Search Engine Secrets NMIPA Search Engine Secrets Build

Search Engine Secrets: NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Samsunshine Levy www. thenetcave. com Thursday, April 12, 2007 1

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Search Engines – Who Needs ‘em? • Ever heard of these… Thursday, April 12, 2007 2

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site If you do this… Thursday, April 12, 2007 3

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site You can get this Thursday, April 12, 2007 4

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Great! • Where do I sign? • How much do I pay? • Who do I trust? • How is it done? Thursday, April 12, 2007 5

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site The Secret Questions 1. Who Wants You? 2. What To Cultivate? 3. When To Change? 4. Where Does It All Go? 5. Why No No-Nos? 6. How is Your House Built? Thursday, April 12, 2007 6

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Who Wants You? • You want people… • But Who Wants You? • You want people who: – need you; but – don’t yet know that you exist (Yes, that would be new customer acquisition) (Don’t use jargon in a presentation) Thursday, April 12, 2007 7

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Keyword Research • Wordtracker : www. wordtracker. com – Free Trial (unlimited uses) – Uses MSN daily data • Google Adwords adwords. google. com – Pretend to want to sign up as a new advertiser, and research keywords for your campaigns Non-Targeted Marketing: Thursday, April 12, 2007 8

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site ROI, KEI, SEO & KWP (Don’t use acronyms in Power. Point presentations) • To target a niche market, and achieve best SEO potential: – Maximize Searches & – Minimize Competition • Content of site will address normal, more competive keywords and keyword phrases • Narrow down to 15 -20 w/ best potential Thursday, April 12, 2007 9

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site What To Cultivate? Factors to raising your search engine rankings and relevancy are: • Useful TITLE & META tags on each page • Keyword-rich, sole-source, expanding, plain HTML textual content • Footer, Site Map & Linked Text • Longevity of site & domain name Plus… Thursday, April 12, 2007 10

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Search Engine Friendly URLs • Happy • Unhappy www. greatskin. com/loccitane/shaving-cream. html www. nmipa. org/members/join Query Strings / database generated pages: www. skin. com/store/pr. asp? c. ID=42 B&p. ID=6 x 5 Q&14=z Unfriendly Spaces: www. skin. com/online%40 store/my_great_product. html Abbreviated or too-long pages/directories: www. skin. com/s/c/d/g/areallygreatpagetolookatnowforyou. htm Domain Parks: www. skin. com / www. myskin. com / myskin. com Thursday, April 12, 2007 11

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site If you have unhappy URLs • • Subdirectories are nice Hyphens for spaces, 25 chars 301 redirects on domains Map old pages to new pages with – Symbolic links – URL rewriting (mod_rewrite) • XML / RSS feeds • Google. Base / Product data feeds One more thing to cultivate… Thursday, April 12, 2007 12

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Inbound Links • • Keyword-rich Textual To authorized domain Deep-Linking OK Accompanying description Reciprocate Only from “respected” sites Check originating domain Thursday, April 12, 2007 13

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site When To Change? Change What? Change The King! Do You Know The King? Thursday, April 12, 2007 14

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site When To - Be The King • The C Word (and linking is Queen) • Nothing ranks higher at Search Engines than a lot of content about a term that someone is searching for Thursday, April 12, 2007 15

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site With Content, Just Like With: • • Health Wealth Happiness Hedonism Time Brains Brawn Thursday, April 12, 2007 16

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site More (and more often) Is Always Better Thursday, April 12, 2007 17

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site When Writing, who are you writing for? • Primarily Humans, not search engines – Who are the search engines working for? • Use keywords (more to come) • Keep pages a minimum length • Use tools to make it readable – Lists, columns, headers • Write about what you do – Related terms will come up naturally, and in context Thursday, April 12, 2007 18

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Unhappy Content Thursday, April 12, 2007 19

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Happy Content Thursday, April 12, 2007 20

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site OK, So back to the Question Q: When To Change (content)? A: As often as you can Frequent new content additions: • Create visitor “stickiness” • Make search engines happy • Creates valuable depth of content Thursday, April 12, 2007 21

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Deep Content Thursday, April 12, 2007 22

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Frequent Content Thursday, April 12, 2007 23

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site And Now… • For the slide you’ve all been waiting for Thursday, April 12, 2007 24

