Eric Highland, @erichighland
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How Search Engines Work
SEO encompasses any unpaid methods used to get a website to rank well on search engine results pages (SERPS)
Content is no longer king, it is one piece in an overall SEO puzzle.
How to find if a site is indexed
site:wpaustin.com
How to find if a specific page is indexed
inurl:wordpress site:wpaustin.com
Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools
Verify your site – use Yoast SEO plugin
Health -> Fetch as Google -> Submit to Index
On-page Optimization – the content of your page that you have direct control over. You need to perform keyword research first.
One very good tool to use is the Google AsWords Keyword Tool
Set your search parameters. Click on the box “exact”. Enter up to 100 terms. Check only show results related to my keywords. Select USA, english, desktops & laptops.
SEOmoz Pro Keyword Difficulty Tool (a paid service)
Keyword Focus
- Title
- Meta Description
- URL
- H1
- First paragraph of text
- In your text (as it reads naturally)
- H2 / subtitles
- Image alt tags
- Proximate to images
- Re-name images to include keywords
Off-Page Optimization
- Social signals
- In-bound links
- OpenSiteExplorer.org (3 free reports/day)
- Guest writing
- “Battle Rhythm”
Plugins
- Digg Digg
- Shareaholic
How to Dominate Your Niche
- Build Relationships
- Content
- SEO
- Marketing
Marketing (“Battle Rhythm”)
- Email the people featured in your post – “Congratulations…”
- Next email – publication date
- Your article is being published tomorrow, with 7 free ways to market it
- Thank you, with another link to the page
Emails sent over 10 day period
Relationships
- Influencers – In Real Life and on social platforms
Resources
- SEOmoz
- Search Engine Land
- State of Search
- Search Engine Watch
- Search Engine Journal
- Knektion