3. CHRIS BREIKSS
President & Co-Founder
6S Marketing
Chris focuses his time on business
development and R&D. He is a
frequent public speaker,
representing agency perspectives
at conferences nationally and
internationally.
@chrisbreikss @6s_marketing
4. ABOUT 6S
For 13 years, 6S has been serving up the best in digital marketing.
We’re a skilled, dedicated and industry-savvy team of 30 employees.
Our project managers have 4 to 10+ years of SEM experience.
6. Today, SEO is still the number one driver of web traffic
Who uses the yellow pages or white pages to find a company? Nobody.
They Google you.
7. The Search Marketing Landscape
“Ranking #1 in the Top 10 search engines” is a thing of the past. Now search is
customized to each user and in NA, everybody uses Google… (ok 85%+)
9. Not all web design elements are good for SEO
Flash · Java · Frames · Graphic Navigation Systems · Custom CMS
10. Make it as easy as possible for Google to understand your content
Do you have a robots.txt file?
Verified Webmaster tools account (look for errors on opportunities)
Sitemap.xml (dynamically updated?)
11. How do search engines rank pages?
Algorithms: a series of mathematical equations that make calculations about
the relevance of words on web pages
12. Google PageRank
A system that rates the importance of pages in direct proportion to the number
of external links pointing to that page
23. OVERVIEW
Site Organization and Structure – the building blocks
Flash – the good, the bad and the ugly
Usability and Conversion Optimization – how to get a site to not only get
traffic but make $$
Images vs. Content – how to make sure everyone gets along
All Things Technical – site speed, CSS, code structure
24. SITE ORGANIZATION
Keywords
Basis of site structure needs to be built around keywords
This includes domain name, navigation items, folder names, file names,
image names, etc.
Work with the site’s SEO to create the best structure that meets usability
requirements and keyword-specific landing pages
25. SITE ORGANIZATION
URLs
Consistency is key – choose one format and stick with it
Use absolute links throughout the site
Include keywords in the URLs strategically
Think about the whole URL for each landing page, not just the domain
name
26. SITE ORGANIZATION
URLs
Always put URLs in lowercase with words separated by hyphens
Try to keep the number of words per folder/file to 3 or less
Avoid dynamic URLs whenever possible
Don’t include extraneous folders where not necessary
27. SITE ORGANIZATION
Example of good URL structuring
Fits keywords in, short, uses hyphens, lowercase, keywords don’t appear more than 2 times
28. SITE ORGANIZATION
Landing Pages
What types of landing pages are there? How do they affect SEO?
Landing pages should be created to match organic keywords referring
traffic to the site
Create prominent messaging and/or CTAs on individual URLs that match the
keyword or landing page topic
Should it be a part of the site’s navigation or separate?
29. FLASH
The Good
User experience
Can include SWF objects to help search engines see some of the Flash
content
How does this fit in with SEO?
30. FLASH
The Bad
Can’t view Flash elements on most mobile devices
Users need to keep Flash up-to-date for it to work properly
The Ugly
Search engines can’t see information in Flash
Slow load time
Need strong supporting arguments to include any type of Flash on a site
32. USABILITY
Goal of SEO is to gain ranking to increase qualified traffic to the site and
gain conversions / leads
Bounce rates affect SEO
Don’t assume that visitors will enter the site from the homepage
Conduct usability testing where possible
33. CONVERSIONS
Define what the conversion points will be on the site
Set up measureable goals for these conversions on the site if possible
Ensure that the CTAs for these conversions are prominent on every page of
the site
34. IMAGES VS. CONTENT
Where not to use images
• Navigation
• Headers
Structure
• Alt tags / image file naming / etc
35. ALL THINGS TECHNICAL
Clean Code
Always use the most up-to-date web standards
Keep all formatting, scripting, etc code out of the page
Use W3C tools and information regularly
36. ALL THINGS TECHNICAL
Order Matters
Keep text content to the top
Keep title and meta tags to the top
Move scripts to the bottom
Use CSS to bridge the gap
37. ALL THINGS TECHNICAL
Site Speed
Every page should load as fast as possible
Use the Google Page Speed tool
http://pagespeed.googlelabs.com/
What items help improve site speed?
53. Together, search and social increase the value that each
channel delivers.
Consumers exposed to a brand’s social media content are
2.8 times more likely to search on that brand’s terms.
(Source: ComScore)
60. WHAT IS GOOGLE ANALYTICS?
A tool used to track the effectiveness of your website
You can see how visitors are engaging with the content on your site
Who the visitors are: return vs new, mobile vs pc, language, location
How effective certain campaigns are
Monitor the profitability of the website as a whole
67. KEY METRICS
Each organization has unique goals: engagement, leads, sales
Defining a way to measure your goals will make your data more relevant
and actionable
Helps you assess campaign effectiveness and ROI
So now that you know a bit about the metrics, what kinds of data do you
see and how can you actually use it?
68. ANALYTICS 101
Install tracking code and view reports within 24 hours
Identify goals and set them up in GA to measure effectiveness
Link to AdWords and AdSense
Tag campaigns – track conversions on banner ads, email marketing, etc.
Create custom segments to analyze specific parts of your traffic
69. SEO 101
Create unique, accurate page titles
Make use of the “description” meta tag
Improve the structure of your URLS, and make your site easier to navigate
Offer quality content
Optimize your use of images
Use heading tags appropriately