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site But First • A word from our sponsor? • A dance break? • Cowgirl ribs? • More caffeine? Thursday, April 12, 2007 25

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Make It Easy with CMS A Content Management System (CMS): • Let’s you add, edit and delete pages without special knowledge • Can automatically create META tags • Can automatically update site maps • Is built to be fool-proof • Can auto-create SEO friendly URLs • Auto-adjusts site-wide navigation Thursday, April 12, 2007 26

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site CMS User Admin Backend Thursday, April 12, 2007 27

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site CMS Front End Page Thursday, April 12, 2007 28

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site And Now, Really… • For the slide you’ve all been waiting for Thursday, April 12, 2007 29

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Where Does It All Go? 3 Rules of 3 • Choose about 6 -8 main, friendly-URL pages • Choose 3 unique keywords/phrases to use on each page • Use each phrase 3 times in the page • Have at least 250 (normal HTML text) words on each page • Use the 3 terms in TITLE and META tags • Link from footer and site map Thursday, April 12, 2007 30

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Example Optimized Content Keyword Research revealed that we wanted to optimize home page of holstengalleries. com for were: • glass sculpture • art glass sculpture • contemporary art glass Thursday, April 12, 2007 31

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Example – Content – 270 words Holsten Galleries is an internationally recognized gallery representing leading contemporary glass artists. Our gallery works with private collectors, museums and corporations in building collections of art glass sculpture and installations. Among our world renowned glass artists are Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapietra, William Morris, Christopher Ries, Dante Marioni, Kreg Kallenberger, Steven Weinberg and Marvin Lipofsky. Holsten Galleries was established in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1978 and was one of the first studio glass galleries in the U. S. to show contemporary art glass. The gallery is open seven days a week, year round. Each of our artists has glass sculpture in the gallery on an ongoing basis. Our glass artists are listed on the "Artists" page and most of them have images on this site. Images of other available pieces can be e-mailed upon request. Many of our glass artists, including Dale Chihuly and Lino Tagliapietra, can be commissioned to create glass sculpture for private, corporate or public art collections. As an online glass gallery, we invite you to explore our site and view the glass art of some of the world's most creative and talented artists. Please contact us if you would like more information on any of the art glass sculpture you see here. We also look forward to meeting many of you in person in the gallery. Visit our "Resources" page for information on cultural and tourist attractions in the Berkshires (such as Tanglewood and the Norman Rockwell Museum) or to learn more about contemporary art glass. Holsten Galleries specializes in the glass sculpture of Dale Chihuly. Glass objects and glass chandeliers by Chihuly can be seen by clicking here. Thursday, April 12, 2007 32

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Example - Tags • http: //www. holstengalleries. com/ • Title: Art Glass Sculpture-Contemporary Art Glass-Fine Art Glass • META Description: Our online glass gallery features fine art glass sculpture by contemporary artists such as Dale Chihuly and Lino Tagliapietra. Contemporary art glass sculpture by world renouned artists. • META Keywords: glass, sculpture, art, contemporary, dale, chihuly, lino tagliapietra, holsten, fine Thursday, April 12, 2007 33

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Results = 20% Month-to. Month Increase In traffic Thursday, April 12, 2007 34

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site The Page Thursday, April 12, 2007 35

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Keep In Mind • Use “reasonably-natural” language – You will enjoy our unique, authentic Adobe homes and the finest in vacation rentals, especially southwestern homes, in New Mexico. – Real Estate New Mexico vacation rentals Santa Fe shown on website with villas for rent. Santa Fe New Mexico rental properties and New Mexico Real Estate. Thursday, April 12, 2007 36

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Also Keep In Mind • Human usability and readability are still the most important: – Bulleted lists – Fixed width text columns – Section headers – Easily readable paragraphs Thursday, April 12, 2007 37

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Why No No-Nos? What Not To Do - or – How to quickly and easily get blacklisted by search engines Thursday, April 12, 2007 38

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Black Hat SEO • • • Keyword Stuffing Invisible Text Doorway Pages Non-linked Pages Cloaking (Browser detection and/or redirection) • Scraping • Off-domain Redirects Thursday, April 12, 2007 39

