Search Engine Optimization
Beyond META Tags
Brian Smith
Web Developer
bsmith2@uamail.albany.edu
Objectives
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Move beyond META tags
SEO in Higher Education
Define terms
Establish “The Factors”
Keyword Research Techniques
Discuss Google
Keepin’ it real - practical
Resources
The Rise of Search
Pew Internet and Americal Life Project
• Search is the 2nd most popular online
activity, after email.
• Percentage of net users who search
on a typical day grew 70% from 2002
to 2008
The Rise of Search
SEO = Search Engine Optimization
Definition
Using targeted keywords and phrases so a
website’s pages will rank high on SERPs.
SERP = Search Engine Results Page
Note that SEO also stands for Search Engine Optimizer
SEM = Search Engine Marketing
Definition
All endeavors that utilize search engines to
promote a web site, increase its traffic and/or
stickiness, and ultimately augment return on
investment.
SEM methods include
SEO, paid placement, pay-per-click and paid
inclusion campaigns.
SPAM
"Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you
are not listed in most of the major search
engines and directories..."
It’s not a quick fix
SEO is a best practice
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Web developers
Writers
Editors in various departments
Application developers
Administration
Vendors
Conversions
What is a higher ed conversion?
• Getting a sale = convert a prospective into a
confirmed
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Get students involved in activities
Building school pride
Provide audience for experts
Allow faculty and research to publicize their
findings, discoveries which could lead to more
students, grants, funding, collaboration, tenure
• Job postings
Fountain Day
Organic
vs.
Pay Per Click “PPC”
Pay Per Click
Definition
Advertisers submit bids to searchengine companies for words.
They pay each time the “sponsored link”
is clicked.
PPC Related Terms
Definitions
CPC – Cost-per-click
The cost to advertisers per click by a user.
CTR – Click through rate
The number of users who clicked on an ad divided by
the number of times the ad was delivered
(impressions). Usually seen as a percentage.
Pay Per Click
Competition
Universities and Colleges
Especially the online Universities with a
national/international presence such as Phoenix,
Capella, Walden etc…
Advertising Agencies & Online Directory Companies
Use PPC to draw Web searches to sites they use to find
prospective students, or "leads."
Examples
Petersons, OffToCollege.com, CollegeBoard.com, etc…
Weekend
MBA
PPC
Biology
Major
PPC
Growing in Cost
Prices for popular keywords…
• "associate's degree"
• "master's degree”
• "business program"
…on Yahoo have each about doubled
in the past two years.
Negative Key Word
“Online”
PPC
Growing in Competition
"It's both more expensive and less
effective because more people
are doing it."
Margee Ensign
Dean of the School of International Studies
University of the Pacific
PPC
Bidding Techniques
Start a campaign at the end of the day
or the end of the month
“It’s often possible to find popular keywords available
for lower prices at those times because other groups
have already spent their budgets.”
Greg Jarboe
Co-founder
SEO-PR Inc
PPC
Bidding Techniques
Bid on less popular words/phrases
You’ll get less clicks, so it will cost you less.
Those who actually click will more likely lead
to a conversion = Quality Traffic
SERPs - Organic Listings
The Golden Triangle
Eye Tools Research
Pay Per Click $$$
Organic = Free
Focus on Organic Listings
Metrics
Conversion Rates
Organic Listings
Paid Listings
4.2%
3.6%
Organic clicked 5x more than PPC
From “Marketing Sherpa” - Search Marketing Benchmark Survey 2005
Search Result Page
Average Participant
6.5 seconds to click
Read 4 to 5 listings.
Title Tags
Compelling and
Attractive TITLES
increase click-through!
Golden Triangle Statistics
85% click on organic
72% click the first link of interest
25% read all listings first, then click
Golden Triangle Statistics
Organic Search Results Viewed
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
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Web Search Market Share
August 2008
MSN
Yahoo
Google
Google 71%
Yahoo 18%
MSN 5%
Ask 3%
Other 3%
PageRank
• One of the methods Google uses to determine a
page’s relevance or importance.
• Each web page - not site - has a PageRank
score
• Developed by the founders of Google, Sergey
Brin and Larry Page
• It’s an algorithm which helps rank web pages
based on the probability that a random person
surfing the Internet will find a given page.
PageRank
• PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic
nature of the web by using its vast link
structure as an indicator of an individual
page's value.
• Google interprets a link from page A to page
B as a vote, by page A, for page B.
• Votes cast by "important" pages weigh more
heavily and help to make other pages
"important."
PageRank
View a page’s PageRank with Google Toolbar
PageRank
Most Higher Ed Rank 5-8
MIT, Harvard, Stanford = 9
Maria College = 5
PageRank
Google PageRank
Page Rank Today
• No longer the primary ranking factor
• PageRank is no longer recalculated on
a 30 day cycle
• Used to determine crawl frequency,
crawl depth, and database selection.
