Textbook Overview

2. SEARCH ENGINE BASICS. Defining terms, assessing options and setting priorities. • MARKET RESEARCH AND FEASIBILITY. Know your customers, your competitors and yourself. • SITE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN. How site elements affect search ranking. • UNDERSTANDING KEYWORDS. Choosing the right keywords, and putting them in the right places. • CONTENT THAT COUNTS. Guidelines for creating high-quality content. • EARNING LINKS. An introduction to getting and giving links. • BRANDING AND REPUTATION MANAGEMENT. Maintaining image and integrity across online and offline channels. • SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING. How participating in social media can help your customers and your business. • DRIVING TRAFFIC. Enhancing SEO with promotional activities. • MEASURING RESULTS. Setting baselines and analyzing traffic. • PROJECT MANAGEMENT. Tips on staying organized, and creating the NxLeveL® SEO Action Plan. Textbook Overview

3. Structure. Well-designed, fast-loading sites with easily accessible content and correctly functioning links will get higher ratings. • Quality. Search engines look for well-organized and original content. • Relevance. The more relevant page content is, the higher it will usually rank. • Authority. Typical indications of authority include .gov and .edu domains, and major news outlets. • Popularity. Search engines consider the quality and quantity of incoming links. The more authority these links have, the more they count. • Age. Search engines prefer regularly updated information. They also tend to prefer sites that have been online for five years or more. WhatSearchEngines Are Looking For

4. Top 5 Positive Factors • Keyword-focused anchor text from external links • External link popularity (quantity and quality of external links) • Diversity of link sources (links from many unique root domains) • Keyword use anywhere in the title tag • Trustworthiness, based on link distance from trusted domains Top 5 Negative Factors • Cloaking with malicious or manipulative intent • Link acquisition from known link brokers/sellers • Links to Web spam sites or pages • Cloaking by user agent • Frequent server downtime and site inaccessibility According to a study by SEOmoz, these are the top 5 positive and negative factors affecting search ranking. Search Engine Ranking Factors Source: http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

5. Increasing visibility and traffic • Increasing brand recognition • Increasing authority within an industry or market • Increasing incoming links • Reputation management • Increasing sales or other conversions(e.g., subscriptions) Common SEO Goals

6. Demand specifics. An SEO firm’s proposal should always specify realistic, measurable benefits along with corresponding cost breakdowns. • Ask questions. Don’t be afraid of sounding ignorant. Request definitions of unfamiliar terms, and ask how they relate to your business. • Consider content needs. Can you produce adequate content in-house, or will you need to outsource this work? • Set a timeframe. What’s the contractor’s timeline for delivering measurable results? • Think ahead. Will the contractor handle ongoing SEO tasks? If so, what does this entail? How often will they make adjustments, and how much will it cost? • Identify your responsibilities. What is your role? What will the contractor need from you and your staff? Choosing an SEO Firm

7. SCOPE • What is the business opportunity? • What are your goals? • What are the features and benefits? SWOT ANALYSIS • Your business • Your industry • Your target market • Your competition FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY • What are your capital requirements? Do you need outside funding? MARKETING FEASIBILITY • What price, promotion and placement strategies will you use? • Why, when, how, where and how much will customers buy? FEASIBILITY OF PERSONNEL • Do you have the right mix of personnel, with the right training? • What functions will be outsourced? LOGISTICAL FEASIBILITY • What are your performance specifications? • How will you ensure that they are met? • Can you get enough of the supplies and materials you need? • What’s the turnaround time? • Is your supply chain adequate? • Do you have all the equipment and expertise you need? Feasibility Study Outline

8. Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics

9. URLs. Spiders read and index domain names, paths and file names. • Title tags. Spiders assume that the title tag explains what a page is about. • Description tags provide basic information about a page’s content. • Robots meta tag tells spiders whether they should index a page, or follow its links. • Headline tags (<h1> and <h2>) help spiders understand which concepts on the page are important. • Body text includes most of the text on your website, usually in paragraph form. It can also include lists and other formatted content. • Anchor text appears in hyperlinks to other pages. • Link title text shows users a short description of the link when they position the cursor over it. • Image tags. Spiders can read the name of the image (“red-balloon.jpg”), and the alt text attribute that describes the image (“child holding a red balloon”). • Site maps show visitors the structure of your site. • Sitemaps tell spiders which pages to crawl. • Robots.txt tells spiders which pages to avoid. Spiderable Content

10. Flat Sites vs. Deep Sites

11. Site Architecture

12. Link Structure

13. Brainstorm a list of keywords. Use synonyms, keyword suggestion tools, stemming, etc. Consider modifiers (best, cheap, quote, buy, rent, used), product features (color, style, materials) and geocentric information. • Research search volume. A good keyword should have healthy demand without being too competitive. • Filtering. Identify and remove keywords that are obviously not relevant to your business. • Sorting. Tag keywords by theme and landing page in Excel, so that you can work with them more easily. • Analyzing relevance. Out of 10 visitors, how many will see the keyword as relevant to your site? • Competition research. Identify top competitors for your preferred keywords. • Document your assumptions and tools. Compare them to your actual results, and improve your targeting. Keyword Research

14. Age. Older sites generally have more authority. • Size and quality. A site with many indexed pages and lots of good-quality content indicates a strong competitor. • URLs. Sites with keywords in their URLs may be harder to beat. • Title and description tags. Are they properly optimized? If not, this may indicate a weak competitor. • Anchor text. Are they making good use of anchor text, or are they using generic phrases like "click here"? Unoptimized anchor text may indicate a weak competitor. • Site architecture. Is it deep or flat? How easy is it to use? How well organized is it? • Incoming links. A site with many high-quality incoming links may be harder to outrank. • Presence on social media. An active, engaged following on one or more social media channels may indicate a strong competitor. Competitor Analysis

