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The Art of SEO
SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly
Foreword
Preface
Who Should Read This Book
How to Use This Book
Conventions Used in This Book
Using Code Examples
Safari® Books Online
How to Contact Us
Acknowledgments
1. The Search Engines: Reflecting Consciousness and Connecting Commerce
The Mission of Search Engines
The Market Share of Search Engines
The Human Goals of Searching
Who Searches and What Do They Search For?
Determining Searcher Intent: A Challenge for Both Marketers and Search Engines
Navigational Queries
Informational Queries
Transactional Queries
How People Search
How Search Engines Drive Commerce on the Web
Eye Tracking: How Users Scan Results Pages
Click Tracking: How Users Click on Results, Natural Versus Paid
Distribution of Search Results and Traffic
Different Intents and Effects of Listings in Paid Versus Natural Results
Interaction Between Natural and Paid Search
Other Factors to Consider
Conclusion
2. Search Engine Basics
Understanding Search Engine Results
Understanding the Layout of Search Results Pages
How Vertical Results Fit into the SERPs
Algorithm-Based Ranking Systems: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking
Crawling and Indexing
Retrieval and Rankings
Evaluating Content on a Web Page
What Content Can Search Engines “See” on a Web Page?
What search engines cannot see
Determining Searcher Intent and Delivering Relevant, Fresh Content
Document Analysis and Semantic Connectivity
Link Analysis
Problem Words, Disambiguation, and Diversity
Where freshness matters
A Few Reasons Why These Algorithms Sometimes Fail
Analyzing Ranking Factors
Negative Ranking Factors
Other Ranking Factors
Using Advanced Search Techniques
Advanced Google Search Operators
Combined Google queries
Firefox plug-ins for quicker access to Google advanced search queries
Yahoo! Advanced Search Operators
Combined Yahoo! Queries
Firefox extensions to help with Yahoo! (Link:) and (LinkDomain:) search operators
Bing Advanced Search Operators
More Advanced Search Operator Techniques
Keyword difficulty
Using number ranges
Advanced doc type search
Determine listing age
Uncover subscriber-only or deleted content
Identify neighborhoods
Find Creative Commons (CC) licensed content
Vertical Search Engines
Vertical Search from the Major Search Engines
Image search
Video search
News search
Local search/maps
Blog search
Book search
Job search
Celebrity xRank
Universal Search/Blended Search
Meta search
More specialized vertical search engines
Country-Specific Search Engines
Optimizing for Specific Countries
Profile of China’s Internet Usage
Conclusion
3. Determining Your SEO Objectives and Defining Your Site’s Audience
Setting SEO Goals and Objectives
Strategic Goals SEO Practitioners Can Fulfill
Visibility (branding)
Website traffic
High ROI
Every SEO Plan Is Custom
Understanding Search Engine Traffic and Visitor Intent
Developing an SEO Plan Prior to Site Development
Business Factors That Affect the SEO Plan
Understanding Your Audience and Finding Your Niche
Mapping Your Products and Services
Content Is King
Segmenting Your Site’s Audience
Advanced Methods for Planning and Evaluation
SWOT analysis
Get SMART
SEO for Raw Traffic
SEO for E-Commerce Sales
SEO for Mindshare/Branding
SEO for Lead Generation and Direct Marketing
SEO for Reputation Management
SEO for Ideological Influence
Conclusion
4. First Stages of SEO
The Major Elements of Planning
Technology Choices
Market Segmentation
Where You Can Find Great Links
Content Resources
Branding Considerations
Competition
Identifying the Site Development Process and Players
Defining Your Site’s Information Architecture
Technology Decisions
Structural Decisions
Target keywords
Cross-link relevant content
Use anchor text
Use breadcrumb navigation
Minimize link depth
Auditing an Existing Site to Identify SEO Problems
Elements of an Audit
Usability
Accessibility/spiderability
Search engine health check
Keyword health checks
Duplicate content checks
URL check
Title tag review
Content review
Meta tag review
Sitemaps file and robots.txt file verification
Redirect checks
Internal linking checks
Avoidance of unnecessary subdomains
Geolocation
External linking
Page load time
Image alt tags
Code quality
The Importance of Keyword Reviews
Step 1: Keyword research
Step 2: Site architecture
Step 3: Keyword mapping
Step 4: Site review
Keyword Cannibalization
Example: Fixing an Internal Linking Problem
Server and Hosting Issues
