Search Engine Optimization E-Book

Kristopher B. Jones

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: Visual Blueprint
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 427

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Your visual, step-by-step guide to search engineoptimization, from an Internet marketing expert Techniques and best practices for search engine optimization areconstantly evolving. This visual guide to SEO is fully updated withinformation on the latest and most effective ways to move yourwebsite up in the search engine rankings. Internet marketing guruKristopher Jones, a frequent keynote speaker at interactivemarketing conferences, explains all the key concepts in a visualformat so you can see how they work and what to do. Learn aboutkeyword generation, internal linking, URL structure, contentcreation, using social media, and more. * More than 70 percent of businesses today have websites; searchengine optimization is a vital factor in growing a business bygaining new customers while increasing business from existingcustomers * This two-color book is the only guide to search engineoptimization that is presented in a visual format * Presents search engine marketing principles including keywordgeneration, on-site optimization involving website structure,internal linking, URL structure, content creation, off-siteoptimization, social media optimization and more * Author is a popular keynote speaker and panelist at interactivemarketing and technology conferences Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint foreffective Internet marketing, Third Edition helps visuallearners master and maximize SEO techniques.

Leseprobe

Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint™ for effective Internet marketing, 3rd Edition

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1: Getting Started with Search-Engine Optimization

Choose a Topic

Find Your Target Audience

Set a Budget

Set Goals

Put a Team Together

Keep Up with Industry News

Attend an Industry Conference

Chapter 2: Keyword Generation

An Introduction to Keyword Generation

Select Keywords

Analyze Your Competition with Compete.com

Analyze Your Competition with SEMrush

Research Keywords with KeywordSpy

Using the Wordtracker Keyword Suggestion Tool

Using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Research Keywords with Keyword Discovery