Authority & Reputation
Links are Key
Link Popularity / Authority
•Links = “Votes”
•Links from many pages signify an important page
•Links from important pages carry more ‘weight’
•Important pages rank higher
Link Reputation
•Links from related pages enforce the theme
•Links from related words pass on that theme
•Strongly themed pages rank well for related queries
Links - Best Practices
Bad
• http://mysite.com
• http://www.mysite.com/index.html
• http://mysite.com/index.html
Good
• http://www.mysite.com/
• Use redirects and make all internal links point to
your domain using the “http://www.mysite.com/”
• Always include trailing “/” on folders.
Link Best Practices
Search engines treat…
http://measuring-up.com/
and
http://www.measuring-up.com/
…as two different sites.
Link Text
4.4 Anchor Text of Inbound Link
3.1 Text Surrounding the Link
Avoid “click here”
SEO: Link nouns not verbs
View the course catalog.
View the course catalog.
How can I create a
Google-friendly site?
Google Webmaster Help Center
• http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/
• http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=
40349
Google on SEO
• http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.p
y?answer=35291
“Department of Biology”
Off-The-Page SEO
AKA Link Building
Off page optimizations consist entirely
of link building strategies.
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Reciprocal linking
RSS news feeds
Linkbait = good topical content
Digg, YouTube, Facebook
Forums
The Factors
SEOmoz.org
Search Engine Ranking Factors V2
4.9
4.4
4.4
4.1
4.0
Keyword Use in Title Tag
Global Link Popularity of Site – “Weight” or “Authority”
Anchor Text of Inbound Link
Age of Site
Link Popularity within Internal Site Structure
3.7
3.5
3.4
3.3
3.2
3.1
Keyword Use in Body Text
Links to Quality/Relevant External Sites
Age of Document
Keyword Use in H1
Age of Link
Text Surrounding the Link
Factor 1: Page Title
The #1 important on-the-page ranking factor!
The title is your search results link. It should
be clear, sensible, and encourage a click.
Length: 70 characters or less
Google description uses 70 characters.
Use Keyphrases or Keywords
Also use it in beginning of page text.
Page Title Strategy
Page titles are for more than just SEO
• Bookmark text
• Answers question “Where am I”
Search Engine Ranking Factors V2
4.9
4.4
4.4
4.1
4.0
Keyword Use in Title Tag
Global Link Popularity of Site – “Weight” or “Authority”
Anchor Text of Inbound Link
Age of Site
Link Popularity within Internal Site Structure
3.7
3.5
3.4
3.3
3.2
3.1
Keyword Use in Body Text
Links to Quality/Relevant External Sites
Age of Document
Keyword Use in H1
Age of Link
Text Surrounding the Link
Search Engine Ranking Factors V2
4.9
4.4
4.4
4.1
4.0
Keyword Use in Title Tag
Global Link Popularity of Site – “Weight” or “Authority”
Anchor Text of Inbound Link
Age of Site
Link Popularity within Internal Site Structure
3.7
3.5
3.4
3.3
3.2
3.1
Keyword Use in Body Text
Links to Quality/Relevant External Sites
Age of Document
Keyword Use in H1
Age of Link
Text Surrounding the Link
Search Engine Ranking Factors V2
2.8
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.0
Keyword Use in H2, H3 etc…
Keyword Use in Page URL
Keyword Use in ALT Tags
Frequency of Page Updates
Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag
1.4 HTML Validation
1.2 Keyword Use in Meta Keywords Tag
META Description
Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag
• 70 words
• Sometimes shows up in Google SERP
• Page specific
• Includes main page keyphrases
Search Engine Ranking Factors V2
2.8
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.0
Keyword Use in H2, H3 etc…
Keyword Use in Page URL
Keyword Use in ALT Tags
Frequency of Page Updates
Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag
1.4 HTML Validation
1.2 Keyword Use in Meta Keywords Tag
Search Engine Ranking Factors V2
2.8
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.0
Keyword Use in H2, H3 etc…Semantic markup
Keyword Use in Page URL
Keyword Use in ALT Tags
Frequency of Page Updates
Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag
1.4 HTML Validation
1.2 Keyword Use in Meta Keywords Tag
META Keywords
1.2 Keyword Use in Meta Keywords Tag
• Abused and discredited
• Stuff you don’t want in page text
• Misspellings
• Keyword “forks” – SUNY Albany
• 5 to 10 phrases
• Do not repeat too much
Search Engine Indexing Limits
Page File Size
No more than 150 kilobytes
Before Images, CSS and other Attachments
Links Per Page
No more than 100 unique links per page
Title Tag
No more than 70 characters
Meta Description
No more than 155 characters
Search Engine Indexing Limits
Parameters in URL: No more than 2
Depth of URL: No more than 4
Bad Example
http://www.mysite.com/people/places/things/noun/danny/car
Best Practice
http://www.mysite.com/people/danny/
Avoid
Image Text
Iframes for displaying content
Flash, Silverlight or video for
content without text equivalents
AJAX – Avoid navigation that
relies on javascript
onClick="navigate('ajax.html#)
Keywords
Keywords are the foundation of SEO
Your institution, departments, offices etc…
should determine critical keywords
Research their potential value and
effectiveness
Keyphrase Research
1. Brainstorm
2. Bust out the tools
3. Finalize list
4. Implement
5. Rinse and repeat
Brain Storm
• What words would prospective students use?
