SECTION THREE: SEARCH MARKETING (SEO)
May 1st, 2009 |
EXERCISE ONE: KNOW ILLEGAL SEO TECHNIQUES NOT TO USE
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Points to Remember
- Google has Terms of Service you can read online that tell you what you can and cannot do to show up in their search engine. If you break key rules, they will penalize you. Too many penalization points against you and it will be hard to rank.
- If you are caught implementing specifically illegal techniques, your website will be blacklisted, meaning that it will never show up in any Google search, even if someone searches your exact domain name (it’ll still show up if they put your domain into the browser’s URL field – just won’t show up in Google)
To review illegal SEO techniques to avoid, refer to our Post Training Materials. You will find a special report titled “Illegal SEO Techniques to Avoid.”
EXERCISE TWO: CONDUCT AN SEO CAMPAIGN
Points to Remember
- SEO can be very complicated. Don’t get lost in all the information out there.
- Slow and steady wins the race. There is plenty you can do to win immediate rankings in a couple days or weeks, but the real key is to consistently optimize and promote your website each month.
- We’ve made it dirt simple to conduct a successful basic SEO campaign as long as your industry isn’t too competitive. If you feel that you need an experienced search marketing expert to assist you, feel free to contact us.
- To conduct your SEO campaign, you’ll be largely using one of the two tools we recommend on the next page. Both have free options, great training, and tools.
CONDUCT YOUR SEO CAMPAIGN
- www.soloseo.com
- www.webceo.com
Review each tool above to decide which one you want to work with. They are both excellent, and they both provide:
- In depth training on how to conduct an SEO campaign
- Training on how to use their tool
- Keyword Research & Market Research Tools (www.nichebrowser.com)
- Link Building Tools
- Competitive Analysis & Intelligence Tools
- Reporting & Tracking
- On Page Optimization Help
Sign up for, or download, your chosen tool (you’ll likely get confused if you try to use both, so just pick one)
Study their basic training material or take their product tour to get a basic overview of how everything works. Create your campaign and follow the tool’s instructions.
Make sure you work on your campaign consistently every month. Your rankings won’t last if you don’t maintain your SEO activities (missing a month here or there shouldn’t harm you too bad, but try to remain consistent).
A SAMPLE SEO CAMPAIGN PLAN (YOU CAN USE THIS AS A SORT OF CHECK LIST)
Marketing Assessment
- Set goals
- Set benchmarks
- Set metrics for measurement
- Understand how SEO will impact other current marketing campaigns
- Discuss which SEO strategies you’ll likely pursue (may change after following assessments)
Website Assessment
- Know current statistics (traffic, conversions, visitor behavior)
- Know programming language(s) used and how they impact rankings
- Review other site elements with SEO professional to be sure they can rank your site (dynamic sites, retail shopping sites, etc.)
- Set overall objectives and purpose of your website. Determine whether you want it to be highly informational, interactive, retail, etc. as the SEO techniques used will depend on, and affect, these characteristics.
Team Building
- Have all applicable team members meet to go over objectives for your SEO campaign and make sure that everyone’s needs and expectations are addressed.
- Designate a project leader and, if each team consists of three or more people, designate team leaders.
- Make sure everyone understands that in order for SEO to be effective, the SEO professional will need as much access as possible to your website. If he must go through a programmer or designer for every little tweak, this will severely cripple effectiveness.
Keyword Assessment
- Discuss which keywords you’d like to target Review and approve SEO professional’s keyword list (developed by researching ROI potential of your chosen keywords and thematically related terms)
Website Review
- Review website content, on-site elements, existing links and linking structure
- Develop site optimization task list for optimizing all on-site elements for target keywords
Settle on Additional SEO Strategies
- Review all strategies your SEO professional provides
- Discuss each strategy and how it will affect your ancillary goals, which may be branding, reputation, producing industry buzz or social word-of-mouth, etc.
- Make sure your SEO professional and the rest of the project team understands exactly what strategies will be used (review our illegal methods with your professional to make sure none of them are being used and that you have a solid understanding of what’s being done)
Reporting Expectations
- Find out ahead of time what reports and detailed data your SEO professional plans to provide
- Discuss any additional data your company would like to receive
- Make sure your project team has discussed how to utilize this report data to produce actionable information
Begin On-Site Optimization and Additional SEO
- As you begin implementation, set review dates and project milestones for project team meetings to gauge progress and realign future tasks (if necessary)
EXERCISE THREE: WRITE & PROMOTE OPTIMIZED CONTENT
Points to Remember
- Every page on your website should be optimized to show up in the search engines. Code optimization will largely be handled by your webmaster or SEO tool. However, you’ll need to make sure your written content is well-optimized.
- That said, don’t worry too much about optimizing your home page. Again, the sole purpose of your homepage is to get visitors to dig deeper.
- Your content still has to be well-written for your human visitors. Don’t stuff it with your keyword when not appropriate and keep your tone conversational. Work with a good ghost writer if you need to.
- You’ll need to write optimized content for your website, but you’ll also want to create standalone optimized articles and promote them to article databases and other websites to secure backlinks.
To write your content, refer to our several Article Writing and Article Promotion training tutorials provided in your Post Training Materials. They will lead you through each process, step-by-step.
CHECKLIST: CONDUCT YOUR SEO CAMPAIGN
- REVIEW YOUR KEYWORD RESEARCH AND CHOOSE THE BEST KEYWORDS TO TARGET. PICK SEVERAL TERMS THAT ARE EASY TO RANK FOR AND A COUPLE WELL-SEARCHED TERMS THAT WILL LIKELY RANK EVENTUALLY OVER TIME
- DOWNLOAD OR SIGN UP FOR YOUR CHOSEN SEO TOOL
- GO THROUGH YOUR CHOSEN TOOL’S TRAINING AND GET FAMILIAR WITH THE SOFTWARE
- CREATE A CAMPAIGN AND BEGIN WORKING THROUGH THE OPTIMIZATION STEPS AND TOOLS YOUR SEO SOFTWARE GIVES YOU
- USE YOUR CHOSEN TOOL’S SEO CAMPAIGN CHECKLISTS OR USE OUR INCLUDED CAMPAIGN CHECKLIST
- OPTIMIZE YOUR WRITTEN CONTENT – FOCUS EACH PAGE ON A SINGLE PRIMARY KEYWORD AND UP TO TWO SECONDARY KEYWORDS WRITE AND PROMOTE OPTIMIZED ARTICLES FOR BACKLINKS
