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Basics 2 Advanced April 2013 WordPress Stamford Meetup Presented By: Alex Miranda

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Who Am I?• SEO Marketing since 1998• Editor-in–Chief at PR Underground• Chief SEO Analyst at Marknet Group Inc• WordPress SEO Speaker• Asst Organizer of Hudson Valley Wordpress Meetup Group• Executive Chef

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SEO is long term…Period • Visitors are always first • Basic search engine optimization (SEO) is fundamental and essential • Link Building is forever….but be careful* • There is no trick to take your website to the topAn unusual increase in linking activity can indicate spam or manipulative link building techniques. Becareful, search engines devalue such behavior.

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"Skipping the basics and spending all your time and money on socialand fancy stuff is the same as skipping brushing your teeth andshowering, but buying white strips and wearing expensive cologne,“ -Carolyn Shelby Director of SEO, Chicago Tribune/435 Digital

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Watch for SEO Spammers

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SEO Topics • Structure • Content Marketing • Google Updates • Local Optimization • Social Media • Linking Strategy Tips • Penguin 2.0 • Resources

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What are search engines looking for?• Content: The text on the page. Titles and descriptions of the pages. Are they relevant?• Performance: How fast is your site and does it work properly? (Pagespeed insights)• Authority: Does your site have good enough content to link to?• User Experience: How does the site look? Is it easy to navigate around? Does it look safe? Does it have a high bounce rate?

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What search engines are not looking for• Keyword Stuffing: Overuse of keywords on your pages• Purchased Links: Buying links will get you nowhere when it comes to SEO• Low Quality Links: Penguin 2.0 will be a killer• Poor User Experience: Make it easy for the user to get around• Old Content: Does your site have old outdated content?

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Content  Clear and Simple. Is your homepage digestible in 5 seconds?  Engage your reader. Write for visitors first. Do not write for search engines.  Create a great, seamless user experience.  Call to action = conversions & leads  Keep website fresh and updated.  Too many ads on homepage will kill you.

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Bad

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Good

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URL Structure • Do not use strange characters or numbers • Use keywords you’re trying to rank for • Make sure they are not case sensitive • Use only hyphens or underscores

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Title Tags• Do not use the same title for every page• Create unique title tags for each page. Make sure they are relevant to the page• No more than 70 characters and avoid stop words…• Should contain keywords from content

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Meta Description • Keep it below 165 characters • Create unique meta tag descriptions for each page • Make sure the keywords match your title tags • Meta tags are extremely important in gaining user click-through from search engine result pages

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XML Sitemap • Find duplicate content and discover pages on your website. Designed for search engines • Caffeine Engine uses it as a way to determine freshness

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Content Marketing • Blog Blog Blog – Long Detailed blog post • Free E-books – Use it as a call to action. Great way to get subscribers • Images in Post – Very important part of quality articles • Infographics – Infographics show an expert. Compelling, viral capabilities, brand awareness and benefits SEO. • Presentations – Great way to pick up relevant backlinks and to rank on Google • Videos - Videos improve the learning experience over reading a post A major plus is ranking on Google for the post and the video • Webinars - People want more quality content, and webinars are a great solution. Great way to make you an authority.

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Google Updates • Google Freshness • Query Deserve Fresh (QDF) • Search, plus Your World • Authorship Program • Google+ Local

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Google Updates Google Freshness • Places greater emphasis on returning fresher web content for certain queries. What are the Factors?

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Google UpdatesGoogle Freshness• Age of webpage - A webpage is given a “freshness” score based on its inception date• How much content you change – The amount of content you change matters• How often you change your content – News sites benefit most from this• Adding new pages – Websites that add new content regularly have a higher score..Think Blog!!• Changes to important content above the fold - Navigation & ads less importance• Link Growth – Can make your site more relevant• FreshRank – Links from sites with high freshness score• User behavior – Can you say “Bounce”

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Google Updates Query Deserve Freshness • The Query Deserves Freshness algorithm favors fresh content over old content • QDF will rank hot trending queries ahead of all other search queries. It is a great way to publish content and beat your competition • Monitor trending keywords and topics using Google Trends, CNN, Mashable..etc • News sites and blogs benefit most from this algorithm • Regularly submitting releases for target specific keywords is now huge…