• Avoid overly generic terms are difficult to rank for
and won't provide qualified traffic
• Check out competition and their Keywords META
tags if they use them
• Add location!
• Misspellings
• Break out sessions by category – department,
school, organization etc…
Number of keywords used
1 Word Query – 15%
Admissions
2 Word Query – 32%
UAlbany Admissions
3 Word Query – 27%
SUNY Albany Admissions
4 Word Query – 15%
UAlbany Admissions Campus Tour
5 Word Query – 11%
University at Albany Admissions Tour
85% of searches online
are with 2 or more keywords
Source: Search Engine Watch 2007 Search Engine Watch 2007
Keyphrase Combos
Word Game: Create a 3 or 4-Term Combo
1. Create as complete a sentence as possible
2. Specifically describe page content
3. Using strongest keywords and phrases
4. Avoid highly competitive phrases
Are visitors looking for
“Prospective Students”?
Search Volumes
“Prospective Students”=
6,500/month
“University Admissions”=
135,000/month
Use keywords in the navigation that
visitors use to find your site.
– Easier for visitors to navigate the site
– Improved rankings, search engines better understand
how your site is related to searches.
Keyword “Stemming”
Swim = Swimming = Swims
It’s all the same to the major
search engines
Keyphrase Brainstorm
Fountain Day
School Spirit
Celebration
Community
Campus Tradition
University Tradition
Alumni Memories
College Fountain
University Fountain
Fountain Celebration
World Record
SUNY Albany Fountain
Spring Celebration
Guinness World Record
Pillow Fight
Beach Balls
Fountain Countdown
Campus Party
Campus Unity
Fountain Party
College Rite of Spring
Food fun and fountain
Jump in Fountain
Non-alcoholic event
Student Party
College Student Party
Fountain Day Drunk
Fountain Day Drinking
Fountain Day Mayhem
Party School
SUNY Albany Party School
Keyphrase Research
Determine the value of
keywords/phrases to increase
traffic to a page or site.
Keyphrase Tools
Utilize Internal Search Results
What are visitors using
Find out what words your visitors use
to get to your site.
Consult web analytics or Google
Webmaster Tools – Top Search
Queries
Keyword Research
“Head” vs. “Tail” Terms
What’s the difference?
Step 2 – Keyphrase Research
Brand
Key Phrases
65%
of our queries
Keyword Research
“Head” vs. “Tail” Terms
Head Terms
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Dominated by Brand key phrases
Drive most of your traffic
Most expensive for PPC
Most competitive
Less relevant
Shorter
Keyword Research
“Head” vs. “Tail” Terms
Long Tail
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Dominated by generic category key phrases
Drives least amount of traffic per search
Least expensive for PPC
Less competitive and easier to win
Drives less but more qualified traffic to website
Keyword Research
“Head” vs. “Tail” Terms
Long Tail
The combined effect of optimizing for many
longer search terms will be to bring in a great
deal of highly qualified traffic
Optimization for the general terms will occur
naturally by their inclusion in these more
specific phrases
Keyphrase Research Tools
• Assists with keyword/phrase
brainstorming
• Show how often search terms
are used
• Quantifies the effectiveness
of keywords/phrases
“Competition”
Less competition for a keyword/phrase
mean that it will be easier to reach the
top of SERPs.
Keyword/phrase Tools
1. Google AdWords
is the best free keyphrase tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
2. WordTracker
The industry standard, a subscription is
required – also has a free tool
3. Overture Database Search
No longer consistently available
4. Microsoft AdCenter
Not for Mac/Safari
Other Keyword Search Tools
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Trellian – Keyword Discovery
Spyfu
Nichebot
Hitwise
Trends
Yahoo suggestion on search
Wordtracker
Uses Metacrawler Search Engines
Metacrawler and Dogpile
Metacrawler Search Engines
Queries several of the main search engines to
compile its own results - Google, Yahoo and
MSN
175 million searches each month
Wordtracker keeps the last two months of search
results in its database
KEI
Keyword Effectiveness Index
Higher the KEI, better the keyword
Ratio of Two crucial variables
1. Popularity
Number of times a term is searched
2. Competition
Number of pages returned by search for a term
Wordtracker
KEI - Find a Niche - Opportunities
Example
Find a baseball card that is searched many times,
but has few page results.
