Cannibalization

  27. SEO 101: Final • Start with researched keywords and keyword phrases that are used in real-world searches • Create relevant content with proper technical structure and in cooperation with the objective of the search engines • Place yourself in good company

  28. SEM: Pay-Per-Click • Pay-Per-Click (PPC) are “sponsored results” that provide a means for low page rank sites and services to enjoy SERP primacy based on a pay per click model. • Positioning of PPC ads (at least on Google) is not based solely on bid!

  29. SEM: Pay-Per-Click "Millions of users around the world rely on Google's objective search results to find the information they need. AdWords brings the same quality and relevancy to Google's sponsored links that our users have come to expect from our non-commercial search results. This combination of unbiased and commercial results provides an even more valuable search experience for our users.“Omid KordestaniSenior VP-worldwide sales & business development, Google

  30. SEM: PPC Success • Choose relevant, searched keywords that echo your site content • Develop pertinent landing page(s) that include strong calls to action • Set realistic, incremental goals that lead to intended objectives • Write on-target, engaging ads that pull qualified searchers

  31. SEM: PPC Success Determine what you want out of your PPC program: • Branding? Keep your message on-target and go for impressions over click-through (Impressions are “free”!). Consider image/audio/video ads if budget allows. • Sales? Traffic? Anything else? Ensure strong calls to action and direct to message appropriate (and well-linked) landing page(s).

  32. Fundamentals of Findability • Analytics will tell you how everything is working • Set goals within Analytics • Understand your audience through diving into Analytics records • Keywords • Geographical Location • Browser Specification • BOUNCE RATE!!!

  33. Summary • Relevance, Relevance, Relevance • Understand how your audience is searching • Share and Support the objectives of the Search Engines • Content is King • Set and Measure Against Attainable Goals—Then Repeat! • Track Your Results!!!

  34. Questions?

  35. TreefrogSEO 938 George Street Lake Geneva, WI 53149 http://www.treefrogseo.com p: 262-436-9501 Thank You!

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