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"Organic" Search Engine Optimization

Best Practices For Increasing Your Web Site Rankings

The following is an HTML version of Matt Hockin's "Organic (Natural) Search" presentation conducted at the AD:TECH San Francisco 2005 conference.

Introduction

organic search engine optimization image More than 88% of all Internet users look for sites using search engines and directories.

If your site isn’t listed near the top, it may as well not exist.

Ensure your site is ranked prominently and is “spider friendly.”

This presentation will show you the following:

Today’s top “organic” search engine optimization strategies for getting top rankings and driving qualified visitors to your web site;
The 3 critical elements every web site needs for achieving and maintaining high rankings;
How to beat your competition and rank in the top 1-10 at Google.

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What exactly is “Organic” Search Engine Optimization?

“Organic” SEO is the process of raising your web site rankings and visibility in the “natural” listings area (not paid listings) of the search engine results pages (SERPs)… for increasing qualified visitors to your site.

SERP: Search Engine Results Page

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Why Top Rankings Matter…

Every day, the search engines and directories average 300-500 MILLION searches (multiple sources).
In a recent Forrester Research report 81% of consumers on the Internet find products and services by using search engines.
Unfortunately, only 7% of all web sites are visible by the Search engines according to a recent StatMarket.com study. The reason for this is that most web sites are not properly optimized for maximum Search Engine Visibility.

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Get Your Web Site in the “Sweet Spot”
of Search Engine Visibility with Organic SEO…

Overall 60.5% click on "organic" natural results of the SERPs.
Nearly 60% click on the first three organic results.
Google has highest "Click-Thru Rate" (CTR) for natural results at 72.3%.
If you’re ranked below #10 (even #3) your CTR’s fall dramatically

Google Eye Tracking Test

For maximum clicks, optimize for top organic rankings

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Today’s Top Search Engines

Google Yahoo! & MSN Search Engines

Google dominates the SEO landscape with 46% of total market share.
Of business users surveyed, 82.9% prefer Google – Marketing Sherpa, 2004.
Google has over 3 times the search traffic than Yahoo!

Conclusion: Optimize for Google

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How to Optimize and Promote Your
Web Site for Top Search Engine Visibility…

To optimize for Google and the other important search engines such as Yahoo! Search and MSN Search, 3 critical components must be done correctly…

Component #1 – Keywords & Content (Your web page text and keywords)
Component #2 - Internal Linking (How you link your web pages together)
Component #3 - "Link Popularity" (In-bound links to your web pages)

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SEO Component #1 - Keywords & Content

The keywords and content component tells the search engines what your web pages are about when they spider your site. "On the page SEO" includes the practice of optimizing your web pages by adding keywords to them.

The following are the best practices for optimizing your web pages:

Title tags centered around 1 important keyword phrase
Keyword at the very beginning of your web page text
Keywords in Headings - H1, H2, H3 tags
Keywords in links and URLs like this:
http://www.YourSite.com/keyword-phrase.html
Keywords in Bold
Keyword in 1st sentence - more weight given to first 25 words on page
2-3 instances of your primary keyword phase per 100 words
Keywords in the “anchor text” – the text within your hyperlinks
Keywords in the “ALT Tags” – the phrases used to describe your images
Keyword at the very end of your web page text

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SEO Component #2 - Internal Linking

Search engines find web pages by crawling links. Again, the internal linking component is another way of telling the search engines what your web pages are about when they spider your web site.

The following are the best practices of internal linking:

Use keywords in your navigation links
Use keywords in your text links throughout your web site
Add a site map to your web site with a line-item list of links to all your web pages
Use keywords in your URLs like this…
http://www.YourSite.com/keyword-phrase.html
Each of your web pages can link to the most important web pages in your web site with keyword optimized anchor text. For example, on the bottom of your web pages, add text links to your other important web page. An example for a Florida Mortgage web site…

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SEO Component #3 - "Link Popularity"

95% of the battle of getting high search engine rankings is acquiring quality and relevant links pointing to your web site. (Getting other sites to link to your site)
Ever since Google entered the search engine market, all the major Search Engines have started using links as the primary way they rank web sites.
This is known as your web site’s "Link Popularity" or in Google’s case it’s called "PageRank" or "PR."

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Why is PageRank So Important?

Because Google knows that "on-the-page" factors such as putting keywords on your web pages can never hold any significant value to their audience of searchers.
Anyone with an HTML editor can "stuff" keywords into their web pages.
So Google analyzes what other web sites say about a particular web page by analyzing the in-coming links that point to it. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed this algorithm called "PageRank" at Stanford University and describe it as follows…
"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. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages 'important.'"