Research Keywords with Bing Keyword Tool

Research Keywords with Übersuggest

Using the Google Trends Tool

Chapter 3: Creating Pages

An Introduction to Creating Pages

Choose Filenames

Optimize Title Tags

Optimize Meta Description Tags

Optimize Meta Keyword Tags

Create a Meta Robots Tag

Add Emphasis with Header Tags

Using Text Modifiers

Optimize Images

Create Links

Validate HTML

Chapter 4: Basic Website Structure

An Introduction to Basic Website Structure

Find Web Hosting

Establish a Domain Name

Optimize for Multiple Browsers

Plan and Design a Website Structure

Link within Subject Matter Themes

Design a Sitemap

Create a Company Information Page

Create a Privacy Policy

Chapter 5: Advanced Website Structuring

An Introduction to Advanced Website Structuring

Create a Robots.txt File

Specify a Canonical Page

Using the Nofollow Attribute

Structure URLs Correctly

Protect Yourself with an .htaccess File

Using Mod_Rewrite to Rewrite URLs

Redirect Non-WWW Traffic to WWW

Redirect with 301 Redirects

Chapter 6: Creating Content

An Introduction to Creating Content

Write for People, Not Search Engines

Avoid Duplicate Content

Using Proper Keyword Density

Using Latent Semantic Content

Keep Content Current

Optimize Non-HTML Documents

Chapter 7: Creating Communities

An Introduction to Creating Communities

Create a Blog with WordPress

Create a Blog with Blogger

Create a Blog with Tumblr

Write Search-Engine-Optimized Posts

Make Your Blog Successful

Create a Community with vBulletin

Create a Community with phpBB

Make Your Forum Successful

Add Reviews to Your Website

Chapter 8: Building Links

An Introduction to Building Links

Evaluate Competition

Evaluate Potential Linking Partners

Gather Link Intelligence with Open Site Explorer

Acquire Quality Links

Using Effective Anchor Text

Content Marketing with Guest Blogging

Content Marketing with Infographics

Encourage Community Participation

Request One-Way Links

Chapter 9: Using Google Analytics

An Introduction to Google Analytics

Create an Account

Install Tracking Code

Set Conversion Goals

Exclude Your IP Address with Filters

Exclude Traffic from a Particular Domain

Include Only Certain Directories

Track External Links

Automate Reporting

Using Analytics to Find New Keywords

Set Up E-Commerce Tracking

Insert Tracking Code on Your Thank You Page

Using Third-Party Shopping Carts

Chapter 10: Social Media Optimization

An Introduction to Social Media Optimization

Network with Facebook

Create a Facebook Business Page

Generate Leads with Facebook Ads

Maximize Exposure with StumbleUpon

Microblog with Twitter

Build Followers with Twitter Search

Network with Google+

Grow Your Professional Network with LinkedIn

Share Videos with YouTube

Generate Traffic with Pinterest

Network with WebmasterWorld

Chapter 11: Creating Pay-per-Click Campaigns

An Introduction to Pay-per-Click Campaigns

Learn About AdWords Accounts

Create an AdWords Campaign

Target Your Campaign

Write Effective Ad Copy

Using Keyword Matching Options

Set Bidding Strategies

Export PPC Reports

Track Conversions

Using Google AdWords Editor

Optimize Your Account

Chapter 12: Optimizing PPC Campaigns through Quality Score Optimization

An Introduction to Quality Score Optimization

View Your Quality Scores

Optimize Your Quality Score

Test Ad Copy

Utilize Ad Extensions

Test Ad Copy with Advanced Keyword Insertion

Using Display Network Targeted Campaigns

Using Placement-Targeted Campaigns

Install Remarketing

Optimize Your Landing Pages

Chapter 13: Optimizing for Other Search Engines

An Introduction to Optimizing for Other Search Engines

Optimize Blog Posts for Technorati

Optimize Your Images for Google Images

Increase Exposure on Ask.com

Improve Your Ranking on Bing

Using Shopping Engines to Drive Traffic

Produce Sales with eBay Auctions

Using Craigslist to Drive Traffic

Chapter 14: Optimizing for Local Search

An Introduction to Local Search

Create a Google+ Local Page

Optimize Your Google+ Local Page

Leverage Reviews to Increase Your Local Search Ranking

Optimize Your Website for Local Search

Maximize Social Media Ranking Factors

Eliminate Negative Ranking Factors

Consider Offsite Ranking Factors

Get Listed on Local.com

Get Listed on ReferLocal.com Business Pages

Chapter 15: Installing SEO Tools and Plug-ins

An Introduction to SEO Tools and Plug-ins

Using the Side-by-Side SEO Comparison Tool

Using the SEOmoz Browser Toolbar

Using the SEO for Firefox Plug-in

Check Page Performance Using the Load Time Speed Test Tool

Using the WordPress SEO Plug-in by Yoast

Using the SEO Book Rank Checker

Using the SEOTools for Excel Add-In

Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint™ for effective Internet marketing, 3rd Edition

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Boulevard Indianapolis, IN 46256

www.wiley.com

Published simultaneously in Canada

Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

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About the Author

Kristopher B. Jones is considered one of the top Internet marketing experts in the world. Kris is a frequent keynote speaker, presenter, and moderator at major national and international marketing conferences, including Search Engine Strategies (SES), Pubcon, and Radio Ink Convergence. Since 2008 Kris’s book, Search-Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing, has sold nearly 50,000 copies and was ranked on Amazon.com as the best-selling book within the search-engine marketing category more times than any other SEO book. Kris is a sought-after motivational speaker and frequently speaks to corporations and nonprofit organizations, as well as colleges and universities around the world. Kris has delivered inspirational lectures to thousands of college and graduate students at schools such as Penn State University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Villanova University.

Kris was the founder and former President and CEO of Pepperjam, a full-service Internet marketing agency and affiliate network sold to eBay in 2011 (after being acquired by GSI Commerce in 2009). During Kris’s tenure at Pepperjam, the company was recognized for three consecutive years by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States and was celebrated as one of the best places to work in the state of Pennsylvania. The company currently powers affiliate marketing programs for more than 2,000 major Internet retailers, including Toys “R” Us, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and the NFL.

After selling Pepperjam, Kris founded an angel investment firm called KBJ Capital (www.kbjcapital.com), which he has leveraged to invest in and advise a growing portfolio of early-stage technology companies, including ReferLocal.com, where he serves as founder and CEO; Highlighter.com; APPEK Mobile Apps; Pathmapp.com, VigLink; Internet Media Labs; LavCup.com; and Yumm.com, among others. KBJ Capital has also made several alternative financial investments, including in Doc Magrogan’s Oyster House, Rapid Recovery, and a fast-growing real estate investment firm Kris cofounded with his entrepreneurial brother Rick.

In addition, in 2012 Kris joined the #1 SEO firm in the United States, Internet Marketing Ninjas, as Chairman. As Chairman, Kris advises the company on its overall business strategy, including mergers and acquisitions, growth into new markets and products, and executive recruitment and retention. Kris has worked closely with CEO Jim Boykin on recent Ninja investments and acquisitions of WebmasterWorld, DevShed, Cre8asite, and Threadwatch, as well as the talent acquisitions of Chris Boggs, Joe Hall, Kim Kopp Krause Berg, and Ann Smarty.

In 2013 Kris was selected by the Online Marketing Institute as one of the “Top 40 Digital Strategists in Marketing.” Kristopher was also recognized as an Entrepreneur of the Year by Bank of America (2005), as a finalist for the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (2008), and twice as one of the “Top 20 Business Leaders” in northeastern Pennsylvania under the age of 40 (2006, 2010).

An avid reader, traveler, public speaker, entrepreneur, and business leader, Kristopher truly defines a spiritually motivated individual dedicated to the community in which he lives. Kris is a former senior staff member to former Congressman Paul E. Kanjorski (PA-11).

