SEO in under 10 minutes

for startups

Maile Ohye

Developer Programs Tech Lead

Google

Startups better qualified for this talk

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• Have their main content below 50ish pages

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• Hope to rank only for a handful of related terms

Objective

• Provide the basics in an efficient manner

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• Rest assured that you're not doing something totally wrong related to Search

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• Provide pointers for more information

Select www or non-www

Then 301 accordingly to consolidate indexing signals.

301 redirect

Verify ownership in Webmaster Tools

Enable email forwarding to receive critical messages from Google (e.g. hacked, malware, crawling issues)

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"Using Webmaster Tools like an SEO"

http://goo.gl/VM31L

Domain background check

Previously a spammy domain? Submit a reconsideration request through Webmaster Tools

• "Keywords" listed in Webmaster Tools
• Indexed with a [site:foo.com] search
• Rank when searching for domain name

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Webmaster Guidelines: http://goo.gl/5cCLw

Penalties and reconsideration requests:

http://goo.gl/NEKwV

Webmaster Tools: Fetch as Googlebot

Crawl then submit to index

Include analytics code

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Start collecting data even if you're not ready to use it.

Strategy in site design

Consider users/personas for your site

• Customers
• Parents/kids
• Developers
• Enthusiasts
• First-time vs. loyal customer
• Investors
• Press

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Site strategy ideas

• Utility: Does our site design meet the needs of each persona?

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• Navigation: If searcher lands on child page...
• Can they figure out where they are?
• Can they easily navigate to where they want to be?

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• Focused: Does each page contain one logical topic obvious to visitors?

Define your conversion

I want my <group foo> visitors to:

• Sign up for the newsletter
• Contact our bizdev lead
• Buy our product
• Try our product
• Share our service

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Make a relevant conversion possible on every page -- don't force users to make extra clicks.

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Be smart about your copy

Include relevant keywords naturally in your text.

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• Include query terms normal people would use to find your product/business (e.g., "running shoes," not "athletic footwear")
• Research common terms through Adwords keywords tool
• Consider tag clouds and misspellings as fairly played out

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Smart about copy (cont.)

• Answer your visitors'/personas' questions
• Is the product reputable? Show reviews, let users review.
• What if it doesn't work? Explain customer satisfaction policy.

Every page should include

• Unique topic
• Unique title (displays in search results)
• Unique meta description for the snippet
• For non-dynamic sites: keywords in the filename, lowercase and hyphen separated

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• Descriptive anchor text for every link

Anchor text: Room for improvement

For more information on our product specifications, click here .

Anchor text: Good example!

For more information, please read our product specifications .

Sitelinks

More info on sitelinks http://goo.gl/OM2Ji

Potential pitfalls

• Hiring a rogue or shady SEO (if they guarantee anything, that's bad news)

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• Participating in link schemes or buying links to pass PageRank

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• Focusing more on site fanciness than having indexable/searchable text

Speed

• Akamai study finds two seconds as customer "acceptability" threshold for e-commerce sites
• Google aims for under a half-second

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More info on performance and SEO http://goo.gl/SnIJt

Ranking

• Check how you rank for your company name. (Hopefully #1 and with sitelinks.)

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• Understand how you rank for other terms through Webmaster Tools' Search Queries (again, video at http://goo.gl/VM31L)

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Ranking (cont.)

• Get involved.
• No one searches for your new kind of product or service? Perhaps prioritize finding a potential audience/community on existing forums, blogs, or social media sites.

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To rank well, provide an awesome product or service, then attract buzz: n atural links, +1s, likes, follows, shares...

Social media marketing

You likely have limited resources.

• Think holistically: Create an identity on key sites, participate, connect users to entry point of conversion

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• Focus your energy where your audience hangs out

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• Play to your authentic strengths
• CEO likes to tweet
• Salesperson enjoys Facebook
• Developer already on Google+, Stack Overflow

Takeaway...

Even with great marketing

and terrific advertising,

valuable conversion still happens on your site.

Stay focused and make sure you're ready!

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Webmaster and SEO resources

Please visit Webmaster Central:

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www.google.com/webmasters/