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Google’s Link Popularity Analysis

Google's algorithm ranks web pages primarily on the following 3 criteria...

The quality or "relevance" of the web site or web page that links to your web page;
The "anchor text" or actual link text in or around the in-bound link that points to your web page;
The total volume (number) of in-coming links to your web page.

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The Top 3 Strategies for Acquiring Links to Your Site

Use keywords in your “Anchor Text.”
Get more “Relevant Links” from quality sites than your competition.
Get more links on different web sites than your competition.
Strive to get a higher Google PageRank score than your competition.

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In-Bound Linking Strategy #1

Use keywords in your “Anchor Text”

“Anchor text” is the visible text within a hyperlink.
Don’t get links that contain only your web site name - like this…
Charge.com
In your link text be sure to add the keywords you’re optimizing for - like this…
Merchant Accounts by Charge.com

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Advanced Linking Strategies

If you're advertising on the Net with Banner Ads, add keyword focused text links as illustrated in these examples…

Before...

Banner Ad

After...

Banner Ad with Text Links added below
Merchant Accounts
by Charge.com

Banner Ads with Text Links…

Banner Ads with Text Links

Buy Text Link Ads At Your Industry’s Portal Sites…

Text Link Ads

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In-Bound Linking Strategy #2

Get more “Relevant Links” than your competition.

All links are not created equal. The best links are “relevant” links from “Authority Sites” and web pages related to your keywords.
Here’s what Google Developer Matt Cutts was quoted as saying about links from “Authority Sites”…"Thematic incoming links from authority sites carry more weight than on-page optimization."
What are relevant links? Relevant links are links from other website that contain the keywords you're optimizing for. For example, if you're optimizing your web site to rank high for "blue widgets" get links from other web pages that contain that keyword ("blue widgets") in the page's…

Title tags
H1, H2, and H3 tags
Body copy
Etc.
Get the maximum exposure to your target market (while adhering to natural linking practices) by acquiring links from the top web sites in your industry and niche.

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In-Bound Linking Strategy #3

Get more links on more different web sites than your competition.

The more links pointing to your web site, the more important the search engines will assume your web site to be.
Which do you think Google likes better? 1000 links from the same web site? Or, 1000 links from 1000 different web sites?
Don’t SPAM: Get the most exposure to your target market while adhering to natural linking policies by getting links on a wide variety of different web sites on different networks.

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In-Bound Linking Strategy #4

Strive to get a higher Google PageRank score than your competition.

To stay ahead of your competition, strive to have a higher PageRank than them. Be aware that this is just a general rule and PageRank is just a general indicator of your site's link popularity.
Use the Google Toolbar http://toolbar.google.com or the SEO Chat Tool http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-search/
Search Google for your keyword and look at the PageRank of your competition’s web sites that are ranking in the top 10 of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

Dell.com's Google PageRank is very high - 8 out of 10
Research Your Competition’s
Google PageRank Numbers

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A Link Optimization Example

Relevant Links and Anchor Text are critical to achieving high search engine rankings.

Here’s absolute proof…

Do a search at Google for the highly competitive keyword “computers” and you’ll find Apple and Dell computers rank numbers 1 and 2 in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
Now, click through to the Apple and Dell web pages and look for the keyword “computers” in their web page text. What did you find? Neither www.apple.com or www.dell.com have the word “computers” in their text!

Google Search for "computers"

Conclusion: Relevant Links and Anchor Text Win!

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How to Acquire In-Bound Links

The following are the most effective ways to acquire in-bound links to your web site...

Submit your web site to the important Internet Directories.
Conduct an Internet public relations (I-PR) campaign and get publicity (articles, news, product reviews) on the websites that your target market reads.
Write articles and get them placed on the "authority sites" and "hub sites" in your industry or topic.
Research your competition and get links where they have links with an SEO link popularity campaign.
Conduct a reciprocal linking campaign.
Add a BLOG to your web site.
Purchase text link ads on web sites that your target market reads (But be careful)

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In Conclusion:

For maximum visibility and clicks from your Search Engine Marketing campaign, use the 3 components of “organic” SEO to achieve top rankings in the natural results.

Since Google and the other major search engines rank web sites based on their link popularity factors, concentrate on building links.

Contact us now for a free detailed analysis of your web site and learn more about our organic search engine optimization services. Contact us at 866.279.5785 or by clicking here.

Interactive Marketing, Inc.
61236 Brittle Brush Street • Bend, Oregon 97702
Toll Free: 866.279.5785
Tel: 503.246.1375
Fax: 503.336.5176