Village Workshop - Modern SEO

MODERN SEO @jsilton @RelevanceAdvice @ATLTechVillage

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AGENDA

1.  A Little About Us 2.  A Brief History of SEO 3.  The 3 Pillars of SEO

4.  Live Site Reviews 5.  A Few Resources 6.  Q&A

| Village Workshop: Modern SEO | @jsilton

Relationships. Results. Relevance.

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WHO We are experienced marketing professionals specializing in search marketing.

WHEN Our clients trust us to maximize search performance with an innovative approach, sound strategy, and exceptional execution.

WHY Relevance Advisors helps companies grow.

WHAT We drive accelerated and measurable search impact.

WHERE We are a digital agency headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Benjamin Rudolph PRESIDENT & CEO

Benjamin Rudolph is the President & CEO of Relevance Advisors, an interactive advertising agency based in Atlanta which specializes in pay per click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), and web analytics. Benjamin spent four years at Comcast, where he managed the search partnership with Google for Comcast Interactive Media.

Jordan Silton DIRECTOR OF SEO & ANALYTICS

Jordan Silton is the Director of SEO & Analytics at Relevance Advisors. Jordan is an accomplished digital marketing professional who has crafted and executed search engine optimization and digital media strategies for clients such as Apartment Finder, Alston & Bird, AT&T U-verse, Atlanta Ballet, Ashton Woods Homes, Cartoon Network, Emory University, GameStop, Kimberly-Clark and NASCAR.

Sonya Uddin SEARCH MARKETING ANALYST

Sonya Uddin is the Search Marketing Analyst at Relevance Advisors. Sonya worked a USA Representative for AIESEC (International Association of Students in Economic and Commercial Sciences), the largest global, non-profit youth leadership organization run by students and recent graduates. Sonya also spent time as a Marketing Intern for BlueLinx, where she created a more efficient information management system.


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CLIENT PARTNERS


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THE RELEVANCE WAY IMPLEMENT

PLAN ANALYZE

OPTIMIZE

DISCOVERY •  Understand client’s business &

industry

•  Meet with key stakeholders

•  Initial review of website & analytics (Analytics, Webmaster Tools, & Historical Rankings)

•  Agree on objectives & goals

STRATEGY •  Craft custom approach •  Establish positioning

•  Develop one-page strategic plan

•  Create agile roadmap

•  Prioritize initial projects

RESEARCH •  Competitive analysis &

benchmarking

•  Industry & keyword research

•  Market trends & best practices

•  Tool and data review

•  Review site history

•  The Relevance Score


We explain everything we do in terms you can understand. We don’t believe in a black box and hiding behind code. We provide a regular report card of our performance.

We partner with our clients to help them achieve their performance goals.

MEASUREMENT

HISTORICAL SEO Search Engine Optimization

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In the beginning … Lycos c. 1996 AltaVista c. 1998


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Web Search Pre-Google •  Race to crawl the web •  Focus on quantity of results

•  Engines relied on websites to describe themselves

•  Keyword use and occurrence was key


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Along Came Google •  Created a new scalable

system architecture to crawl the web

•  Focused on speed and performance

•  Introduced PageRank


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PageRank: Bringing Order to the Web The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine

by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page

Counted links as “Votes” in the PageRank algorithm


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Directories Reigned King DMOZ c. 1999 Yahoo! Directory c. 2003


15 | Village Workshop: Modern SEO | @jsilton

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Lots of algorithm updates …


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“Big 3” Updates


Panda Penguin Hummingbird

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Recent & Confirmed Changes


Pigeon HTTPS

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Latest Mobile Updates App Content in Search Results Mobile-Friendly Websites


3 PILLARS OF SEO Modern SEO

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3 PILLARS OF SEO


Source: Jayson DeMers, Forbes.com

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3 PILLARS OF SEO


Source: Search Engine Journal

Content Strategy | Inbound Links | Social Media

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3 PILLARS OF SEO


Source: Barry Adams, State of Digital

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3 PILLARS OF SEO


Authority

Description

Accessibility

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ACCESSIBILITY Is your website and content findable and indexed?


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Robots.txt •  Ask search engines not to crawl or

index certain content

•  Robots.txt can prevent your website from being fully seen and indexed

•  Only true way to prevent content from being indexed is to restrict crawler access


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XML Sitemap •  Ensure the Sitemap is always up-to-date and avoid

any 404 or 500 errors.

•  Always use the final canonical URL in the XML sitemap.

•  Do not include any URLs that are blocked by Robots.txt or include the noindex meta tag

•  Avoid linking to URLs that 301 or 302 redirect to another location.