Kristopher has participated on numerous technology, educational, and nonprofit boards of director and advisory committees, including the Misericordia University Board of Trustees, the Great Valley Technology Alliance (past cochair), WVIA Public Broadcasting, Penn State University (WB) Department of Information Science and Technology, Albany Law School Alumni Association, Pennsylvania Keystone Innovation Grant Committee (KIG), CAN BE Business Incubator, Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce Strategic Planning Committee, Luzerne Foundation Millennium Circle, and the United Way of Wyoming Valley, among others.

Kristopher received a bachelor of arts from Pennsylvania State University, a master of science from Villanova University, and a juris doctorate from Albany Law School.

Learn more about Kris on his personal website, located at www.krisjones.com.

Connect with Kris:

Facebook www.facebook.com/kbjcapital

Twitter www.twitter.com/krisjonescom

LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/internetceo

Contact Kris at [email protected].

“I have always had the deepest respect for Kris’s extensive knowledge of how search engines work and how you get the most out of your search-engine marketing efforts. In this book Kris proves that he is also an excellent writer with the rare ability to explain even complex things in such a way that everyone can understand it. I can highly recommend this book to anyone interested in search-engine marketing!”

Mikkel deMib Svendsen, SEO Expert and Founder, deMib.com/Redpitt.com

“As marketing dollars continue to shift from offline to online, competition for the limited real estate available on a search results page is increasingly fierce. Companies need to embrace SEO as a viable and profitable marketing strategy. Kris’s book lays out a step-by-step approach that is an excellent launch point to the competitive world of search-engine optimization.”

Todd Friesen, Director of SEO, Salesforce.com

“This book provides valuable information on search-engine optimization and Internet marketing from one of the thought shapers of the business. Kris Jones offers specific instruction on how to improve your website ranking through proven strategies in SEO and social media optimization.”

Marcus Tandler, SEO Expert and Blogger, Mediadonis.net

“When is the last time YOU used the Yellow Pages or card catalog? Right!! Search has changed the game, and if you are not in it, your competitors are! If you are looking to rank better, with proven strategies then Kris’s book is a must read!”

Wil Reynolds, SEO Expert and Founder, SEER Interactive

“Kris Jones is a true pioneer in the Internet marketing space. His knowledge of search-engine optimization can help any business, small or large, maximize its exposure on the Internet’s most critical channel. If you are looking for Internet success, then look for guidance from people who have already succeeded. Kris Jones is one of those people.”

Michael C. Jones, GM of Pepperjam Exchange, an eBay Company

“I’ve been reading everything I could get my hands on in search marketing since the ’90s, and I’ve noticed one constant: most books on search are authored by pretenders or professional writers that research the topic. Kris is the real deal, a search innovator from the trenches. When he talks, search marketers better listen.”

Shawn Collins, Cofounder, Affiliate Summit

“With clear, concise writing, Kris Jones builds a bridge between SEO theory and real-world business results. If you know where you want your website and your business to go, but aren’t sure how to get there, this book is the map you’ve been looking for.”

Scott Lynett, Publisher & CEO, Times-Shamrock Communications

“Written by an experienced master practitioner, this book is an updated step-by-step guide to dominating search engine results. Get it now and use it like a club to beat up your online competition!”

Tim Ash, Author of Landing Page Optimization, CEO of SiteTuners, and Chair of Conversion Conference

“Let me let you in on a little secret . . . SEO is not magic. It is a fundamental process by which smart marketers structure their online content to achieve maximum visibility with an interested audience. Nobody knows that process better than Kris — the good news is that he’s elected to share his expertise in such a format that everyone—from marketer to coder, creative to executive—can understand.”

Jeffrey K. Rohrs, Vice President of Marketing, ExactTarget

Author’s Acknowledgments

The third edition of this book is dedicated to my loving family, including my wife Robyn, children Kris Jr., Lauren, and Jackson, my mother Charlotte, my father “Harvey,” my brother Rick, and my sister Jennifer. I’d also like to recognize the unconditional love, friendship, and continued support I receive from my mother-in-law Terry and father-in-law “Lenny” Martin, as well as my brother-in-law Jonathan Runquist and sister-in-law Melanie Jones. My family is everything to me and my amazing wife is my #1.

The completion of the third edition of this book would not have been possible without the hard work of my editorial team at Wiley, including Stephanie McComb, Kristin Vorce, Lauren Kennedy, and Vince Averello. The professional suggestions and expertise I received throughout the writing process helped make this book a reality and the finished product something to be proud of.

I’d also like to thank Bonnie Stefanic of Internet Marketing Ninjas and Christian Wenzel of Wenzel PPC for offering considerable editorial assistance and support throughout all stages of this publication. Christian was my former director of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) at Pepperjam and is one of the top subject matter experts in the world on optimizing quality scores and driving more business leads at the lowest possible cost per acquisition via PPC. Bonnie is a leading thought shaper in the SEO space and is considered a world authority on SEO tools and link building.

