Opportunities in Search Engine Optimization
March 27, 2009
Agenda
• About The Search Agency
• SEO – Why You Should Care
• SEO Strategies and Tactics for Convention & Visitor Bureaus
– SEO Architecture
– SEO Content – SEO Linking
– SEO and Social Media
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Company Background
• History and Team
– Founded in 2002 – Management Team has over 30 years Search Marketing experience
• Large Investment in Technology & Service
– 32 FTEs in R&D
• • Proprietary Technology Fully Accessible to our Partners 4 Person Account Management Team Structures
– 60 FTEs providing First Class Service
• Long term focus on clients
– Partner retention rate greater than 90% annually – 50%+ of new business derived from referrals from existing Partners
• Member of Google, Yahoo! And Microsoft Advertiser Councils
– – – – One of 4 Alpha testers for Panama One of 3 Alpha testers for adCenter Yahoo Elite Technology Partner (1 of 4) Regularly alpha and beta test new features with Search Engines
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Agenda
• About The Search Agency
• SEO – Why You Should Care
• SEO Strategies and Tactics for Convention & Visitor Bureaus
– SEO Architecture
– SEO Content – SEO Linking
– SEO and Social Media
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Search Engine Results Page
Paid Search
Organic Search
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What is Organic Search?
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Who Are The Major Players In Domestic Search?
Google represents the majority of searches on the web, followed by Yahoo!
Search Share - December, 2008
Yahoo! 21%
Google 63% Microsoft 8% Ask AOL 4% 4%
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Search Is Global
Global Search Share, December 2007
Baidu 7% Microsoft Sites 4% NHN 3% Ask Network 1% Time Warner Network 1%
Source: comScore Networks, Lehman Brothers
Yahoo Sites 17%
Google Sites 67%
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Search Engines Drive Traffic
Search has the potential to drive significant traffic to your website.
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Why Do Search Engine Optimization?
• • • • • Its where the traffic is Don‟t have to pay for clicks – its free! Capture users by intent People are searching for help Organic gets approx. 70% of clicks vs. 30% paid
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Agenda
• About The Search Agency
• SEO – Why You Should Care
• SEO Strategies and Tactics for Convention & Visitor Bureaus
– SEO Architecture
– SEO Content – SEO Linking
– SEO and Social Media
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Three Core Elements to Good SEO
Architecture
Content
Linking
Optimization
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Agenda
• About The Search Agency
• SEO – Why You Should Care
• SEO Strategies and Tactics for Convention & Visitor Bureaus
– SEO Architecture
– SEO Content – SEO Linking
– SEO and Social Media
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SEO Site Architecture – The Basics
• Ensuring that nothing is in place that impedes the progress of the search engine spiders
– Java Script Navigation – Flash – Log-ins
• Optimized URLs
– Keywords – Number of directories – Usage of parameters
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SEO Site Architecture – Flash / Java Script
Site: Visit Long Beach
http://www.visitlongbeach.com/
Content is 99% in flash
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SEO Site Architecture – Flash / Java Script
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SEO Site Architecture - URLs
• Non-optimized URL
http://www.anaheimoc.org/member_details/listview.asp?cat=6460
• Optimized URL
http://www.gayot.com/restaurants/best-losangeles-ca-top10italianrestaurants_2la.html
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SEO Site Architecture – URL Directories
With the content 4 directories deep, Google may deem this information not important/relevant.
