Search Engine Optimization By Andy Smith | Art Institute of Dallas
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Search Engine OptimizationBy Andy Smith | Art Institute of Dallas
Internet Marketing and SEO
What is SEO?
Brief history of the Search Engines
How Google changed everything
How sites are ranked
Site optimization (technical)
Search Engine Ranking Success
Internet Marketing
Email marketing (autoresponders, newsletters)
Affiliate marketing (ecommerce commissions)
Online Viral marketing (social and brand awareness)
Pay per click advertising (AdWords, Overture)
Paid inclusion (Directory listings)
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization
A technical discipline involved with organic search rankings
Search Engine Optimization
Involves a variety of components:HTML coding
Content and information
Media (photos, videos)
Region and local specific listings
The purpose is to increase a site’s web presence in the search engines, thus receiving more traffic
Search Engine Optimization
Use to be a separate discipline
Becoming more integrated with web dev
Requires technical insight
Becoming more integrated with:Content development
Traditional online business and marketing
Other forms of marketing
Ecommerce
History of SEO and The Engines
Search Engines catalogue and organize the web, making it easier for web users to find sites
Engines “crawl” or index websites to identify an identity or a theme of a site
Before Google, engines had simple algorithms for accessing site relevancy
Meta tags, keywords in URLs, body copy
Unfortunately, it allowed people to spam the engines
Then Came Google
Google revolutionized the search engine industry
Mathematical algorithm to assess the relevance of a website (the core to Google’s database ranking structure called PageRank)
This “PageRank” methodology changed the strategies webmasters and developers used to optimize sites, thus SEO was born
Soon other leading search companies created their own algorithms
How Engines Assess Rankings
Consistent content or words throughout the page
“Keywords” located in the copy and in the tags:
Title tag
Header tags
Body copy (paragraph tags), lists
Alt tags
Links (inbound and out)
Sites with high keyword relevance are ranked in the top
Proving Relevance to the Engines
Establish a site or page theme (using keywords and copy)
Use coding to express your design, layout, copy, and user functionality
Receive theme validation from other websites with a similar topic
Update and enhance the site
SEOThe Code
Site Optimization
Clean HTML code (valid XHTML, CSS)
HTML and CSS
Web coding expresses info to a browser
HTML and CSS = Grammar and Spelling
Certain structures and wide spread formats need to be followed to ensure effective communication
Code only serves as one variable however
Importance of Content
The code containing the content is essential
Headers, paragraphs, lists, etc. (H1, P, UL)
“Optimized” code and relevant content = search engine ranking success
Only one component to the entire puzzle as well
Linking
Inbound links from other websites is pivotal
The more “relevant” links, the more relevancy points the engines will award your site
Proper anchor tags:<a href=“myurl.com”>Keyword Phrases</a>
PageRank Analysis
Google’s link analysis algorithm is called PageRank
Measures the relevancy of a web site
Links pointing to a website are considered a “vote”
The more votes a website has the more probability it has as being relevant, especially if all the links are from similar themes or topics/categories
SEORanking Success
Getting Top Rankings
Analyze the competition (current ranking sites)
Number of pages indexed in Google
Number of links pointing to the site
Categories and sections of content
Supersede the competitors!Make your site more relevant and prove it to the engines
Provide more content
Get more links
Misconceptions about Rankings
The important things you need to achieve top rankings are optimized content and relevant inbound links (not submission strategies or quick “jump-to-the-top” methods)
You don’t need to submit your site to the search engines if you are already included
Fancy SEO techniques and tricks might gain you temporary ranking positions but can ban your site from the search engine databases in the long run
Misconceptions about Rankings
Successful search engine marketing comes down to relevancy – prove to the search engine your site is more relevant than the current ranking websites and you will achieve long term success
If you have a new website, expect that your website will be listed for top positions within six to eight months in Google
Tips for Designing an Optimized Site
How you represent your site (design, functionality, etc.) to the user is crucial, but it is just as important to present your site’s coding and page layout to the search engines.
Make sure you understand the importance of correct coding!
It is imperative that effective HTML, CSS, Javascript, ASP, coding is used to construct the pages
Tips for Designing an Optimized Site
All coding should be validated
Content is king in the search engines, ensure you understand the importance of designing for content (tailored for the search engine)
Functionality is important, but when it inhibits your ability to rank in the search engines, consider achieving a balance of functionality and effective search engine optimization
Related Documents