Finally, I’d like to acknowledge my good friend Mike Averto, founder and CEO of web design firm Otreva.com, for building KrisJones.com into what I believe is one of the coolest personal websites on the Internet. Mike overdelivered and exceeded my expectations for modern web design. Mike’s use of HTML5 and the latest technologies available in social media integration are pretty breathtaking. Note that KrisJones.com provides readers of this book with a venue to ask follow-up questions and to share suggestions for future editions.

How to Use This Book

Who This Book Is For

This book is for advanced computer users who want to take their knowledge of this particular technology or software application to the next level.

The Conventions in This Book

Steps

This book uses a step-by-step format to guide you easily through each task. Numbered steps are actions you must do; bulleted steps clarify a point, step, or optional feature; and indented steps give you the result.

Notes

Notes give additional information — special conditions that may occur during an operation, a situation that you want to avoid, or a cross reference to a related area of the book.

Icons and Buttons

Icons and buttons show you exactly what you need to click to perform a step.

Extra or Apply It

An Extra section provides additional information about the preceding task — insider information and tips for ease and efficiency. An Apply It section takes the code from the preceding task one step further and allows you to take full advantage of it.

Bold

Bold type shows text or numbers you must type.

Italics

Italic type introduces and defines a new term.

Courier Font

Courier font indicates the use of scripting language code such as statements, operators, or functions, and code such as objects, methods, or properties.

Foreword

For many companies, the work performed on their online marketing campaigns can spell the difference between becoming a success or failure for their entire business. In Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing, 3rd Edition, Kris Jones gives away some of the most amazing tips and tools to guide you in getting the most out of your online marketing efforts.

This book can help you like no other book on online marketing can. I know this because several of these tools and techniques listed in this book helped Kris to build up his former company, Pepperjam, into one of the largest and most respected Internet marketing firms in the world, and these tools and techniques have also helped my own company (Internet Marketing Ninjas) grow from a one-man company in 1999 to more than 100 in-house employees today.

Kris has outlined what to do, and how to do it, and if you follow the blueprint within, you will possess knowledge far beyond your competitors’, giving you the edge to take on your biggest competitors. I have seen what works, and what does not work, via working with countless websites since 1999. I have also read numerous books on the topic of Internet marketing, but this is the only book I have ever seen that outlines the best tools to use and the best techniques to drive major traffic to your website. You can pay a company like mine thousands of dollars every month, or you can get the knowledge passed down from one of the best minds in the industry (Kris) and have the knowledge and the tools to do the work yourself.

I’ve known Kris for over ten years now, and I have always been impressed by Kris’s knowledge of so many facets of Internet marketing. I recall in 2008 when I drove to Pennsylvania to meet with Kris and Pepperjam and I was blown away at the growth his company had recently had. Kris had grown his company by 2,447.5% over the previous year, and his company was taking over the building they occupied, blowing through walls on his floor to accommodate the growth he was seeing. That was also the year that the first edition of Kris’s book was published. The following year Kris sold Pepperjam to GSI, which later was sold to eBay.

Clearly this was a man who knew what he was doing. In 2012 I was lucky enough to bring Kris on at my company (Internet Marketing Ninjas) as our Chairman.

That’s really what Kris has done in this book. By taking a visual approach to teaching SEO, Kris allows us to visualize not just where we are, but where we could be . . . where we need to be. Reading this book can do for you what walking into Pepperjam did for me. It can open your eyes to a world of possibilities and the full realization of the potential that you never even knew you had. Thank you, Kris, and happy reading to you, the new generation of Internet marketers.

Jim Boykin

Founder & CEO Internet Marketing Ninjas www.internetmarketingninjas.com@jimboykin on Twitter @seojim on Facebook

An Introduction to Search-Engine Optimization

Search-engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of setting up your website so that it ranks well for particular keywords within the organic search results of major search engines, including Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Unlike paid search marketing, which requires you to pay for every click sent to your website from a search engine, traffic sent to your site from a search engine’s organic results is free.

In the early days of SEO, gaining top rankings for keywords was much easier than it is today. In those “good old days,” search-engine algorithms were easy to crack. All you had to do was include the keyword you wanted to rank for in the title tag of your web page and sprinkle that keyword throughout the content of your page, and chances were you would rank within the top ten results of your favorite search engine. Not surprisingly, over the years search-engine algorithms have become increasingly complex, which has resulted in website owners either outsourcing SEO to professional firms or educating themselves using books like this one.

Dating back to 1996 or so, search engines started to become a very popular tool for web surfers looking for all sorts of information. Long before Google and Yahoo became popular, search engines such as AltaVista and InfoSeek were pioneers at providing search results to users within a fraction of a second. Search results in the early days were nowhere near as relevant as they are today. However, search-engine users in the millions began relying on websites like AltaVista more and more frequently to retrieve information about everything from health abnormalities to pricing on the latest gadget.