Identifying Current Server Statistics Software and Gaining Access
Web Analytics
Logfile Tracking
Google and Bing Webmaster Tools
Search Analytics
Determining Top Competitors
Two Spam Examples
Seeking the Best
Uncovering Their Secrets
Assessing Historical Progress
Maintain a Timeline of Site Changes
Types of Site Changes That Can Affect SEO
Previous SEO Work
Benchmarking Current Indexing Status
Benchmarking Current Rankings
Benchmarking Current Traffic Sources and Volume
Leveraging Business Assets for SEO
Other Domains You Own/Control
Partnerships On and Off the Web
Content or Data You’ve Never Put Online
Customers Who Have Had a Positive Experience
Your Fans
Combining Business Assets and Historical Data to Conduct SEO/Website SWOT Analysis
Conclusion
5. Keyword Research
The Theory Behind Keyword Research
Understanding the Long Tail of the Keyword Demand Curve
Traditional Approaches: Domain Expertise, Site Content Analysis
Include Competitive Analysis
Keyword Research Tools
Keyword Research Data from the Engines
Blog search counts
Related terms
Common usage and phrase combinations
Frequency of recent usage
Keyword Research with Tools
Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator
What the Keyword Tool provides
What the Traffic Estimator provides
Where the tools get their data
How the tools are useful
Cost
Yahoo! Search Marketing
Where it gets its data
How it is useful
Cost
Microsoft’s adCenter Keyword Generation Tool
Where it gets its data
How it is useful
Cost
Wordtracker
Where it gets its data
How it is useful
Cost
KeywordDiscovery
Where it gets its data
How it is useful
Cost
Google Trends
Where it gets its data
How it is useful
Cost
Hitwise
Where it gets its data
How it is useful
Cost
comScore Marketer
What it provides
Where it gets its data
How it is useful
Cost
Enquisite Optimizer
What it provides
Where it gets its data
How it is useful
Cost
Things to Keep in Mind
Determining Keyword Value/Potential ROI
Estimating Value, Relevance, and Conversion Rates
Determining keyword value
Identifying relevant keywords
Determining conversion rates
Testing Ad Campaign Runs and Third-Party Search Data
Using Landing Page Optimization
Leveraging the Long Tail of Keyword Demand
Extracting Terms from Relevant Web Pages
Mining Keyword Research Tools
Identifying Long Tail Patterns
Editorial Content Strategies for Long Tail Targeting
User-Generated Content Strategies for Long Tail Targeting
Trending, Seasonality, and Seasonal Fluctuations in Keyword Demand
Conclusion
6. Developing an SEO-Friendly Website
Making Your Site Accessible to Search Engines
Indexable Content
Spiderable Link Structures
XML Sitemaps
Layout of an XML Sitemap
What to include in a Sitemap file
Where to upload your Sitemap file
Managing and updating XML Sitemaps
Updating your Sitemap with Bing
Updating your Google Sitemap
Creating an Optimal Information Architecture
The Importance of a Logical, Category-Based Flow
Usability and search friendliness
An analogy
Subdomains
Redirects
URLs
Site Architecture Design Principles
Designing site architecture
Category structuring
Creating broad→narrow topical relevance
Taxonomy and ontology
Flat Versus Deep Architecture
Search-Friendly Site Navigation
Basics of search engine friendliness
Site elements that are problematic for spiders
Search and web forms
Java, images, audio, and video
AJAX and JavaScript
Frames
Search-engine-friendly navigation guidelines
Root Domains, Subdomains, and Microsites
When to Use a Subfolder
When to Use a Subdomain
When to Use a Separate Root Domain
Microsites
Making the case for microsites
When to Use a TLD Other Than .com
Optimization of Domain Names/URLs
Optimizing Domains
Picking the Right URLs
Keyword Targeting
Title Tags
Meta Description Tags
Heading (H1, H2, H3) Tags
Document Text
Image Filenames and Alt Attributes
Boldface Text
Avoiding Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword Targeting in CMSs and Automatically Generated Content
SEO Copywriting: Encouraging Effective Keyword Targeting by Content Creators
Long Tail Keyword Targeting
Content Optimization
Content Structure
Content length and word count
Visual layout
CSS and Semantic Markup
Content Uniqueness and Depth
A word of caution to affiliates
Duplicate Content Issues
Consequences of Duplicate Content
How Search Engines Identify Duplicate Content
Identifying and Addressing Copyright Infringement
An actual penalty situation
How to Avoid Duplicate Content on Your Own Site
Controlling Content with Cookies and Session IDs
What’s a Cookie?
