SEO-Guru Rand Fiskin of SEOmoz explains in below presentation the most effective steps in SEO. The presentation was held during the InfusionCon 2011.
Below a brief summary of the main points:
Significance of SEO
SEO is important because:
- number of search queries grew by 40% from 2009 to 2010
- in 2010 more than 10 bn queries passed through Google
- 80% of the clicks on organic results, 20% on paid links
- 2/3rds of all organic clicks fall onto the first 3 search results.
- ranking 2,3 & 4 combined receive less clicks than number 1 ranking
Following 10 steps ensure good listsings:
1 Great Content
goes beyond satisfying basic information requirement by being:
- being remarkable
- written by dedicated teams of writers/ designers/ producers
- content enriched with images, graphics, videos to convey a unique and shareable experience
A site offers great content when it provides:
- unique research
- informed opinions
- news/ trend analysis
- multimedia content
- authentic expert contributors
- quality discussion/ interaction
2 Accessibility through search engines
The sites accessibility can be improved by:
- substantive, descriptive, HTML text content
- easily, from search bots recognisable URLs
- content preferable on a single sub/ root domain
- logical, shallow information architecture
- no duplicate content
- if necesarry use “rel=canonical”
- proper redirects (301 v. 302)
- effective error handling of bots
3 Design & Usability
Search engines are finally taking design into account
- design is surprisingly affordable
- many usability basics are intuitive (easy to learn, efficient to use, etc..)
- use Google Analytics or specific usability testing software
4 Keyword Research
plays a major role in imporoving SEO rankings
- Best keywords are:
-
- high volume – many searches/ month
- low competition (weak sites/pahes in top 10)
- high value (large % of visitors convert)
- keyword research start with brainstorming
- for search volume use Google AdWords Tool/ MS AdCenter
- determine keyword difficulty
- determine keyword value (in terms of conversion)
- buying PPC is a great way to test keyword combinations
5 Keyword Targeting
Keyword targetting is a major step in optimitisn website for better SEO performance
- optimise your pages to the targeted keywords
- title tags: properly filled out & relevant
- use keywords in URL
- meta description: filled out & relevant
- body text keyword usage: use keywords in copy!
- images: keywords in ALT-texts and file-names
- headlines: not particularily well correlated with high search rankings
6 Search Engine tools
An easy way to enhance the perfomance of site is the consistent use of (free) search engine tools
- Use search engine tools
- XML sitemaps
- HTML sitemaps
- RSS Feeds
- (Google) Webmaster Tools
- Crawl errors
7 Build Links, Tweets, Likes & Shares
Links and shares that are visible to search engines are extremely important for rankings:
- What makes a great link?
- editorially given (in copy)
- from trusted source
- descriptive anchor texts
- points to the right page
- tweets and likes are getting relevant for searches in Google and Bing
8 The Community factor
Use the effect of communities and encourage site interaction
- comments on blogs
- discuss in discussion boards
- interact with help of social profiles
- answering questions on Q&A sites
9 Analytics & Tracking
Proper installation of Analytics codes and tracking of right KPIs
- Visits by search engine
- keywords / visits by search engine
- landing pages by search engine
- tracking keyword rankings
- set up ‘goals’ & ‘conversions’
- understand your website’s conversion funnel
10 Testing & Improve
Frequent testing and optimization of website:
- more traffic
- better funnel
- A/B split testing resource
- test content-types
- test marketing channels