Pete Rose baseball card
Searched 100 times daily found on 1,000 pages
Ratio is 1/10
Derek Jeter baseball card
Searched 1000 times daily found on 100,000
Ratio is 1/100
We are looking for opportunity.
Google AdWords Keyword Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Best free keyphrase tool
Helps with brainstorming
Displays keyword/phrase effectiveness
Finds opportunities
AdWords vs. Wordtracker
AdWords is a better free tool than the free
Wordtracker tool.
Full Wordtracker has more sophisticated tool
set and is the industry standard.
Wordtracker service keeps track of multiple
projects.
Wordtracker provides more precise
measurements for word/phrase effectiveness.
AdWords integrates well with Google Analytics.
Using AdWords for Keyphrase Research
The Process
• Begin with one general keyword
• Be sure to check the “Use synonyms” box
• Let the tool build a large list of keywords
Source: Google External Keyword Tool
Keyword Research
Building Lists
• Scroll through the results list and add all terms appropriate to the
School of Business site.
• When complete, download list into Excel or other tool.
• Repeat the process as other terms become apparent and expand
those as well with the “Get more related keywords” button.
• Continue building the list using all free tools available
– Don’t worry about adding duplicates at this point
– Keep looking for new terms that have been missed and expand those
Keyword Strategy
Building Lists
Repeat the process using the “website content” tool
on Google.
– Select the option “Include other pages on my site linked from
this URL”
Keyword Strategy
Organizing and grouping lists
Create a full list
of your keywords
Keywords
best business school
best business schools
business college
business education
business management schools
business school
business school rankings
business schools
business schools mba
business schools rank
executive mba
graduate business school
graduate business schools
international business schools
management school
management schools
mba degree
mba program
mba programs
rankings business schools
top business school
top business schools
undergraduate business schools
university business schools
Break out the list into categories
management school
management school
management schools
business school
best business school
best business schools
business management schools
business school
business school rankings
business schools
business schools mba
business schools rank
graduate business school
graduate business schools
international business schools
rankings business schools
top business school
top business schools
undergraduate business schools
university business schools
businee college
business college
business college course
business college degree
business college degrees
business college university
business colleges
top business college
mba
mba degree
mba program
mba programs
executive mba
Web Writing
• Write for the “inverted pyramid”.
• Make the visible text on a page "searchfriendly"
• Embed links in body copy
• Add <strong>tags</strong>
• Add captions with strong keywords/phrases
frequently
Optimizing Body Copy
YUCK!
Large blocks of text
without headlines
and subheadings
Bad for SEO
Bad for Visitors
Web Writing
Use keywords – a few times per page
Create AZ indexes for Department,
Organizations, College and Schools
Write more - at least 250 words per page
Add extra pages
Never sacrifice tone, feel or usability
Eye Tracking Studies Nov 2007
Poynter Institute
600 subjects in 4 cities
We have not lost our ability to read in depth
Eye Tracking Studies
Poynter Institute
Inverted Pyramid
F Pattern
Eye Tracking Studies Nov 2007
Poynter Institute
Attention spans have not shortened dramatically.
Readers are more selective about what they read.
We are more dependent on navigation, headings and
bulleted text
It helps us find info or identify what not to read
Eye Tracking Studies Nov 2007
Poynter Institute
“Most surprising, they read further into stories
online than in print. That was true for stories
of all lengths.”
Metrics
Measuring Success
• Track ranking in SERPs – screenshots,
or excel files
• Follow traffic through web analytics
Black
Hat
SEO
Black Hat SEO
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Evil trickery
Breaks search engine rules
Poor user experience
Google hacks
Black Hat SEO
Techniques To Avoid
Keyword stuffing
Packing long lists of keywords.
Invisible text
White text on white background.
Doorway Pages
Redirects packed with keywords.
It can get you banished from search results!
Social Media Optimization
Potential for organic traffic and quality backlinks
“Linkbait”
Google News Sitemap
• News releases and other campus related
stories are packed with keywords
• But they may be getting lost and not
recognized by Google in a timely way
• Search for “Google News Sitemap”
Resources: Books
Search Engine Optimization: Your visual
blueprint for effective Internet marketing
Resources: Books
Search Engine Optimization:
How to Optimize Your Website
for Internet Search Engines
Resources: On the Web
SEOmoz.org
Especially see SEOmoz Beginner’s Guide
SearchEngineWatch.com
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/
Google Webmaster Tools
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40349
SEOBook.com
http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
Don’t let the tail wag the dog.
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SEO is a best practice
Write good content
Get everyone involved
Know the factors
Try out key phase research tools