What Are Session IDs?
How Do Search Engines Interpret Cookies and Session IDs?
Why Would You Want to Use Cookies or Session IDs to Control Search Engine Access?
Content Delivery and Search Spider Control
Cloaking and Segmenting Content Delivery
When to Show Different Content to Engines and Visitors
How to Display Different Content to Search Engines Versus Visitors
The robots.txt file
Syntax of the robots.txt file
The Rel="NoFollow” attribute
The meta robots tag
The canonical tag
Blocking and cloaking by IP address range
Blocking and cloaking by user agent
Using iframes
Hiding text in images
Hiding text in Java applets
Forcing form submission
Using login/password protection
Removing URLs from a search engine’s index
Redirects
Why and When to Redirect
Good and Bad Redirects
Methods for URL Redirecting and Rewriting
Mod_rewrite and ISAPI_Rewrite for URL rewriting and redirecting
Redirecting a Home Page Index File Without Looping
The default document redirect solution
Content Management System (CMS) Issues
Selecting a CMS
Third-Party CMS Add-ons
Optimizing Flash
Flash
Flash Coding Best Practices
Flash meta tags
Adobe Flash search engine SDK
Internal Flash coding
SWFObject and NoScript tags
SWFObject
NoScript
Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR)
JavaScript and AJAX
Best Practices for Multilanguage/Country Targeting
Targeting a Specific Country
Problems with Using Your Existing Domain
The Two Major Approaches
Multiple-Language Issues
Conclusion
7. Creating Link-Worthy Content and Link Marketing
How Links Influence Search Engine Rankings
The Original PageRank Algorithm
Additional Factors That Influence Link Value
Anchor text
Relevance
Authority
Trust
How Search Engines Use Links
Further Refining How Search Engines Judge Links
Additional Link Evaluation Criteria
Source independence
Linking domains
Source diversity
Temporal factors
Context/relevance
Source TLDs
Determining a Link’s Value
The Psychology of Linking
Why Are Links Created?
How Can Sites Approach Getting Links?
Types of Link Building
Using Content to Attract Links
Marketing Content for Link Acquisition
Directories
What search engines want from directories
Classifying directories
Detecting directories that pass link juice
Incentive-Based Link Requests
Giveaways
Dangerous tactics
Direct Link Requests
Creating a value proposition for direct requests
Basic email pitch
Manual Social Media Link Creation
Gray Hat/Black Hat
Buying links for SEO
Google’s policy on paid links
Methods for buying links
Strategies that are not considered buying links
Link farms/link networks
Automated link dropping
Spammy giveaways
NoFollow uses and scams
Choosing the Right Link-Building Strategy
Outline of a Process
Identify types of sites that might link to a site like yours
Find out where your competitors get links
Review your website assets
Identify any strategic limitations
Identify methods for contacting potential linkers
Link-Building Process Summary
Putting It All Together
Execute aggressively
Conduct regular strategic reviews
Create a link-building culture
Never stop
More Approaches to Content-Based Link Acquisition
A Closer Look at Content Syndication
Leveraging User-Generated Content
Creating Link Bait/Viral Content
Coming up with link bait ideas
How far should you go with link bait?
