TRAINING GOOGLE TO LOVE YOUR WEBSITE

1. TRAINING GOOGLE TO LOVE YOUR WEBSITE 4/9/2010 An Brief Introduction to SEO

2. About Me Jeanne Kramer-Smyth MLS, University of Maryland

3. What is SEO? SEO = Search Engine Optimization Fancy way to say “making your web content findable by search engines”

4. Building Blocks of SEO Analytics Page Construction Site Organization Topic & Keyword Research

5. What are people looking for? Analytics Page Construction Site Organization Topic & Keyword Research

6. 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

7. 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 ($) • WordTracker ($) and Free Version • SEO Book’s Keyword Tools Page

8. This site was built for crawling! Analytics Page Construction Site Organization Topic & Keyword Research

9. Tree Gives Content Clear Home

10. Gain Authority Via Internal Links

11. 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

12. 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

13. Target each page! Analytics Page Construction Site Organization Topic & Keyword Research

14. Before you start building a page • Physical home & URL • Primary keyword target

15. Title & Description TiITLE <title>Macmillan: Robot Dreams: Sara Varon: Books</title> <meta name="description" content="Macmillan: Robot Dreams: Sara Varon: Bonus Publisher Materials: Praise, Author Biography, Awards" /> META DESCRIPTION SERP

16. Example: Many Pages – One Title

17. SEO Checklist: Page Level • Clear primary keyword target phrase • One URL per page • Unique page title, less than 65 characters • <H1> tag containing keyword target • Unique meta description, less than 164 characters • Content rich text • Images have alt text

18. After the launch Analytics Page Construction Site Organization Topic & Keyword Research

19. Questions to ask after launch • Traffic Sources • Bounce Rates • SERP position for target keywords

20. Free Tools • Google Webmaster Tools: Register your sitemap • Google Analytics: Traffic sources & statistics • Google Feedburner: Tracking RSS subscriptions • Google Website Optimizer: A/B testing

21. 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

22. Questions? Looking for me? Google Jeanne Kramer-Smyth! LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jkramersmyth Blog: SpellboundBlog.com Portfolio: SpellboundProjects.com Audio Book Reviews: BooksForEars.com