52nd result in Google for term: “Seattle Facts”
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Architecture Best Practices – The Basics
• Ensure site content is spider-able
– On page content – Reduce / minimize usage of java script, flash
• URLs
– Use keywords in URL instead of code – Keep directories to a minimum – Reduce / eliminate usage of parameters
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Agenda
• About The Search Agency
• SEO – Why You Should Care
• SEO Strategies and Tactics for Convention & Visitor Bureaus
– SEO Architecture
– SEO Content – SEO Linking
– SEO and Social Media
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Content Best Practices
When it comes to website content, the following Content Optimization Best Practices are key:
• Title Tag • Keyword Focus
• • Each page should be focused around one primary keyword or phase Primary keyword selection should be based on keyword search volume research • 6 to 12 words long • Keyword focused • Keyword used at beginning of tag • 12 to 24 words long • Keyword focused • Keyword used towards the beginning of tag • 24 to 48 words long • Keyword focused • Keywords should be grouped in related clusters
• Meta Description
• Keyword Usage
• • Primary keyword should be used within all page elements and significantly within body copy Keyword usage should be based on average usage within top search engines
• Meta Keywords
• H1 Tags
• Content Depth
• Each page should have a significant depth of body copy content in relation to the topical focus (approx. 200 – 600 words)
• Only one H1 Tag per page • Keyword focused • Should not be duplicate of Title Tag
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Site Content
Which site wins?
Site One – 5 Pages Site Two – 30 Pages
Beatles
Beatles
Take Away: Build topic expertise by increasing the depth of content on your topics
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Case Study
Current Client:
Engagement:
Optimize site content for improved ranking.
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Improving the Site
Optimization plan includes the following:
• Creating Meta Data formulas to help improve the Title Tag, Meta Descriptions, and Meta Keywords of the pages • Identifying keyword focus for and optimizing the content on existing pages • Creating new content to take advantage of keyword opportunities
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Content Analysis
When we analyzed the website content of AnaheimOC.org, we discovered the following strengths and weaknesses: Strengths
• Majority of content is focused from a topical standpoint • Majority of pages have unique Title tags • Category/subcategory pages have established and unique H1 tags
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Content Analysis
When we analyzed the website content of AnaheimOC.org, we discovered the following strengths and weaknesses: Weaknesses
• Not all pages have unique Meta Description tag content and a good portion are missing. • Majority of pages have the exact same Meta Keywords tag content. • Merchant pages are missing an H1 tag • Subcategory pages could use additional content to help secure subcategory keyword/topical focus.
(Not an H1 tag, but should be)
(Text here)
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Content Strategy
• Focus efforts on one section of the site:
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Keyword Analysis
Keyword research is very important to successful SEO. The goal is to find a keyword that has search volume (i.e. people search on frequently) AND relates to topical focus of the page you want to optimize. Here’s the standard procedure for selecting a keyword:
• Identify the specific topic/focus of the page you want to optimize
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Keyword Analysis – Search Volume
Using a keyword search volume tool (like Wordtracker/Google AdWords Keyword Tool), find a keyword that has decent search volume that relates as close to your topical focus as possible.
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Keyword Analysis – Current SE Rank
Check in Google to see if your website (specifically the web page you want to optimize) is currently ranking for that term.
(#59)
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Who‟s Ranking?
Analyze who is ranking for your term:
• Keyword density
• Title Tags
• Body Content
• Meta Content
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OC Airports Page
Based on this analysis, we built a new OC Airports page
• Original page had 1 paragraph of text and links to the airport websites:
– Orange County Airport – John Wayne Airport – LAX – Long Beach Airport
Here is the new page:
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Proving the Concept – Creating New Content
In addition to optimizing the existing Orange County Airports page, we also built out individual pages on each of the 4 airports.
(Turns out that there was search volume for each of them as well)
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OC Airport Pages
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OC Airport Pages
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CVB Content Strategy
• Leverage the local focus of your site
– Include location and names of local attractions on all relevant page elements
• Meta content • Title Tag • H1‟s • Body Content • Etc.
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User-Generated Content
• Reviews on CVB sites
– Hotels – Restaurants – Attractions – Events
• Why?