•  Only link to URLs on the current subdomain. Do not link offsite to URLs on a different domain or subdomain.

•  Omit any poor quality pages such as those with thin or duplicate content.


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NoIndex Meta Tag •  While a robots.txt will stop search engines from indexing pages while crawling

a domain, search engines may still find references to these same pages from other places on the web.

•  In order to ensure these pages do not show up at all in search results, the best practice is to add a meta-robots tag in the header of each intended page.


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Mobile Accessibility •  Over 50% search queries will be

from mobile devices by the end of the year

•  The Google My Business listing for ATV is the only result above the fold on mobile.

•  Starting April 21, Google will be expanding their use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal worldwide.


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DESCRIPTION How well is your website structured and labeled?


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Site Structure & URLs •  Organize your site with a clear

hierarchy and structure

•  Use linguistic URLs to help users understand what each page is about

•  ATV has clear URLs and a user-friendly hierarchy. –  ex. “/membership/day-passes”

–  ex. “/about/mission”


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Unique, Accurate Page Titles •  A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular

page is.

•  Create a unique title for each page on your site. •  The title for your homepage can list the name of your website/business and

could include other bits of important information like the physical location of the business or maybe a few of its main focuses or offering.


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Include a Meta Description •  A page's description meta tag gives Google and other search engines a

summary of what the page is about

•  Make sure your meta description isn’t too short, long, or duplicated too many times


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Utilize Page Headings •  Use heading tags to establish content

sections or groupings

•  Ensure headings follow a clear hierarchy and are nested appropriately

•  There are six sizes of heading tags: <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6>

•  Only us one <h1> on each page


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Links & Anchor Text •  How you describe other pages on

your site affects their relevance

•  Anchor text sends signals about the contents of the destination page

•  Be careful of spam signals!


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Optimize Images •  Use a short and descriptive file

name for each image

•  Write an ALT tag to describe its contents in a succinct phrase

•  Optimize image file size to load as quickly as possible


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Structured Data & Schema.org •  Structured data helps search engines

understand the different entities in a page

•  Google and Bing have both recommended Schema.org as the standard for markup

•  Schema.org isn’t just for recipes!

ü  Reviews ü  People ü  Products ü  Businesses

ü  Events ü  Music ü  Movies ü  and more!


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AUTHORITY Why should we trust you?


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What counts as a high quality site? •  Would you trust the information presented in this article?

•  Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?

•  Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?

•  Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?

•  Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?

•  Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

•  Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?

•  Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?

•  How much quality control is done on content?

•  Does the article describe both sides of a story?

•  Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?

•  Would users complain when they see pages from this site?


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What counts as a high quality site? (Continued)

•  Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?

•  Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?

•  For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?

•  Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?

•  Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?

•  Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?

•  Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?

•  Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?

•  Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

•  Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?

•  Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?


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Create High-Quality Content 1.  Useful and informative: Relevant content based on your service offering and

questions your customers may have

2.  More valuable and useful than other sites: Make sure your content provides more value or a different perspective than the numerous articles on the web on the same topic

3.  Credible: Show your site’s credibility by using original research, citations, links, reviews, testimonials and authoritative authors

4.  High quality: Your site’s content should be unique, specific and high quality. It should not be mass-produced or outsourced on a large number of other sites.

5.  Engaging: Bring color and life to your site by adding images of your products, your team, or yourself.


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Social Signals •  Search engines are getting smarter

about social media

•  Google has invested heavily in Google+ and recently signed an agreement for a direct feed into Twitter’s data

•  Bing partners directly with Facebook and Twitter

•  Social signals are important, but likely are not a replacement for links


LIVE SITE REVIEWS Search Engine Optimization

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Rivalry http://rivalry.com/


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Frogtoon https://www.frogtoon.com


RESOURCES Search Engine Optimization

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Google Webmaster Advice Webmaster Academy SEO Starter Guide


https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6001102?hl=en

http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

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Beginners Guide from Moz

http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo


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Sign up for Webmaster Tools Google Webmaster Tools Bing Webmaster Tools


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Webmaster Central Blog


http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

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The Moz Blog


http://moz.com/blog

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Search Engine Land


http://searchengineland.com/library/channel/seo

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Google Keyword Planner Keyword Search Search Volumes & Trends


https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner

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Our Industry Update

http://eepurl.com/Z9SCn


Q&A

THANK YOU

Village Workshop - Modern SEO

Marketing

modern seo

search engine optimization

pillars of seo

web search

search performance

search partnership

brief history of seo

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