Encourage link bait to spread virally
Incentive-Based Link Marketing
Helping Other Sites Boost Their Value
Customer Discounts/Incentives
How Search Engines Fight Link Spam
Algorithmic Approaches to Fighting Link Spam
Other Search Engine Courses of Action
Social Networking for Links
Blogging for Links
Leveraging Social News and Tagging Sites
Forum and Social Network Participation
Offline Relationship Building
Some Success Stories Using YouTube
Social Media Tips for More Sites
Wikipedia
Wikis
Flickr
Meetup.com
Twitter
Social Media Summary
Conclusion
8. Optimizing for Vertical Search
The Opportunities in Vertical Search
Universal Search and Blended Search
The Opportunity Unleashed
Optimizing for Local Search
Foundation: Check Your Local Listings
Additional local info guides
Additional local online Yellow Pages
Additional vertical directory sites
Newspapers
Chambers of commerce
Online classifieds and eBay
Local guides
Specialty Yellow Pages
Introduction to Local Business Profiles
Local Agency Management
Optimizing Your Website for Local Search Engines
Optimizing for Image Search
Image Optimization Tips
Optimizing Through Flickr and Other Image Sharing Sites
Optimizing for Product Search
Getting into Google Product Search
Product search optimization
Performance reporting
Optimizing for News, Blog, and Feed Search
RSS Feed Optimization
RSS Feed Tracking and Measurement
Other RSS Optimization Considerations
Blog Optimization
Structural blog optimizations
Optimizing your anchor text
Sticky posts
Author profile pages
More blog optimization basics
Links remain critical
Can you do this?
News Search Optimization
Optimizing for news search
Submission details
Sitemaps and RSS feeds
Others: Mobile, Video/Multimedia Search
Mobile Search
Video Search Optimization
Other video optimization tips
Publicizing your video
Conclusion
9. Tracking Results and Measuring Success
Why Measuring Success Is Essential to the SEO Process
The Tracking Cycle: Produce, Launch, Measure, Refine
Using Analytics As a Business Case for SEO
Measuring Search Traffic
Basic Overview
Selecting the Right Analytics Package
Valuable SEO Data in Web Analytics
Traffic by search engine
Traffic by keyword
Segmenting Search Traffic with Multiple Parameters
Referring Sites
Using Analytics Dashboards
A Deeper Look at Action Tracking
Separating the Analytics Wheat from the Chaff
Common analytics mistakes
Tying SEO to Conversion and ROI
Attribution
Setting Up Analytics Software to Track Conversions
Conversion tracking strategy
Segmenting Campaigns and SEO Efforts by Conversion Rate
Increasing Conversion
The link bait bump
Action tracking by referral source
Determining Project ROI
Competitive and Diagnostic Search Metrics
Search Engine and Competitive Metrics
Site Indexing Data
Link Building, Link Tracking, and Link-Based Metrics (Including Anchor Text Analysis)
Search-engine-supplied tools
Third-party link-measuring tools
Linkscape
Link Diagnosis
Other third-party link-building tools
Google Blog Search
Technorati
Exalead
Measuring the value of a link
Rankings
Crawl Errors
Tools from the search engines
Third-party tools to check for crawl errors
Tracking the Blogosphere
Tracking Your Blog(s)
Blog subscribers
Blog links
Search Engine Robot Traffic Analysis
Google Webmaster Tools
Web Traffic Comparison
Google Trends for Websites
Alexa
Compete
Quantcast
Temporal Link Growth Measurements
Key Performance Indicators for Long Tail SEO
Brand-to-Non-Brand Ratio
Unique Crawled URLs
Search Visitors per Contributing Page
Keywords per Page
Search Visitors per Keyword
Index-to-Crawl Ratio
Search Visitors per Crawled Page
Conclusion
10. Domain Changes, Post-SEO Redesigns, and Troubleshooting
The Basics of Moving Content
Large-Scale Content Moves
Mapping Content Moves
Expectations for Content Moves
Maintaining Search Engine Visibility During and After a Site Redesign
Maintaining Search Engine Visibility During and After Domain Name Changes