– 1 out of 3 internet users seeks out user-generated content to help them make their decisions – Allows you to exponentially increase the word count and page count of your site
• Typically keyword rich content
– Free content
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Agenda
• About The Search Agency
• SEO – Why You Should Care
• SEO Strategies and Tactics for Convention & Visitor Bureaus
– SEO Architecture
– SEO Content – SEO Linking
– SEO and Social Media
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A Link is Like a Vote
A link is like a vote. Although links from important 'authority' sites carry more 'vote weight', ultimately, total 'link/vote score' is one of the heaviest algorithmic factors considered in rankings.
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Linking Pyramid
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Importance Of Linking
Words “Click Here” do not appear on this page
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CVB Linking Strategy
• Inbound Linking Strategy
– Leverage existing relationships with 1000‟s of businesses in your region.
Local Company 4 Local Company 5
Local Company 3 Local Company 2
Local Company 6 Local Company 7
Local Company 1
CVB.com
…etc
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CVB Linking Strategy
• Deep Linking
Homepage
Things to do
Restaurants
Italian restaurants
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CVB Linking Strategy
• Integrate linking practices into your everyday business
• How to do it:
– Train your staff about linking basics and the importance of linking
• Relevance, deep linking, etc.
– Build linking into your standard agreements with local businesses and vendors
– Train your procurement staff to include linking in all negotiations
• Why do it:
– Programmatically acquire large volumes of relevant, topic specific links into pages of your site
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Additional CVB Linking Strategies
• Actively acquire in-bound links from „authority‟ websites
– .gov sites
• Local government • State government • National government
– .edu sites
• Local universities
– Attraction websites
• Example: Disneyland
– Local large businesses
• Travel directories
• DMOZ (http://www.google.com/Top/Recreation/Travel/) • Yahoo Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/U_S__States/)
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Additional CVB Linking Strategies
• Make your content easy to share
– Add functionality for people to share content with their friends and colleagues.
• Increases inbound links
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Agenda
• About The Search Agency
• SEO – Why You Should Care
• SEO Strategies and Tactics for Convention & Visitor Bureaus
– SEO Architecture
– SEO Content – SEO Linking
– SEO and Social Media
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Examples of Social Media
• Blogs: “Web logs” like Gizmodo and Tech Crunch • Instant messaging: Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk • Forums: Websites for open discussions about specific topics. (Something Awful, Digital Spy) • Media sharing: Flickr, YouTube • Social bookmarking: Users recommend headlines and stories to one another (Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon) • Social networks: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn • Twitter: Real-time micro-blogging • Wikis: Wikipedia, WikiHow
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Social Media usage is growing
Interaction and adoption of social media has increased over time.
Source: Universal McCann
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Social Network Users
Analysts have forecasted online social networks to grow to 105 million Users in 2011. US Online Social Network Users, 2006-2011 (millions)
110
100
90
80
70
60
50
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Source: www.strategyanalytics.com
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Social Media For SEO
Basic concept of leveraging Social Media for SEO:
Post useful information on your site Announce your content People will come to your site People will add links
Social Media Ground Rules: • Spaces are very personal • Have a culture of giving, not taking
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Social Media For SEO
Post useful information on your site
• Content should be:
– Interesting – Unique – Compelling
Examples Anecdotes
Tips
Top 10 Lists
Specials
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Social Media For SEO
Announce your content
• Presumes you have an „audience‟ • Step one: Develop an audience
– – – – Collect email addresses on your website Connect with like-minded, travel related people online Form relationships and contribute to online spaces Comment on other‟s content
• Step two: Announce your content
– Twitter, community blogs, your email list, etc.
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Social Media For SEO
People will come to your site People will add links
• One natural outcome of compelling and unique content is that people will:
– Want to link to it – Comment about it Leads to more, relevant, high quality links into your site = Better ranking in search engines
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Summary
• SEO – You should care! • Architecture
– Reduce usage of flash / java-script – Optimize your URLs
• Content
– Focus on best practices and content depth
• Linking
– In-bound links from local merchants – Make in-bound linking a part of your everyday business
• Social Media
– Join the conversation and add value
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Thank you!
Corey Quinn corey@thesearchagency.com
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