Search-engine optimization first began in 1997 through public reports and commentary provided by search-engine experts, including Danny Sullivan and Bruce Clay, among others. Early reports about SEO looked at search-engine algorithms and how the various search engines ranked search results. Inspired entrepreneurs and website owners began studying these reports and testing strategies for how they could rank well within the search results. Before long the SEO profession emerged, and individuals were offering services to help rank websites on major search engines.

As the World Wide Web grew at a remarkable pace, the popularity of AltaVista and Infoseek started to wane. Other search engines came and went, but no company has had more of an impact on search-engine marketing than Google.

Google: The Birth Child of Larry and Sergey

Google was cofounded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University. Although the company was officially incorporated in 1998, the idea of creating a search engine that would “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” began as part of a doctoral research project Larry and Sergey began in 1996.

The key to Google’s early success was that the algorithm behind the Google search engine was different from the algorithms before it. Based on Larry and Sergey’s experience with academic research, they believed that web page authority and relevance could be derived algorithmically by indexing the entire web, and then analyzing who links to whom. This idea came from the fact that in academia authority is derived when researchers advance their own research by citing one another as part of the research process. Indeed, each piece of published scholarly work (including Larry and Sergey’s dissertation) has a works-cited page at the end of each finished piece of written research, which includes a list of resources that were cited as relevant to the work being advanced.

Larry and Sergey thought about the process of citing in academic research and hypothesized that those web pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with a particular search. To further bolster this concept, Larry and Sergey created PageRank (named after Larry Page), which not only counts how many links point to any given page but also determines the quality of those links.

The Google algorithm is more complex than just analyzing who links to whom, and algorithmically analyzing links is a great idea that has separated Google from its competition. In fact, today Google is the leading search engine with nearly 70% market share in the United States and has quickly become the preferred search engine in most other parts of the world.

SEO: Beware of Snake Oil Salesman

Search-engine optimization is a critical component of a well-rounded Internet marketing strategy. Having a great website is simply not enough. Hundreds of millions of people use search engines every day to scour the Internet and find information from relevant websites just like yours. In order to appear alongside your competition in the search results, your website must be search-engine-friendly. Moreover, to be competitive within the search results, you need to take steps that convince search engines that your website is an authority and that your content is relevant for particular keywords related to your business or enterprise.

If you are reading this book, you do not need convincing that SEO is integral to your online marketing success. However, the profession of SEO has taken significant criticism for being nothing more than a spammy attempt to manipulate search-engine results. Unfortunately, criticism has come primarily as a result of so-called SEO experts who sell guaranteed top ten placements and instant success formulas for achieving front page search-engine rankings. Fortunately, such unethical, get-rich-quick, snake oil salesmen represent a very small percentage of SEO professionals.

The majority of SEO experts are ethical professionals who understand the complex dynamics of search-engine algorithms and offer assistance and counsel on how to maximize your placement on search engines. The truth is that there are no guarantees in SEO. In fact, if an alleged SEO professional offers guaranteed placement within Google’s top ten organic rankings, you need to decline the offer. SEO requires great skill and is not quick. You must have patience. You should look at SEO as an ongoing process that is necessary for you to maintain and maximize your position in the organic search results in the long term. You should set your expectations accordingly and educate other website owners of the process so they do not waste money based on hollow pitches from unethical SEO professionals.

Get Started

The first step to getting started with your SEO campaign is to select a topic. If you already have a website covering a topic that you are satisfied with, then you may want to skip this step. However, keep in mind that you need to set realistic expectations based on your chosen topic. Increasing your website rankings for competitive topics is much more difficult than increasing rankings for less competitive topics.

To get the most from your SEO efforts, you must carefully consider your target audience. Your target audience includes the specific people you are trying to put your website in front of. Understanding who your target audience is and what they are searching for can greatly increase the effectiveness of an SEO campaign.

Prior to beginning your SEO efforts, you should set goals, including how much money you want to dedicate to your efforts. If you are going to conduct SEO internally, you need to set a budget only for the tools you need and the amount of money you must allocate to pay your internal SEO team. If you intend to outsource your SEO, you should set aside a minimum of $3,000 to $5,000 monthly for a dedicated SEO professional. Elite SEO professionals may charge in excess of $10,000 per month.

Putting together an internal team of people to help with your SEO requires you to select one or more individuals with varying proficiency in HTML writing, knowledge of CSS, data analysis, graphical design, server administration, copywriting, link building, social media, and blogging. Although the scope of your project dictates how many people you need to fill out your team, you can always consider outsourcing one or more components of the job. Companies like Internet Marketing Ninjas, located at www.internetmarketingninjas.com, can help you train your internal team and put together an SEO strategic plan for the team to follow.

Although writing large amounts of original content may seem like a daunting task, there are countless professional copywriters who can provide you with well-written content at a reasonable price. Moreover, online services such as Elance allow you to hire copywriters and other service providers through an auction system. The auction system allows you to post your work so that multiple service providers compete for the job. You have the option of comparing multiple vendors and ultimately choosing one or more based on skill level and past performance within the Elance network.

