SEO Basics
Tony Adam
February 25, 2009
YAHOO! CONFIDENTIAL
About Tony Adam - How I got here?
• SEO Manager @ Yahoo! • My Background:
– Technology Consulting, Sales, BizDev, etc. – SEO Evangelism
– Program/Project Management
• Where you’ll find me:
http://tonyadam.com/blog
http://twitter.com/tonyadam
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Let’s get some things straight about SEO!
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Who is ready for some SEO Hotness?!
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Where does SEO start? It’s all in the Research!
• Keyword Research
– Target keywords that make the most sense
– http://tools.seobook.com/keywordtools/seobook/
• Competitive Research
– Look at competitors and what they are targeting. – http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com
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Applying the research to your Content
Title Tags
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Applying the research to your Content
Headings (e.g. H1)
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Applying the research to your Content
Meta Tags
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Applying the research to your Content
ALT attribute
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Applying the research to your Content
URL Structures
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URL Structures are extremely important.
Create a Flat URL structure that is short and keyword rich.
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Example URL Structures
• Yahoo! Games
– http://games.yahoo.com/ – http://games.yahoo.com/free-games – http://games.yahoo.com/arcade-games – http://games.yahoo.com/board-games – http://games.yahoo.com/card-games – …etc...
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Duplicate Content is Bad!
One Piece of Content = One URL
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You’ve heard it before, Content Is King!
Create Fresh, Compelling, and Resourceful content.
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Examples of Evergreen and Resourceful content
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UGC Content
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Links are the most important part of SEO
Effective linking creates crawlable web content and provides relevance to search engines.
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Internal Linking
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It’s a Popularity Contest people!!
External Links are votes from websites telling Search Engines you are Important.
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zOMG I <3 Social Media #ponies
Visibility
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Which Social Media Site do I target for my audience
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Buttons, Widgets, Upvotes!!
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What does the Visibility Translate into?
• Branding & Mindshare • Traffic • Links
– Bloggers, Writers, Journalists look to Social Media for Resources – Links within Content. (BIG + for SEO)
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Why Social Media Matters
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Some great resources
• My Blog: http://tonyadam.com/blog (Shameless Self-Promo) • SEOMoz Beginners Guide to SEO http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-guide-to-searchengine-optimization • SEO News, Advice, etc.:
– http://sphinn.com – http://searchengineland.com – http://seobook.com
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Down the stretch we come!
• SEO requires research of your Audience and Competitors • Site Structure and on-page SEO sets you up for Success
– Title Tags, URLs, etc.
• Content is still King!
• Leverage Social Media for your SEO Efforts:
– Create Compelling content that does well on Social Media and drives links for SEO
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THANK YOU!
Tony Adam
Manager, Search Traffic Acquision
Yahoo! Audience Marketing tadam@yahoo-inc.com http://tonyadam.com/blog http://twitter.com/tonyadam (@tonyadam)
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