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site How Is Your House Built? No-No Tools & Technology (if you want to be found in search engines. or linked to - from anywhere) • Flash Animation (Intros or Whole Site) – Alternative: Use Flash as an accent • Frames or i. Frames – Alternative: Use CSS (see next slide) • Non-text Text (Flash or images) • Javascript or DHTML drop-down menus – Alternative: Use CSS nested list drop-downs • META REFRESH Thursday, April 12, 2007 40

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site CSS Frame Function Thursday, April 12, 2007 41

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site CSS Nested List Drop Down Simpler, Spiderable Code: <div id="topnav"><ul id=nav><li><a href="http: //www. kidsfirst. org/kidsfirst/fabout. htm">About Us</a> <ul><li><a href="http: //www. kidsfirst. org/kidsfirst/fwhatcq. htm">Mission</a></li> <li><a href="http: //www. kidsfirst. org/our-programs/">Our Programs</a></li> <li><a href="http: //www. kidsfirst. org/kidsfirst/fwhatkf. htm">KIDS FIRST!</a></li> <li><a href="http: //www. kidsfirst. org/kidsfirst/fwhoju. htm">Staff & Board</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="http: //www. kidsfirst. org/cgibin/sites/search_engine. cgi">Search Website</a></li> <li><a href="http: //www. kidsfirst. org/">Home</a></li> </ul></div> Thursday, April 12, 2007 42

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Good Tools For House Building • Use URL Rewriting for important or content-rich pages of database generated sites • Also use XML / RSS Feeds • For ecommerce sites, send product datafeeds to Google. Base – And consider Amazon merchant or your own affiliate program – but that’s another show Thursday, April 12, 2007 43

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Example XML / RSS feed Thursday, April 12, 2007 44

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Google. Base Example Thursday, April 12, 2007 45

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site In addition to 3 keywords Title Tag Guidelines • Use a short page title (in addition to keywords) • Limit to 65 characters META Description Tag Guidelines (Honest 90 s) • some search engines display in results • Limit to 25 -30 words META Keyword Tag Guidelines (why not) • Do not repeat words • Limit to 10 -12 words Thursday, April 12, 2007 46

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Remember This? • http: //www. holstengalleries. com/ • Title: Art Glass Sculpture-Contemporary Art Glass-Fine Art Glass • META Description: Our online glass gallery features fine art glass sculpture by contemporary artists such as Dale Chihuly and Lino Tagliapietra. Contemporary art glass sculpture by world renouned artists. • META Keywords: glass, sculpture, art, contemporary, dale, chihuly, lino tagliapietra, holsten, fine Thursday, April 12, 2007 47

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Footer and Site Map • Replicate page titles as linked pages in site-wide footer (Server Side Includes) • Link to a Site Map page in Footer • Do not use Google’s Site Map creator • The Site Map page should replicate the titles, linked to pages, with the META descriptions next to the titles • Use “qualified” URLs for linking (always start with http: //www. domain. com/…) Thursday, April 12, 2007 48

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Footer Example Thursday, April 12, 2007 49

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Map Example Thursday, April 12, 2007 50

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Bonus Points Beyond plain content, title and META tags, you should also use these techniques within site content: • Use HTML header (h 1, h 2, h 3…) tags • In-page cross-linked text (link to other site pages, especially where descriptive text appears) • Bold (b, strong) may be given some extra weight when used judiciously Thursday, April 12, 2007 51

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Bonus Points Example Thursday, April 12, 2007 52

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site In Review PREPARE • Research Keyword Rankings & Relevancy. Choose 15 -20 of the best • Assign 3 keywords to each of 6 pages, then write 250+ words each page • Use the copy for title and meta tags for a persistent footer and site map Thursday, April 12, 2007 53

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site In Review BUILD • Cultivate inbound textual links, preferably using your chosen keywords • Content is King. More, better, often, CMS • TITLE and META tags, linked text throughout, maybe bold/strong Thursday, April 12, 2007 54

NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site In Review CHECK • No Flash. No non-HTML text. No Frames. No Javascript or DHTML menus • Friendly URLs, URL rewriting and no lost and found visitors • XML / RSS / Google. Base / Data Feeds (and podcasts, video and Web 2. 0 – but that’s also another show) • Analyze, Refine, Test, Adjust, Repeat Thursday, April 12, 2007 55

Search Engine Secrets: NMIPA - Search Engine Secrets: Build a Search-Engine Friendly Web Site Samsunshine Levy www. thenetcave. com Thursday, April 12, 2007 56