One of the best places to keep up-to-date with what is happening in the search-engine marketing industry is to read blogs and other online news sources. Blogs such as SearchEngineLand.com, SERoundTable.com, and SEOmoz.com provide current perspectives and tips, and news websites including DMNews.com, ClickZ.com, and WebProNews.com provide breaking news and commentary on search-engine marketing.

Another way to increase your knowledge about the search-engine marketing space is to attend an industry conference. Leading search marketing conferences, including Search Engine Strategies (SES) and Search Marketing Expo (SMX) offer dozens of educational sessions led by panels of search marketing experts. See www.searchenginestrategies.com and www.searchmarketingexpo.com for more information.

Keyword Generation

Effective keyword generation is one of the most critical elements of successful SEO. All keywords are not created equal; some keywords are easier to rank for than others, and some keywords tend to be almost impossible to rank for. Broad or general keywords tend to be highly competitive and therefore should represent only a small portion of your overall SEO efforts. Specific keywords, which include those keywords that describe your specific product or service and are more than three keywords in length, are less competitive and therefore should make up the bulk of your keyword generation efforts.

For example, if you own an e-commerce website, you stand a better chance of ranking within the top search results for product-level keywords than you do for broad keywords that generally describe your business. Although broad keywords tend to generate higher levels of search volume, product-level terms can generate significant search volume and tend to convert at higher rates than broad terms.

There are numerous useful keyword generation tools that can help you discover effective keywords for your website. Keyword generation tools such as Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker, and Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool allow you to carefully research, analyze, and filter potential keywords. It is not enough to just generate massive lists of keywords. Instead, your keyword lists should represent a cross section of broad and specific terms that your website stands a legitimate chance of ranking for. Because keyword generation is so critical to your SEO success, consider making a modest financial investment by purchasing subscriptions to tools such as Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker even though Google, Bing, and other companies offer tools for free.

Keep in mind that although keyword generation tools can quickly generate thousands upon thousands of keywords, each page of your website should be search-engine-optimized for only one or two keywords. Therefore, focus less on generating massive lists of keywords and more on generating keyword lists that directly relate to your website and give you the best shot at ranking well on search engines.

One of the most effective ways to generate target keywords beyond basic keyword generation is through competitive research. Readily available competitive research tools such as SEMrush, KeywordSpy, and Compete provide various data about your competition, including what keywords your competitors rank for in the organic search results, as well as what keywords your competitors are using on pay-per-click search engines such as Google. Armed with competitive research information, you can compare your success to your competition and use the information to devise a plan of attack to improve your own ranking within the organic and paid search results.

Create Pages

Keep in mind that search engines do not actually rank websites; instead, search engines rank individual web pages. Therefore, in order to succeed with SEO, each and every page of your website must be optimized for search engines. The most important element of each of your web pages is substantial unique content. However, you can optimize numerous other important structural and technological factors on your web pages to ensure that you position yourself to rank well within the search-engine results.

For example, optimizing technical on-site web page factors, such as adding correct filenames, title tags, meta description tags, meta keyword tags, and meta robots tags, is crucial to making sure the search-engine spiders can determine the relevance of your website. Besides your domain name, the first things search engines discover when spidering through the pages of your website are your filenames. Every single page of your website resides in a different file. By titling your pages with SEO in mind, you have a powerful opportunity to establish relevance to a certain topic or keyword.

Each page of your website should contain a unique title tag that includes the target keywords you want to rank for. Search engines place great importance on the text contained within your title tag and use it as a primary indicator of what your web page is about. Therefore, your title tag should include your target keywords and also provide a concise statement summarizing the content of your web page.

Although search engines rarely use description and keyword tags for ranking purposes, each page of your website should include unique description and keyword tags. Description tags can be especially important because search engines often use them as the display text shown when a search query triggers your web page. Therefore, your description tag should include a call-to-action marketing message so that your listing stands out among other listings and gets clicked.

Optimizing your content with header tags and other text modifiers allows you to stress the main ideas and topics that your content covers. Header tags are HTML tags used to apply significance to keywords or phrases within a web page. Placing a selection of text within a header tag tells the search-engine spiders that the text is of a certain level of importance. Using text modifiers, you can emphasize certain blocks of text by bolding, italicizing, or underlining keywords or phrases.

Taking care to optimize web page images is important for those web browsers that do not support images, and because search-engine spiders are unable to accurately read the content of an image, doing so presents an extra opportunity to add keyword-rich content to your page. Links provide the pathways that search-engine spiders need to find your web pages. Creating links with SEO in mind is necessary for optimal results.

Throughout the process of creating web pages you should try to adhere to the standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which works to create standards in web design and development to ensure Internet-wide compatibility.