15. URLs. File paths should include keywords, where possible. • Page title. Each page title should include primary keywords. • Description. Your description text should feature the most important content right away, so that it will appear clearly in the search results. • Headline tags. Each page on your site should include an <h1> headline tag that defines its subject matter. • Anchor text should contain your keywords where possible, or identify the link destination. • Link title tags. Putting informative text in these tags can improve the user’s experience, and help spiders to understand what the linked page is about. • Body text. Your primary keywords should appear in the first paragraph of body text on each page. • Image alt tags. Where possible, these tags should incorporate your keywords. Adding Keywords

16. Write about what you know. The Internet is full of ill-informed speculation and opinion. Sticking to practical, helpful facts will make your content stand out. • Stay focused. Your content should flow logically from one paragraph to the next. Don’t try to cover too much ground at once. If content doesn’t seem to fit, use it for another article. • Quality is more important than quantity. It’s better to have less content than to fill space with material that lacks utility, credibility or interest. • Format text carefully. Short paragraphs, correct punctuation and informative headlines are best for online text. • Don’t use quotes unless you’re quoting someone. Many inexperienced writers put quotes around everything from “figures of speech” to “product names.” This is “unnecessary” and “distracting.” • Don’t overuse exclamation points!!!!! Use them only when absolutely necessary, and never use more than one at a time. Multiple exclamation points communicate inexperience and desperation. • Avoid clichés and buzzwords. Don’t try to highlight innovation or originality with worn-out phrases like out of the box or pushing the envelope. And don’t use business or industry jargon that your readers may not understand. Copywriting Tips

17. Suppliers, clients, partners and business customers • Noncompeting businesses that sell a complementary product • Local chamber of commerce • Professional organizations or business groups to which you belong • Better Business Bureau • Blogs • Mentions on social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, SlideShare) • Charities and sponsorships • Writing articles and reviews on high-profile sites • Reviews of your products on other sites Good Link Sources

18. Fonts. What fonts will you use for body text? Headlines? Emails? PowerPoint presentations? • Colors. What colors will your business use for print and online communications? Identify spot colors, CMYK and RGB. • Logo. When and where should your logo be used? How much white space should it have on each side? What’s the smallest size at which it’s still legible? • Company name and address. This information should always be the same, no matter where it appears. • Branded names and terms. If you use special terms in your business, your identity standards guide should list them. • Titles and positions. Marketing Director, or Director of Marketing? Identity Standards

19. Blogs are online journals containing text, graphics, photos, audio and video content. This category also includes microblogging formats like Twitter and Tumblr. • Social networking sites like Facebook create connections and build trust-based communities. Geosocial networks like Foursquare allow interaction between individuals and businesses in a specific location. • Social bookmarking sites allow users to gather, rate and recommend websites, news stories and other content. Examples include StumbleUpon and Reddit. • Multimedia sites like YouTube and SlideShare allow users to share multimedia content like videos and slideshows. • Consumer review sites like Yelp and Epinions allow users to find, rate and review businesses and products. Social Media Platforms

20. TAKE YOUR TIME. Get to know the platform, the site and the community before participating. • BE HONEST. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. • BE CONSISTENT. Maintain a clear conceptual and visual identity across all social media channels. • BE HELPFUL. Answer questions, provide advice, seek out and link to worthwhile content. • BE RESPECTFUL. Don’t spam users or sites with marketing messages, or use social media as a vehicle for shameless self-promotion. Help yourself by helping others. • STAY ENGAGED. Keep your content fresh and current. Post regularly, even if it’s just a link to someone else’s article. Respond promptly and courteously to comments and requests. • HAVE FUN! You should enjoy interacting with people on social media. Rules for Social Media

21. Search engines. Which ones send the most traffic? • Visitors. How many are new? How many are unique? Is your traffic going up or down? • Visit duration. What’s the average visit length? • Page views. How many did the average visitor view? • Bounce rate. What percentage of visitors left a landing page without converting or visiting other pages? • Location. Where do your visitors come from? • Popularity. Which pages are most popular? • Referring sites. Which sites drove traffic? How much did they send? What did visitors do on your site? • Incoming links. How many incoming links do you have? What is the quality of the linking sites? • Keywords. Which keywords attract the most traffic? How relevant are they? How many are branded? • Conversions. In addition to sales, track mailing list signups, quote requests, downloads, comment submissions, subscriptions, social media followers, etc. Site Statistics

22. Prioritize feasible projects. • Identify every task necessary to accomplish your goals. • Determine the scope, timeframe, benchmarks and budget for each task. • Assign tasks, and specify due dates. • Establish a review process to ensure that milestones are met. Project Management Basics

23. Project. Describe the task. • Team. Assign responsibility. • Resources. What does the project require? • Estimated Costs. What will it cost?* • Variance (+/-). Is the actual cost higher or lower than the estimate?** • Success Indicators. Define benchmarks. • Next Steps. How do you move forward? (Note: This includes taking corrective actions.) • Timeline (in weeks). Estimate the time needed for completion.* • Variance (+/-). Is the actual time higher or lower than the estimate?** The NxLeveL® SEO Action Plan *These numbers will not change over the course of the project. **These numbers should change weekly as the project progresses.