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Google Updates Search, plus Your World • It finds relevant personal results just for you based on people you follow, your shares and likes • Must be signed into Google Plus • SEO game changer. Now more than ever it’s important to blog, submit social media press releases, share, sign up for social bookmark sites and create hub pages

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Google Updates Search, plus Your World

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Google Updates Google Authorship Program • Distinguish and validates your content in search results • Gives authorship to your content • Get more followers on Google+ • Help readers discover your other content on the web • Must have a Google+ account

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Google Updates How do I know if I have it? • Go to the Google Rich Snippet testing tool & enter your URL

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Google+ Local • Replaces Google Places • You need a Google+ Business page • If you have a Google+ page then merge with Google+ local page • Build the authority of your brand through +1s and user reviews. • Drive traffic to your website • Convert more visitors into leads and clientele • Encourage reviews. They lead to higher rankings

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Local Citations Providing your business information to Local Citation Sources validates the popularity and credibility of your business within a search engine. Citations should include the following information: • DBA (Doing business as) Name • Business Phone Number • Business Website URL • Business Categorization • Main keywords for your business

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Local Citations Sources • Yelp • Foursquare • Meetup.com • Angie’s List • Judy’s Book • ShopCity • Super Pages • Dexknows • Magic Yellow • Zidster • Info USA • Localeze • Yellow Pages • City Search • Yellow Book • Insider Pages • Local.com • MerchantCircle • CityVoter • CitySquares

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Local Citations SourcesThe Whitespark Local Citation Finder helps SEOs and businesses findcitation sources for Local SEO.

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Local Link Building• Conduct local link queries – Use zip code, city, county, neighborhoods along with keyword. Ex. WordPress Meetups Stamford CT• Guest Blog Locally - Research local business blogs and ask to write on a topic that interests them• Interview Local Business People – Ask a local business if you can interview them on their blog• Create Content that Grabs Local Attention – Creating great local content can give you amazing visibility. Ex. Create a local fundraising event• Professional Organizations – Chambers, meetups, business organizations, local business directories• Craigslist - Post an item for sale on Craigslist, create a job hiring contest, Offer a free training, eBook or video then link it to a page on your website that describes your topic

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Make sure you optimize each video• Include title tags – Under 70 characters• Website URL within the description. Include keywords• Include tags that are relevant to your video

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SocializeSocial bookmarking sites allow you to store, tag and share links. You canshare these links with friends and colleagues• Digg• Folkd• Linkagogo• Technoroti• Squidoo• Tumblr• StumbleUpon*Great way to get backlinks to your website

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Yahoo Contributor Network

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Social Media Press ReleasesWhy Use Them?• Appear in Google News within minutes• SEO & social media all in one• Target hard to find keywords• Immediately generate inbound links• Google Freshness update• Instantly share on social networks, bookmarking sites, hub pages and more

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• Use #hashtags to target your market• Excellent customer service tool• Connect directly with present and future customers in real time• Google and Bing both use as a signal for organic and news rankings

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Social Media at Work

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Linking Strategy TipsEmail OutreachFind a list of sites that you want to reach out to, create email templates andcontact them. it’s time consuming and boring… but it works• Open Site Explorer – Do backlink checks on your competition• Google Search – Find relevant sites you can reach out to. Use this search command: intitle:”keyword” inurl:”links”• Broken Link Checker – Find relevant sites with broken links• 3 Templates – Broken link email, Basic link request, PR PitchAvoid at all cost, directory submission services andpurchasing links from a link broker!!• Source: Neil Patel

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Penguin 2.0 • Social Signals – Less on social count, more on who’s sharing it • Sharing – Share your guest posts on your own social profiles • Author Rank – Continue writing great content, Google will eventually place more weight on your content… • Crappy Post –Google will devalue your links • Co- Citations – When guest blogging don’t always link back to your site Write great content because you want to educate people and share what you have learned. It’s that simple!!

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Resources• www.prunderground.com• www.marknetgroup.com• www.seobook.com• www.seomoz.com• http://googleblog.blogspot.com/• http://google.com/webmasters• http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com http://www.searchenginejournal.com• http://searchengineland.com• https://www.whitespark.ca• www.google.com/webmasters/

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Lets Talk Email: amiranda@prunderground.com Twitter: @mralexmiranda Facebook: www.facebook.com/prunderground Google+: http://gotoplus.me/prunderground Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/mralexmiranda/ Web: http://www.prunderground.com http://www.marknetgroup.com