Basic Website Structure

A well-optimized website design and structure help improve the overall performance of your website, making it easier for users to navigate and for search engines to find and index all your content. You want to balance your website design between the needs of your users and the needs of the search engines. To be successful, your website should not only provide a superior user experience but also include an optimal structure so that search engines index your content.

One way to ensure that search engines find all your content is by submitting a sitemap. Think of your sitemap as an outline of your entire website. A sitemap displays the inner framework and organization of your website’s structure to the search engines. A sitemap should reflect the entire navigational structure of your website so that search-engine spiders can find and index all your content. As you add new content to your website, you should submit your sitemap to the search engines regularly, every 24 hours or so.

To establish trust and credibility in the eyes of your visitors and search engines, your website should include both a company information and a privacy page. A company information page helps strengthen your reputation in the eyes of both your website visitors and the search engines. Adding a company information page helps build trust with your visitors by explaining who you are and where you come from; you can provide company biographies, company history, staff photos, and links to social media profiles.

In addition to a company information page, your website should also contain a page explaining your privacy policy. A privacy policy page helps establish trust by declaring that you are committed to protecting the privacy of your visitors’ personal information. Try to keep your privacy policy simple and make it easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to find on your website. You should consider adding a link to your privacy policy next to a link to your company information page. This way, your visitors can see that you are a trustworthy and legitimate entity.

Advanced Website Structuring

Once you have the basic structure of your website in place, you can implement several additional advanced structural considerations to optimize your site for search engines. For example, beyond setting up your website so that it is indexed, you may want to instruct the search engines not to index a particular page. A robots.txt file allows you to tell the spiders what they may and may not do when they arrive at your domain. Robots.txt files also provide you a means to prevent both potential copyright infringements and search-engine spiders from consuming excessive amounts of bandwidth on your server.

One primary example of advanced website structuring includes the use of the nofollow attribute. The nofollow attribute instructs search-engine spiders that they should not follow a particular link or view that link as anything of significance when determining rankings. Because search engines count links from your website to another website as a vote for search-engine ranking purposes, you can add nofollow if you do not want the search-engine spider to credit the link.

A second advanced website structural consideration is the way you structure your URLs. URLs must be structured so that they are easily spidered and organized and create a user-friendly website navigation system. For example, search engines as well as people prefer URLs that are simple and that include the keywords describing the page within the URL string.

A third structural consideration is the use of an .htaccess file. An .htaccess file is the Apache web server’s configuration file. It is a straightforward yet powerful text file that can accomplish a wide variety of functions that allow you to protect your website from content-stealing robots. Moreover, .htaccess is useful in that it allows you to dynamically rewrite poorly formed URLs that shopping cart or blog software generate.

Other advanced website structural considerations include using mod_rewrite to rewrite URLs, redirecting non-www traffic to your www domain, and using 301 redirects whenever you change or redesign your website. Each advanced structuring technique provides you with procedures to ensure that search engines recognize your website and that each of your web pages is correctly indexed.

Content Creation

Creating well-written, original content is absolutely critical to your long-term SEO success. Content is what visitors use to determine value, and it is one of the primary factors that search engines use to rank your website. Whether your website ends up on the first page or the one-hundredth page of Google largely depends on the quality and relevance of your content.

Although you should keep SEO principles in mind when you create content, the key to building long-term rankings on search engines is to write content for people, not search engines. Original and naturally flowing content provides your readers with a positive, enjoyable user experience and greatly improves your chances of top search-engine rankings. Avoid writing content solely for SEO purposes and you can greatly increase your likelihood of long-term SEO success.

When you write content, you must avoid duplicate content. Duplicate content occurs when your website contains content that already exists on the web. Duplicate content issues can have a detrimental effect on your SEO success and should be avoided at all costs. Writing original content is the most obvious way to avoid duplicate content. If you feel that you do not have the time to build large amounts of unique content, you can employ tools on your website, such as user reviews, that allow for user-generated content. User-generated content allows your content to remain fresh, which is one of the factors search engines use to rank one website over another with similar authority.

Writing original content and adding user-generated content does not entirely protect you from duplicate content issues. You must protect yourself from others stealing your content because Google cannot algorithmically detect who owns content. Fortunately, tools such as Copyscape are available to help you avoid and prevent duplicate content issues.

Although you should write content for people and not search engines, you should also use proper keyword density throughout each page of your website. First, you want to optimize each page of your website for no more than one or two target keywords, while at the same time making sure that you do not inadvertently repeat nontarget keywords. By using available tools to maximize optimal keyword density, you can incorporate a substantial number of target keywords throughout your content without compromising the naturally flowing aesthetics of the writing.

You should keep in mind a few important content creation principles as you build your website. First, search-engine algorithms cannot read text that is included in images. Therefore, always include important text and target keywords that appear in images in text form. You can still use images, but search engines cannot read the text contained within them. Second, when drafting your content, you can use a powerful content creation principle called latent semantic content, which involves using keywords very similar to your target keywords to enhance the theme and relevance of your page. For example, if your target keyword is “Old Spice,” you can also use words like “deodorant” and “cologne” to enhance the thematic relatedness and relevancy of your page for your target keyword “Old Spice.”

