seo 101 - nyc faith and tech

First off, who am I?

Name: John Doherty Title: SEO Consultant Company: Distilled

Twitter: @dohertyjf G+: gplus.to/dohertyjf Read my stuff: Website

Email: john.doherty@distilled.net

What are we talking about?

“Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") means. In general, the…higher ranked on the search results page, and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users.”

Huh?

“SEO is how awesome content gets found” – Abraham Lincoln

So what is SEO?

Image: Source

First, what is it NOT?

Not some nerd sitting in his momma’s basement in his underwear spinning some dark magic (usually)

Not this

It’s not stuffing your pages with keywords (that’s soooo 2005)

Also not…

It’s not comment spamming (still happens, still sucks)

Common Myth

Click through rate to your site from Google/Bing does not affect your rankings.

Cool, so what IS it?

Your site gets found through a combination of different ways.

This is how your content gets found and ranked by Google/Bing/etc

Links to page (21%) Links to site (21%) Use of keywords on the page (15%) Use of keywords on the site (11%) Branding (7%)

Great Content created around keywords

Ranks for “Linkbait” “Linkbait Guide”

Making people aware of that great content

Links coming to your site

Links are the currency of the Interwebs, because they pass authority.

What are the main elements of SEO?

Elements of SEO

Keyword Research

Elements of SEO

Information Architecture Image: Source (SEOgadget)

Elements of SEO

Linkbuilding

The SEO Process

Image Courtesy of Michael King (@ipullrank)

Scared yet?

Don’t Be!

Let’s talk about minimum viable SEO (the basics of

what you need)

Your own domain

Your own domain

http://www.moniker.com/ ($4-$10/year)

Analytics on your site

http://www.google.com/analytics ($free.99)

RSS Feed

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ ($free.99)

Clean, short URLs

http://www.johnfdoherty.com/lessons-from-google-about-url-lengths/

Ideal: http://www.site.com/permanent-link

Also works: http://www.site.com/category/permanent-link

Unique Titles and Content

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo/basics-of-search-engine-

friendly-design-and-development/ and http://www.seomoz.org/blog/are-your-titles-irresistibly-click-worthy-viral

Keyword Research

http://www.johnfdoherty.com/minimum-viable-keyword-research/

Get Social

Best Easy CMS For SEO

http://wordpress.org/

Plugins You Need

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/ and

http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

Plugins You Need

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-slugs/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/

Plugins You Need

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharebar/

Or some plugin to allow sharing. Follow the K.I.S.S. methodology

Just don’t overwhelm your users

Resources

http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

Resources

Definitive Wordpress SEO Guide: http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

Chrome Extensions You Need

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions

Mozbar http://www.seomoz.org/seo-toolbar

Measurement Tools

http://www.google.com/analytics

SEO Tools

http://www.seomoz.org (free then $99/month)

Rank Checking (free tools)

http://www.evolvingseo.com/2012/01/24/the-ultimate-list-of-rank-checkers/

http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

http://www.seomoz.org/rank-tracker

Social Measurement Tools

http://crowdbooster.com/

Finding Others in Your Niche on Twitter

http://followerwonk.com/

Pro Tips

http://www.google.com/alerts for your name/brand

Pro Tips

http://myblogguest.com for guest posting

Pro Tips

Reverse Image Search if you have photos (photographers?)

Thanks a bunch!

Happy to answer questions