SEOmg: Last Mom2.0Summit Session

Here we are, getting ready to start last session! Its on SEO. Again, Im on the floor, this time in front of the conference rather then the back. Going to blog all the info they give and hope it helps!

2:22 Susan from 5 Minutes for Mom is talking and introducing the 3 guys whom are getting ready to explain Google loving. The big they are trying to do with SEO is to get the ‘right people’ to the front page of Google. Set a goal for yourself on what you want to achieve with SEO. It used to be about meta tags and headers; put the key words in you wanted and manipulate where you were in the search engines. Now the formula is more complex. You need to find the niche as a blogger and its important for optimization. Do your research. Onsite are things you do mechanically to your site to make it work for you, ie your posts. Make sure its efficient. Then there are things you do off site that carry more weight. Google counts the people that link to you as more important then what you do for your own site.

2:29 From a high level, SEO takes a lot of work but there things you can put into place to get it started.

Question from the audience: I’m at the point where you want people to link into you, how do you ask someone to link to you? (blogroll)

Answer: There are a couple of different ways to ask people. You can do a link farm that links out to lots of sites. They believe you should contact person directly and tell them who you are and what you are trying to accomplish and why you think they would link to you. In the past, there were reciprocal links. If you can get it, just get them to link to you, not link back. Its higher for the search engine. Make sure the content is relevant to them. Whatever page they are linking to you, make sure they link to the words (we have already told you that!).

2:33 Marketing vs Blogging. SEO is your megaphone where it holds your voice. Even if you do not have monetization, you want people to read what you are doing, so you need key phrases so people can ‘hear’ what you have to say. When they are working on an SEO plan, they create an internet marketing blueprint.

Who am I? What key phrases am I targeting?

As your building your site, make sure you have that plan in place and find out what key phrases are working. Go back to your plan and make sure that you are following it or readjust. Long key-tail phrases: You can use long targeted ones to help google learn about what you are doing. If your users can navigate your site, then google can navigate it well.

2:39 When your working on your site, make sure you have major elements in place. Google likes things that agree. Your title of your post, your content in your post, your keywords..the more it matches, the better. Google wants you to make sure your permalinks are clean and relevant to your key phrase. Titlesneed to be relevant. You don’t need you brand in your title because google should know who you are. The meta descriptions and meta keywords are within the descriptions. Title tags and descriptions specifically are different on every page. Have them all be unique or google may think they are all the same page. Make your site go from the broad topic to specific topic.

Make sure you have an XML sitemap. Anchor text. Make sure you are passing revelancy from one of your pages to the next. Dont say “click here” and go to a page. Use the keywords to go to a new page. If you must use ‘click here’, use a no follow tag. Use keyword variation. Google can learn a lot from your JPG names. Name your photos with relevant names. Dont just call it LOGO.jpg, call it MomDot.jpg, etc.

2:42 Get Google webmaster tools. Get analytics on your website so you can see the results of what you do. Don’t use tables on your site. Use CSS.

2:44 You can go to www.SEO.getpageone.com to learn more about Google, www.SEOmoz.org is also good to learn more. Be careful that you do not listen to the wrong person on SEO and lots of old information out there on google.

2:48 If an SEO company contacts you, run they say. That most reputable companies do NOT contact you. They often lie on which pages you are on. Know your own information.

2:49 Use google Keyword tool to find out what keywords are going to your site and Google Keyword Tool Box to check searched terms on the net.

2:51 No Follow links. Two types of linking where you link to yourself and external where you direct who links to you. Use no follow to tell google what is NOT important. It still works, keep using it.

2:53 If you own an Ecommerce site, be careful on how you build your categories. URLs need to be clean and search friendly. You can be amazed on how much content you can write out of your meta tags. If you have a data base full of content about the product, put paragraph based on the specs of your product for more relevance.

2:56 SEO is not about coding, its about creativity and finding out why specific pages are ranking. Google wants natural pages, nothing should look like marketing. Dont take a keyword and repeat it 100 times.

3:02 Link Bait. Link bait is a form of getting links. Its not a negative thing. Create something interesting that is funny or outrageous and constructing around a specific word that makes them link to you.

3:07 Use StumbleUpon, Digg, Kirsty, (matthewinnman or @oatmeal)

3:09 Google and paid blogs, do they punish you? SEO guys are not really sure. Susan said she thinks giveaways may be a word google finds the same as a paid post. She has not added no follows. Matthew has been penalized by google. He said keep your mouth shut ABOUT selling links. Google is looking at it algorithmically. You should selectively use no follow or do follow links.