Create Communities

Creating a community such as a blog or forum on your website is one of the most effective ways to keep your content fresh, while helping to establish your site as an authority for your given area of business. Search engines such as Google favor websites with fresh content over similarly authoritative websites that do not update content as often. Starting a community is easy and inexpensive.

A clear benefit of creating a community on your website is the fact that communities promote interaction and content creation among your users. User-generated content from blogs and forums is a great way to build a reputation as an authority and provides you with opportunities to gain additional, unanticipated search-engine rankings.

A blog is an online journal or diary that is frequently updated by an author and typically allows readers to interact by providing comments after each blog post is published. Regardless of what kind of website you own, having a blog is a good idea. First, a blog provides clear SEO benefits through controlled content creation and user-generated content via user comments. Second, a blog helps establish you as an expert. As an expert, other websites will link to your content, which helps improve your search-engine ranking. Third, blogs are sticky. In other words, your users will want to join your RSS feed and come back to your website frequently to check for new content and learn about your products and services.

Blogs are a great tool for communicating special offers and deals to loyal readers, and they allow you to go into detail about specific products that might require detailed explanation. For example, if you are about to launch a new product that includes a new, revolutionary way of doing something, a blog allows you to make the case for the benefits and usefulness of the product versus older-generation products.

Unlike a blog, a community forum is a discussion board where members and forum moderators interact by posting questions and answers and discussing common problems. A forum encourages your visitors to return again and again by allowing interaction and information sharing.

Because forums are ultimately message boards where people ask and answer questions, a forum can be a great place to refer a customer who has a question that may be shared by other members of the community. If a visitor has a question about the durability of a particular product or is unsure about one product over another, a forum provides a venue to get feedback and to generate interest in your products.

Having a forum on your website allows you to understand more about your visitors by reading the conversations and discussions among them. You can use this type of information to minimize the demand placed on your customer service by addressing a customer concern before it spreads. Additionally, you can use a forum to ask your customers about what products they want that you do not currently have.

Regardless of whether it is good or bad, consumer feedback can be invaluable and can help you market your products or services more effectively. Keep in mind that a forum on your website does not solely have to be about promoting your products and services. Equally valuable is the information that you can get from your customers to improve your overall website initiatives.

Build Links

If creating large amounts of original, well-written content is considered king for SEO purposes, building quality links back to your website might be considered the Holy Grail. Although times are changing and Google has become very particular about link quality, links remain the most important algorithmic factor in search ranking. It remains true that you must have more than just quality content because Google and other major search-engine algorithms evaluate the number and quality of websites that link to your web pages as a primary and fundamental component of ranking your website over another.

In general, search engines conclude that websites with more backlinks must be more popular and authoritative than websites with fewer backlinks. Keep in mind that search-engine algorithms not only evaluate the number and quality of backlinks going to your website but also what those links say in the form of anchor text. Anchor text is the text contained in front of a hyperlink from one page to another.

Building links is sort of like trying to answer the age-old question of what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Should you just build great content and wait for other websites to link to you, or should you proactively recruit others to link to your site?

If you are serious about SEO, you should proactively and aggressively build links. It is true that if you build original, compelling content, others are likely to link to your website, and over time Google might conclude that you are an authority. However, gaining and maintaining search-engine ranking is very competitive, and if you want to rank well in the search results, you need to have not only great content but also quality, relevant backlinks.

All links are not created equal. Although quantity is important, focus on trying to build quality and relevant links. Relevant links come from websites related to your line of business and content. For example, if you have a gourmet food website, getting a link from Gourmet Retailer magazine is better than getting a link from an equally popular celebrity gossip website. Quality links tend to come from popular websites that are generally trusted sources. Two of the main measures of popularity are Google’s PageRank and the Alexa ranking system. PageRank gives you a rough idea of how authoritative Google thinks the website is, and Alexa provides a measure to compare the traffic volume of potential linking partners. In general, you should look for quality and relevant linking partners that have PageRank scores and Alexa rankings as good as or better than your own. A popular tool for helping you evaluate the quality of links is SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer, which includes both free and paid versions.

Building links can be extremely time-consuming and may even cost money if you decide to use a link broker or a pay-per-post network. One of the more time-consuming forms of link building includes requesting one-way or reciprocal links directly from other websites. The process usually involves reaching out to potential link partners via e-mail and asking politely for a link or suggesting a barter situation where you link to them if they link to you.

Another way of building links is through blog and forum participation. However, in many cases, search engines such as Google either devalue or do not count blog and forum comments as links toward your PageRank and other metrics they may use to calculate your relative authority to other websites. Despite this, other search engines use links from blogs and forums for ranking purposes.