Unique Challenges of Domain Name Changes
Premove Preparations
Changing Servers
Monitoring After Your Server Move
Other Scenarios Similar to Server Moves
Hidden Content
Identifying Content That Engines Don’t See
Identifying the Cause of Non-Spidering
Blocked by robots.txt
Blocked by the robots meta tag
No direct links
Requires form submission
Session IDs
Not enough link juice to remain in main indexes
Hidden Content That May Be Construed As Spam
A few ways to create hidden text
Unintentionally creating hidden text
Spam Filtering and Penalties
Recognizing Low-Quality Domains and Spam Sites
Competitors Can Report You
Duplicate Content
Basic Rules for Spam-Free SEO
Identifying Search Engine Penalties
Reinclusion/Reconsideration Requests
Content Theft
Changing SEO Vendors or Staff Members
Potential Problems
Document SEO Actions and Progress
Rapid Training
Clean Up
Conclusion
11. Honing the Craft: SEO Research and Study
SEO Research and Analysis
SEO Resources
Websites
Magazines
Commentary from search engine employees
Interpreting commentary
SEO Testing
Sample experimental approach
Other useful SEO metrics
Start with a hypothesis
Analysis of Top-Ranking Sites and Pages
Analysis of Algorithmic Differentiation Across Engines and Search Types
Using Experience and Instinct
Competitive Analysis
Content Analysis
Internal Link Structure and Site Architecture
External Link Attraction Analysis
What Is Their SEO Strategy?
Competitive Analysis Summary
Using Competitive Link Analysis Tools
Competitive Analysis for Those with a Big Budget
Using Search-Engine-Supplied SEO Tools
Search Engine Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools
Yahoo! Site Explorer, Yahoo! Search Engine Link Commands
Yahoo! Site Explorer
Yahoo! Search
The SEO Industry on the Web
Blogs
Forums
Communities in Social Networks
Participation in Conferences and Organizations
Conclusion
12. Build an In-House SEO Team, Outsource It, or Both?
The Dynamics and Challenges of Using In-House Talent Versus Outsourcing
The Value of In-House SEO
The Value of Outsourced Solutions
Leveraging SEO Knowledge in an Organization
Solutions for Small Organizations
In-House SEO Specialist
Outsourced Agency/Consultant/Contractor
Working with Limited Resources/Budget
Basic Low-Budget SEO Ideas
Solutions for Large Organizations
Contracting for Specialist Knowledge and Experience
Applying SEO Recommendations Intelligently
Hiring SEO Talent
How to Select the Right SEO Practitioner
Pitching the Person
Sample Job Opening
The Case for Working with an Outside Expert
How to Best Leverage Outside Help
Selecting an SEO Firm/Consultant
Getting the Process Started
Preparing a Request for Proposal (RFP)
Step 1: Nominate a “point person” for the engagement
Step 2: Define “needs” and “wants” using a decision matrix
Step 3: Define your success metrics
Step 4: Prepare to disclose all known influencing factors
Step 5: Provide an estimated timeline and budget for project completion
A sample RFP document outline
Communicating with Candidate SEO Firms
Making the Decision
Mixing Outsourced SEO with In-House SEO Teams
Building a Culture of SEO into Your Organization
Conclusion
13. An Evolving Art Form: The Future of SEO
The Ongoing Evolution of Search
The Growth of Search Complexity
Google’s Dominance
More Searchable Content and Content Types
Engines Will Make Crawling Improvements
Engines Are Getting New Content Sources
Multimedia Is Becoming Indexable
Search Becoming More Personalized and User-Influenced
Determining User Intent
User Interactions
New Search Patterns
User-Driven Search Results
Growing Reliance on the Cloud
Increasing Importance of Local, Mobile, and Voice Recognition Search
Local Search
Mobile Search
U.S. market
Worldwide mobile Internet growth
U.S. mobile search market share
Voice Recognition Search
Increased Market Saturation and Competition
SEO As an Enduring Art Form
Conclusion
Index
About the Authors
Colophon
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